OH BLURG.

Well I've just gotten back from the library and have decided not to go for a run for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it is approximately two degrees outside (or twenty-four, you know, whatever). And I'd like to retain feeling in my toes. Secondly, what happened at the library called for no, not a run in which I would both freeze my ass off and spend four miles dodging black ice on the roads, but instead, a glass of wine or three.

So here's the story: when my professor first mentioned our seminar papers (due December 31...meaning that I will be spending those last few minutes before midnight not in revelry, but in frantic concluding mode....this is my prediction, at least), she said that we should, above all, write about something that interests and excites us. This sounded great. I knew I could do that.

And I did--I found a topic about which I was really excited (which isn't hard because I totally have a crush on Vergil) and in which I was both interested and becoming quite invested. So today I finally went to the library to gather my thoughts and make some final photocopies before the library closes for the holiday. And there I was, reading merrily along, when I came across a footnote that made my stomach flip. I realized that someone else had already thought my brilliant thoughts and thus, had already written my paper. Sure enough, when I looked up the article, there it was. My paper. Written in 1965. And then I said a very bad word out loud in the library. But luckily, the only people in the library on December 22nd are sad graduate students like myself who are still writing their papers and have become numb to such language. So it all works out!

So I spent the rest of the afternoon frantically photocopying MORE sources and trying to will a new topic into my head. I did read the article (i.e. MY PAPER circa 1965), and I think I'll still be ok...it will definitely require a hefty amount of reorganization and rethinking, and it certainly won't be anything groundbreakingly brilliant (not that this was ever a real possibility), but it will be ok. I don't think I have to go back to square one....entirely. But half-way back to square one? Absolutely.

So, lovely readers, no. A run in the freezing cold was not going to happen after the realization that my paper was written before I was a gleam in my father's eye. But wine? Wine was definitely going to happen. And so it has. Because that's the way to bring clarity to the rewriting of my paper. Obviously.