In my Anglo-Saxon England class today we started reading Asser's Life of King Alfred. Alfred was a pretty cool guy, fending off Vikings and making his country more literate. He realized no one was really learning Latin anymore in England, and he said (In Old English, so probably not these exact words), "Therefore it seems better to me- if it seems so to you- that we too should turn into the language that we can all understand certain books which are the most necessary for all men to know..."

Then our professor asked us to get into groups and decide what five books we would deem "most necessary for men to know." What a hard choice! Here are some of mine, in chronological order, and I am by NO means an expert on this, these are just some books I think are important.

The Bible- I think this is self explanatory as the basis for the religions of millions of people.
Beowulf- Not only a classic English piece, but shows a typical epic poem, the transition from oral to documentary culture, from pagan to Christian, from warrior to pacifistic.
The Prince- A good idea of some lasting ideas about politics and government.
Heart of Darkness- a journey in itself!
Brave New World- My personal favorite book ever. Oh, and an interesting look at what was seen as a possible future in the 30s.

So, more importantly, what do YOU think? What do you think are the "books most necessary for men to know?"

Achievements of yesterday:

• Ate sushi for the first time and loved it!
• Made 42 chocolate chip oatmeal cookies. For the first time, all 42 are edible.
  
• Made 12 cornbread muffins. Again, all 12 are edible! Woot!
• Ate batter from the cookie mix...and didn't die.
• Cleaned my room and made my bed so I feel a little more at home here.

Acheivements of today:

• Went to class, got there on time.
• Got a free T-shirt in my size because it's homecoming week.
• Worked for three hours. 30 bucks that I won't see until November 6th...hardly seems worth it now, but it is.
  

Last week was so crazy! I started 16 units of class, ten hours of work a week, and the usual daily band schedule. Luckily during work I can mostly just do homework since I work at the library, but it's still less time in my apartment and more time on campus lugging around all my stuff. Plus, I had PR Comm stuff and a ton of books to buy for class. Oh, and to top it all off, I got a really icky cold on Thursday that just ended today. So, everyone I breathed on...sorry.

Anyways, my germs aside, the week was CRAZY non stop, then game day on Saturday! The game was really great, I was pretty nervous for pre-game since I'm a tunnel line leader and I was SURE I would screw up the entire line, but I think it went ok. We watched the tape at Silent Walk and no one screamed, "OH MY GOD WHO IS THAT DUMMY BETWEEN THE 20 AND THE 25!?" And I can't exactly check up on things behind me during pregame. "Excuse me, are we approximately 4 step spacing? Yes? Righto."

Sunday I really paid for giving the game my all, I could hardly breathe/move/talk because my head felt so inflated from my cold and my throat so scratchy from all the noise-making at the game. After walking around and eating lots of chicken and rice soup I felt a ton better. The random noodle shaped like the letter 'R' in my rice soup helped too. The randomness of that reminded me of this Christmas carol sing-a-long book my sister and I used to have that would play Christmas carol music on a side panel of the book if you pressed the corresponding button. One time, we were just playing in her room when I was about 10, and from it's place on the bookshelf, it started playing nursery rhymes. So creepy. You know what else is creepy? I'm going to be twenty in like...a week. Eeep!

This week: read Middle Eastern history, read Anglo-Saxon history, read medieval Europe history, read California history, memorize post-game music, be less stressed out. Can do!