I don't think I can be creative any more today. I'm so tired of thinking about Electoral College reform, I think I could cry. I know I'm overly stressed, and that's not going well for me. I actually had chest pains while doing schoolwork yesterday, and again today. What's up with that? It's not difficult work really, just lots and lots of it. I enjoy school very much, but I'm tired. I think I'll relax with a nice movie. At times like this, I wish I drank.
I love Windows Vista! It was cake to install, everything integrated easily, and my computer is a speedy beast once again. I'm quite happy, and oh, I LOVE that Office Student edition comes with OneNote now, I bloody adore that program! Okay, I'm done gushing, have more chapters to read.
I love it when I get an extra day off of classes. Tomorrow being MLK Jr. b-day, the kids and I have the day off. My husband has it off work also, so we'll be sleeping in.
My husband just came home, and the kids were helping bring in some groceries. AJ had one of the gallons of milk and dropped it just inside the front door. Soooo, now there is milk in the carpet and just outside the door. The kids cleaned it up, but we'll see how well they did when tomorrow comes. I swear, if I smell milk...
The 12 Days of Christmas - A Cat's Rendition
On the twelfth day of Christmas my human gave to me:
Twelve bags of catnip!
Eleven tarter Pounce treats,
Ten ornaments hanging,
Nine wads of Kleenex,
Eight peacock feathers,
Seven stolen Q-tips,
Six feathered balls,
Five MILK JUG RINGS!
Four munchy house plants,
Three running faucets,
Two fuzzy mousies,
And a hamste-e-er in a plastic ball!!
It can be hard to cover something so complex in under 300 words. I hope I did well.
Langston Hughes
“The Weary Blues” and “Trumpet Player”
Poetry, for many people, provides a way to express feelings that we may find difficult to share or explain to others. When comparing two poems written by Langston Hughes, it becomes easy to visualize the musicians and the pain that they are releasing through the music they play. In “The Weary Blues”, published in 1925, Hughes writes about a piano player who played a “sad raggy tune” that is “Coming from a black man’s soul”. In “Trumpet Player”, published in 1947, Hughes writes about “the negro with the trumpet at his lips” whose music “is honey mixed with liquid fire”. In each poem, the men have a deep emotion that they are expressing through their music. The man in the first poem is tired and sad, and the tune he plays is a “drowsy syncopated tune”, helping to share that feeling with us. In the second poem, the trumpet player’s song sounds sweet like “honey”, but played with such passion that it is perceived as “liquid fire”. Both men are weary, but the man in the first poem seems more tired, more exhausted, because of his memories; whereas, the man in the second poem is weary, but he’s not yet exhausted from the past he remembers, he still has a “smoldering memory” of the past, and shares that heated passion with us. We can also see that “The Weary Blues” was written 22 years before “Trumpet Player”, and still the past that the two men in the poems share still causes pain, frustration and anger, and ultimately a sorrowful acceptance. Langston Hughes may or may not have written these poems to share the pain he felt, but through his writing we are able to connect to the feelings of many African Americans to gain just a smidge of understanding of what their past feels like to them.
Thanks to keylogging and various other "steal people's information and hack into their fun and take their money" antics, my husband and I canceled our warcraft accounts. I'm a little angry at the loss of a game I love, but I do like not spending lots of time on it now. Besides, I could use the extra time to study.
