21.09.21

21.09.21

A highly productive day, ergo my place is a mess. I beg your pardon and offer thee books, post-haste, in lieu of a proper tribute.

My candle burns at both ends;

It will not last the night;

But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—

It gives a lovely light! —Edna St. Vincent Millay

shit dude, here’s to all of the quiet victories. the things that other people take for granted but are so, so hard for you. the way your voice didn’t shake when you ordered your drink, the time you felt a swell of pride at something instead of shame, how you got out of bed after only the second time hitting snooze even though you couldn’t imagine anything more difficult than facing another fucking day. fucking cherish those. relish them, rejoice in them, do not let anyone pluck them from your grasp because they are yours and they are important.

27.09.21

POLONIUS: What do you read, my lord?

HAMLET: Words, words, words.

I confess, I didn’t get an awful lot done over the weekend. Just finished doing a couple peer reviews. Today I spent finishing my English lessons and readings for the week so I’ll have time to work on the essay due Friday. I did some Spanish and linguistics too for some variation.

“But, orderly to end where I begun,

Our wills and fates do so contrary run

That our devices still are overthrown.

Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own.”

Perhaps a more apt quotation would lie in saying I do protest too much, methinks. Despite my productivity, this work was actually to put off doing the assignments due tomorrow in French and my other linguistics class. Oops.

“This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick in fortune, often the surfeit of our own behaviour, we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars; as if we were villains on necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treachers by spherical pre-dominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforc’d obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on.”

20.09.21

Bernardo: What, is Horatio there?

Horatio: A piece of him.

It seems like I can never finish what I intend to, but here’s to progress. I caught up on español esta mañana. I started my English for the week, I write as I swat the essay I’ve yet to begin back into the deepest recesses of my mind. Despite the circumstances—mostly your generic brand existential dread—I am here, if only a piece of me.

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” —F. Scott Fitzgerald”

« Mon cher, au milieu de la haine, j’ai trouvé qu’il y avait en moi un amour invincible. Au milieu des larmes, j’ai trouvé qu’il y avait en moi un sourire invincible. Au milieu du chaos, j’ai trouvé qu’il y avait en moi un calme invincible. J’ai réalisé à travers tout cela que, au milieu de l’hiver, il y avait en moi un été invincible, et cela me rend heureux, car il dit que peu importe comment le monde pousse contre moi, en moi, il y a quelque chose plus fort, quelque chose de mieux poussant de retour. » —Albert Camus

just completed a task i willingly started. i cannot keep living like this

academic success is not the most important thing in my life, i tell myself as i’m having a breakdown because of academic success, the most important thing in my life