My 2008 Resolutions Revisited

My 2008 Resolutions Revisited:

1. try to enjoy my classes! i did so-so in this category. i enjoyed most of them.

2. do not procrastinate! use my planner to stay organized* of course, this didn't pan out!! :)

3. i will be ecstatic if i receive a B in math. i got an "A" with the help of a tutor and an exorbitant amount of money!!

4. begin applying for scholarships for the fall semester. see number two on my list (the P in my name stands for Procrastinator!! ;)

other resolutions i have are as follows:

1. finish reading "Founding Brothers" by Joseph Ellis this month. (i've been reading it since this summer!) another resolution i didn't keep.

2. after i finish the aforementioned, i would like to read a book on Thomas Jefferson. that way ican work on my other lofty goal of reading a book on every president; TJ is next on my list. let's see that would leave me only forty more presidents to go, easy as pie, remember?
o.k., i did read some, but not all of this book. i'll just tack it on to this year's resolutions.

3. i have read two out of the ten plays in the book, "Ten Greek Plays in ContemporaryTranslations." i have read "Agamemnon" and "Oedipus Rex." i would like to read theremaining eight plays this year. yet another aborted resolution.



But, here is something that i did learn this year: Poetry speaks to the heart.


i didn't realize how the poetry i read this semester would affect me so profoundly.

One poem that I can't get out of my thoughts is Ulysses by Tennyson. I keep thinking of the line that says that every experience is an arch... I love that line. (i am going to have to revisit this post because there are too many things i want to write about this poem, but i have to stop here tonight.)

Ulysses
by Lord Alfred Tennyson

It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vexed the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honoured of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers;
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breathe were life. Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this grey spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,--
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfill
This labor, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.


There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail;
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me,--
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads,-- you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honor and his toil.
Death closes all; but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks;
The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends.
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,--
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

she hasn't sung yet!!

the old saying goes, "it ain't over till the fat lady sings..."

well my semester "ain't" over yet, even though i have already quit! can you believe it? i have given up on myself. despite my husband's continually encouragement, i can't seem to focus on the two finals i have tomorrow--to me they are a lost cause.

philosophy is kicking my butt! truth tables? prisoner's dilemma? i'll tell you about MY dilemma!

as far as history (yes, the class that i love!), i did not move on to the Victorian period with the rest of the class because i was still researching napoleon for my fourth book critique! and... by the way i turned in my fourth book critique late!!

never had i fallen on my face like that. the weeks leading up to this mess have been a series of unfortunate events.

my semester is drawing to a close. how do i feel about that? well...absolutely relieved to be sure. but, doesn't it sometimes feel like it all comes to an abrupt end? even after all you have done is waited for the end? each semester is a like a miniature life cycle, and yes, i do feel very aged at the end. yesterday was the last day of classes, and my final exams (for two classes) will be next Thursday.

on another note, a poem that we read in my literature class has really stayed with me: Spring and Fall by Gerard Hopkins. Hopkins writes about the unleaving of a tree. but, what has almost haunted me is Dr. H's lecture. he stated that, of course, the tree is a metaphor for us. therefore, just like the tree "unleaves" (loses its leaves) one by one in the fall, so do we lose "days" of our lives. i told my 96 year old grandmother about the poem. i don't think she liked it, perhaps she thought i was being mean. but, in truth, she is the one that started it! she was saying that she never realized she was getting old. she said that she has just lived her days one at a time. one day at a time until there was 96 years altogether. AMAZING!!


how many leaves have you lost?

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)

Spring and Fall:
to a Young Child

Margaret, are you grieving

Over Goldengrove unleaving?

Leaves, like the things of man, you

With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?

Ah! as the heart grows older

It will come to such sights colder

By and by, nor spare a sigh

Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;

And yet you will weep and know why.

Now no matter, child, the name:

Sorrow's springs are the same.

Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed

What héart héard of, ghóst guéssed:

It is the blight man was born for,

It is Margaret you mourn for.