camera happy on campus

view from morningside drive
















tree on lewisohn lawn




















2 trees on lewisohn lawn




















post-christmas lights

undiary

thinking that a new post might help me break out of 'writer's bloc'

i guess this isn't exactly a diary anyway, so i won't bother backtracking except to say that the new semester's well on it's way and as it's the last one i'll experience, as an undergrad anyway, at columbia, i'm happy it's taken off to a swell start.

i'm taking two excellent literature classes: the foundations of american lit, with professor amanda claybaugh. readings include twain, dreiser, james. . . so far so good. claybaugh is excellent. . . second to dames or possibly just as good. her lectures are engaging and insightful--and she keeps me, anyway, at the edge of my seat. her sense of humor is a particularly wonderful asset. the other class is dan miron, this time a grad-level seminar on israeli poetry, taught in hebrew. alas, if my conversational hebrew is fairly good, my literary hebrew is sorely lacking and it takes pretty much all my concentration to try and keep up with miron's brilliant discussions about the poetry. of course it doesn't help that my book, which i ordered from israel as there were none left in the library, has yet to arrive. also, the class takes place at an ungodly 9 a.m. . . . (which means i need to be out of the house by 8 a.m. and class the night before ends at 8. ach)
my writing instructor is a bit odd. a fellow classmate did a good job, i think, describing her as 'passive-aggressive' she's got favorites and whatnot. but it seems i'm in luck because while she taunted another student for referring, in her short story, to an 'undead' character ("you can't tell me a character died and then say she's undead. she's either dead or she's not" ), she seemed to like my piece. so far, so good.
and art humanities, a core class that is supposed to give us an overview of western art. . . seems like it'll be ok, too. so far visited several architectural sites here in nyc including grant's tomb. who knew grant was buried in nyc? i didn't, until now.
and now i'm trying to write for two publications . . . one theater review and one essay on jewish identity. will see where this all goes.