Half a page written

I have decided that it's probably a bad idea to put the actual draft of my paper on an Internet. I don't want a professor to be all like "I found this same paper on a blog" and I'll have to be all like "*cough* Yeah that's totally my blog, right," and be, though not a plagiarist, totally sketchy. Plus, I don't know, it's conceivable, though extremely unlikely, that someone else might eventually want to plagiarize such a paper, and I wouldn't want that. The notes though, go nuts. I hope they were helpful.

Things I am tempted to write in the draft, but will not because it might get overlooked when revising: "Well I tried to make it Sunday, but I got SO DAMNED DEPRESSED."

So, yeah, I dropped that class.

But I still have the odd incomplete class to finish up by way of writing papers. So I decided to take my notes straight onto an Internet, in the hopes that a) I could then access them anywhere; b) I could copy and paste a bunch of it into the paper proper; and c) It would, you know, make me (and make me feel) more productive.

So then, on Basho:

p 10. Basho suggests that the spirit properly is like the natural world, with a natural ebb and flow, high points and low points, constantly changing. I wonder: Times of unhappiness are then not necessary for happiness, but rather just strictly necessary. Also: happiness is not a goal, merely part of the environment?

h1: "In my new robe / this morning - / someone else." Makes me think of happiness, but why?

h9: "Wearing straw cloaks, / with spring / saints greet each other." vs.
h30: "Behind the virgins' / quarters, / one blossoming plum." Divers routes to happiness? The spiritual vs. the natural, or the ascetic vs. the sensual? Both are valid, but are either valid without the other?

h17: "Sparrows in eaves, / mice in ceiling - / celestial music." Happiness in the familiarity of home, even in situations considered unideal (mice in ceiling).

h28. "Another haiku? / Yet more cherry blossoms - / not my face." Unclear whether sarcastic or laudatory.

A new hope

...for a way to stay engaged in class. I mean seriously. I've got like one class between me and graduation, after five and a half long, expensive years. Just taking notes helps me remember things, even if I never look at them again. And I do look at them again, because I write a lot more than just 'notes' in my notes. But I was thinking, "Some people take notes with a pen and paper; some take notes typing on the computer. Is there any reason not to type my notes straight into a blog?" Of course there isn't. And, hey, now I can access them from anywhere with Internet access.

But I haven't taken any notes so far, because there was apparently a paper I didn't read, that is now being discussed, the discussion being led by someone I'm going to assume is a TA. I only just learned which person is the professor; I had look his website up to find a picture of him. I guess on Tuesday those were all guest lecturers. Who goes out of town on the second week of classes? (I suppose I'm one to talk, having missed the whole first week.)

Maybe not a TA. Are we, as students, going to have to present papers? Because now Marcus is up there. How much could I have missed during those six first hours of class? Now that I know who the professor is, I should definitely ask him about all that. And double czech on my loan, because I'd really like to register for this class sometime soon.

I wish I knew what the class website was, so I could've read these papers; they sound really interesting.

Oh, man, it looks like I missed an online discussion or something, too. If I didn't need this class to graduate this quarter, I would be out of here.

Interesting things to think of doing: write some code to automatically count words as I write them.

Though algorithmically selecting the best algorithm seems like it could be useful, the algorithm he described would not work well. The guy next to me, I mean, not Marcus.

I really hope he doesn't call on me. I doubt he will, because he doesn't know my name.