Nerds

...in the nerdery, with our calculators. Erm. Books. I definitely mean books. 

Unfortunately, this also means business. Okay. I probably should clarify what

I'm trying to say to you guys. As it turns out, I'll probably be reading a 

1,500 page biography for my thesis. 

Yes. I'll repeat that. One thousand and five hundred pages. Helloooo

spring break. The good news? I'll be in sunny Florida with my friend Emily,

away from school and chaos. So, hopefully I'll get some serious reading done and

perhaps work on a tan. 

Oh. You want to know what I'll be reading... 

This. James Boswell's Life of Johnson. And this isn't my first time reading it either. Well, I already read the abridged version for a class (taught by the professor overseeing my thesis now) but for the academic sake of my thesis, I really need to read the original. The unabridged version. The monster. Well... I can't say that I'm not a little bit excited. I mean, I'm doing serious academic work, the kind that I really enjoy and get all rah-rah about. 

And I've just about finished a paper for my 19th-20th century British Poetry class, so... that's a big relief. I've also got a pretty decent handle on my thesis abstract (a.k.a. what I'll be writing about). It's not set in stone or really established, but I'll share more on the blog as I write and discuss my topic more with my advisor. Suffice it to say, I'm pretty excited. Scratch that, I'm totally stoked. I feel that the Lord has put this opportunity in my life and I'm in the right place, with the right people. I'm milking my UCLA experience for all its got. At the end of my last quarter, I'll be exhausted and academically spent. But I really think that I need to grab ahold of all the gifts that I have and use them to the best of my ability. 

What can you guys do? Please be praying for me. Spring 2011 will be a really chaotic time for me, academically. This is my final push before graduation. And I firmly believe that if the Lord chooses to send me to grad school, this quarter will decide a lot of things for my academic future. But in any case, I'm just doing the best work that I can and trusting in the Lord the best way I know how. I do know that my time at UCLA is limited and that I need to soak it all up. No matter what happens to me next year, I know that I'll miss being a student and taking a bajillion English classes. For real you guys, that's what hurts the most about graduating. All the new English newbies will be taking amazing classes that the department hasn't offered before. No fair. 

And as an aside, I have something totally random and off-the-cuff to share with you guys. (But let's be honest... isn't that the whole point of a blog? Sorry. That's a topic for another post.) This will totally and forever peg me as a grammar/syntax nerd but I'm really enjoying the fact that I can write in passive voice on my blog. Too much formal writing, not enough fragments and dangling modifiers. 

Okay. I'm pretty much done with blogging for the evening. My brain is fried. I'm pretty sure that you guys can tell. Oops. 

Also, has anybody caught on to the fact that since I posted that I was in finals, I've been posting rather regularly...? I'll blame the stress. It drives a girl to blog and to make an excessive amount of fruit smoothies. Just sayin'.