Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Life at Bag End, Among Other Things

Well, we're finally settled into our apartment, and the semester is in full swing. We've christened our apartment Bag End, which really makes no sense because we live on the second floor and our front door is decidedly rectangular, but we needed a name for our wifi, so after rejecting "The Wardrobe", "Narnia", and other such names we decided that Bag End seemed dorky and literary enough for our home. Little did we know what repercussions our seemingly innocent wifi naming would have. Now we all have Hobbit names: I'm Merry because apparently he was the youngest hobbit in the fellowship.

We're still working on decorating the rest of the apartment, but I've definitely got my room all sorted out. Sure, it's basically the same as last year, but our apartment is cute that I just have to share it. I absolutely love the window above my bed! I doubt you can see it, but there's a tree right outside, so it's like our room is in a tree house! As you can see Little Miss Sunshine is still around, and what's even scarier, after a year in storage her batteries still work, which is utterly terrifying when, oh you know, you sit on her in the middle of the night, and suddenly a cheery voice says, "Hooray for everybody!" Terrifying I tell you.

I'm also doing a pretty good job keeping myself well fed. My roommates are always chopping vegetables and stuff, like they're gourmet ninja's or something, while I'm dumping things out of cans on to frozen chicken. But all in all I feel pretty satisfied with myself.

This is one of my favorite "quick fixes" from last week. Basically what I did was brown some ground turkey in a frying pan with some olive oil and other spices, then I added it to a jar of Prego pasta sauce. Sure, not the most original recipe ever, but it's a good way to add some protein to basic pasta.

As far as classes go, my schedule is pretty weird: I have classes at 10 or 11, and then my next one won't be until about 3 in the afternoon. I really hate afternoon classes because if I've spent my day studying, the last thing I want to do is go sit in a classroom for an hour. I really prefer to get my classes over with as early as possible, so I can work all afternoon and then, occasionally, have the evening to do my own thing. On the up side, I really do like all my classes, so it's worth the goofy schedule.

I did decide to drop down to twelve credits this semester, which does feel like kind of a cop out, but I am taking four upper level English classes, so I need the extra time just to get all my reading done. I had originally thought about auditing an intensive German class, but I'm already taking Old English this semester, and I really just don't have time to learn another language. Unfortunately, because the German language is absolutely beautiful. Ah, well, perhaps Senior year.

Speaking of English classes, I am really excited about my major now. This semester I'm focusing heavily on poetry, what with the Junior Poetry project as well as Medieval Lit., and we're even translating a lot of Anglo-Saxon poetry in Old English! I have studied poetry before, but never as intensely as we are this semester. I have a feeling that soon I'll be spouting lyric out of my ears.

Even though I'm not getting to spend this semester without one of the loves of my life (German), I am getting to spend a lot of time with my other one- the Anglo-Saxons. I don't know what it is about those lovely tribes, but I absolutely love them. I was a little wary about Old English at first, but when I got the syllabus, and realized that the first class was entitled "Getting in Touch with your Inner Anglo-Saxon", I knew that I was in the right place. The first poem we worked on- Caedmon's Hymn, is one of my favorites, and I actually translated it out of Medieval Latin when I was in high school, so I was super excited to get to read it in the language in which it was composed. The Anglo-Saxon history class I took last semester is also helping me out a lot both in Old English as well as Medieval Lit., which is really nice because I already done most of the reading for both classes.

Anyway, I'm supposed to be working on the Wife's Lament!

2 comments:

  1. Actually, I think Pippin is the youngest.

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  2. Also, I think that for the money, Bertolli has the best pasta sauce. No high-fructose corn syrup, and even the organics are under $3. Check it out.

    ReplyDelete