Philosophy

He is rising into that high dome of thought
where loose pages of Shelley float on the air,
where all the formulas of calculus unravel,
tumbling in the radiance of a round Platonic sun --

that zone just below the one where angels accelerate
and the amphitheatrical rose of Dante unfolds.

excerpt from "Philosophy"
by Billy Collins

The gist of it is that I've been pretty busy as of late. I had two breaks scheduled into this semester; my NOLA trip and when my parents would be coming up to see me. I scheduled my parents visit so that it fell right between two crucial time periods, between my PhD application crunch and my procrastinated coursework crunch. The unfortunate aspect was that, as the only free weekend I had, it was then taken up through hosting my parents. Don't get me wrong, I love them and think they're two pretty cool people, but it just took a lot out of me at a time I didn't have a lot left to give. And, yeah, the NOLA trip was cancelled. It sucked and I wished my flight hadn't been grounded. I could have really used a dacquiri on the fraternity roof and a couple well-placed hugs and handshakes amongst old friends. But as it turns out, the Fates were probably watching over me. One does not know the mind of God and his great plan, and I take it someone up there knew better what was in my best interest than I. I ended up wrapping up all of my letter-writer packets that weekend, which was a taxing amount of work when you take into effect I've got 5 letter writers, each with 18 forms of ubiquitous address and title information I needed to fill out (in addition to some last revisions to my personal statement, CV, and writing sample) before I could send those off. But that's done, now. And with the exception of the ever-present slight word changes to my hard-copy information, the only thing that's really left is clerical work. I sent off my "December" transcripts from NIU today. What's nice is that, as the Fates would have it, I happened to register for my Spring courses last night, and when the nice lady at the records office showed me my transcript, those were already on there. So that was pretty cool. I'll send my Tulane transcripts to the same schools next week. And after the online recommendations and fees, my work for the first quarter of my applications will be done. That'll be a good feeling, especially considering I've got about 50 pages of writing to do in the next week or so.

I really feel bad that I don't have something more substantial (adventurous, humorous, odd-Jeff-like realities) to say lately. Life doesn't amount to much more than this these past couple months and for another month to come. But, once this is done, whatever way the decisions come back, my life is set for at least the next year (as, even if I don't get in to any of the 20 or so schools I'm applying to, that path is final until next application period, and I've got some decent fall-back plans). So then I can start living. I'll let you know just as soon as that starts. Till then, thanks for reading this boring laundry list of my past couple weeks. I'll end with only decently interesting development that's occurred: when my parents came up, they brought me the couch they had hidden under piles of fabric in my mom's craft room (previously known as my bedroom) along with one of those leaning bookcases they bought as a birthday present for me when I bought my table this past September. So I've posted a picture of my apartment now. I gotta admit, it looks fairly much like a 24 year-old's place now.

Till next time, namaste'.