THE AFRICAN QUEEN
I just chased Jenn's ex out of the room. Verbally, not literally. Apparently I was pretty scary. He IMed her and said he was afraid I was going to slug him. Damn right. That guy has a lot of nerve to come up to our room and hassle Jenn about something that was clearly his fault. (The details aren't even important enough to record here; let's just say that he said something to her that he wasn't supposed to say to anybody about a friend, and he's afraid she'll somehow blow his cover and he'll get in trouble for opening his mouth. Which is his problem way more than it's Jenn's problem. It's not okay for assholes to barge into our living space and give us (either of us) a hard time. We should be able to tell them to get out, and that's what I did.

Other than that, today is all about trying to get this take-home exam done. I think I'm pretty happy with the work I've done so far, but I need to do some more reading in order to finalize quotes and brush up on a few concepts before I write about them. All considered, not a hard day's work. I'll feel much better after I've taken my jazz ear training midterm, but I think I've done all the studying for it that I can. And yes, soon I will get to the manuscript room and read some of the manuscripts that are piling up. I am determined to have read absolutely all of them before I go home on Friday. I guess I've done a pretty respectable amount of work, but I'm still left with so many unfinished things.

MUTE MEMORIES
It all comes down to this: I've had two cups of coffee (again, I'm sure you're wondering why I can only post after lots of coffee) and watched Amelie with my suitemates. And I had a very productive discussion with Megan and Adam about the study questions for Interpretive Practices. I mean, we were all over the place with the theorizing and the synthesis. It was great, and we're going to do it again tomorrow night and finish those bad boys off. The only problem is that now I can't sleep. I mean, I have a head full of bright wallpaper and yellow rotary phones from watching Amelie. You know, I really love the movies that make me feel dizzy with all of that color. The Royal Tennenbaums, Ghost World. It's torture to watch something with a plot that leans so heavily on one photobooth, and I've been back in Pittsburgh for almost two months, still I haven't made it to the Warhol to have my picture taken.

I am a writing student but everywhere I'm studying other things, at least for the moment. What can I say? I really should try to go to bed.