Writing on a rainy day

Greetings to all from my window view of a rather rainy tree.  It makes me miss my old apartment, with a view over the pool, but otherwise rainy days always make me want to write, anyway.  Either that or quilt.

It's a very rare day (it may be the first) that I have no activity planned until 11:00pm, so for once I have the luxury of sustained writing.  This is a good thing because my supervisor told me in no uncertain terms to produce something hands-on rather than just a summary of my reading.

My muddled mess right now is basically arguing that in his poem In Memoriam, Tennyson used words in such a way that you have to keep all their meanings in your head at once to grasp the full truth of what he's saying.  This reflects his attitude toward faith, which was essentially that specific, fixed doctrine was too narrow to give the truth of God/the spiritual.  Would you buy that?  After all,

Our little systems have their day;
     They have their day and cease to be:
They are but broken lights of thee,
     And thou, O Lord, art more than they.


Other than that, I've been running around with my typically-overpacked schedule: guest speakers, classes (I should stop choosing to go to so many), yoga, rowing, etc. etc. etc.  Oh, and way back in January my hallmates and I celebrated my birthday with pizza and cake.  Here's a picture, with an unfortunate lighting effect on my nose: 

Spring break travel plans are being pondered, too -- but I don't want to think that Lent term could be over so soon!  So much yet to do!