Sunday, October 19, 2008

Old English Midterm on Tuesday

Even finding out I didn't need the course, I was excited to take it. (I felt like a dork even among my fellow dorks for wanting to take it and being a little excited over its availablity.) But now I have the midterm on Tuesday. Oy.

I've been doing the work over this semester so far, and I've been studying this weekend, butI am not looking forward to cramming two paragraphs of translation and a handful of grammar questions into an hour and fifteen minutes.

But I'll keep working on it. I feel like I've remembered more than I thought I would.

Unrelated to Old Enligh: I've recently discovered the Shrinking Violets blog, for introverts. There was a link on another blog to their Introvert Bill of Rights. As a student, I especially liked the addendum that introverts don't have to raise their hands in class. I pay attention, but I tend to be more comfortable just taking notes, taking in what others say, and jotting down my opinions and questions. I don't like to share those right away. I usually say that my problem lies in the fact that I like to be precise when I share things aloud in class, but I take so long to get what I want to say right in my head, that by the time I'm ready to say it out loud, we've moved on to a different question or topic. So I like that right, but I enjoy a lot of the others as well.

Their most recent post is about the internet being another form of chatter, "Unplugged."

I once spent over an entire month unable to turn on the computer. I would check my email on my dad's computer because I had to, but I couldn't bring myself to turn on my own and spend time at the websites I enjoyed. Not because I didn't enjoy them, but...I don't know. I still haven't worked out quite what was stopping me. But this particular post struck me as interesting. Robin, one of the authors of the site, says, "And I share this with you because I wonder sometimes, if we don’t actively seek what we as introverts crave--quiet time and lots of it for exploring our inner landscape--out body is forced to do it for us." she adds that there is a "stillness and quiet" found in unplugging. I got a few pages written in that time--not much, but I'd been completely stuck before--but eventually that dread (is that even the right word? I've been a bit off in my choice of words lately--adverse or averse?) left me and I was ready and eager to get back online, connect with friends and write.

Anyway, this is a fun blog, especially if you consider yourself an introvert. I'm off to continue studying.

Happy Writing.

1 comment:

writtenwyrdd said...

Yay for Old English! I had a History of English in a college course and loved the extended bits on Old and Middle English. Of course I don't recall any of it 25 years later, but I loved the class then.

I love the blog link to Shrinking Violets. Thanks for sharing! I have to agree that being alone is valuable to some of us, and that we shouldn't be ashamed of it. I think I'm single because I can't stand *having* to share my time with someone else.

And I do slack off on activities after a flurry because it all seems like too much. Unplugging from the web is an excellent choice just to avoid distractions, get the writing done.