I'm proud of myself right now because I had a terrible, crippling virus on my computer last night at this time, and now it seems gone. It probably isn't gone, but at least I got the computer back working again. I deleted EVERYTHING. Even DivX and AIM and RealPlayer and Quicktime and itunes... everything. I'll have to reintroduce them one by one. I also threw away the music that I had downloaded which probably gave me the viruses. I love those songs, that's why I waded back into this piracy, virus-filled-territory to get them. I missed them that much. I was going to stop after getting them back and get back out of Limewire as soon as possible. But it wasn't soon enough, because the viruses got me. I am particularly going to miss "Les Feuilles Mortes" by Edith Piaf and "Songs about Rain" by some country artist. I'd been hankering for those two forever. These songs and all of the songs and audio files helpful for movie-making are really hard to come by except illegally, because they aren't recent and they aren't marketed by a record company. The new Napster and itunes is really only good for mainstream new stuff. Sigh. The songs are sitting there in my recycle bin. I could just pull them out, right now. It's possible that they're clean and the virus-covered files were the ones that I played yesterday before I realized they were empty or faulty. Maybe I'll just back up my entire system and then try it. But somehow, superstitiously, I attribute my ability to beat the virus in part to righting the wrongs I had committed by pirating the songs in the first place- and secondly from the fact that I went out and bought a CD. Death Cab For Cutie gets the money that I had been denying Edith Piaf.

I made my first writing. If you read it you'll likely surmise that I'm slightly off my rocker, no doubt. I tried to write it a little bit in the format of the Greek philosophers so it would seem more like an essay on metaphysics, which is kind of exactly what it is. Yeah, that's what I waste my time doing when I should be studying the formation of wrinkle ridges on the moon inside a 13-floor library on your average gorgeous Saturday.

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This gives me goosebumps all over my body:


"Wer reitet so spät durch Nacht und Wind?
Es ist der Vater mit seinem Kind;
Er hat den Knaben wohl in dem Arm,
Er faßt ihn sicher, er hält ihn warm.

WHO rides there so late through the night dark and drear?
The father it is, with his infant so dear;
He holdeth the boy tightly clasp'd in his arm,
He holdeth him safely, he keepeth him warm.-

Mein Sohn, was birgst du so bang dein Gesicht? -
Siehst, Vater, du den Erlkönig nicht?
Den Erlenkönig mit Kron und Schweif? -
Mein Sohn, es ist ein Nebelstreif. -

"My son, wherefore seek'st thou thy face thus to hide?"
"Look, father, the Elf-King is close by our side!
Dost see not the Elf-King, with crown and with train?"
"My son, 'tis the mist rising over the plain."-

"Du liebes Kind, komm, geh mit mir!
Gar schöne Spiele spiel ich mit dir;
Manch bunte Blumen sind an dem Strand,
Meine Mutter hat manch gülden Gewand."

"Oh, come, thou dear infant! oh come thou with me!
Full many a game I will play there with thee;
On my strand, lovely flowers their blossoms unfold,
My mother shall grace thee with garments of gold."-

Mein Vater, mein Vater, und hörest du nicht,
Was Erlenkönig mir leise verspricht? -
Sei ruhig, bleibe ruhig, mein Kind;
In dürren Blättern säuselt der Wind. -

" My father, my father, and dost thou not hear
The words that the Elf-King now breathes in mine ear?"
"Be calm, dearest child, 'tis thy fancy deceives;
'Tis the sad wind that sighs through the withering leaves."-

"Willst, feiner Knabe, du mit mir gehn?
Meine Töchter sollen dich warten schön;
Meine Töchter führen den nächtlichen Reihn,
Und wiegen und tanzen und singen dich ein."

" Wilt go, then, dear infant, wilt go with me there?
My daughters shall tend thee with sisterly care
My daughters by night their glad festival keep,
They'll dance thee, and rock thee, and sing thee to sleep."

Mein Vater, mein Vater, und siehst du nicht dort
Erlkönigs Töchter am düstern Ort? -
Mein Sohn, mein Sohn, ich seh es genau:
Es scheinen die alten Weiden so grau. -

"My father, my father, and dost thou not see,
How the Elf-King his daughters has brought here for me?"
"My darling, my darling, I see it aright,
'Tis the aged grey willows deceiving thy sight."-

"Ich liebe dich, mich reizt deine schöne Gestalt;
Und bist du nicht willig, so brauch ich Gewalt."
Mein Vater, mein Vater, jetzt faßt er mich an!
Erlkönig hat mir ein Leids getan! -

" I love thee, I'm charm'd by thy beauty,dear boy!
and if thou'rt unwilling, then force I'll employ."
My father, my father, he seizes me fast,
Pull sorly the Elf-King has hurt me last." -

Dem Vater grausets, er reitet geschwind,
Er hält in Armen das ächzende Kind,
Erreicht den Hof mit Mühe und Not;
In seinen Armen das Kind war tot.

The father now gallops, with terror half wild,
He grasps in his arms the poor shuddering child;
He reaches his courtyard with toil and with dread,--
The child in his arms finds he motionless, dead.-"

--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
found on http://members.tripod.com/~pnkeese/_poems/erlkonig.htm

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And can I just say, I love nutang??? I love how much of a real community it is. Like even though I don't talk on the message boards and I still don't really know how to earn points, I still feel like I know everyone because I've read their page or their comments on the message board. I love how present Dave is in his community. I don't know, it's like I know nutang people better than people in my own neighborhood. They are my neighborhood now. ;)

I LOVE NUTANG!!

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Today my little geology chickens were leaving the classroom and I wished a good night to them and a good practice to my favorite soccer player. He replied, "You too!" and then added hastily, "Well, not a good practice cause yeah, um, I mean, a good night, too."


AWwww I looove cute boys.

They make having to give a 25 minute lecture on a topic you don't know well with only quasi-relevant slides, no projector, and about ten minutes between knowing what you had to talk about and actually talking about it totally worth it.

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"In a separation it is the one who is not really in love who says the more tender things."
-Marcel Proust

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"It is a mistake to speak of a bad choice in love, since, as soon as a choice exists, it can only be bad."

-Marcel Proust

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I am getting a lot done today. I am cranking through the essentials and even some few non-essentials. I realized my mistakes in integrating cosines several moments after it was important. So much for my flawless first physics assignment. I am in my office, there are papers to shuffle, emails to return, assignments to be kept track of. There are pi's to be distributed. But outside.

Outside, as it is seen through my window pane, is silent. It is not busy. It is raining, a thin, gray rain, which would be invisible except for the trembling of the large, heart-shaped leaves on the nearby trees. It is the straight, gray, invisible rain of life going by, and the leaves are the trembling influence it makes on all of us who aren't hiding in our warm yellow offices, to busy to realize that it's been raining.

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Let me take a moment in memory of the Crocodile Hunter.

I'm sitting in my new office, typing on my laptop and waiting until it's close enough to 8 o'clock to head over to "Joe's" house to try out some of his "home-made brew" with "some people". It's always like that in the first couple of days at a place. I would have said no because I'm tired and I have unpacking to do and I don't really drink beer and it's a rather long way to walk in an unfamiliar city, but the way he asked made it seem like to say no would be to crush all invitations from here on out. Plus, of the new graduate students, he only asked me. :)

I could have asked Sam to come with me, but he had another mysterious invitation, and I wanted to go and meet some people on my own, so I could report back later.

I got here a couple of days ago and ever since I arrived I've been flying by the seat of my pants trying to get caught up with everyone. The day we drove in we had to drive from somewhere in northeastern Ohio through Pennsylvania and New York and Massachusetts to Rhode Island.

That was the day he died, the Crocodile Hunter. It reminded me of the day that Princess Diana died, just because it was all over the TV and everyone was standing around watching and everything was hectic.

As you can see from my module, the Crocodile Hunter was my hero. Why? Because he loved life. Because he made no apologies for being who he was. Because he believed in something. I want to marry someone like that. I want to BE someone like that. I want to TALK like that. I guess it just seems like as soon as you decide on some kind of hero, he or she does something ethically sketchy, or stupid, or comes out in support or against some social issue that you don't agree with and its obvious they didn't think very hard about. Steve Irwin never did that. He knew all about his subject, he had focus and he didn't wander out of his area of expertise, and you knew all of his motives from the first moment you looked at his face. So Steve Irwin was my hero. And now, just like that, he's gone. How does that happen?

So that's really been bumming me out. Really. Bumming. Me. Out.

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