penance

I feel compelled to tell every person I know about my particular sins, as if confession will cancel the consequences.

nostalgia

I remember those days when I would work really hard on something, then turn it in and a little while later I'd get it back with an A or A-.

I like getting A-s. An A-, especially with red marks all over, is commendation for a job well done and confirmation that the professor read your work, found flaws, and isn't a pushover.

An A- says "deserved" and "well-earned."

I miss those days.

These days I mostly work really hard at getting the work done and I hardly have time to get it done well.

But after doing poorly on my first Greek Myth paper, I worked hard on my second one.

I got it back today with lots of red ink and a penciled-in 92.

A-.

Thank you, Dostoevsky

Svidrigaylov lives the basest, most debauched life of any character in Crime and Punishment, then goes and shoots himself. In my gut I pity him, and even though we aren't supposed to make this sort of supposition about people, I can't shake the feeling that after death he was probably led to infinite suffering.

But then I remembered that he is fiction.

Freshman year I threw the book against the wall several times. I was frustrated with Dostoevsky for creating characters that seemed so real then making them suffer so much. (My story writing was always weak because I didn't have the heart to make my characters suffer.)

But they are fiction.

So I can make them suffer all I like.

And therefore tell a story.

at the end of the day

I'm still just as dumb as everyone else.

the difference is

Fatima

Something was crawling on my little statue of Our Lady, and I was about to flick it off, but then I realized it was a Ladybug.

underground thoughts