unclevex

09:53 pm: I put the Washington in Washington and Lee
I LOVE DC! Actually, i'm lame and love bethesda..heh. i have the sweetest job where i get paid entirely too much money to use a labelmaker. And i have a private office with a picture window. A bit different from last summer, yes? and Bee will bee here on mondays and tuesdays! And my law firm is going tubing at river riders in july. that amuses me. Things i like about this summer:

The metro
Not having to take the metro to work
Work
Not having to do work at work
W&L kids in the city
Being a $9 train ride away from home

...where i will be this weekend! let's play! I need a break from the stresses of the corporate world.

01:22 pm: Amy Conant: The Lost Years
So this is about the time where everyone else comes home from college and I am stuck in Lexington for another month. Last year I got to come home for a weekend but I won't be able to this year. But I WILL be home for the first week in June an I would ver' ver' much like to see all (eh, make it some) of you, cause then I will be in DC all summer and THEN I will be in London all Fall. And everyone should come and visit me over Thanksgiving, or else I will have no one to celebrate with.

09:03 pm: Summmmmmmer
Soooo i'm not gonna be home this summer, which makes me sad. But I WILL be in DC, which makes me excited. I got an internship with a law firm downtown and I'll be living with my grandmother in Bethesda. As wonderful as my experience was at the Bavarian Inn, I thought it best to explore other options. It's weird to think about not living at home, though. And not being near the barn- this will be the first summer since I was 14 where I won't be teaching riding lessons. But come and visit DC, yes?

06:40 pm: AP english throwback
So i'm in a modern british poetry class, and we read this poem the other day:

Lay your sleeping head, my love,
Human on my faithless arm;
Time and fevers burn away
Individual beauty from
Thoughtful children, and the grave
Proves the child ephemeral:
But in my arms till break of day
Let the living creature lie,
Mortal, guilty, but to me
The entirely beautiful.

Soul and body have no bounds:
To lovers as they lie upon
Her tolerant enchanted slope
In their ordinary swoon,
Grave the vision Venus sends
Of supernatural sympathy,
Universal love and hope;
While an abstract insight wakes
Among the glaciers and the rocks
The hermit's sensual ecstasy.

Certainty, fidelity
On the stroke of midnight pass
Like vibrations of a bell,
And fashionable madmen raise
Their pedantic boring cry:
Every farthing of the cost,
All the dreaded cards foretell,
Shall be paid, but from this night
Not a whisper, not a thought,
Not a kiss nor look be lost.

Beauty, midnight, vision dies:
Let the winds of dawn that blow
Softly round your dreaming head
Such a day of sweetness show
Eye and knocking heart may bless,
Find the mortal world enough;
Noons of dryness see you fed
By the involuntary powers,
Nights of insult let you pass
Watched by every human love.


And it seemed SO FAMILIAR and i couldn't figure out why, but then the line about the hermit's ecstacy jogged my memory, cause i KNEW i'd commented on that before, and sure enough, i went back in eljay and found this conversation, which happened at two in the morning before an english paper was due...

skidderider158: i'm on bowl of ice cream #2
shesaidshesaid02: oh man I want some.
skidderider158: let's roll
shesaidshesaid02: alright.
shesaidshesaid02: I'm not going to be much help.
skidderider158: well i made a little more sense this time
shesaidshesaid02: by the by.
shesaidshesaid02: yeah. I get the kid thing.
shesaidshesaid02: but not much else.
skidderider158: well let's just give our interpretations
skidderider158: his lover is dying
skidderider158: even children are ephemeral
skidderider158: because they're mortal
shesaidshesaid02: right. I get that.
shesaidshesaid02: I get the first paragraph, basically.
skidderider158: but till morning, though she is mortal, she is stil perfect to him?
skidderider158: did you get anything else out of that?
shesaidshesaid02: the first paragraph?
skidderider158: yes
shesaidshesaid02: no, that's just it. And now I have nothing to input.
skidderider158: good good
skidderider158: that was the point
skidderider158: so i did the first one
skidderider158: now YOU do the next one
shesaidshesaid02: no. see. This is what I'm saying.
skidderider158: lol
shesaidshesaid02: I only had something to say about the first one. That was all I had to write about. That was my only point...
shesaidshesaid02: That was the harshness I was going to talk about.
shesaidshesaid02: but I had nothing else to say.
skidderider158: lol
skidderider158: that's cause the second stanza makes NO SENSE
shesaidshesaid02: hahah
shesaidshesaid02: does the third one talk about the mundan...ity...of life? And then he goes back to say that...
skidderider158: what the hell is the hermit's sensual ecstasy??
shesaidshesaid02: I don't care.
skidderider158: that's what i want to know
skidderider158: it's obviously about masturbation
shesaidshesaid02: Amyyyyyyy!
skidderider158: that's what we should write about
shesaidshesaid02: Tell me if my interpretation is silly!
skidderider158: ok ok
shesaidshesaid02: you can write about that. you'll get an A.
shesaidshesaid02: maybe not mundane...but regulated life? And that tonight...I don't know, Amy!!
skidderider158: ok
skidderider158: life is mundane
skidderider158: these are everyday occurrences
shesaidshesaid02: right.
shesaidshesaid02: right?
skidderider158: the cost shall be paid
skidderider158: like she'll have to die
skidderider158: but for tonight
skidderider158: they won't think about that
shesaidshesaid02: yeah, they'll just make out.
skidderider158: while the hermit looks on in sensual ecstasy
skidderider158: so the whole thing is one extended metaphor about night and how dawn is coming
shesaidshesaid02: what's "noons of dryness see you fed by the involuntary powers"?
skidderider158: i realized the problem with this poem
skidderider158: lack of verbs
skidderider158: let the winds of dawn that blow softly round your dreaming head
skidderider158: THAT'S NOT A COMPLETE THOUGHT
shesaidshesaid02: so metaphor...night...hoping for a good day?
shesaidshesaid02: hahah
skidderider158: umm i don't think hoping for a good day
shesaidshesaid02: it would be if he just got rid of "that"
skidderider158: i thought she dies when day came
skidderider158: ?
shesaidshesaid02: yeah...which would make a better day for her?
shesaidshesaid02: since the mortal world kinda sucks?
shesaidshesaid02: so he hopes that she's fed properly in heaven? at noon?
shesaidshesaid02: by involuntary powers...he's an effin' athiest. "faithless arm" yeah!
shesaidshesaid02: or does faithless arm refer to the hermit watching with ecstasy...
shesaidshesaid02: his ARM doesn't have to stay faithful to her!
shesaidshesaid02: IT SO IS ABOUT MASTURBATION!
skidderider158: faithless arm?
skidderider158: that's back in the first stanza!
shesaidshesaid02: it's in the first stanza.
shesaidshesaid02: I know
skidderider158: we've moved on!
shesaidshesaid02: but it ties back!
skidderider158: nights of insult let you pass? whaa?
skidderider158: watched by every human love. now THAT''S tying back to the hermit again
shesaidshesaid02: he called her a bitch in between the lines, Amy, you didn't catch it.
shesaidshesaid02: hahaha
skidderider158: ok so she's fed by the invlountary powers...
skidderider158: i've got nothing
shesaidshesaid02: I just have...that...the night will pass to day when she be dead and he hopes her day (when she be dead) will be...good.
shesaidshesaid02: eh/
skidderider158: i don't get why it's good
shesaidshesaid02: the day?
skidderider158: where does it says it's good?
shesaidshesaid02: he wants her to be shown a day of sweetness "such a day of sweetness show"
skidderider158: ooohhhh
skidderider158: gotcha
skidderider158: so is she dead or not?
shesaidshesaid02: she will be...ummm no, yeah, she is.
shesaidshesaid02: yeah.
shesaidshesaid02: yeah.
skidderider158: ok
skidderider158: dead
shesaidshesaid02: dead.
skidderider158: now we're getting somewhere!



and you know what? it turns out i was TOTALLY RIGHT ABOUT THE HERMIT!

01:22 pm: I LOVE BANDS! We went to a BBQ yesterday afternoon and they had a band called the jangling reinharts and they were playing allman brothers instead of journey, which was SO refreshing and later that night after they had finished and were putting stuff away, my friend sophie and i went up to talk to them. i told them how happy i was that they played good music and they asked me where i was from, and i said WV and the guitarist said "ohh we should have played country roads for you!" and he grabbed his guitar and started playing it and he said "take it amy!" and i started singing and then the drummer started drumming and then the other two band member started singing harmony, and we played the whole song and IT WAS SO MUCH FUN! it was just one of those "oh my god don't you love life" moments. and we met all of them and they gave us their business card and told us that when they came to W&L in december they'd give us a shoutout. it absolutely made my night. i love school.

11:38 pm: Haikus are easy
But sometimes they don't make sense
Refrigerator

05:15 pm: It's HOT! But luckily my dorm is air conditioned. I turned my wardrobe on its side and made it into a trunk/window seat, where i've been sitting reading Song of Myself by Walt Whitman. I have a very pretty view of the quad from my window, plus it's surrounded by trees, and I felt like I just couldn't leave the window shut while reading that. I can hear the VMI marching band practicing, which makes me a bit nostalgic- not just for marching band. It makes me think of schools that actually have good marching bands, which makes me think of WVU, which makes me miss WVU kids. I like having a common room, and I like cooking for myself- even though that mostly consists of frozen dinner and PB&J.

Well I FINALLY started classes today. I have a music class with the head of the department and he seems wonderful. I'm also taking Modern Poetry, hence the Walt Whitman, which I am afraid of cause I ain't never been no good at poetry. I haven't updated in a really long time, and I just realized that it's because when i DO make updates they are extremely dull because my life is boring. Oh wellz. Back to poetry.

11:22 pm: So thinking, he slept. And, sleeping, put an end to summer, 1928
I remember hating Dandelion Wine when we had to read it in 8th grade, and then really enjoying it when I reread it later. I had a stomach flu today and missed work and just read it all day. It makes me miss summer like woah. Not this type of summer, summers before I started working, when I could lose track of the days and the only thoughts I had were about which vacation I was going on next. Even last summer when I had a regular job felt Dandelion Wine-ish, cause there was still plenty of playing, and seeing people, and spur-of-the-moment plans. I feel like i've been a hermit this summer- I got to work, go to the barn, go to sleep. I have to work nights and weekends. I have to sell my horse to pay tuition. This doesn't feel like Summer. Being home and not seeing any friends is worse than being at school and not seeing anyone, cause at least there I could comfort myself with the thought that it was not my fault. And now it's the end of summer and I've done nothing but work at a job I hate. I miss Dandelion Wine summers. Did I really change that much in a year?

05:23 pm: school was much less work than summer
I started work at the Bavarian Inn today. After my 7 1/2 hour shift with no break i got to walk to my dad's office in my class black skirt, white shirt, white sneakers, blue vest, and bowtie. my feet hurt. but at least it's good money. at least i think it is. speaking of money, apparently june 7 will go down in history at my college, as the day that Washington and Lee received the single largest donation to a liberal arts school EVER. some crazy anonymous person decided that the White and Loaded kids of W&L weren't loaded enough, and donated $100 million to my school to go toward need based scholarships and some leadership program. that's just crazy. unless i get a scholarship, in which case it's quite lovely. i'm still only half-unpacked, cause i don't know what to do with my exorbitant amounts of stuff i seem to have accumulated. i'm kinda glad to have a job, cause all i've done since getting home is watch a lot of tv. i need a book to read. any suggestions?

09:44 pm: and the countdown begins
I'm finally almost done! Just one more week and a ten page paper on homoeroticism in Shakespeare, and i'm done with my first year of college. Really, I feel like I was done 5 weeks ago. Spring term is also known as "camp w&l" cause it's a little bit of work, and a lot of tubing and swimming. Last weekend there was a huge bluegrass music festival, and everyone had campfires and it was wonderful. it felt very west virginia and not very w&l, which was was very refreshing. Last saturday was an Islands themed party with a $25,000 dollar budget, complete with pools, slip n slides, bamboo huts, and a steel drum band. My professor invited my english to his house for dinner on wednesday. I like my school a lot, but I'm also ready to come home. It's not the crazy party scene i'll miss, but the delightful people i've met this year, especially one of my closest friends who isn't coming back next year. That's what makes this week tough- we're not doing things for the last time this year, we're doing things for the last time ever with her. It'll be tough to leave these girls, but I can't wait to see all you wonderful kids when I get back. We'll just HAVE to do lunch sometime.

10:16 pm: spring term is strange
everyone everywhere is either freaking out or celebrating being done. but for me, i'm just in the middle of a term. my freakouts and celebrations never coincide with anyone else's. oh well. i enjoy spring term immensely. i have class on tuesday and thursday from 9-12, and modern dance tuesday and thursday from 1-3. and that's it. it's quite wonderful- a whole 6 weeks with tons of free time to spend with these wonderful people whom i won't see again for 3 months. for the first time all year i have time to read for pleasure, to lie outside and tan, to work out whenever i feel like it, to just sit and chat or take random road trips. i love it. i'm jealous that everyone else is going home, but i feel like i'm getting my own special extra summer vacation with my school friends before i come home to all you lovely people. back to doing nothing.

02:49 pm: i had to sneak food to my friend jeff today, because apparently phi psi pledges have to eat all 3 meals at the frat house and have to have all their food and drinks pureed and sipped through a straw.

10:28 pm: hell week
so the boys have entered the last week of pledgeship, known affectionately as hell week.

today's sightings:
1) A boy painted gray posing as a gargoyle all day
2) A boy outside the library making peanut butter sandwiches
3) My friend mike reciting the 4th of july speech from "independence day" for everyone who walked past the dining hall
4) Two boys in ridiculous golfer outfits playing on the colonnade with a plastic golf set
5) A boy giving invisible tours
6) a boy in a basketball uniform challenging everyone who passed to a one on one game
7) A boy wearing a mask with a display board and sign up sheet for the cadavers, a w&L secret society

should be an interesting week...

07:14 pm: i <3 big sis week
i had a bunch of diet cokes with pink bows tied to them waiting for me on my desk when i got home this afternoon. it was wonderful. it's beautiful and springy here and i'm going out tonight cause i make poor life decisions. but i'll have all my homework done, and i just have comp sci lab tomorrow, and no school on friday! that makes me happy. i was really hungry after riding so i went to the dining hall in my breeches and boots and felt slightly ridiculous. mkay i need to go do gross comp sci homework.

05:57 pm: i <3 my college
So i came home this afternoon to a room covered in streamers and a bed covered in chocolate, with a big 'Kappa Delta Iota <3's AMY' sign hanging over my computer. I have entered Big Sis week, where every freshman girl gets a sophmore Big Sister. Normally, you get a big sister from your sorority, but since i'm an independent, i have an independent big sister. I have no idea what the kappa delta iota means. So all week our big sis's sneak into our rooms and decorate and leave us presents. sounds good to me. I like my school a lot. It's nifty.

11:07 pm: I'm technically on Washington break until Monday, but I had to come back to school early for riding team practice. It was weird at first to be on a completely empty campus, sleeping in a completely empty dorm, but now I kinda like it. I like crowds and friends and parties and such, but I also enjoy being by myself. The solitude is nice, and I can actually get work done, when i'm not procrastinating by doing eljay entries. We have practice most of the day, but I still have time to do homework and laundry and read. The dining hall is closed but the school gave us all money so I can just walk into town and by bagels and coffee for breakfast and sandwiches for dinner. I think i'll actually be disappointed when the rest of the school comes back. I'm competing in my first horse show on saturday and i'm way nervous. I thought i'd want to show, but i've been perfectly content to just take the free riding lessons and watch the shows. I'm borrowing boots and breeches cause they're crazy expensive and i don't have the right kind, but i had to buy special boot socks. They're pink with white polka dots and pretty. I have to write a 6 page paper on the motif of songs in the Fellowship of the Ring. I absolutely cannot stretch that idea into 6 pages. Time to add lots and lots of quotes.

10:46 pm: i'm coming hoooome!!!
I'm in the commons. It's like a big living room by the co-op where people come to study and chillax and eat co-op food. I'm supposed to be studying , but of course I can't. I'm pretty much come here cause I know I'll get nothing done. I just keep talking to people passing through, and trying to read while really listening to the couple beside me fight about how she was flirting RIGHT in front of him, while the boy in an armchair across from me barters (very loudly) about whether his last half ounce is really worth $150. I spent 3 hours on a comp sci lab tonight and then another hour on french and now i'm FINALLY starting to study for my english midterm tomorrow, even though it's so hard to concentrate cause i'm coming hooooome! I'm so happy. I miss home. I'm jealous of you kids who go home a lot. Except I can't really say that, cause it's not like I couldn't come home, I like school on the weekends. I guess i'm actually more excited about the break. A week of no classes, and I've reached the halfway mark kfor winter term, which is nice cause i despise winter term. I can't wait for spring term- it's only 6 weeks and you only take 2 classes and it's so much fun. I'm going to take a freshman seminar on shakespeare's comedies. I don't want to finish this entry that didn't really say anything important in the first place, cause then I'll actually have to start studying. so in order to put it off a little longer...

Reasons I like Taylor:
1) She doesn't crow
2) She punches me on the arm
3) She sneezes
4) She doesn't drive wooden cars on to closed bridges
5) Her back will keep on hurting
6) She doesn't make inside jokes about language camps in Minnesota
7) She can buy me cigars
8) umm...I can't remember

Ok now i really do have to study. Right after I facebook some more.

08:39 pm: This was fun! And i wonder why i never have my work done..
IF YOUR LIFE WERE A MOVIE, WHAT WOULD THE SOUNDTRACK BE?
So, here's how it works:
1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that's playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don't lie and try to pretend you're cool.

Opening Credits:
The Band- When You Awake

Waking Up:
Eagles - Take It Easy

First Day of School:
The Beatles - The Fool on the Hill (this made me lol cause we call the cluster of academic buildings 'the hill')

Falling in Love:
Fleetwood Mac - Go Your Own Way

Fight Song:
The Clergymen - Track 18..uh i don't know the name. Our song, Taylor. And a very non-fight song it is

Breaking Up:
The Beatles- I Want You (She's So Heavy)

Prom:
Ray Charles- Crazy Love

Life :
Carrie Underwood - Before He Cheats

Mental Breakdown:
Pink Floyd - Eclipse

Driving:
The Beatles - Dig a Pony

Flashback:
Simon and Garfunkle- Kathy's Song (aww)

Getting Back Together:
Panic! At the Disco - London Beckoned Songs About Money Written By Machines

Wedding:
Lustra- Scotty Doesn't Know

Birth of Child:
Simon and Garfunkle- Mrs. Robinson

Final Battle:
Blue Oyster Cult - Burnin For You

Death Scene:
Blue Oyster Cult - (Don't Fear) The Reaper (haha!)

Funeral Song:
Kelly Clarkson - Since U Been Gone

End Credits:
The Flying Burrito Brothers - High Fashion Queen

10:22 pm: so we get a two hour late opening tomorrow and abbreviated classes. That's what a couple inches of snow causes when you go to school in the south. i'm sleepin in bizatches.

06:31 pm: sooo muuuuch reading!
This week went by incredibly fast. I have to read lots of Lord of the Rings tonight, and study for a gross french test tomorrow. Computer science is quickly becoming impossible. We had a three hour lab today that was pure torture. When the hell am i ever going to have to program a computer? What good is Python going to do me? Never and none. I almost shopped online today, but then i changed my mind and went to wal mart and spent the money on goodies for my guy friends instead. It made me feel like a good person. It made me happy cause i'm usually quite selfish. This must sorta be what it feels like to be heidi. only less mormon. The boys have survived their first week, but they're exhausted. Busta Rhymes performed at W&L last night. I didn't go cause i had too much homework, but apparently it's a good thing i didn't waste my money. According to my friends he seemed quite drunk, which in itself is not horribly offensive at my school, but he was also apparently "quite rude to some young ladies" which was not approved of. I have to go deliver care packages and study.