let alone this semester

I've been giving it some thought and hitting a brick wall fairly early each time, so I've decided to go ahead and begin my list of "to-dos" for the Winter Break. Though the day after tomorrow will dawn upon a new, recently done with the semester me, I still can't see the light at the end of the tunnel, that is: I can't really conceptualized a me that is done with anything, let alone this semester. Already my English Literature class is done, my Deans Scholars seminar is over, my Arabic work is done - leaving me only my COMS and Algebra finals, tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, respectively. But enough of that: what do I do next? There are quite a few events, including parties and Christmas family and Church get-togethers, traveling to Oklahoma, working, planning for next semester. By a list of things to do I mean things I want to do/ need done. We'll start with want to do.

Reading list: read a book. Fiction. Which one? I've been wanting to read a modern notable like Michael Chabon or David Foster Wallace, but it seems as if both libraries are all checked out of the books I want. I've also been reading Dante's Divine Comedy, but for some reason I'm thinking something... "lighter?" I don't know. Dante is pretty cool. I've also checked out a collection of H.P Lovecraft short stories. I'm a bit obsessed with Cthuhlu lately. I also need to finish Naguib Mafouz's "Children of Gebelawi," but that, too, seems a bit heavy for my needs right now. I have needs, and I'm going to feed them, and then sic them on somebody. Also there is my mentor's book "Poetry and the Public: The Social Form of Modern U.S. Poetics," that I need to read, and Leela Gandhi's "Postcolonial Theory" that I also need to read, but I'm thinking about having a non-academic rule concerning what I read over the break. That would mean that "Graduate Study for the 21st Century," which is also on my list/ stack, is also out of the question. God willing, my mother has purchased St. Ephraim the Syrian's "Spiritual Psalter," which will give me some substantial spiritual food, but still, I want some fiction. I am also almost done with the final Darwish compilation, which is fabulous.

Sigh.

My lists are really lacking these days.

Take two: Things to do over break:

1. Read a book.

It's a start. Here is a poem I wrote and posted at
la revista de la estrella blanca:

I want a suit
a grey suit, like
a real poet
serious but informal
tieless with the memory
of a tie having purposefully
been there earlier

like poets can wear suits
now like businessmen wore
suits but a poet might get
a state burial or a statue
but not me, I'll just be
a nobody in a suit