The weather has lost its mind.

That's really the only explanation.  There is snow visible in the hills (when they're not obscured by massive grey clouds), the wind is literally whistling through the apartment, it's sunny with raindrops all over my windows, and there is a tumbleweed--an actual tumbleweed, guys--blowing across the parking lot. 

I'm kind of loving it.  Mostly because it's fun to watch while I'm snuggled up under my NHS blanket (the one the paramedics gave me when I blew up the kitchen) while I'm pretending to study for my exam.

Wow, scratch the sunshine bit.  It suddenly started pouring.  And there are people wearing shorts and hoodies sprinting across the parking lot.  hahahaha!

Monday (tomorrow) marks the official start of finals week, I think.  (If it didn't officially begin on Saturday, that is.  Dunno.)  I've got an exam on Tuesday, my last essay is due Wednesday, but hopefully it'll already (magically) be completed and I'll get to head home early.

It's sunny again, by the way.  And the rain has stopped.

Spring break is only a week this year, so by April 1 I'll be back up in Santa Barbara slogging through the first week of my last quarter (!!!!).  I'm teaching a writing class of my own creation on Friday afternoons called "Villains in Fiction," and I'm... sort of already freaking out a bit.  Mostly because when I'm supposed to do some kind of public speaking and I get nervous I talk too much.  Gaaaahhhh.

It'll be fine, though.  It's alllll going to be fiiine.

The sky is now completely clear.  I really don't understand how.

After 244 Years, Encyclopaedia Britannica Stops the Presses

futurejournalismproject:

From the NY Times:

After 244 years, the Encyclopaedia Britannica is going out of print.
Those coolly authoritative, gold-lettered sets of reference books that were once sold door to door by a fleet of traveling salesmen and displayed as proud fixtures in American homes will be discontinued, the company is expected to announce on Wednesday.
In a nod to the realities of the digital age — and, in particular, the competition from the hugely popular Wikipedia — Encyclopaedia Britannica will focus primarily on its online encyclopedias and educational curriculum for schools, company executives said.
The last edition of the encyclopedia will be the 2010 edition, a 32-volume set that weighs in at 129 pounds and includes new entries on global warming and the Human Genome Project.
“It’s a rite of passage in this new era,” Jorge Cauz, the president of Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc., a Chicago-based company, said in an interview. “Some people will feel sad about it and nostalgic about it. But we have a better tool now. The Web site is continuously updated, it’s much more expansive and it has multimedia.”

244 years.  Wow.

...Can't remember anymore

It's been kind of a long day.  Week.  Quarter?  I'm ready for it to be over.  Finished an essay on the intrusive gaze of the viewer in Mary Cassatt's paintings this morning about fifteen minutes before it was due.  Eleven pages.  Printed it out, rushed off to class, turned it in.

There isn't much going on these days.  Not that's interesting, at least.  School.  Writing.  Trying to see how long I can go without actually making a trip to the grocery store.  Still trying to get published.  And make sure I'm going to graduate.

Although it occurred to me--not for the first time, but definitely with a degree of clarity that hadn't yet presented itself--that I shouldn't just settle down in whatever job I can find after graduation.  I should actually try to use my degree, my writing skills, because then I'd look better (on paper) for grad school.  Which is definitely going to happen, just not right (write) away.  (hardy-har-har.)

And now I get to worry about pictures for graduation announcements.  I keep getting flashbacks to all the useless hoops you jump through to graduate from high school.  Ugh.  Yes, I'm proud of myself, but I'm not sure I understand why on earth it's such a big deal.  I'm pretty sure I'd be quite pleased with a tasty and massive pig-out session at a nice restaurant with my family and--actually, I don't know what else I'd want.  Graduation's just in time for all the summer blockbusters.  Maybe a free movie ticket?

Clearly my standards are sufficiently low to get by on whatever. 

God, I need sleep.  I hate long essays.  I started the research for that paper almost a week ago, and I stillend up writing and fixing stuff up until the very last second.

I wish I had junk food.

It's all downhill from here.

The MLA has officially devised a standard format to cite tweets in an academic paper.
(via cmonstah:warbyparker)

The first thing that popped into my head was high schoolers learning MLA format and trying to reference Kanye or... I don't even know, some other irrelevant celebrity in an essay.  I find that mind-boggling and not a little unsettling.