California Can't Beat This View (iPhone)

I found a place to eat lunch where the year's range of sun rays will highlight the glory of the seasons.

St Louis part 2 (iPhone)

St Louis, Missouri: I Could Live Here (iPhone)

I was hoping for some thunderstorms and tornados, but the weather was beautiful. Spring is in the air!

Current Music: Verdi's La Forza del Destino - Ouverture

So NYU grad school decided to let me in two months after they rejected me. I didn't even read the whole letter. I skimmed it just to see if they mentioned funding. They didn't.

It doesn't bother me at all because I really like UCLA. Earlier in the year I was worried that I would have a horrible time with all the new relationships I'll have to build, but it seems pretty easy to stay out of trouble.

I like all my classes. I am disappointed that I don't have much time to work on a translation that I started in December, but it's just a personal project. The Italian Club will soon be in the hands of new officers, freeing me from some responsibility, and the weather is getting better every day.

So why is my camera sitting up in my closet? I am in a dry spell, I think, because my perception of colors and shapes is less magical. I guess my normal life is usually one of magical realism because I see lots of fantastical connections between little details during the day. But lately, life is just simple and unadorned.

Thursday of Spring Break 2007

This is a cropped jpg from a centerpiece at a Persian New Year party that we attended.

1. THIS WEEK

AND IT'S GREAT TO BE BACK:

I didn't leave Los Angeles to see Georgia O'Keeffe's works in Santa Fe, and I didn't get ahead for next quarter. But I did finally hear from UCLA about graduate school funding! In a very encouraging letter, they offered me full registration and a teaching assistantship for the first four years! I am so fortunate that I have the possibility of achieving magister artium and philosophiae doctor without needing to work. I was ready to kick ass anyway, but now I know that I'll really be able to dedicate myself to reading so much that my prescription changes again.

As for accomplishments during Spring Break, I did wake up one morning and realize that my hair had gotten longer, which is an indication that I rested enough to catch up with reality. (Don't think Howard Hughes, it happens to the best of us.) I was finally able to be home to let the plumbers in, and I stopped drinking espresso so that I could zero my caffeine level to start from scratch on Monday.

2. LAST QUARTER

AND HERE'S TO MAINTAINING A GOOD GPA:

Yes, the caffeine statement sounded pretty strange, but I really did kill myself with work last quarter. I was taking five classes and making up an Incomplete, so my transcripts show that I took 26 units for Winter; the full-time minimum at UCLA is 12. I neglected my friends, or just forgot that they existed if they weren't in my face calling me all the time, and I took no pictures!

I wasn't able to do my best in any of the classes, and three of them were important ones for Italian. I never went to Latin, except to take the tests, because I was falling asleep during lecture and discussion. I was even enrolled in two classes that were held at the same time! At least twice I had to excuse myself to go to the restroom so that I could run to the other class to turn papers in, all of which were worse than the papers I wrote in high school. I did have time to do all the work, but my mind burned out early every day, and I had a hard time keeping up with even the simplest tasks. Thankfully, this quarter I am only taking four courses. If I can't keep up with 18 units, I'll know that I am truly an idiot.

3. THE NEIGHBORS DOWNSTAIRS

AND THIS IS NOT AN EXAGGERATION:

They are finally getting on my nerves. There are three of them: a heterosexual couple and the other guy. The couple often get into violent fights because she cheats on him. The whole complex knows, and they always fight at 3am, never earlier, never later. He is a 30ish tall and lanky man with long, greasy black hair, a big moustache, and bony elbows. He is in a band. She, the sometimes blonde sometimes redhead 20something, was his groupie. She has a fat, cream pug and drives an old, cream Volvo sedan with expired tags.

The "other guy" is a very small sleazy guy who also seems to be unemployed. He is not in the band, and he's the one who likes to hang upside-down in his closet until he gets high off of the blood rushing to his head. (He told me this when I asked him if he was shirtless and abnormally red because of intense sunburn.) He asked me to be his Valentine. I said no.

They are finally getting on my nerves after ten months of living in this complex because of their music. Every night from 8pm to 3am, they play their records. The sound filters up through the floor boards and makes the dust rattle. Often it is country music, but I have ever heard a song repeated. Several times, when I've come home late myelf, I've looked in their windows to see the party. There is no party. They just sit, alone, on their couch with the television off and stare into space. Maybe tomorrow night I will find something heavy and sturdy to beat on the floor - no, wait - tomorrow is Friday. They, and everyone else, are entitled to listen to music in a non-festive way on Fridays.