Bit of Ivory

One paper down. It’s awful. I can claim nothing but a combination of A. Sheer exhaustion B.My status as Co-Queen of Procrastination and C. Pure, unadulterated laziness.

Well, the paper’s not actually awful, but it’s not my greatest. It’ll probably get a B. In addition to the factors listed above, I wasn’t really into my paper topic (I wrote on the connections between Mansfield Park and an essay Austen read called “The Military Policy and Institutions of the British Empire”). It’s hard to be persuasive over something that means nothing to you. Oh, well. It’s done, it’s turned in, and now I can start concentrating on my Austen paper, which I’m actually excited about– my topic is on familial difficulties in the courtship process in Pride and Prejudice and how those difficulties are a comment on the change from social/mercenary marriages toward romantic/companionate marriage that was taking place at the time she wrote it. The best part about this essay is that I’m going to enter it in the Jane Austen Society of North America essay contest.

So while I wasn’t actually writing my paper, I was procrastinating writing it by doing any number of things. On Friday we went and bought the CoS DVD and watched the deleted scenes, commentaries and interviews– and the Chamber scene, so I could drool over Christian Coulson. My opinion on the deleted scenes is that I can see why some of them were taken out, but there should have been 4 that were left in: The scene in Borgin and Burkes, the scene where Colin is so much more fanboyish and says that he’s a Muggleborn, the scene where Justin Finch-Fletchley introduces himself to Harry, and the scene where the Trio talk about the diary. All of those would be so helpful to the plot. The interviews were all very fun, although I wanted to see one of Christian Coulson, which we didn’t get. The only other thing I have to say is that the deleted scenes should have been integrated into the movie, a la the Fellowship of the Ring Extended edition.

So after we watched that much of the movie, my roommate Jen and I went to the BYU Folk Dance Ensemble concert. It was very fun. I love folk dance. I’m not very good at it, but I like it.

When we got home from the concert, my best friend Nicole came over with her two-year-old daughter Rosalind (called Rosie) to spend the night. She’d had a wedding reception in Payson, which is just south of here, and her husband Steve was away doing Army training. After a trip to Ben and Jerry’s we settled down to watch CoS.

Rosie is the biggest two-year-old Potterhead I’ve ever seen. As soon as she walked in our apartment she saw our poster of Harry on the wall and said “Potter!” All Rosie needed to do was see the side of the DVD before she was saying “Want Potter! Watch Potter!” We had to take a trip to the grocery store because Nicole had forgotten extra Pull-Ups for Rosie, and I gave Rosie my wand to play with to keep her occupied. I said “Can you say ‘Windgardium Leviosa’?” and the whole time we were at the store she was waving the wand around saying something that was vaguely recognizable as “Wingardium Leviosa” but that I won’t try to spell. It was hilarious. When we finally got home and started watching the movie, Rosie loved Dobby, but called him Doddy. When he hadn’t been around for a while, she looked up at me and said “Where did Doddy do?” And as soon as he reappeared, she shouted “Doddy!” I, of course, found this all hilarious. Rosie’s adorable anyway (she looks a lot like Boo from Monsters Inc., but she’s even cuter when she loves Potter.

Rosie went to bed late and woke up early, of course, so I didn’t get as much sleep as I was hoping. After Nicole and Rosie left I went to work for 4 hours, then came home and acted like I was going to work on my paper. At 7:00 Jen and I went to the Ballroom Dance Company concert. Very different dancing from the concert we went to the night before, but equally enjoyable. The funnest part was the finale, which was done in blacklight with neon costumes. Everyone was an alien, and some of the costumes were wild.

After church yesterday I made an apple pie and prepared for some of the guys of our ward to come over for dinner. Ulises was making barbequed chicken, and Jen was making rolls. We sat around and chatted for a while after dinner, but after they left I actually worked on my paper. *gasp* I took another break for Ward Prayer and for dessert (we were all so full from dinner that we didn’t eat the pie until 10). Ulises and Jorge decided to nickname all the girls in our apartment. Jen is Barbie, Lisa is Cutest, Laura is Sweetest, Amber is California Beauty and I am Sweetheart. It’s the first time I’ve ever had such a nickname (no one has ever really thought our aparment important enough to give us nicknames), so I’m rather flattered. After Ulises and Jorge finally left, I was too tired to even think about writing my paper. So I went to bed and got up early this morning.

So that was my weekend. Tomorrow’s the last day of class, then it’s just finals and my other paper. Then I’m done. For good.

Yikes.

On a good note, our new laptops should have been delivered today. Welcome to Ginny II!