Interests:Ringing that bell like I'm trying to medal in the Pavlovian slobber olympics. Euphemistically speaking. Also, polysyllables. Expertise:Tying cherry stems in knots with my tongue, punctuating correctly, and perfecting anorexia of my inner optimist. Occupation:lighting designer Industry:entertainment
So, tomorrow, I have class, and I am in a weird position of dreading it.
It’s the Chaucer class–a class I enjoy the texts in, and a class I wholly respect the professor in. The problem lies with my fellow classmates, I think.
And by saying that, I don’t really mean to participate in a ‘me-versus-them’ mental exercise, because internally maybe they are all squirming the same way I am. But all I get is my perspective, unfortunately.
It’s a seminar. Which tends to imply discussion. And as graduate students–a near 50/50 blend of MA to PhD students, too–we should really have interesting, thoughtful things to say about the stuff we have read. I mean, yeah, there will be the stupid blunders (like my, “Why does he keep referencing corn when corn is a new world crop?" moment, but excuse me for not being fluent in British), but we should also be able to answer questions about the text and draw connections between two different pieces.
Except it didn’t happen that way last week, at all. And me? I am a big ninny when it comes to heavy silences that follow a posed question. I can’t stand them. So I piped up with answers. Most right, or at least on the right track of what Dr. M was looking for, but… and this is the upsetting part… I was the only one. Nobody else was forthcoming. At least 85% of the questions asked, I was the only one to offer a thought, and that was after sitting there, silent for a good five-ten seconds, waiting, PRAYING for somebody else to pipe up.
I DON’T like being *that girl* that answers all the damn questions, I really, really don’t. But I also can’t just sit there while this whole implied contractual obligation of the seminar setting goes down in flames.
As class drug on–painfully, wrenchingly so–I started growing a fantastic headache behind my left eye, and as such even my responses petered out. And so Dr. M would ask a question, we would all sit there in silence, students would look down at their books, and nobody would answer. Once we sat in silence for what must have been three minutes before Dr. M gave in and answered her own question. And they weren’t crazy-complex, either, and as if in response to the collective duuuuh that seemed to settle over the class, she began dumbing down the questions to something I would have thought rudimentary in an undergrad class.
This hurts. Maybe I’m the crazy one, but I feel like as students we have a responsibility to have something to say. Isn’t that the point? Am I nuts?
At any rate, the result is that I now dread this class–three hours of torturous nothingness that I feel compelled to try to fill. And I am not a Chaucerian, by any stretch. It’s not my thing, it’s just good background.
I want to love this class. I really do.
But so far, that is unfortunately not the case. Perhaps a cattle prod would help liven things up a bit. Any port in a storm, right?
I don't really know what to say, exactly, but I feel like I should update this sucker before you all mistake me (or just hope) for dead.
So the general run down, then, which is a respectable place to start:
Classes started. This is my 5th semester, which usually means you are done, but I've only been doing 2 classes per semester so I have one semester after this one, plus the thesis. Then, well, find a PhD program that thinks I am brilliant, go there, graduate, and be unable to find a job (which, if you've been interested in the academic job market at all, you will know i really am probably not kidding--it's dire).
This term I'm taking Postmodernism and Chaucer. Two great tastes that taste great together! I think the Postmodernism class is really going to rock my socks, and will probably be the most *fun* graduate class I take. Which is half subject matter and half professor. Dr. Hibbard is quite marvelous--he embodies absurdity in a way that tickles me pink.
Otherwise, I've been just sort of living the dream. Things with Zeb are awesome, the new kitten is sweet when she isn't eating me. (Yay, teething.) Work is slow so I made myself useful by building a new website, which is now live even though I need to tweak some things. My mom is well.
Zeb's sister gave us a tv for wedding/ christmas/ birthday, so we have a tv now whereas we didn't before. It's nice, but Zeb and I both agreed not to hook it up to the cable (which I have and pay for, but only because having cable with internet is cheaper than having just internet, somebody explain that one to me). We don't want to be those tv watchers that stop reading because of it. However, I do admit watching a movie on it while snuggled up on the couch together is pretty much perfection.
See? That's the way of things, and the underlying reason I suspect most writers are unhappy people--when you are happy, there's just not much of interest to write about. Next I'll be talking about the weather or something.
Updated to Add: Since Heather asked, oh, eight months ago or something, here's a picture of the wedding/ engagement ring combo. And one day, I may actually edit & upload some actual wedding photos!
It reads "amor meus", which is latin for "My love". Zeb and I have the same ring, just in different sizes.
This year: 131. Not too shabby. Also, I am an equal opportunity reader, that's for damn sure. Chick lit, YA, horror, classics, scholarly work--it's all on here. I am so egalitarian, OMG!
. . . . . . . . .
Persepolis 1: The Story of a Childhood , Marjane Satrapi Photo Idea Index (Turtleback), Jim Krause If On a Winter's Night a Traveler , Italo Calvino Fell Volume 1: Feral City , Warren Ellis Shakespeare: The World As Stage (Eminent Lives), Bill Bryson The Well-Educated Mind: A Guide to the Classical Education You Never Had , Susan Wise Bauer The Secret History , Donna Tartt A Lost Lady , Willa Cather The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter , Carson McCullers Reflections in a Golden Eye , Carson McCullers The Sound and the Fury , William Faulkner Sanctuary , William Faulkner The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories (Scribner Classics), Ernest Hemingway Four Quartets , TS Eliot The Heath Anthology Of American Literature: Modern Period 1910-1945 , Paul Lauter Beware the Cat: The First English Novel , William Baldwin The Examinations of Anne Askew , Anne Askew The Complete Sonnets and Poems (Oxford World's Classics), William Shakespeare The Yale Edition of the Shorter Poems of Edmund Spenser , Edmind Spenser Defence of Poesie, Astrophil and Stella, and Other Writings , Sir Philip Sidney A Short History of Nearly Everything , Bill Bryson Early Modern Women Poets: An Anthology , Peter Davidson The Geneva Bible: A Facsimile of the 1560 Edition (Bible), ed. Lloyd Berry Schooled , Anisha Lakhani Foxe's Book of Martyrs , John Foxe Strangers in Paradise, Fullsize Paperback Volume 7: Sanctuary , Terry Moore The Mirror of Love , Alan Moore Punk: the Whole Story Unholy Death in Princeton (Princeton Murders), Ann Waldron Storage Solutions , Margaret Sabo Wills Rites of Spring (Break) (Secret Society Girl, #3), Diana Peterfreund From Student to Scholar: A Candid Guide to Becoming a Professor , Steven M. Cahn Red Leaves , Paullina Simons Literary Circles and Cultural Communities in Renaissance England , Michigan--Renaissance Conference 1998 Women In Early Modern England, 1500-1700 (Introductions to History), Jacqueline Eales Women's Roles in the Renaissance (Women's Roles through History), Meg Lota Brown Women and Politics in Early Modern England, 1450-1700 , James Daybell Rewriting the Renaissance: The Discourses of Sexual Difference in Early Modern Europe (Women in Culture and Society Series), Margaret W. Ferguson Women in Early Modern Europe, 1500-1700 (Longman History Of European Women), Cissie Fairchilds Desiring Women Writing: English Renaissance Examples , Jonathan Goldberg Women in Early Modern England 1550-1720 , Sara Mendelson Time, Space, and Women's Lives in Early Modern Europe (Sixteenth Century Essays & Studies), Silvana Seidel Mench Maids and Mistresses, Cousins and Queens: Women's Alliances in Early Modern England , Karen Roberston Representing Women in Renaissance England , Ted-Larry Pebworth A Rare Murder In Princeton (Princeton Murders), Ann Waldron The Princeton Impostor , Ann Waldron The Soul Thief (Vintage Contemporaries), Charles Baxter Getting What You Came For: The Smart Student's Guide to Earning an M.A. or a Ph.D. , Robert L. Peters The Portrait of Mr. W.H. (Penguin Classics 60s), Oscar Wilde A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations (Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing), Kate L. Turabian Through the Grinder (Coffeehouse Mystery, #2), Cleo Coyle Privacy, Playreading, and Women's Closet Drama, 15501700 , Marta Straznicky Strange Bodies: Gender and Identity in the Novels of Carson Mccullers , Sarah Gleeson-White Rhetoric, Women and Politics in Early Modern England , Richards/Thorne The Imprint of Gender: Authorship and Publication in the English Renaissance , Wendy Wall The Politics of Early Modern Women's Writing (Longman Medieval and Renaissance Library), Danielle Clarke A Companion to Early Modern Women's Writing (Blackwell Companions to Literature and Culture), Anita Pacheco Writing and the English Renaissance (Crosscurrents), Suzanne Trill Reading, Society and Politics in Early Modern England , Steven N. Zwicker The Lonely Hunter: A Biography of Carson McCullers , Virginia Spencer Carr The South in Black and White: Race, Sex, and Literature in the 1940s , Mckay Jenkins Carson McCullers: Her Life and Work , Oliver Evans A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Woman: The Writer As Heroine in American Literature , Linda Huf The Flowering Dream: The Historical Saga of Carsom McCullers , Nancy B. Rich Dead and Gone (Sookie Stackhouse, #9), Charlaine Harris Midnight Sun (Twilight, #5) (partial draft), Stephenie Meyer Buffy the Vampire Slayer Omnibus Vol. 1 , Joss Whedon Carson McCullers: A Life , Josyane Savigneau Sacred Groves and Ravaged Gardens: The Fiction of Eudora Welty, Carson McCullers, and Flannery O'Connor , Louise Westling Carson McCullers (Bloom's Modern Critical Views), Harold Bloom Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic , Alison Bechdel Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders , Neil Gaiman Tap & Gown (Secret Society Girl, #4), Diana Peterfreund Fall of Light , Nina Kiriki Hoffman Skin Trade (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, #17), Laurell K. Hamilton Latte Trouble (A Coffeehouse Mystery, #3), Cleo Coyle Twilight (Twilight, #1), Stephenie Meyer The Birth of Pleasure , Carol Gilligan Pirates! In an Adventure with Napoleon , Gideon Defoe Spirits That Walk in Shadow , Nina Kiriki Hoffman Commencement: A Novel , J. Courtney Sullivan Supernatural: John Winchester's Journal , Alexander C. Irvine What They Didnt Teach You in Graduate School: 199 Helpful Hints for Success in Your Academic Career , Paul Gray The Devil You Know (Felix Castor, #1), Mike Carey Supernatural: Origins , Peter Johnson Supernatural: Rising Son Issue 1 (Graphic Novel), Peter Johnston Murder Mysteries , Neil Gaiman Murder 101 , Maggie Barbieri Old Songs in a New Cafe: Selected Essays , Robert James Waller Junk Beautiful: Room by Room Makeovers with Junkmarket Style , Sue Whitney America's All-Time Favorites Canning & Preserving Recipes (Better Homes & Gardens) Marked (House of Night, #1), PC Cast & Kristin Cast Betrayed (House of Night, #2), PC Cast & Kristin Cast Chosen (House of Night, #3), PC Cast & Kristin Cast Untamed (House of Night, #4), PC Cast & Kristin Cast Hunted (House of Night, #5), PC Cast & Kristin Cast In the Hunt: Unauthorized Essays on Supernatural (Smart Pop series), Supernatural.tv Ghost World, Daniel Clowes The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer , Jennifer Lynch Who Killed Amanda Palmer?: A Collection of Photographic Evidence , Amanda Palmer & Neil Gaiman The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane , Katherine Howe The Chicago Manual of Style , University of Chicago Press Literary Research Guide: An Annotated Listing of Reference Sources in English Literary Studies , James L Harner Practicing New Historicism , Catherine Gallagher The Owl and the Nightingale: Text and Translation (Exeter Medieval Texts and Studies), Neil Cartlidge (ed) Mla Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing , Joseph Gibaldi The Crying of Lot 49 (Perennial Fiction Library), Thomas Pynchon A Book of Middle English , John Anthony Burrow (ed) Extracurricular Activities , Maggie Barbieri Poems of the Pearl Manuscript: Pearl, Cleanness, Patience and Gawain and the Green Knight (Exeter Medieval Texts and Studies), ed. Ronald Waldron Middle English Literature: A Guide to Criticism (Blackwell Guide to Criticism), Roger Dalrymple (ed) Coffee with Oscar Wilde (Coffee with...Series), Merlin Holland The Wife of Bath (Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism), Geoffrey Chaucer Offbeat Bride: Taffeta-Free Alternatives for Independent Brides , Ariel Meadow Stallings The Cambridge Companion to Critical Theory (Cambridge Companions to Philosophy), Fred Rush Quick Study: A Murder 101 Mystery , Maggie Barbieri Full of Secrets: Critical Approaches to Twin Peaks (Contemporary Film and Television Series), ed. David Lavery Political Shakespeare: Essays in Cultural Materialism , Alan Sinfeld The Margins of the Text (Editorial Theory and Literary Criticism), David C. Greetham The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (The BuckShaw Chronicles, #1), Alan Bradley Tempted (House of Night, #6), PC Cast & Kristin Cast Grave Secret (A Harper Connelly Mystery, #4), Charlaine Harris Vicious Circle , Mike Carey New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics , Brogan Preminger Subjectivity and Women’s Poetry in Early Modern England: Why on the Ridge Should She Desire to Go? , Lynnette McGrath Women's Wealth and Women's Writing in Early Modern England: 'Little Legacies' and the Materials of Motherhood , Elizabeth Mazzola The Book of Margery Kempe (TEAMS Middle English Texts), Margery Kempe Gentlemen and Players: A Novel (P.S.), Joanne Harris Murder is Binding (Booktown Mysteries, #1), Lorna Barrett Divine Misdemeanors (Meredith Gentry, #8), Laurell K. Hamilton Strangers in Paradise, Volume 8: My Other Life , Terry Moore
Hey, does anybody on here just luuuurve Jimmy Eat World?
I was cleaning my study and found some guitar picks from their tour (a good friend toured with them and brought them back to me, apparently thinking I like them a lot more than I do.)
So, if you love them and want some guitar picks that they actually played with, let me know and I can send them to you. That way, you get something you like, and I get rid of some of the clutter in my house. Win-win!
I may in fact keep updating this list with things as I uncover them. So keep your eyes posted for updates! There may be something *you* want! And it will all be free! It's like CHRISTMAS EVERY DAY, as Ombra once said!
Here's more: •Miss Behavior: Popularity, Poise, and Personality for the Teen-Age Girl, a 1948 manners manual
•Three Babysitter's Club Books, #1, #2, and Mystery #16
I am ringing it in properly. I just mopped the kitchen. Now I will go sand down the kitchen table and repaint it.
WHO SAYS I AM NOT A PARTY ANIMAL?!? I ASK YOU!
Last night was me on the couch with Zeb and the new kitteh (whose name is Coraline but who we cannot stop referring to as Dr. Tinycat DAMN YOU LOLCATS!) watching Northern Exposure and snuggling.
Pretty awesome, I say.
We did get shifaced the night before, and HOO BOY WAS IT FUN, but new year's eve is always amateur night, so now that I don't feel that overwhelming need to lay my hands on some hot studmuffin to make out with furiously at midnight (cause I now have one here who can't escape me without legal measures)(and regarding previous, please see 200 Cigarettes, best New Year's movie ever made kplzthks), and... um, I lost myself in parentheticals.
