Xi

It's just this squiggle I can't write,
not yet. Uncertainty is bliss.
This pause: no life-change, no great insight -
it's just this squiggle I can't write.
These underrated words: could. Might.
Who knows? For now there's time, there's this.
It's just this squiggle I can't write.
Not yet. Uncertainty is bliss.


Yuck. Triolets just don't do it for me. I wrote that yesterday while very tired, and knew straight away that it would be one of those poems I would never have time to go back and work on, but I felt I should preserve it somewhere so I've preserved it here. Really, how can you say everything you want to say in eight lines - actually five lines, two of which repeat themselves - without sounding all simpery and twee? Poetic twee. I can't do it. And I disagree with myself completely on "Uncertainty is bliss" - uncertainty is not bliss, it can be liberating and exciting sometimes, which I think is what I meant, but "bliss" is the wrong word. But if I change it, I'll have to change the sixth line too - to what? To be honest, there's no time to work on this. It's going in the MIGHT POSSIBLY SALVAGE THIS ONE DAY IN THE DISTANT FUTURE pile. Moving on.

Greek. I knew I would like it, but I didn't know how much. It's fantastic. Really, really intense (the teacher, Theodora - when someone figured out her name meant God's gift, Eve, a woman in the class, went, "OH!!! OH, that's BEAUTIFUL!!!!" and Theodora blushed a LOT - anyway, Theodora said we would be at intermediate level by the end of the course, so...we're moving pretty fast). It's a mark of my geekery that all I'm doing lately is declining nouns and putting accents over words and actually enjoying it. And I like the routine of it too: getting up, getting the train and tube to UCL, going down to the little classroom; being in the classroom with the four other students (all of whom are older than me - there's a Latin teacher, a postgrad and undergrad in English, and an older woman called Eve who's "just doing it for fun"), and all of us ploughing through the Greek, translating hilarious little stories - "Dicaeopolis works all day and groans and says, "O Zeus! Life is hard!!!" - and then eating lunch somewhere, doing more Greek, highlighting stuff, underlining stuff, and then lectures in the afternoon. The day before yesterday there was one from Peter Jones, author of Reading Greek and Reading Latin and a book I've got called The Intelligent Person's Guide To Classics, which must be the ponciest book title ever, but it's a great book and he's AMAZING. And yesterday there was a lecture by the UCL guy Stephen I've-Forgotten-His-Last-Name-Dammit, which was also really good.

So, Greek - as brilliant as I expected, and more.

In other news...tomorrow is...well, I suppose tomorrow could be called the first date. Which seems RIDICULOUS, considering how long this has all been going on, but it is officially, I suppose...er, that. I don't really know how I feel about this. Excited? Scared? The usual, then. One half of the brain going "YAY! OMG YAY!!!" and the other half thinking, "He is soooo going to come to his senses tomorrow." Hmm. I'm going to stop talking about this because I don't think I can be fully articulate.

Yesterday was prizegiving at school. I won the Ancient Languages Reading Cup, an adorable little goblet I could actually drink out of, and it has my name inscribed on it at the end of a list of previous year 12 ancient language readers. Prizegiving was boring as hell as usual, the only funny bit being when we had to sing God Save The Queen and all the language teachers refused to sing it, and Mr M The Poncy Plato-Quoting Drama Teacher stood there with his hands in his pockets, wearing his best "I am a rebel I am above this kind of crap" scowl. The food afterwards was rubbish too.

It meant I was so tired when I got home that I didn't do any Greek homework, and so I have to go now and will be scribbling it all down furiously on a train packed with commuters. Woohoo.