Since my progress on my History essay during the day was not particularly great, I decided at about 10:30 to go to the Commonsblock of my residence and work there all night. I packed up the books, brought along a small bottle of Perrier, and prepared to concentrate.
My idea worked out well. At first I rather struggled through the pages of Romanticism and the Social Order 1780-1830, though it's written in an easily readable style. Then I decided to turn to the entry on the nineteenth century in a history of music. This I found extremely interesting and very well written, and I followed the careers of Beethoven, Schubert, Weber, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Chopin and Wagner with interest, some of their compositions coming to mind as I read. I wanted to play the piano in the lounge rather badly, but I didn't want to play when there were people there; there were, however, at least five staying up as well as late as 2:15, when I left. Before I left, I did play on the piano in one of the music rooms for about five minutes, and consumed a chocolate bar from a vending machine.
Back in my room I read about another paragraph of the entry on Wagner, with restored attention, but I had soon had enough. I'm not sure if it's mostly due to prejudice or not, but at any rate he gets on my nerves. And he certainly had a monumental ego.
So then I decided to go to sleep. It was lovely to be able to do so, and I woke up at about 9:50, which I consider an excellent time.
I've begun to type my actual essay, and I've figured out the structure nicely.
Let's see what happens! My History tutorial, in which I promised to hand the essay in, is at 1:00. I'll go for breakfast shortly, and then it'll be a "sprint to the finish."
Friday, March 31, 2006
Thursday, March 30, 2006
A Morning's Routine
In my first proper post, I might as well give an idea of my daily life.
So, here goes . . .
Last evening I went to sleep at perhaps 11:30 after reading a rather disturbing nineteenth-century novel on gutenberg.org, entitled A Romance of Two Worlds. It wasn't darkly weird, so I fortunately didn't have any nightmares. But, among other things, it's interesting to see how pagan the "Christianity" in it really is. Anyway, as my bed-time music I was listening to a CD with Seven Variations on "Bei Maennern . . ." by Beethoven, a Sonata for piano and violin No. 6 in A also by Beethoven, and Mozart's Clarinet Quintet in A, K. 581, as recorded at the Casals Festival at Prades. It's very good music to go to sleep on; I really like all three works, and they're more or less peaceful.
This morning I woke up at about 8:00 first. The thing is that I have a Macroeconomics tutorial at 9:00. Yesterday I told myself: if you wake up before 8:50, it's probably a sign (yes, I am superstitious) that you should go to the tutorial. But I was too tired when I woke up at the allotted time; even the banging doors and passage of people in the hall of my floor didn't rouse me properly. So I went back to sleep and woke up again at roughly 9:05.
The problem with the tutorial, by the way, is that we have to hand in a sheetful of answers to questions from our study guide every week. First of all, I was in doubts as to precisely what to do for a long time, because we have the answers right there in our study guide anyway. But I guess now that the point is to see if we've taken a look at the questions at all. Secondly, it's impossible to answer the questions properly only based on the Macroeconomics (ECON 102, I think) lecture, of which I only understand 1/3 at best anyway. So I would have to go through the whole chapter of the textbook where, at my best, I can only slowly grasp about 2/3 of the information anyway. (Note: I don't know if I'm seriously stupid or if the textbook and professor do explain things badly. I should also mention that, if I had declared a major already, it would be in English, so Economics is really a foreign field for me.) I've gone to only three of the tutorials in the whole term.
Fortunately I don't have other classes today. So I've already played on the piano -- Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and more Mozart; I'll go into detail some other time --, had breakfast, made my bed, and looked up certain things on the Internet. One of the things on the Internet I looked up is the profiles and blogs of people with similar interests to mine. I'm glad my blog is not really open to the browsing public, because that will hopefully spare me the spam-comments.
Now I need to research and write an essay for my History course (120) about German and English Romanticism that I've said I would hand in tomorrow. The teaching assistant was very nice about it, and said that he wouldn't take marks off for lateness as long as I kept him up-to-date. The professor is also very nice about lateness himself; the late penalty is only 1% per day. So I feel obliged to do my best and to fulfill my word as to when I am handing the essay in. I'll probably need to visit the library again later today, and incidentally also pay $16 in late fees . . . Which reminds me that I also need to renew several other books. So much work!
Anyway, I might post again later today, but for now I'm content.
P.S.: Thanks for Grimsly's "constructive" criticism -- hehehe.
So, here goes . . .
Last evening I went to sleep at perhaps 11:30 after reading a rather disturbing nineteenth-century novel on gutenberg.org, entitled A Romance of Two Worlds. It wasn't darkly weird, so I fortunately didn't have any nightmares. But, among other things, it's interesting to see how pagan the "Christianity" in it really is. Anyway, as my bed-time music I was listening to a CD with Seven Variations on "Bei Maennern . . ." by Beethoven, a Sonata for piano and violin No. 6 in A also by Beethoven, and Mozart's Clarinet Quintet in A, K. 581, as recorded at the Casals Festival at Prades. It's very good music to go to sleep on; I really like all three works, and they're more or less peaceful.
This morning I woke up at about 8:00 first. The thing is that I have a Macroeconomics tutorial at 9:00. Yesterday I told myself: if you wake up before 8:50, it's probably a sign (yes, I am superstitious) that you should go to the tutorial. But I was too tired when I woke up at the allotted time; even the banging doors and passage of people in the hall of my floor didn't rouse me properly. So I went back to sleep and woke up again at roughly 9:05.
The problem with the tutorial, by the way, is that we have to hand in a sheetful of answers to questions from our study guide every week. First of all, I was in doubts as to precisely what to do for a long time, because we have the answers right there in our study guide anyway. But I guess now that the point is to see if we've taken a look at the questions at all. Secondly, it's impossible to answer the questions properly only based on the Macroeconomics (ECON 102, I think) lecture, of which I only understand 1/3 at best anyway. So I would have to go through the whole chapter of the textbook where, at my best, I can only slowly grasp about 2/3 of the information anyway. (Note: I don't know if I'm seriously stupid or if the textbook and professor do explain things badly. I should also mention that, if I had declared a major already, it would be in English, so Economics is really a foreign field for me.) I've gone to only three of the tutorials in the whole term.
Fortunately I don't have other classes today. So I've already played on the piano -- Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and more Mozart; I'll go into detail some other time --, had breakfast, made my bed, and looked up certain things on the Internet. One of the things on the Internet I looked up is the profiles and blogs of people with similar interests to mine. I'm glad my blog is not really open to the browsing public, because that will hopefully spare me the spam-comments.
Now I need to research and write an essay for my History course (120) about German and English Romanticism that I've said I would hand in tomorrow. The teaching assistant was very nice about it, and said that he wouldn't take marks off for lateness as long as I kept him up-to-date. The professor is also very nice about lateness himself; the late penalty is only 1% per day. So I feel obliged to do my best and to fulfill my word as to when I am handing the essay in. I'll probably need to visit the library again later today, and incidentally also pay $16 in late fees . . . Which reminds me that I also need to renew several other books. So much work!
Anyway, I might post again later today, but for now I'm content.
P.S.: Thanks for Grimsly's "constructive" criticism -- hehehe.
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
A Hermitological Prologue
I am writing this introduction sitting in my room at the university, after a full day of classes. The main reason why this blog is entitled "Hermitologies" is that I really am rather a hermit. During the past few years I've become unsociable and quiet, and I've always tended to keep a distance from others my own age. But I'm not misanthropic; I like talking about all sorts of things and I'm interested in all sorts of subjects. So I hope to be able to use this blog to express my thoughts about books and music and history and politics, and maybe even my life inside and outside of the university. I can't promise not to be rambly and boring, especially to any casual reader, and I can't promise to be deep or instructive or amusing. But I will try to be honest and clear, and I will try not to wade in self-pity, as I've admittedly done a lot in my teenage years.
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