Saturday update:
I am roughly 1/2 way through my rough draft on my big Romantics paper. It is a great thing that Charles Lamb was a prolific writer. For those of you who resist poetry, he wrote a series of essays under the pen name Elia, which have been collected as the Essays of Elia. An interesting side note, Elia is an anagram for "A lie." Charles had a wicked sense of humor, and not only did he tease his poor, older, mad sister (aren't all older sisters slightly mad?), but he wrote some quite vicious epigrams. He even trashed poor old Byron's remains when they returned. I hope to have a rough draft complete by noon, and then I can begin the revising stage. I left the essay way too late, but I could not find any way to begin writing until yesterday.

It was colder than snot yesterday morning. Our overnight low was 29 and we only crept up to 50 for a high. There was even a freezing drizzle warning out early yesterday, and I heard two women talking the day before about having seen some snow flakes falling at 6:30 when the were arriving at work. It is disgusting. Fortunately, some of the trees cling to their multicolored leaves, and the evergreens (magnolia and holly) remain green. Pansies bloom happily in small display plots, and some kind of rose tree/shrub on campus is still blooming so I am not totally depressed by winters misery.

All I have left for school this semester is the big essay mentioned up there, a short take home exam/essay, and a one hour final with presentation after. I have a book list for my contemporary southern lit course, and some of the books that I will need to read over the break. I hope to get my African Lit list soon, and work on that as well. The break may be long, but with all the work I need to do I will find it too short.

Time for me to head off and get started working. Wish me luck!