All's quiet on the Northwest Front...

...and the silence is puncutated only by Kat's frantic coughing and gagging for air...

That's right, I passed the plague on to her. For me the plague manifested itself in the form of a wicked bad sinus infection. For Kat, apparently it's a bad case of strep. And by apparently what I mean is doctor's are all quacks and not to be trusted. Ever.

Inevitably, Adam will contract le plague. For him it will more than likely manifest itself in leprosy. Rick will too...his will be...lord only knows

So...let's see...I gave illness to both Adam and Kat. Spring break is at the end of this week. Adam will be going home to Rhode Island. Kat to North Carolina. Rick will infect the part of Pennsylvania that I have no power over. From there it will spread like wildfire and within a few months time I will have unknowingly infected the entire east coast of the United States.

Mwahahaha!!!!

I mean...I'm sorry?

Well, aside from an ill roommate, life's well I guess. My own sickness has more or less abated, though a rough cough that hurts my ribs lingers still.

I finally finished reading Love and Other Near Death Experiences. I must say, I was incredibly disappointed. M. Mil. has two things that make his novels worth reading. Characterization and incredibly witty dialogue and descriptive abilities.

By characterization I do not mean that his characters are deep, heroic and brilliant all rolled up into something that looks like the lovechild of Burt Reynolds and Nicole Kidman. One of the things I like most about him is the fact that he never gives a detailed physical description of his characters. The most you get is "she had blonde hair" or something like that. It's like he's emphasizing the triviality of looks. Triviality I say. Is that a word?

Anyways...characterization. His characters are utterly normal people with largely boring lives and occuptions usually involving books in some way, shape or form (English teacher, librarian). There's an intangible quality about them, usually realized through his trademark dialogue, sarcasm and irony, that just makes you love them. Furthermore, you'll often find yourself wishing that they were real life people, just so the world had better hope for tomorrow...and by that what I mean is so that you could have more friends for Friday Night Block Parties.

As noted about, this man has unparalleled wit and humor. No one makes me laugh quite the same way he does.

Or did.

This novel, it was almost as though he concentrated too hard on making the story interesting and lost what really matters in the first place. Despite several near death experiences involving brainwashed American military, a Christian right terrorist group called the Servants of Azrael, a blown up warehouse and a house set afire in the middle of Wales, the novel was utterly uncaptivating. In past works we've seen the appearance of the Triad (and by that I do in fact mean the crime syndicate) as well as a British soap opera television star, yet in neither of those books was the plot overwhelming the characters or the writing itself and it worked. Beautifully. Perfectly. In this go, he just fell off the ball. The characters had potential, one was mildly interesting but she ended up going too far and just pissing me off, the rest were utterly bland. And I am sad. Utterly depressed, in fact. I'm still a huge fan, have a lot of faith in him, but I am sad.

Furthermore...I just found out that I have a paper due today. It was assigned while I was in Tennessee. And I missed class last week because of the plague. This is the first time I haven't heard of this paper before tonight. Class is in an hour.

Chances are Prof. Ho Chi Minh will allow me to write the paper by the end of the week or maybe even after Spring break, but until I find out for sure I am faced with the conundrum of writing 5 pages in an hour.

However; Brokeback Mountain only won two Oscars despite being up for at least 6. *rocks* All may be right with the world afterall.