Lazy, Hazy, Crazy . . .

Just because it's summer, I assumed that I would have a lot of time to myself. After all, I'm taking only three credits, in American Literature before 1870. Just me, Emerson, Thoreau, and Dickinson, whiling away the summer days on the patio. Read a little, nap a little, think a little, write a little: doesn't that sound wonderful? Silly me.

For one thing, it's been too chilly and windy to spend much time on the patio, now that it's been furnished and accessorized on the cheap. For another, the reading load has gradually increased. Here we are, only a three weeks past finals, and all my mentors have made reading suggestions for my summer of enlightenment.

My senior thesis advisor has suggested that I develop a bibliography, as I may have mentioned before. This is taking a lot of time, since every book and research paper must be skimmed at the very least, so that my journal reflects some understanding of the work's thesis and related sources. A few weeks ago, this did not seem like any kind of problem at all.

This was before Mentor One (I like how his nickname reminds me of The Cat in the Hat) started suggesting fiction that would enrich my unfurnished brain. He's right, of course, as he always is: Cutting for Stone is enthralling. I wish I could write that way and get a passing grade on my next research paper.

Then Mentor Two suggested that I read an article from Commonweal Magazine, in addition to a book by Rae Langton. Also not a problem, except that I still want to read a bunch of papers and book chapters that came up during Bioethics last semester. The matter of finding Commonweal was resolved, after I ran all over town today, through their free online subscription for college students. Hey, I qualify for the student special!

Then, of course, there are Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse and Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment. I'm approaching the Woolf novel with some anxiety, since it is such a simple story on the surface, and seems so easy to read. The story is reputed to have great depths, which my trivial mind may not be able to perceive without guidance and a stick. Crime and Punishment has another type of unintended effect: it makes all shorter works look easy to tackle in comparison.

I've tried stacking all this material in order of attack on my study table, but then there's no room to actually sit down and study. It looks like a small paper mountain. At least there are no cougars lurking in the thickets around the base of the mountain, except of the dualistic secularist variety (please note: this is a joke based on an article about philosopher Gilbert Meilaender -- you may laugh now).

That last paragraph is a fine explanation of why philosophy students can't make a living on the comedy club circuit. Anyway, the only way out is through the stack of reading material, so here I go!

The Fox and the Car

On my way out to search for some breakfast this morning, I drove up on the neighborhood fox. He was crouched at the side of the road, staring through the neighbor's rail fence at something in the tall grass. Whatever it was, he appeared to have marked it down for his breakfast menu, until I interrupted him.

After a moment, the fox leaped across the ditch, and I figured he was going to run off. Instead, he turned around and walked toward my car on the other side of the fence line. Then he stared into my eyes.

Either he'd never seen a Subaru, or he was trying to figure out why I needed a huge, noisy machine to scare up a meal.

I was out tracking the elusive plain scone because my study desk is awash in Ethics. I need to write an annotated bibliography, to be followed by a research paper, for one of the English classes on a topic that fits under the general rubric of Ethics. I am also hearing warning rumblings from the Ethics professor that we will be writing a paper for his class. While one can fantasize that one paper will do for both classes, it seems that the papers will have to be written at different levels of interpretation. Right now, I'm clipping things out of newspapers and mulling over the "moral issues of alcoholism," as they say on NPR, trying to come up with an arguable thesis.

No wonder I want to go follow the fox around the neighborhood.