Okay so I was chillin' with a couple of folks from work tonight and as predicted, my thoughts turn to this girl that I managed to ask out and yet received no reply from. The past couple of days I've somehow managed to get over my weirdness to some degree - pretty bold for me. But, I must admit that seeing her at work drives me crazy. Yes...I don't know what it is but she drives me more crazy in this undetermined state than she did before - pretty considerable stuff (those who know me know how picky I am with this stuff and how rarely I give out these sorts of comments - consider this my point of reference). Anyway, I've put a pitcher on her not getting back to me by next wed (and so I'd chalk this up to the 5th straight, and 4th of 5 weird rejections). And you know - actually I'm sure you do - I'm awfully bumbed about this. First, and most clearly, I'm bumbed that she doesn't seem to share what I feel, and especially after I've let her know, though to a small degree, how I feel. But, I'm also disappointed at how Romantically challenged I have continued to be. In the past 4.5 years of continued singledom, I have asked out now 5 people. So, you can see that this isn't a common occurence. And, well, the operative word (though it really isn't one) from that preceding phrase is "singledom". Still single. Thus, I find myself in a futher emotional quarry at still feeling this growing, and dare I say, permanent?, loneliness? Hey. Soon it will just me in this humble abode with the dog. And I'm gonna be commuting to school most days of the week. Since grade 3 the furthest distance that I've ever had to go to school is the walk from this house to Lansdowne and as D can attest to, that's hardly anything. So, this year, especially if alone - as is most likely, will certainly be one filled with "interesting" experiences.

But, in the interest of time and sleep, I'm gonna shift gears slightly to school and the Rome part of this. I can rest assured that my mind still goes coo coo for dead Romans and whenever I read stuff about it, I find myself enthralled. So, I've finally gotten around to finishing (or will be soon) a book entitled "Procopius and the Sixth Century" by the esteeemd Professor Averil Cameron (at Oxford). The book's about this Procopius guy, a favourite of mine, who lived in the - are you ready for this? - 6th century. So, in the end of his major work he has a digression in which he talks about this land called Brittia. In this Brittia he claims that there is a wall which he finds fascinating, that separates the inhabitable part of the country from the good parts. But, he doesn't know anymore, particularly who made it. Well...for those of you in the dark with him, he is probably referring to (or so Cameron says - though the translator claims Denmark) Britain. And that wall? Likely Hadrian's Wall. So what's so special about that? Over 150 years before this work by Procopius was written, that wall was the northernmost limit of the Roman Empire. It had been built in the middle of the 2nd century under the tutelage of the Emperor Hadrian, a guy who was all about shoring up the defenses as opposed to the more popular expansionist tendencies of his predecessors. And now (well, actually then) here we are in the 6th century and the current Romans have no idea what this wall is or who put it there. Moreover, they don't realize that this land was actually under Roman control for almost 400 years. Yeah. Pretty cool stuff eh? I think that it's nearly infinitely awesome. Just, fucking awesome. Anyway, I also love the personal stuff - particularly letters because well they by and large weren't to be published and so you can get a better feel for the moods of a few citizens.

Anyway, that's it. I've gone on enough. So now to bed to lament about the girl and while crying hysterically in my heart, I shall be smilling in my brain at the thoughts of "Rome's demise".