Artistic Distraction!

So, I am apparently back into the swing of things--reading week is over, and classes have returned. We had some good discussion on Daniel Deronda yesterday, and now I'm reading The Tenant of Wildfell Hall for tomorrow. It's a vast improvement over Agnes Grey in terms of actually entertaining me, but it's also much longer. But that's okay--substance is good!

I also declare my thesis topic tomorrow, which will be tons of fun--I have to reduce my explanation to 50 words, so we'll see how that goes. I'm also accumulating an ever growing stack of books from which to research, as well as lots of online articles that I need to read, which is somewhat overwhelming but mostly reassuring that I'm not just pulling ideas out of thin air.

On a side note, I have discovered that not only is the Middle Eastern grocery much much closer to my house than the big supermarket, but it is also much cheaper, and carries most of the basic things I need for every day meals. It's a hole the wall, but they sell two litres of milk for a pound, and various fruits and vegetables of enormous size, which is basically excellent. I'll be going there as much as possible.

Also, I'm finally getting in some practice time! Georgia arranged it so that I can call her in the morning on the day I want to practice, and she signs me up for a room and lets me into the building. It's sort of a pain for her, but since the music department isn't willing to give me a passcode or key fob or something to get in, we don't really have too many options. It does, however, have the distinct advantage for me of actually making me deliberately take the time to practice, and then use the time wisely. I generally do two hour sessions now, and its quite nice--in addition to a Rachmaninov etude, I'm trying to resuscitate Ravel's Sonatine, which I think I learned when I was 14? 15? Anyway, I'm actually up to the technical challenges this time around, and I like it a lot, so it'll be nice to have in my working repertoire. Vassar sort of spoiled me with all of their lovely Steinways, but the facilities here are fine. The building itself is rather labyrinthine, so I'm glad I have Georgia leading me about.

And finally, I got bored last night, so I did some random steampunk photoshopping. The result? New desktop wallpaper!
Basically made entirely from pictures of pocketwatches and Victorian stock graphics. Fun times!

No seriously, I do work here.