i picked up my sec 2 copy of to kill a mockingbird at 2 this morning because i couldn't get to sleep and i hadn't been to the library lately to replenish my stock. i found the book lying on its side, between the screwtape letters and some philip yancey that belong to my dad. it is perfect bedtime reading, not difficult, but funny and touching. i used this copy in school but i was not a margin scribbler! the notes in them were left by whoever it belonged to before me (the handwriting doesn't look like anyone's i know, though i have some suspicion it could be a youngish version of my dad's writing, but in 1987 he was 41, so this is quite unlikely) i remember telling mrs edith see that writing in your text was not right, because it interferes with your reading/appreciation, and notes should be made on paper instead. my jc texts are filled with multicoloured scrawls though. i must have figured that if i wasn't going to be able to read my notes afterwards (and i seldom can), covering copious sheets is pointless, and i might as well write them in the margins so the most salient bits are there to prompt you. incidentally how do you pronounce mobile, alabama? i can't separate my mental image of atticus finch with gregory peck in the movie though, and i don't think i ever will be able to. sometimes in spite of the movie you can still imagine your own character, but with atticus i think this is it. i would like to see the movie again. aha. i shall make that another project: to see every gregory peck movie this year (i checked, he made 53, but i've seen roman holiday and mockingbird, so if i go once a week to clemons library i can do this in just under a year. hah!)

i woke up at noon today quite aghast (i haven't woken up so late for some years). went down to lunch shortly and i love my family for not making noise about coming to lunch in pyjamas - they're also good about me leaving the table before everyone else if i want to get back to my book, or waking up late. i suppose part of it is because they figure i'm old enough (in the past, my mother would come in and sing her song about the little pig, who screws his eyes up and say no!no!no! if you say to him: wake up!) and part of it is just being un-traditional. it was too late to do what i'd planned to do (go to town to get haircut, watch my big fat greek wedding with su-lin) so i did everything else instead, and i don't think the day was too badly spent. went to hougang central to collect a dress and a skirt from the drycleaners, went to popular and got stationery, stopped at singpost to send this really cool chinese book to joel, and went to the library to return thrones, dominations, which i've finally read after all this time! argggh. harriet and peter are lovely. but i think people have got it wrong. everyone thinks how amazing it is for two people in love with each other to be able to feel intellectually compatible, and wouldn't they give to find someone who would understand them so well, but surely it's the other way round that's so difficult? meeting people who are your intellectual equal, that's easy, you could find a dozen offhand, but to feel that dizzying passion for someone is rarer, and it has to be one of them! everyone goes on about how well they can pick up on each other's thoughts, but very few people point out how they have an incredible amount of sex in all the books. all the more remarkable if peter is about 46 when they first marry (lord st george was suggesting to harriet that uncle peter might be past it.) that's what i think is so cool about peter and harriet!

felt very bad about having left schoolwork to grow mouldy all summer, went to the reference section instead of fiction, dutifully checked out pericles a second time, though if i just read the riddle and the ending perhaps i could get away with it? i don't think so. zut. left with 2 volumes of essays and reviews by j.g. ballard and david lodge, and a c.s. lewis biography. if i were doing a different kind of project all this might be very useful but alas. came home and tried to wrestled with isis (this extremely unfriendly thing we use at uva for registration) which told me i didn't exist and wouldn't let me register for greek, so after about 5 attempts i said what the hell if it fills up i will find something else. made arrangements with michelle gozum (darden person who collects children's lit) and called up e-ching at home to book an lt for thursday, when von and i and this guy from brown are going back to school. not a formal presentation, just a free-for-all q&a session for kids to ask anything about the three schools, or just about going to the us, basically e2k2 stuff. stayed up the rest of the night burning and copying my mp3s to my new laptop. 1.3G of mp3s there were. how quickly they accumulate! and i'd conscientiously got rid of the ones i seldom listen to too. hm. and now i shall go and finish my wodehouse and go to sleep.