the three-week week

We talked about what a great ear Milton had for sounds and tunes that worked in poetry in our Major English Poets section today. Reading Paradise Lost the second time around made me realize how deeply layered all his texts are — how I’ve come a long way as a close reader, and how little I had actually derived from reading it the first time. But I digress. (Every time someone says that I think of digestion. Like “But I digest.” — But you digest what? But I digress-gest again.)

So there you have it. This was the three-week week. So much assonance it blew WordPress’s mind. My sad attempt at fine-tuning my fine ear to the first week of this year. No? Alright. (Ear-year thing, thought I, brilliant was and happier far. Silly Milton syntax abound! Or abound silly syntax in!)

So this is what happens when you want to churn out a blog post while catching up on the week’s reading. Never again. (Next week.)

This week really felt long. It was long and yummy and really took a lot of energy to get through. It made me realize just how much time I waste (and still did this week!) when I could very well shop 7 classes in a day and be productive in each one, fully absorbing (or sleeping through) all the time slots without a break and still be a somewhat functional human being. Things are starting to pick up again and it’s been nice finding the groove with things, the silence that comes from visiting the library for the first time (on a Friday night, no less — oh yeah, pulling all the stops for this 3-day “pretend” long weekend, as my [fantastico] French professor calls it.)

sidenote: I’ve always wanted to use another language to describe someone directly associated with a different language than the descriptive language. So trippy. Fantastico usage de frang-nish. Or spancais.

I sound different. Maybe it’s the happy tiredness after a productive week of settling in cozily and excitedly into English major shoes (and finding myself swimming in novels with no life preserver in the form of fast reading speed and clarity of comprehension.) Or maybe that I’m reading more. Volume over quality, and loving how I’m absorbing all these different styles. It’s been a complicated week, too. New ideas and thoughts, propositions and sweet, sweet words from dear friends reunited, this time not the “can’t believe I’m halfway done freshman year and put on so much weight over winter break!” excited but more of the “put on even more weight this break and what major did you finally decide on?!” giddiness. People are growing up all around me, becoming more mature, savouring hugs for longer, not in way of flimsy greeting but understanding at an unconscious level that there’s more at stake. That we are collectively moving toward the midway point, realizing our responsibilities beyond the bliss of last year into a more serious, more deeply rewarding kind of experience. Same staring up at trees and wondering (and no, didn’t end up taking the Herbology-esque “Evolution of Plant Species + Lab” course for my science credit.) A different spin on the same questions. What is the underlying meaning to everything and how do I capture the happiness that I am offered every day into concrete actions of productivity and feelings, words I can concretely hold on to.

So yes, I sound different. But I hope you share in what I believe to be true: I’m definitely onto something possibly fantastic. It’s worth a visit into strange new way of hearing myself and familiarly vague introspections, if only for a taste of the real growth I’ve felt in feeling, for the first time, instinctively *comfy* in my course selections and decisively more secure in my choices.

Just another week in self-discoveries and midnight face-to-book bedtime impacts, both essential ingredients to the college experience and the immense growth that comes from getting to know myself, and for my cheeks, encountering the pages of Milton’s text, rather intimately.