it's far too hot to write. i can just about manage to read for the exams - and that's shifting from one area of the bed to another every fifteen minutes and ducking into the bathroom to splash water on self regularly. went over several of browning's dramatic monologues (which i was surprised i still remembered reasonably well from second year in college) don't have any of my norton anthologies here, but reread my college essay on the vanity of human wishes and using that refreshed memory of some key ideas in poem. there's only so little time, and it's more helpful to reread my organised arguments and ideas than going over the poem again. tried to make a start on winter's tale after that, but a norton shakespeare is very hard to read out of. resolve to get an arden or signet out of sengkang library. then the heaney beowulf, which is the first full-length beowulf i've read in poetry form. when i was in college i used the one in the norton fifth, which was a prose beowulf. this edition gives me greater pleasure for knowing the editor to be dan donoghue - of late my independent study supervisor, and a jolly nice man. and that has brought me to the end of the day. i'll just go and make dinner and when it gets dark i'll try to do some writing. good plan. what shall i eat?