Leprechaun Day/Frog Jumping Day/Tulip Day
2004-05-13 @ 10:00 p.m.

What an amusing train ride that was today. The company you pick to travel home with can make such a difference. I was told that conversing with me was tiring. How strange that I can enervate people when I myself am running on near empty. Late nights don't go down well with me I'm afraid! That has absolutely no impact on my sleeping habits though. Think I might sleep earlier tonight, after I read some stuff. Not anything academic, just for fun. Yes, Middlemarch does count, and so does Calvocoressi, since I'm reading neither for purposes of study. Quite elated that Mr Purvis liked the first paragraph of my Middlemarch piece, because I thought it was somewhat a disaster. Maybe he'll change his mind when he reaches the "hormonal" third paragraph as Claudia calls it. How should you react when he says you "write like a dream", even though you know he's definitely seen better writing before? Do you nod and smile in satisfaction, or do you pretend to be nonchalant and try not to cringe? This is a tired topic, but it really bothers me sometimes. I feel like a fraud when he comments on my work, because I didn't always appear to be this good. Yi-Xun was better than me, I always believed that. Now nobody does, but the alternative is laughable given the criterion used to judge. I freaking know what my standard was like just a few years back. Teach me how to convince you that I'm not as gifted as you want to believe, that I can't buy into the myth so soon. I cling to what he said today, that it's only the start of two years. Plenty of time to see what I'm really like outside of practical criticism. Anyway, just got word today that only three people are moving from Arts to Humanities, so that means nobody's going to get kicked out! Perhaps that will soften the blow that the rejection must have been for some of you, now that you won't have to worry about staying in your classes. I don't pretend to understand what it must be like, but nobody ever said that life was fair to everyone. The best we can do now that we'll be staying together is to forget about the damn thing, and treasure the time we have left. Almost half a year has gone, and there's still so much to say, to learn, to do. Together...