I tried to enable my new microphone again but got the same screeching sound. I tried lowering the microphone volume to find out if it being at maximum was causing the feedback, but it was still there and just as loud. But when I put the jack in the lower front port my computer set up the mic all over again and there was no problem. When I put the webcam in the upper port the system set that up again too and everything was fine.
Around midday I went to Freshco. The grapes were all too soft so I got seven bags of the very expensive cherries. I also bought half a pint of raspberries, kettle chips, ground beef, five year old cheddar, regular old cheddar, Greek yogourt, spoon size shredded wheat, orange juice and Irish Spring soap.
When I got home my wifi was down.
At 13:00 I was very sleepy and so I took an early siesta.
When I got up at 14:30 I had cherries and then chips with salsa and yogourt for lunch.
I worked on my Brit Lit 2 paragraph assignment and shaved it down from 1300 to 1200 words. Just 900 to go. By 17:30 I’d whittled it down to 900 words. By 18:00 I was down to 823 words. By 19:00 I was at 670 words. By 19:30 the word count had dropped to 586 and so now I was only at double the requirement. By dinnertime it was 515.
I made a fresh batch of chicken gravy and had some with a small potato and a curried chicken leg while watching Andy Griffith.
In this story a fishing buddy of Andy from the state capital says that he’s nominated him to be a member of his club. He invites Andy to come up to the Esquire Club for dinner on Thursday night to be presented to the other members for consideration. Andy says he would be bringing his deputy, Barney along and the guy says that’s fine. When Barney hears about this he is over the top with excitement because the Esquire Club is extremely exclusive. Andy doesn’t care one way or the other. On the night of the dinner Barney puts on airs to try to impress the club members. He tries to discuss things about which he knows nothing like the stock market and golf. He thinks for instance that the highest golf score is the best. After the dinner Barney is overwhelmed with anticipation of receiving word from the club. Later two of the members visit Andy to announce that he’s in but Barney isn’t. Andy says that Barney is his friend and he doesn’t think the club would be a good fit for either of them. When Barney hears that only one of them has been accepted he thinks they rejected Andy and says he’s going to send them a letter of resignation.
The wifi was still down after dinner. It’s been a couple of months since this happened last. I assume it will be on again when Shankar gets home from work. But sometimes it goes off for me when he’s home. In any case it should be back on either later tonight or in the morning.
My paragraph assignment was down to 474 words by 22:22 and at that point my brain was too tired to work on it until tomorrow. I shouldn’t have any problem getting it down to the right size on Friday and then it will just be down to fine tuning:
John Keats’ sonnet “When I have fears that I may cease to be” laments how fears about time rob one of the moment. The poet speaker worries that time will run out before his dreams of immortality and lasting love are realized. But he also knows that dwelling on these fears is what keeps him from sailing freely on the ocean of the world instead of standing static on its shore and wasting his time until he sinks into oblivion.
But he also worries that he will never elevate his poetry to the tracing of the shadows of the symbols of high romance with the magic hand of chance that a poet wields. Being open to chance in order to plant poetry involves waiting patiently as opposed to thinking “never”. The line “Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance” is the volta. By rendering it the most assonance heavy line in the sonnet Keats makes it magical and the least accidental of all the lines and “chance” and “romance” are connected through their rhyme.
High romance in this poem is a trinity of great poetic narratives, deep inspiration, and love. The placement of the second quatrain of high romance between the quatrains of poetic fame and love serves to bridge the two.
The third quatrain laments a lover whom the speaker knows is limited to an hour. But he also knows that worry over when she will be gone is a waste of that hour and yet he ironically reflects on having a love that is unreflecting. He knows the power of the moment is the magic that appears when love is unencumbered by thought and yet he thinks and limits his enchantment.
In the last half of the twelfth line the semi-colon and em dash are barriers separating the speaker from his goals. His reflection on “never” having love or fame confines him to solitude on the other side of the em dash on the shore that separates him from the world. After the em dash is “then” which points to the result of the three occurrences of “when” in each quatrain: “When I fear …”, “When I think I may never …”, “When I feel I shall never …” “When” he limits his time with reflection “then” he is separated from the moment. After “then” his thinking is funnelled into a contraction of “until” that puts him in abbreviated time and hurries the tragic result of his potential condemnation to unenchanted mortality. The rhyming of “think” and “sink” emphasizes the result of his dangerous reflections on time as fame as a poet, high romance and love are the ships that could propel him over the ocean of the world, but they sink to oblivion because of thought. The conclusion is fatal but the solution lies in the ideal of unreflecting love.
I got tired without the internet to keep me awake and so I went to bed more than half an hour early.
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