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.