Altogether the mood is exuberant. In my house there is literally alcohol in the air. This morning there was a pancake breakfast in the lounge that I couldn't attend because I was finishing my Romanticism paper (more about that later). Another house had a barbecue. A volleyball net has been pitched up on the field of the Commonsblock. As I was sitting outside on a bench before German, either the carillon or an ice cream truck or something was playing "The Entertainer." Even the pitch of random conversation is different; one hears that people are happy. There are a lot of happy faces too. This morning there was loud music and the constant tooting of a megaphone.
Today is also the day of the Arts County Fair, which seems to be a highly boisterous, noisy and alcoholic event that lures students away from their classes and leaves professors desolate. That said, my History teaching assistant and German professor both cancelled their classes today (the former inofficially, by not showing up), leaving us desolate.
Anyway, I finally finished -- (c: -- my History Romanticism essay at about 1:10. My essay turned out a little long, my footnotes were not proper ones but just "Smith, p.123" (though I did of course have a bibliography), and I don't think I covered my topic very thoroughly. I think I could get anything from 30-75%. We shall see. But what I did like is that for once I could draw on my previous knowledge, and specifically from all the reading I've done over the years. I'm very fond of the Grimms Maerchen and of Ivanhoe, and I discoursed at length about them. I also included a summary of the plot of the opera Der Freischuetz, with which I was infatuated when I was ten or something like that; I hope that I remember the plot correctly.
As I finished the essay, I was in a great hurry. I hurriedly typed down paragraphs to round everything out, put the printer in order, and grew very warm and red in the face as I did so. When I had finally finished I experienced a burst of euphoria that, together with the redness of the face, much resembled literal intoxication. The History tutorial started at one, so I was late. But I hoped that would be all right and even took the time to send the essay to my family as an attachment.
I finally set out for the History tutorial, energetic and beaming and not quite rational. Along the way I met someone coming from the class, with whom I'd never spoken before, but who kindly informed me that the teaching assistant hadn't shown up, so the class had disbanded, so to speak. So I had to hand my essay in to the History office. I did so, then I waited on a bench for my German class. I wasn't aware that the class had been cancelled.
So eventually I went in to the language laboratory where my class was supposed to take place, saw two or so others from my class there, and completed the review questions that the professor had assigned. Even after someone said that the class had been cancelled, I thought that it would be best to finish the review. So I finished the questions (still in an intoxicated frame of mind), then wandered off to my Archaeology classroom for the last class of the day.
Archaeology did take place, and what we learned there will be the subject of another post.
Anyway, to conclude, here is a poem of Emily Dickinson of which I was reminded several times today:
I taste a liquor never brewed,
From tankards scooped in pearl;
Not all the vats upon the Rhine
Yield such an alcohol!
Inebriate of air am I,
And debauchee of dew,
Reeling, through endless summer days,
From inns of molten blue.
When landlords turn the drunken bee
Out of the foxglove's door,
When butterflies renounce their drams,
I shall but drink the more!
Till seraphs swing their snowy hats,
And saints to windows run,
To see the little tippler
Leaning against the sun!
Source: A Treasury of English and American Verse, ed. by Dr. Fritz Krog (Hirschgraben Verlag, 1967)
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