Another Monday

First off, a book recommendation. If any of you are in fragile emotional states, do not under any circumstances read The Farming of Bones by Edwidge Danticat. This is one of the most depressing novels I have read in quite some time. It deals with the mass slaughter of Haitians that occurred in the Dominican Republic in the 1930's. The narrator is a Haitian woman who finds herself in the middle of the carnage. I haven't finished it yet (I'm reading it for class and we're only about two-thirds or so through) but so far it is a beautifully written, riveting, extremely disturbing novel. I recommend it to anyone who is not afraid it will send them into an emotional downward spiral.

Wow, it's hard to believe it's November already (Wow, that was an abrupt and not-so-smooth segue). And yes, I know it's been November for almost two weeks already, but I am still baffled by how fast this semester has gone. I mean, I leave for Thanksgiving break a week from Wednesday, and I take my last exam one month from today. That's crazy. And of course, living in Miami, there's this sort of temporal vortex where the weather never changes so you don't notice the progression of the seasons. I mean sure, it's a little cooler than it was when I got here in August, but I'm used to at least wearing long pants by Thanksgiving. I'm still in shorts and a t-shirt. Of course, I have no concept of time to begin with. I generally can tell you what day it is, and even maybe the date, but the chronological relation between two events? I'm clueless. In my mind, two weeks ago and two months ago seem about the same. I never said I wasn't crazy.

So, I've got one month to make or break my first semester back in school. Fortunately, I've put myself in a position where I think it's essentially impossible to fail any of my classes. So I've got that going for me, which is nice. I still have so many major grades left in the semester, though, that I can't really guess what grades I'll have at the end. I have one test left in one class, a paper and a final in one class, a test and a final in one class, two major quizzes in a fourth class, and (here's the crazy one) in my fifth class I have a paper and a major quiz left to complete, but I also have another quiz and another paper that I turned in three weeks and two weeks ago respectively and for which I still have not received grades. My concern is that if my professor can't grade a set of quizzes in three weeks, how is she going to grade all of our final papers before grades are due? Well, I guess that's not my problem. Although I would like to get those two grades back sometime soon so I at least have some idea of my standing in the class. Oh well. As someone who wrote much better songs than I once said, you can't always get what you want. Ain't it the truth.

Until next time, drive safely. And don't pollute.