duck-shaped pain

I have one paper to do which is mostly a glorified book report. Frustrated by the lack of decent books in our library on his pet subjects, the professor in one of my classes assigns few research papers. Our last paper did look at primary sources, albeit ones straight from our textbooks. For this one, we have to read this book and answer a bunch of questions about it. It's an odd book to read for a history class, since part of it is written through the eyes of time travelers. This conceit usually makes my eyes roll, being associated with bad science fiction and all, and it's been difficult to take the time-travel parts of the book seriously. I find myself craving dull academic prose whenever I read it.

My other paper is even nuttier. I have to pretend to be an important figure out of Native American history and write a first-person account of what they think is wrong with federal Indian policy. Then we have to present our account to the class and hopefully dress up like them if at all possible. My subject is Wovoka, the messiah of the Ghost Dance, which should make for an interesting and/or difficult presentation. At least it doesn't have to be a terribly long paper: the idea of writing in first person as anyone else but myself will be sort of a challenge, and I don't know how long I'll be able to do it coherently.

The library at school is falling apart. There's a big crack in the brick on one side of it, and the campus police have put barricades and police tape around it, so that no one gets beaned by a brick while walking to class. The library is only about 17 years old. I remember it being built while I was in middle school. It's rife with all sorts of design flaws (a lobby unintentionally designed so that it amplifies every conversation that takes place in it, so that some hapless folk on the third floor can hear someone's tale of "Yeah, and then we drank the whole thing!" as if the person telling was sitting right next to them, screaming in their ear), so it's not terribly surprising that it now poses a threat to the safety of everyone's head.

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