I heard this song at Starbucks during one of those moments where the speaker mix isn't absolute rubbish. It is wonderful in every way possible. I'm putting the embed under a cut because it's an eyesore. But listen to it. The chorus has the best melody, but the other lyrics are better. My stupid translation of the refrain follows:

Oh, mon amour...
Mon doux, mon tendre, mon merveilleux amour
De l`aube claire jusqu`à la fin du jour
Je t`aime encore tu sais je t`aime.

Love of mine,
Sweet, tender, marvelous love of mine
From clearest dawn until day's end
I love you still, you know I love you

The clip in the cut is only 30 seconds because the internet is fail, but if you click the link on it, you can listen to the full song on imeem.
( For the song, click this )

Novel's right on schedule, if I stay up late tonight. Which I probably will (though it is already late). If anyone wants to beta anything for me, hit me up.

Ok, I know I said I wasn't going to update due to 'Wrimo related distractions, but I have to tell you about how utterly ridiculous I am. So I'm sitting here, looking a few things up in my Sufi Path of Knowledge text for the class that I'm sitting in on, and suddenly find myself looking at the syllabus to see how far behind I am in the reading. I'm thinking, 'Oh, that's weird. There are 14 chapters in the syllabus, but only 7 in the text.'

It turns out that I'd been doing double the readings that everyone else had been doing and had been more than keeping along with the class for most of the time leading up until the midterm. Heck, I'd been poring over these incredible and lengthy sections for hours because I didn't even have the syllabus and thought it was just a section a week. Then Chittick added me to the blackboard site and I could get the documents he put up for the rest of the class.

This explains why he once asked me in office hours if I had read ahead.

This explains why I thought it was weird that other students were asking questions from pages I had read weeks and weeks ago.


Most importantly, this makes me feel loads better about not having done the reading for the last two weeks. Because clearly, I did it anyway without knowing :)

Ok, back to writing about crazy old men.

Wait for the cream! We can spend our date speaking in three languages. When we are done, I will carve a swastika onto his forehead and send him home to Nantucket.


OK, while we're at it...him too. Do I even really need a reason? Hells to the No I Don't. Look at those fingers holding that cigarette. Mmmhmm.


I could have said a lot of other folks, but Bio lab was canceled because the lab building lost power, and so I am going back to sleep. Yes, at 11 in the morning. Win.

Let's play a game. It's called "Adjective, Not So Adjective".

AWESOME: Going Contra Dancing on Friday night, with hope of going again soon for English Country Dance. They even have a Jane Austen dress up night or something, they are unreal and they hold their dances in a barn. Definitely the most random thing I've done in a while.
NOT SO AWESOME: Waiting for an hour said Friday night in order to get into John Harvard's where I didn't even get to eat their delicious and calorically damning bread. But Budassi wore a ridiculous outfit (to visualize, he looked like Daniel Day Lewis in There Will Be Blood, with mustache) and I told passers-by that he was John Harvard.

DELICIOUS: Seeing Cindy Liu outside of school, inside IKEA, and sharing a cinnamon roll + Thai meal with her. SPECIAL BONUS: Comforter and Shower rack acquired. I told Cindy she should be a poet and she glowed.
NOT SO DELICIOUS: Thai food was so spicy that I couldn't finish it. This is unheard of, as I am crazy ravenous for Thai food AT ALL TIMES (Kanye West: AT ALL TIMES). I asked for the same amount of spice as Cindy but she tasted both meals and they lied! I cried tears of burning! Burning!

NERDTASTIC: Having 20 items checked out from the HHH library. I have these great resource books on Persian Mythology and Ancient Persian architecture, plus I found The Authoress of the Odyssey and The Persian Boy. I had to wait for the latter because someone at Stony Brook took it out from that library. (Who? What? Why? Phhfhtft.) It's a really awesome read, and I'm the littlest bit in love with the way Mary Renault writes Alexander the Great. I can very clearly see what Jacqueline Carey meant when she said she was influenced by it, but it only adds to my love/enjoyment of both authors.
NOT SO NERDTASTIC: Not being able to read all 20 items checked out from the library. I've got these Sufi books I KNOW I'll never get to, and A Clash of Kings remains untouched (even though I long desperately to get back into the series). Also comes the fact that I really don't have time to be reading so many books for pleasure hello. Along with the books on Ancient Persia I also started Censoring an Iranian Love Story (which is, after only 45 pages, quite remarkable and charming and modern), which I really shouldn't be reading - I can justify the others as being related to my thesis, but this one is just because. SIGH.

LITERARY: Reading the Odyssey for EGL. Starting useless, 100+ page reading on the Metric System in France and other such things for HON. Reading my last "how to" book for my thesis preparation.
FAIL-ERARY: Not being able to read for RLS. And there's a quiz tomorrow DURFFDGH.

HOT: Michael Fassbender, the cast of Merlin, and Gregory House (and Hugh Laurie, obviously). I've started watching Hex just for Mr. Fassbender - I can see what works about the show: teen drama/snark well captured, strong acting, pop culture references (even if they're from 2004), that gorgeous manor and the green fields they use for the school setting - but I can also see its problems, too. The plot and main character just seem unsteady somehow. It's as if the episodes cut off at the wrong places, or all the pieces are there but they won't fit right into the puzzle. Merlin is adorable - the best part of that show is the sheer amount of plot the writers manage to fit into one episode and still manage to keep each episode self-enclosed; the pacing is wonderful! House...well, it's House. Tonight's episode was called "Epic Fail". Wilson and House made slash jokes and 13 even insulted Jeremy Piven at some point. (I don't think that was too spoilery on the whole, forgive me if you feel violated somehow.)
NOT: Spending this time watching TV shows when I could have been studying cancer biology. WUH WOH.

Clearly that game de-volved by the end.

You know how I venture into my basement, or various nooks and crannies in my house, and sometimes stumble upon magical troves of delightful things? Well, in the process of writing this entry I watched House, and while I was doing so, I went to the garage to grab a drink and found a bunch of hardcover books sitting on top of a box. They didn't look like books that I typically read, but then my dad walked past the door and I asked him where they came from. He was surprised I didn't know! Oftentimes my parents don't keep tabs of my presence around the house and their lives, and I love this. Anyway he laughed in a Daddy-like fashion and walked away to continue watching House and now he's asleep, so I'll have to wait to ask him where they came from. I did go through the entirety of the box - there must have been at least 70 books in it - and I have suspicions about the original owner. I want to say he's a male, Italian or Jewish, and flies a lot. He's also a parent and own a George Foreman grill. The reason I say these things are that most of the books were Dude Fiction (you know, Stuart Woods, Tom Clancy, James Patterson, John Sandford, John Grisham, etc), so he's clearly into a good thriller, and most were paperbacks that you can grab at an airport and go with. Also in one book I opened at random I found the envelope/outer stub of a Delta boarding pass. I say those other things because I found two pregnancy books and a George Foreman cook book. Italian/Jewish is just a guess (I mean come on we're on Long Island).

Anyway, I'll end the entry there - have to finish another book in the Odyssey and go over another Cancer Bio lecture before bed. But I'll open a cut and list the awesome books I found in the box and decided to keep! Let me know if you want to come over and go through my box of bro books.

( Here they are! All paperbacks; whoever owned these had a serious desire to rid himself of Shakespeare, to my gain. )

So this is how summer ends. < / ❤ >

Still nervous about my MCAT. If you have spoken to me in the last month, I've explained the "what happens if I didn't do well" story to you at least five times, and shan't bore you with that tale once more. Today I took a Physical Sciences section and did ok (as in, what I needed). As for the "what happens if I don't get accepted to medical school this year" question, well, the possibilities are endless. My backup plans include trying to get research positions here or possibly at Yale, teaching English abroad, working on being a ~serious illustrator~, getting a PhD in Psychology first, and so on. I'm looking at things in the long run, and know I'll get to med school some day, if not with the class of 2010. I see the long road, for miles and miles.

My apartment will be available for me to access starting Thursday. That leaves me two days to do some sparse packing and errand-running. And I do mean sparse. Bed linens, books, clothes, laptop, bathroom goods - that is all I intend to bring. The rest, kitchen and decorative items included, can come to school little by little, hiding within my things as I come to and fro from home on weekends (ah! such luxuries - may I relish in this, my final year). I'm excited to see who our mystery 6th person will be, as I think one of my flatmates moved somewhere else in the building.

Two weeks ago I purchased and assembled a new bed from ikea. Dad and I = an incredible IKEA BUILDING TASK FORCE, having together built an expedit bookshelf, a desk, and a billy bookshelf. Pros, I tell you. Before I go on with this story, let me ask you, flist, how do you pronounce IKEA? I say "eye-key-uh" but my French family says "ik-eyah". Oh, those marvelous francophones. Comment je vous adore. Anyway, we buy a bed, a mattress, and a foundation box and get home. We get the bed frame and mattress inside, but upon closer inspection notice that the foundation is the wrong size. Not many of you may know this, but when you purchase a box spring or foundation from IKEA, they will wheel it out for you personally and of course help you secure it on your car. The one thing that the employees were meant to do...and so we drove back. Replaced it, brought it home. We began to assemble the bed frame, and what did we find? One of four essential screws was flawed. The teeth wouldn't align with the piece it was paired with, which together are needed to secure the side beams to the front and back. They were surprised at such faulty manufacturing, but they were nice and gave us new screws and a coupon. Needless to say, we were a little furious, having to drive there and back six times in one day. But the bed is comfortable, and to have so much room to roll around in is something I'm more than happy to get used to.

This past week, we had family visit us! My (I'm guessing) second cousin once removed and her daughter (second cousin). I honestly just call them all cousins; I love them as dearly as if they were my siblings or aunts. We showed them around Long Island and New York. I had such an incredible time getting to know Shirin (second cousin) better. We became so close by the end. We'd lay on my bed reading to ourselves, side by side and content, late into the night. I miss them deeply. The house seems empty without them, especially my room.

As for the Great Book Read of August 2009, I'm making progress! I finished Amber Spyglass, Blink, Yiddish Policeman's Union, and Handmaid's Tale (FINALLY got to read Atwood after so many great comments about her). I loved them all, and was pleased to see the references Blink made to John Gottman, whose theories and research I really respect. I want to say it's a shame I don't read more nonfiction, but not really, as I'm still buying textbooks. I also had a crazy period in which I read 9 volumes of Peach Girl. That manga has such a scintillating villainess! Anyway, I'm about 100+ pages into Shadow Magic and Water for Elephants respectively. The latter wasn't on my book list at all, but after buying it at random in June from my fav used book hideout (along with the penguin edition of 1001 Nights that I'd wanted for a while), I decided to pick it up on a whim. They will both be read by the end of the week, mark my words. As for the bigger books like Infinite Jest and Count of Monte Cristo, their fates are yet to be determined.

Remember all that fuss over whether or not to take Myth & Magic in Literature? I saw the book list today and wasn't terribly moved by it. It had a decidedly African spin on the selection, which was not exactly what I was expecting - I thought there would be a broader scope, or at least some hint of direction. I thought, perhaps I was meant to take Shakespeare. But what I thought was one open spot in the Shakespeare: Major Works class is reserved for English majors (oh you wretched ones!). So I switched to a class on The Epic! Which makes me sad, for now I have one Friday class. BUT LISTEN TO WHY THIS IS WORTH IT, DUDES. Not only do we get to read Virgil and Homer, but we get to read PARADISE LOST. And WORDSWORTH. And Peter Manning's focus? BRITISH ROMANTICS. YES WHAT A COOL SOUNDING DUDE. 

AND ALSO I SIGNED UP FOR A 6 CREDIT ITALIAN COURSE. Yes, I am crazy. But I'll always regret not taking a language class if I don't do it.

As you can tell by my increasingly deranged statements, this post must be coming to a close. But before I go, one more thing to note -- MY  PHOTO WEBSITE IS UP! Click it to see the pictures from England and France I've been promising to show you. Hope you enjoy them!

Do you all remember how I had that post about drunks and killings? Last night my parents and I were driving back from a friend's house around 12:30 and as we roll up a hill on our street we see all sorts of flashing lights. It turns out that somebody drove his car into a house. I'm starting to become convinced that there are some Final Destination type shenanigans afoot and that I'm pretty much next. I'm going to walk over and see the damage again today if I can, just because there were three police cars and two fire trucks blocking the path last night.

On Friday I took my MCATs. I can't really gauge my score; I stayed awake and finished all the sections before time ran out, so I guess that's a good sign. I like to describe it as getting into a car accident or getting punched as you punch someone at the same time. I feel like I'm in that moment of impact where you can't tell who is doing more damage, you or the other guy. I just hope I wrecked that test so I never, ever have to take it again (Can't wait to return the MCAT prep books I took out from the library. Good riddance.). I think I would hate it most if I did well enough on two sections but the third is a point below what I need. I can't imagine paying $225 to take a test again to raise it by a point. A big note of thanks to anyone who wished me well for it.

So now I have a month to read fantastic books, make lots of art, and plan my thesis.

Have you all seen the concept artwork for Disney's Rapunzel? What I have seen is nothing short of gorgeous.
These two images struck me as particularly sweet. I'm hearing that it's going to be a mix between 2D and 3D? If it looks less like CGI and more like the concept art then consider me sold. More images here.

Pluging the fabulous community that is lit_library once more. I hear the moderator of The Romantics is one classy lady *cough cough*. Me and cellowraith won 3rd and 2nd respectively in a really fun challenge where you had to re-order books on a bookshelf. There are photo challenges, icon challenges, etc. There's even a book club! So get on it, yo.

I'm finally - finally - getting to reading all of The Yiddish Policeman's Union. I've picked that book up more times than I feel comfortable admitting here but I can proudly say I'm well past what I considered the tipping point, which is somewhere around page 150. My usual issue with getting through a book is timing - if I pick up a book at an inopportune time, I just don't have patience for exposé and scene building. There is some great stuff in this book, though. The descriptive language flips between subtle and overt in a pleasing manner and the puzzle pieces are starting to fall into place. Also the cover art is one of the more unique designs I've seen in recent years, so it's nice to be holding such a beautiful book.

When I'm done with that, I have a very researched, decisive list for what I'll be trying to read this month:

• The Amber Spyglass
• A Clash of Kings
• Blink
• (Finish) Dr Strange and Mr Norrell  
• Kushiel's Mercy
• The Count of Monte Cristo
• The Handmaid's Tale
• Shadow Magic
• Infinite Jest
• Dune

I love how I've turned into this little Fantasy Lit Monkey. Go me. Not sure where I'll start, but I think I'm going to leave Kushiel's Mercy for last, just because it's going to be the last book set in that particular era of Terre d'Ange and I'll be immensely sad to see it finished. Speaking of Terre d'Ange, I can't wait to finish the picture of Joscelin I'm drawing for marinshellstone . It will be epic.

Last night consisted of some vivid dreams. In one of them I walked onto a train and saw Woody Allen. I became completely star struck and absolutely shy about the fact that I was in the same train car as him, trying to figure out how I'd approach him and tell him how much I love his movies. Then the LIRR conductor said something to me about getting something from the platform and coming back on the train and assured me I'd have time before they shut the doors, so naturally I went out to do whatever it was she was saying and walked up the stairs to find the doors closed and the train starting to leave. With all my belongings still on the train. I was so upset, so absolutely enraged, that when I started to scream "NO!" and was watching it leave, the force of my anger caused the platform to rumble and start moving in the same direction, as if it, too, were a train. In another dream my part of Long Island became so severely flooded from all the rain we've been receiving that it turned into some kind of boat dependent area; in this same dream, Marvel and DC were recruiting, but rather than be interns to work in their offices they were recruiting young persons with super powers to be junior members of their staff. I'm rather silly to dream such things, I know. But the interview consisted of going to a local high school and stopping a supervillain amidst pouring, torrential rains.

Speaking of torrential rain: All Points West has been going on this weekend despite this summer's god-forsaken weather. Tonight is Coldplay, MGMT, and Ghostland Observatory (among others). I have tickets via The Press, but like I said, the weather is going to be more than absolutely deplorable & it is an outdoor concert. So I'm still on the fence, and when I look out the window, it looks and sounds like nothing short of DOOM. Tomasz and I are lazy enough to just vegetate and watch movies instead of go, and I wouldn't be crushed if this were so. I suppose we'll see.

My MCAT is soon. Way soon.

SO OF COURSE I AM DISTRACTED BY THINGS. Like photoshop tutorials and writing and downloading soundtracks. It's funny how your favorite scores are by composers you already know and love but you were just so young when you saw the movie that you had no comprehension of such things. Rachel Portman and Thomas Newman FTW.


This was from last month. For a time, text twist was good. But then I decided I was bored with it.

REST ASSURED that I am, in fact, studying. My lack of a social life will attest to this. I haven't even seen Harry Potter yet! But I did get to re-reading this lolarious recap of Deathly Hallows. It's actually thoroughly accurate.

Another thing: SKETCHBLOG IS BACK. Notice how the playlist was june, and the sketchblog is july, and my domain's name means summery? Yeah I'm clever what up. For folks who followed it and had it on their rss feed, sorry I never said it was moving. Trust me when I say it was worse for me, as I didn't export my entries properly. Speaking of, I have art homework now, since this summer I'm technically an ~art student~. Bahaha.

& lastly APPARENTLY PHINEAS GAGE WAS A HOTTIE WHO KNEW!? For some reason, Zoolander comes to mind.

EDIT + ADDITION: I just joined this community; anyone who likes books should take a peek because applications are open! lit_library

I have had it. Someone explain this to me, please. Did I go to Europe and return to find Long Island some kind of oasis for careless, reckless drunkards? Did they all suddenly come out while I wasn't looking? Is this for real?

Because when I got back in June, I heard that Dr. Edward Carr was in a horrible car crash caused by a drunk driver. He taught and researched in the psychology department. Everyone - literally everyone - I know who had taken his class on Autism either said it was amazing or that he was a remarkable teacher. Who knows whether or not I would have taken his class, or what he could have done in another ten or fifteen years of research, teaching, and being with his family. Not only is he gone, but his wife was rendered brain dead. Their son is alone now.

Then I came home from class today to find all sorts of status messages on facebook saying "RIP Scarpi" or "My heart goes out to the Scarpati family". Time slowed down as I typed his name into my search box and waited until his page loaded. Wall postings like "Rip - I'll miss you man" had been cascading down the page for hours. So I wondered: what on earth could take away the life of a healthy, thriving 19 year old? Then I saw what one of his friends had posted.

Just...ugh. If that man makes it out of the ICU, I hope he wakes up every day for the rest of his life with the unmistakable weight of knowing that he killed another human being upon his shoulders. Another +1 placed in the "reasons why I don't drink" column.

Why, hello. Let me tell you what is up.

It's my birthday tomorrow and I have no plan besides having told my friends to meet me in Manhattan. I told twenty people altogether. I originally intended to have a picnic but now it's going to rain and I will feel terrible for making them all spend money to get there without having a place to go or a course of action. I would cancel what I said to them if I could, but I'm not going to have a chance to see anyone again until August.

Put that together with the fact that I'm already scared witless about turning twenty one and that I'll be getting on a really early train tomorrow to get tickets to Shakespeare in the Park (which will also probably get rained out), and you can perhaps understand why I could be in better spirits.

So I'm pretty much boned. I'm going to try to accept it with grace.

In other news, do you like this piece I posted? It's the first thing I've properly attempted to color in years. They're two characters from the Kushiel's Legacy books (Mavros is in black and Imriel is in blue). I love that series because everyone is described as so unutterably beautiful that no matter how hard you try to capture them you can always excuse yourself for not quite getting it right. To top it off, they're described as a pretty folk, so drawing males as bishonen would be pretty much welcome.

RIP netherworld.nu. You had a good run. Not really, but let's just pretend you did. I registered a new site, which will probably be completed sometime soon. It's aestival.net. If anybody who reads this wants hosting on there, leave a comment about it and I would be happy to discuss it with you. So far there is nothing up except for an online playlist that you can listen to by clicking here. I have bizarre tastes but maybe you will find something worthy of listening to. There is some kind of theme to that playlist, be it the cosmos, making babies, or robots, but I'm not necessarily one for laying it all out there to be understood. All I have to say is that the song selection is both thematic and incredibly indicative of albums that have come out in the last year that I have adored and listen to pretty regularly.

If you want something else to do, visit Fifty Two Stories. Free short stories are like free cupcakes, only without calories you don't need and just as sweet. For some reason I really liked this one, although I can't quite figure out why. Tiger, Tiger is also pretty good.

I changed my livejournal layout and added a new mood theme. It's going to be hilarious looking at old posts and seeing my mood described as "JARETH LOLZ" next to a picture of Audrey Tautou.

Oh, and, I suppose you have figured this out, but I returned from England and France. About a month ago, actually. I have come back from trips before and announced it on livejournal only to never post pictures or stories, but this time I am making a blog on aestival for my photos and intend on describing certain bizarre incidents in alarming detail, whether on there or in another post to come on here.

For this afternoon, I'm going to drive to Stony Brook with Sarah and see if I can do anything for the paper. MCAT studying goes okay. I'm trying to block out flagrant wank and focus on learning, but boy is it hard.

Yeaaaaaah~~~. I don't care that this could be my worst academic semester ever, I have had it up to my ears with stress. I feel like everything I've held dear in my academic and social life this semester has been thrown for a loop, beaten, broken, and bruised, and I am not going to take it any more. So I said no goodbyes and just took off last night for Dix Hills. Tonight I'm flying away and leaving the country. Sounds sort of rash, but sometimes you just need a clean break.

First stop: England with Gregory. We're gonna go visit Kavita in Oxford, go to London with her, then visit Laura and Sam in Sussex. After that, I go to France alone, starting with Lyon, then Grenoble, then Paris, visiting family all the way.

No Blackberry, no laptop, no obligations. I'm not sure if I deserve such a boon, but I am taking it and running.