07 II 2003 - 18:36 - demens fio

The prospect of sleep from now until Saturday morning doesn't seem so bad, and here's why:

For three nights this week, starting from Tuesday and ending yesterday, I have stayed up to an hour that no high school student should stay up until, but everyone at my school does it because we like to abuse ourselves like that. It's not even fun self-abuse, like onanism -- why do we do it? Beats me. Maybe it's the thought that it'll win us in some convoluted and abstract fashion some greater success in life.

Anyway, my ostensible purpose for staying up that late was writing my English essay. Simple, no? Just write and get it over with -- but no, because having decided that self-control is for wimps, I decided to talk to friends. The result? On Tuesday, I played two games of Literati, and on Wednesday, I started to explain what little I know about morphology and the idea of grouping languages into families. (The fatal question: 'Is there any reason the word for "night" in Czech and Spanish should be similar?' And we were off... accuse us of procrastinating, sure, but accuse us of merely wasting time, no. It was just as interesting as anything we would have been doing otherwise.) On Thursday, I wrote seven-eighths of my essay, which meant that I was up late enough to wish a good morning to a friend studying abroad in Saragosa and an online friend in Israel.

So on the whole, we have a very sleep-deprived oddcellist. I wish sometimes that I didn't work relatively well under pressure -- if I had a history of catastrophic failure on last-minute essays, then I'd start them earlier, and look! I'd be well-rested, or at least I hear that I would be. But then I look at the times when it really has been necessary for me to produce something quickly (like those times when the teacher comes up with a sadistic assignment that they 'forgot' about until the last minute -- something along the lines of, 'Read and give in summary form the first half of Thucyidides' account of the Peloponnesian wars -- go! And by the way, it's due tomorrow.') Then it doesn't seem so bad, being able to pull it off. I just think it'd be healthier if I had more space. I'm working on it (= in fifteen years, I may or may not have shown improvement. Don't bet on catching me with a finished essay more than two days before the deadline.)

Uh, I'm not making sense. I do apologize -- I've had this feeling that I haven't made sense all day. I was asked to explain a bit about the context of the composition of Britten's War Requiem in class today, and although my friends reassured me that I did make sense (and I still can't get over the fact that the scheduling gods put my friends! in a class! with me! all right, i'll stop using the exclamation points now), I can't help wondering if it's because they got even less sleep than I did. I spent time today wanting to collapse into a puddle of tears that beauty should be sitting next to me and walking around in the halls, but fortunately for me and my reputation, I managed to restrain myself. More about that later (the impulse is almost always there, in varying strength).

Anyway, the point of this entry is that sleep is good and that having a finished essay already turned in is even better, because now, it is out of my hands.

For Flood and Ilonina, the Rilke poem I referred to an entry ago:

Ritter

Reitet der Ritter in schwarzem Stahl
hinaus in die rauschende Welt.
Und drau�en ist alles: der Tag und das Tal
und der Freund und der Feind und das Mahl im Stal
und der Mai und die Maid und der Wald und der Gral,
und Gott ist selber vieltausendmal
an alle Stra�en gestellt.

Doch in dem Panzer des Ritters drinnen,
hinter den finstersten Ringen,
hockt der Tod und mu� sinnen und sinnen:
Wann wird die Klinge springen
�ber die Eisenhecke,
die fremde befreiende Klinge,
die mich aus meinem Verstecke
holt, drin ich so viele
geb�ckte Tage verbringe,--
da� ich mich endlich strecke
und spiele
und singe.

The Knight

The knight rides forth in sable mail
into the stirring world.
Out there is all:
the friend, the foe, the valley, the day,
the meal in the hall,
the maid and the wood and the month of May,
and the Holy Grail,
and God himself many thousand times
is shown in the streets.

Yet, in the armor of the knight,
behind the sinister rings,
Death squats, brooding and brooding:
When will the sword spring
over the hedge of iron,
that strange and freeing blade,
to fetch me from this place
that has cramped me many a day,
so that at last I can stretch myself
and sing
and play?

(trans. C. F. MacIntyre)