Finals Week

"Night"

by Albert Giraud
(German symbolist poet)

Sinister giant black butterflies
Eclipse the blazing disk of sun.
Like a sealed-up book of wizard's spells
Sleeps the horizon--secret silent.

From dank forgotten depths of Lethe
A scent floats up, to murder memory.
Sinister giant black butterflies
Eclipse the blazing disk of sun.

And from heaven downward dropping
To the earth in leaden circles,
Invisible, the monstrous swarm
Descends upon the hearts of men,
Sinister giant black butterflies.

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I dread the night, for if I shut my eyes,
one more day is gone.
It will be one day less of time to do the work I need to do.
But you can't run away from the dark.
Just close your eyes...for you will see light when you open them again.
One day less, but one hope more.

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I admit, the past few days have not been particularly fun.
Too many times I find myself lacking the will power to get things done. Just get it done.
Good grades come with a price. In know that...because I have gotten good grades many a time.
But it isn't fair that slow thinkers need to put in more effort when others can to the same amount of work in less time, with results just as good, if not better.

It has been a never ending cycle - this struggle to meet deadlines.
There are too many good reasons for the existence of deadlines to even argue against it.
Deadlines...you cross it, you are dead.

Dummy Fact: The poem "Night" was used by Schoenberg in his work Pierrot lunaire (1912) which is a song cycle using texts from a minor symbolist poet, Albert Giraud. The words are sung in a style called Spechstimme ("speech song"). If you've ever heard this piece of work, you'll know what I mean when I say, expressionism is the best way to describe my feelings right now.