Sans Ecole

So, I don't have school today. Working on my last assignments before Graduation are about the last things I want to be doing.

I did finish my Finnish project - but I am now at the tedious point of having to do my bibliography. I was very stupid and did not make one as I went along in my research. Fool.

I also have to work on my term paper on Kerouac. I do love him, really really love him. BUT I am not in the mood to write a 12 page paper on his influence (or whatever I said I was going to write about). I am 1) too tired for large assignments and 2) not feeling that Kerouac needs a whole 12 page essay on him. I'd rather just read his books and feel him.

But this is what getting an education means. So, I reluctantly comply.

I really just want to be eating bread with jam and reading Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow by Peter Høeg. (The Danish title looks particularly beautiful: Frøken Smillas Fornemmelse for Sne)

It is an excellent book by the way. I am not really a fan of mystery novels. If I want thrill I'll just watch a movie. But this seems to be in an entirely different league.

It's about this woman named Smilla Jaspersen who is half-Greenlandic. She was born in Thule (Qaanaaq), Greenland where she spent most of her childhood. She now lives in Copenhagen and gets embroiled in this web of mystery regarding Danish-Greenlandic relations and sectrets and shipping. What makes it particularly a good read is the main character:

Smilla Jaspersen is in her late 30s and she is a very headstrong, cynical woman. Her insights on human nature and humanity are brilliant. She also conjures up many memories from her Greenlandic childhood which are fascinating in themselves. She comments on what its like living in a major European city from the perspective of someone from the tundra, basically.

This has made me very fascinated with Greenland. I hardly knew that people could live there! It does have a very small population, but it is a nation of Inuits with a very distinct and unique culture embedded in tradition and folklore.

I must do more research on this! (Though, I should be churning out a bibliography and writing scores of prose on Kerouac).