The Dust Settles

Well every one, finals are over. The tests have been taken and the dust is yet to settle. By that I mean the grades have not been posted, so the results are still unknown. They should be good from how I felt about the tests, but I have been tricked before. The Optics test went well I think, and there was miraculously enough time to finish this round. I feel decent about that one. The Calculus test went fine as well, but there were a couple of solutions that popped into my head on my way to the car, but the professor is pretty liberal with partial credit.

I’m here at work till 1am today, then it’s off to San Francisco and Half Moon Bay tomorrow. This is going to be a welcome break. Though it is a work trip I actually have to take tours and learn things about the hotels, but there is free time. Those latter two words are rarely in my vocabulary, so I plan on using it to its full extent. I am going to bring my camera so there will be a new round of pictures to show every one on my return. At night I plan on reading, then some reading and after that more reading. I am currently working on Beowulf. I am a little ashamed to admit that it was the movie that made me want to read it. Now you are probably thinking the same thing. “What a poser” are probably your thoughts right now; but let me explain. I did enjoy the movie, although when I was watching it I was thinking “this is good, but if the poem has been around for hundreds of years, this can’t be all there is to it.” And I was right. The book is fantastic. Much better than the movie (of course). There is one thing that you will have to keep in mind though; it is very quick and not much detail (it is technically a “poem”).

And most of you (who care) are now also wondering “weren’t you just reading Don Delillo’s Falling Man?” The awnswer is yes, so let’s do a book review now shall we:

Falling Man by Don Dellilo. This book was great from cover to cover. As I have said before, Delillo’s books are not to be read for action or plot, because frankly both suck. The best thing is the way he writes. The term “wordsmith” is rarely used, but perfectly fitting here. The book is about the changes in peoples lives after 9/11 and that’s all. The book however discusses the concept of individuality and how we go from a collective group to the outside of that group, and the steps we take back and fourth. Also the routines and repetitions that we do on a daily basis, that bring us to a sense of normalcy, and the breaking or changing of those. The two concepts are most heavily contrasted by the character Keith, one of the survivors of the falling towers, and Hammond, a fictitious terrorist that hijacks one of the planes. In addressing the two issues he points out the loss and gain of the “self” or individual that we have when we are part of a mess of information and just manes and numbers, to being outside of that and what we find in ourselves there. Fantastic read if I don’t say so myself, and I do.

T