Bored, bored, bored....At least there's a snooty foreign film coming to Lubbock this weekend. And I'm keeping myself busy with reading. I've finished The Lord of the Rings, which I enjoyed almost as much as when I first read it in seventh grade. This time, of course, I was more aware of its Catholic motifs. Galadriel is a type of the BVM, and the elven lembas, or "waybread," which though "it did not satisfy desire," yet "fed the will and gave strength to endure," is a Middle Earth Eucharist. (Compare "waybread" with "viaticum", the Latin name for the Eucharist when taken at the point of death.) Anyway, now I'm going to try The Silmarillion for the third time. Previously I found its lofty prose as impassible as Caradhras, but I would like to think I'm more patient now.

At work things are slowing down too. I managed to spend all of the FY2003-2004 budget, thanks to the music prof requesting 15-CD collections of Bach organ fugues and similar items. I've also finished going through a massive pile of textbooks given to the school district as promotional copies from the publishers, and passed along to us for the use of our education students. Since we don't do much ordering during the off season, I'll have to find some other collection development project to work on.