ah, the end of the semester (i call it "cheating death").

You would think by now that I would have planned for the end of the semester cram, late-night paper writing (oh, don't EVEN bring up my pseudo-prospectus disaster!), and preparing for graduate-level presentations the week before dead week. But no. Here I sit in the nice new building at BSU, the Interactive Learning Center, in a room that I reserved for student conferences (you know, to seem more teacherly and to seem like I have connections in high places that hook me up with a sweet breakout room. . .), and weirdly stroking the shiny, silky, fragrant-- in a bookish sort of way-- cover of the new LCRE Moby-Dick.

I thought I'd share the most brilliant opening of a book. Ever. Even though I complain about my coursework, I am still tragically in love with Herman Melville's writing. I also thought I'd share the REAL first line of Moby-Dick (none of that "Call me Ishmael" pishposh):

"Etymology"
(Supplied by a late consumptive Usher to a grammar school.)

The pale Usher-- threadbare in coat, heart, body, and brain; I see him now. He was ever dusting his old lexicons and grammars, with a queer hankerchief, mockingly embellished with all the gay flags of all the known nations of the world. He loved to dust his old grammars; it somehow mildly reminded him of his mortality.

Ah. Dearest Usher: I, too, know mortality. . . especially when my laptop loses a wireless internet connection repeatedly and my cell phone battery dies after less than the stated battery life on the box. Ah, being threadbare.