Just before Thanksgiving Jeffrey Eugenides came for his turn in our English class. He brought with him an enormous poodle, previously sighted at the arts building while I was saying a quick hello to Mom and Uncle Hoagie-Free-Zone. The poodle behaved very well, but sat bolt upright and seemed to smile when we gave a round of applause at the end of class. He offered some great insight into the writing process (as have all the authors, although they each one has said things about their process that was totally at odds with the person preceding them) and made jokes about the movie version of The Virgin Suicides, which, according to him, is best at two in the morning dubbed into German and viewed in a cramped Berlin hotel.
Today in English there were no guests (C.K. Williams is next, on Wednesday) but we did cover a lot of material, as always. One thing that I learned that I can share with you (since it is not bound up in context and terminology) is that Pandora's Box is a mistranslation. It was originally Pandora's Jug. Somehow I can't see that catching on.
Thanksgiving break was quite excellent. Dinner at the Home of the J Names was fantastic (we had about three pounds of turkey and two pounds of potatoes available per person) and the next day's revelries at the home of erstwhile Cousin R, known henceforth as The Street, were fun. Dad badly shocked Cousin L with one of his charades clues, Grandpa stymied us all with "I Left My Hat in Haiti" and Uncle Awesome-Comments saved Dad in the nick of time by guessing Lysistrata. I drove us back to Poe's Resting Place in the dark along winding Pennsylvania roads and got us lost, but this proved to be a blessing in disguise since it was an unanticipated shortcut.
Today I came dangerously close to having to read my Creative Writing work at the Student Reading on December 12th. It was a runoff between me and a senior girl. I'm glad that we picked her, since it's her last chance and she writes amazingly well, but also because I have a love-hate relationship with this semester's project and the sooner I'm done with the characters the better. I did figure out why I wasn't liking it that much, though. In class today another girl (the one who is slightly insane and whose style mine most closely resembles) pointed out that the suggestions we were giving her was making her story too much of a coming of age tale.
Now, my parents know that I hate coming of age tales with a passion, since they most often take the form of horny teenage boys with no feelings (or emotions that they haven't locked tight in a box) growing to hate each other and pushing each other out of trees. Sometimes it takes place in Baltimore and is a movie. Sometimes it doesn't.
"We are coming of age," another girl said.
Bingo! We were assigned to write about our lives, and the most interesting tales are the recent ones and we are coming of age. It all added up and I understood why I never really got to like my story.
Ah well. I still LOVE my NaNoWriMo novel, and I have 41,675 words written, so everything's fine.
"We Published F. Scott" has a meeting at 11:00 pm tonight. What the what? This truly is the life of a college student: nocturnal.

P.S. It was incredibly foggy this late afternoon/evening in Princeton. To those who know: is that normal?