elanya

I just woke up from a nap.

I had such good intentions, too. I went to the library this afternoon to look stuff up and get out some books for the weekend, so I woudl have things to work on from home when I wasn't working on marking essays. I have until Wednesday to get those done, though, so I didn't want to jump into them right away. I am, in fact, technically on Fall Break starting today, so I am planning on taking things kind of slow. I still intended to do the following things this weekend, apart from marking: a: Read/skim the next book for Sea Power, since the review is due on Friday. b: Read the next book for Carl's class and take notes (it's barely 100 pages, but it is on Dutch ecomony and art (Art and Commerce in the Dutch Golden Age by Michael North, in fact). c: E-mail some people about the project that I want to do for my thesis and for which I need to write some kind of proposal for Babit's class by the end of November. d: Check out some of the sources that I own that I can use for my paper on 'Methods/Tactics of Piracy' for Dr. Dudley (Dr. D... for damned Awesome!). e: Look over some of the sources I'd earmarked for my paper on 'Piracy and the Law' for Carl's class.

Well, I went to the library this afternoon, like I said. I went through the catalogue with the list of suggested books we had, looking for one from the remaining two eras I need to cover. (I have to do a third review, but instead of lookign at more modern periods, I'm planning to read Julian Corbet's book on strategy, to go with my castex from earlier. I've heard it is easy to read, anyway, and interesting.). There was a book on the list on naval surgeons, so I wrote down the call number of a book by that name. Notice how I said 'a' book :p It turns out it was a different book by the same name, and didn't cover the right period. *Sigh*. I did the catalogue checking when I first went in because the library catalogue is going to be offline *until Monday*. So, yeah, I can't go and see if they have the book that I really want until then... I spent most of the afternoon going through the rest of the Evans Bibliography and noting a couple of more useful references to look up on mircofilm later.

Oh, right, there was also a record for this: Onania, or the heinous love of self-pollution, and all its frightful consequences in both sexes, considered. With spiritual and physical advice to those who have already injured themselves in the abominable practice. Published in 1726 in Boston, as the eleventh edition! Hee! I tried to find a copy on the web with little luck, But here is an article on the pamphlet or book, or whatever. There are tonnes more references on Google, if you are curious. If I have time, while I'm looking through other stuff, I'll have a peek at it too. From what I can tell from skimming the web, it seems like this anonymous tirade against masturbation is what kicked off (or at least intensified) a lot the negative and false ideas about whackin' in European/Noth America culture. Essentially, however, it was a quaky litle book designed to help sell quacky tinctures, powders, and what not to make you stop wanting to touch yourself at night, during the day, or really pretty much ever. Quack!

Anyway, when I went to get the Sea Power book, it was gone. When I went to grab some other books I wanted, they were missing. When I *did* grab some books which are copies of records from the PRO office in London dealing with South Carolina, I wasn't thihiking and grabbed the wrong years, as far as I can tell...

Bah! Not as useful an afternoon as I'd intended, especially since I came home to do readings from the few books I did uselessly collect, and wound up falling asleep :p And now, I don't feel like working. I heard that mayeb there was Stuff going on this evening with program people, but I don't know details. Maybe I will call Dina and find out, so that I can plan, and maybe have some dinner. Blah.

I started writing a bit for my Daniel story last noight. I think I will post it in sections as it progresses, because I don't know how long ti will wind up being. I really need to figure out *exactly* what the action of it is going to be. I have some ideas, but I'm going to need some more specifics if it is going to work. It is probably going to mostly be short, disconnected, vignettes, because that's the only way to keep up the momentum with Dan stories. Otherwise I get bogged down in details. He is very detail oriented, damn him.

If anyone is gong to be online tonight and would like to hangout or whatever, lemme know :) If nothing else, I will probably do some Perseity updates, once I can sort out my characters' thoughs.