Evil Papers....

[evilhippo]

Sigh. It's after one in the morning the day my first paper of the quarter is due. I think I have... er... two pages written. Of five. And I've been working on it, as should be obvious since I haven't been rambling on here about how awful and painful the topic is. Three topics! All nearly impossible and requiring an intimate understanding of how people in the freaking 1500s thought about math and the stars. However, the phrase "sphere of influence" came from early astronomy, because it was believed that the spheres the planets went around on were what had influence on astrology. That's what I learned tonight.

Today also included a graph of Wordsworth's gloom leading up to his composition of Tintern Abbey. And cookies! Oh and a question about the holes in the Ruined Cabbage. (This is one of those instances where I feel compelled to use heart as a verb, which is oh-so-rare in relation to my classes.) And I went to study break at Dewey tonight, had a bit of cake, checked the RHs computer for problems, and didn't get sneered at for being an English major. In fact, no less than two people agreed that it wasn't a bad idea, and three agreed that being an Editor (especially at DC Comics, which was my example because I was wandering through monster.com not too long ago looking at Editor positions) was pretty cool, as long as it wasn't newspapers or something. And maybe I'd get to be the editor of the Great American Novel. Sure, no one would know... but I'd have been involved. Or I could write the Great American Novel, gleaning inspiration from the books I had to take care of as an editor.

Oh, and I feel the need to retract the statement I made idly to sketchyheart yesterday. Yes, Sufjan Stevens' early stuff is strange. But it's also good. A Sun Came! is cool. And Enjoy Your Rabbit makes me happy, and I feel compelled to own it. Sure, it doesn't have the lyrics Illinois has. It doesn't have lyrics at all. This is not a bad thing. I also feel compelled now to write something for which I can use some of these songs as a soundtrack.

... Dude, I just unconsciously wrote that sentence so it wouldn't end with a preposition. ... That's probably not a good sign for my sanity. Because it sounds freaking awkward that way. Oh, paper... why do you make it so hard for me to write you? Don't you realize it's evil to try to make me adopt some sort of sixteenth century persona? I mean, I sat in the library giggling at doujin making my brain collapse on mixing modern theories with the random physics you have. Not cool! The doujin was to repair my brain, and because certain people mentioned earlier are just evil and think it'd be cool to make me laugh in the library after I'd already accidentally been playing music so they could hear it.

Edit 1 [3:32 AM]: Goshdarnit... every time I get a good argument going, this stupid book decides to complicate things. "Oh! Well, the Copernican system is cool because it's an easier explanation!" Okay, cool! La la la. Oh, good, if I can go on this, you've got the Sun, Venus, and Mercu-- "Wait! I'm not done!" Crap. "Hay guess what!?!1 Copernicus liked doodly circles, too!" Curse you, epicycles. Curse you.

P.S. Aristotle? STAY IN THE PAST WHERE YOU BELONG.

Edit 2 [3:35]: And you, Sufjan Stevens. STAY IN MY IPOD WHERE YOU BELONG. Silly songwriters making me sit on the internet reading their biography instead of figuring out what the heck Copernicus was thinking. Don't look at me like that, internet! This is your fault, too.

I blame this on... um... Coke with lime. And the fact that it's nearly four in the morning and I'm not tired yet. I want to go to sleep based solely on the fact that I want to go to sleep. Because it's late. and I don't feel like doing this paper. But nooo, it's going to be five and I'm not going to have more than three pages, and I'll just be staring at this still, and then I really will be tired. And also not done with this paper.

Anyone know where Sufjan's name actually came from? I'll give you a hint on his "brother" Marzuki as a trade, eh?

I also need a good name to go by on the internet. Evilhippo is too long for people to call me by in conversation. Villy is weird, and it only stuck for one person... which is just weird, since she knows me. And Smitty is boring. And Jahar9... er... no one knows me by Jahar anymore, because all the people who did know my real name by now. (You have no idea how silly I feel referring to chocolatemoose as Believer sometimes). And, er, that about does it for nicknames I could use. Make one up for me so I can yell at myself in the third person here and tell myself to write. Hear that, internets? I will leave Sufjan Stevens alone if you give me a nickname. Fair trade?

... Scratch that. I'm probably going to end up stalking him. And by stalking I mean really, really wishing he was on tour now. Darn him. Darn him, and the Decemberists, and Death Cab for Cutie, and to a lesser extent Guster and the Flaming Lips, though I know they'll be on tour soon enough since they both have albums coming out this spring.

Paper. Paper. Paper.

Edit 3 [4:24]: Whoever edited this book is officially on my Angry list. Dude. Don't let the author just switch viewpoints like that. Yay happy Copernican system! Look, all simple and pretty! But wait! Now we will go on for paragraphs about how it's not simple. Siiiigh. I'm glad I haven't written too much of this yet. And I'm starting to get tired. And I don't even have three pages yet. Stupid college.

Edit 4 [4:41]: You know what I'd like to see? If someone could pull it off? I've never seen any sort of Roy/Ed pulled off with a believable Hughes nearby. Heck, I haven't managed it (not that that says anything about the possibility of it). I think that might be the epitome of complicated character issues that would have to be worked out. It could, however, also be a timeline issue. Hmm...

Did I just ask for Roy/Ed?

Wtf.

Well, er... I'm just asking because I think the lack of Hughes points out the inherent lapses in character that would be required for the pairing to work. Yes.

Okay, there's no way this paper's going to be coherent if this is what I'm writing right now. I should go find food or something.

Edit 5 [4:51]: All right, Neil Gaiman. You. Go play in the corner with Sufjan Stevens. Or figure out what Hughes thinks of Roy/Ed. I don't care. Better yet, go write my paper. I bet you could figure out what people were thinking when Copernicus decided to write his crazy BS theory with no explanations. Or you could explain the beard to me because... erhm... I must've missed that one along the way there. Er.

Edit 6 [6:00]: Since I'm rambling, I think I'd like to point out that I haven't come across a well-written news story on AOL's front page in... ever. I guess there's no such thing as a lack of bias, but must we say things like "Sheehan's T-shirt alluded to the number of soldiers killed in Iraq: "2245 Dead. How many more?" [...] Young's shirt had just the opposite message: "Support the Troops - Defending Our Freedom."" Er... opposite message? Tagline from the opposing side, sure. But opposite message? I don't think so... Sigh. Politics.

Edit 7 [9:48]: Crap. I cannot focus on this. I do so badly when I don't get sleep. Though there was nothing I could do about this, since I slept in yesterday. Stupid sleep schedule, getting itself all screwey. Gah. At least I only need another page or so, but yeesh this is painful. I'm so not going to be able to keep my eyes open in class. Which is bad, since I haven't been there for a week. Er. I should have taken this quarter off.