Eventide E-lliteration

The clot of exhaust from a warming car engine has a sick smell to it when coupled with the bite of a crisp, cool November night. It is a night with skies that may as well be clear but for the splotches of gray that crisscross the scattering of stars, visible on this unique night that can only be contained under the ambiguous heading of "early winter in Chicago". Winter is not here yet, as is plain by the lack of snow and the sun that breaks through every-so-often from somewhere beyond the clouds. Yet it is clearly November. That is, the season of crispness: when one looks out or walks out or is out and, looking up at those solid white walls of clouds, seemingly without variation or shift, a single word comes to mind. Bleak. Not that I don't like bleak. In fact, there is something enticingly beautiful about how the red brick and the leafless trees' silhouettes stand so strongly against that white background, stoic symbols of life in a world that could be confused for dying. It is a beauty that they don't have in evergreen places, and I wonder if they would appreciate it.

All this is to say that the night is average, and so is the day, but I am seeking out the beauty in it just the same. I spent four hours in the library today. Certainly not the most time I have ever spent, but perhaps the most so far this semester? at least in one sitting. It was going to be three, but a meeting was shortened and it became four. Just the same, I only wrote three pages in that time, so I suppose it didn't really matter. Anyway, it was really just a precursur for tomorrow - a warm-up, if you will. My intention is to spend the whole day in the library tomorrow: from about noon until they kick me out at ten in the evening, if I can last that long. I have to admit that my library stamina does not appear to be what it used to be. Still, I am quite certain that sheer determination and will shall win the day. I have every intention of finishing the first draft of my senior thesis by Monday, when presentations begin. And while I am rather certain that it is not actually going to happen, I have resolved myself to pushing as hard as I can to get as close to completion as possible. My secondary goal, of course, is to be finished by Thanksgiving break. That way I can go home and nestle myself in a cozy place with a big mug of cocoa and go over the whole thing with my editor-red pen that, by then, I will have acquired in one way or another. That way, perhaps, I will be able to call my work "done" by the end of that weekend, more or less, and, with the exception of a few later revisions, I will not have to worry about it for the last couple weeks of the semester.

I can set those two weeks aside for writing my 1960's term paper from start to finish. I'm sure that would be appreciated.

P.S. I should say that I much appreciated the insightful comments on my poll. They are being mulled over, I can assure you. :)