"but if we are creatures of reason, what are we to do with our hearts?"

-- penelope fitzgerald, in the knox brothers



was in the school bookshop today, to see if i can find a fountain pen, but decided that i should save the money for a new orleans guide, which poach would certainly be very cross with me for not yet having bought. like marie deniet, i *am* particular about the pens i use, but there are no essay exams this term, and i have enough gelly rolls to write greek exams till december. (fountain pens are decidedly bad for writing greek. and chinese) i saw disposable fountain pens! which i scorned, only i use cartridges in mine, not bottled ink, so some people must regard my pens with distaste too :) next semester when i have money again i shall get a dip pen. of course, if i took exams with it it would be infuriating. i think not. so then i go to the f section to see what penelope fitzgeralds they have, though i've read almost every one they have, happily reading the byatt introduction to means of escape, and a man stopped to say he loved fitzgerald too and was sorry she's no longer with us. have you read gate of angels? he asked. that's my favourite. the only one with a happy ending. but i had read that one, and didn't unfortunately like the happy ending. i think i've come to expect unhappy or uncertain endings from fitzgerald. he recommended also offshore, and the bookshop, and i'd read them both too. the ending of the bookshop makes me very [pained/sad/outraged - i just made a face], i told him. the beginning of spring, if you like the bookshop, that one is closest to the bookshop, he told me. told von that i am supremely hungry all the time nowadays, as well as sleepy. maybe i was a bear in my past life and now want to hibernate. went to the dining hall and was given a piece of unpalatable pot roast the eating which i abandonned. how that spoils one's mood. my dad called on sunday and said to eat well. this can hardly be helped, i crossly told him, when i eat where i do. but it isn't all bad. only this morning i was sitting in a quiet dining hall reading and rejoicing in my two eggs (over easy) the yolks of which were warm and sweet. von tells me there is a book on how to construct bookshelves, which turns out to be the churchill that fadiman had talked about. he mistakes me. what is meant by my refrain of wanting shelves really is that i want more room for books, shelved or otherwise, to lodge without being a danger to myself. the aesthetics of bookshelves is scarcely of interest to me. the spring course offerings are up, and BOTH CATULLUS AND VIRGIL ARE OFFERED NEXT SEMESTER. i am devastated therefore to find that 382 clashes with catullus. i like catullus. i really really do. i really do think i would like that class more than virgil. really! speaking of which we're up to 50 lines a class now for latin, which is really quite exhausting, because the greek has gone up to 30lines now. the other latin class complains they have been getting 60lines a class since week one and we are to shush, only you see, they only meet twice a week, and we three times. my greek word of the day is schole, from which we get school and scholastic. but it means leisure or spare-time! or rest. or ease. that in which leisure is employed! if only all of school were leisurely employed. i try my best to make it that way. but some weeks. ah well. i am now 80 odd pages through fitzgerald's family biography. which means i am some little way short of a third through. i can't decide if i should stop now and save it for a plane book and to employ my time more profitably to riddles, or to finish it at top-speed and get it out of my system. the former is wiser, the latter more in character. she holds me in thrall.