ifeelbetter

I totally make myself believe that I'm about to be kicked out of the program every couple of months and then my adviser is surprisingly wonderful (despite having actually kicked a good friend of mine out of the program just last year) and talks me down. It actually goes down with a lot more professionalism than all that sounded like....but it's still a crazy loop that I am stuck in.

ANYWAY. Long story short--I got plastered last night after figuring out that (a) I'M STILL HERE and (b) I HAVE MORE TIME TO DO ACTUAL THINGS AND SO THEY WON'T BE BAD. OR AS BAD. (THEY MIGHT STILL BE BAD.) And I watched alllll of Psych that I missed in the past couple of months. And now I'm watching Inception. Yeah, that's right. I'm watching it right now.

You wish you were watching Inception right now.

( THOUGHTS. I AM HAVING THOUGHTS ABOUT INCEPTION. )

And then I stopped keeping track of my thoughts and just shouted at the TV. God, I LOVE this film.

I'm applying for funding today. It always makes me feel a bit like a beggar and then the phrase "cap in hand" starts to roll around in my head until I get the whole Proclaimers song stuck in there.

Also, my roommate and I were Interview With A Vampire for Halloween:

Just thought I'd share that with you. :)

I was thinking about The Oatmeal's tumblebeasts the other day and it occurred to me that there ought really to be a procrastination beast as well, don't you think? I mean, there's Hyperbole and a Half's Why I'll Never Be An Adult, which (let's be honest for a moment) has warmed my heart during dark times that try the soul, but there's no specific mascot to flock to during bouts of procrastination. I feel we need a mascot. Someone should get on that.

I did actually get some work done yesterday. Like, totally real work. Not the justify-the-hours-spent-flipping-through-various-books kind of work. And not the I-cleaned-all-the-things kind of work either. Like, actual typing in an actual document. And some actual progress made on making sense of the jumble of things I feel need to be crammed into my dissertation. So....*self fist-bump*

AND I e-mailed and called lots of people---I am naturally a hermit so these sorts of things take a lot of windup for me---and am now (a) signed up to audit a history course in the Japanese department to shore up some of the gaps in my credibility, (b) back in contact with my adviser, (c) closer than ever to having a cognate person for my committee, and (d) scheduled for a physical on Thursday. (That last one was especially hard because I find phones abnormally, absurdly difficult. The other tasks could be done via e-mail, which I much prefer.)

On the other hand, my old AOL e-mail address is sending horrible spam to everyone I ever knew. So that sucks. -_-;;

So. I have handed in my last paper (of all coursework of EVER...except for those courses I want to audit in the Fall), handed in my final grades for the semester, read my student evals from between my fingers in abject terror (personal favorite in this batch is "I think the instructor did a fine job teaching the course, but the course itself was created simply as a means of testing how strong a student's will to live is"), and am now officially footloose and fancy-free for summer.

If only the weather would join me in summer. Geez, Michigan. Catch up.

I am going to make a list of things I intend to do this summer. In the fall, I'll check back in and see how much little I accomplished.

· construct super-awesome syllabus for the fall
· learn to drive
· get license / permit
· crochet a hat
· knit roommate a scarf (that should have been done months ago)
· take ukulele lessons
· write a novel in June
· move occasionally in a vaguely athletic manner
· experiment with new recipes
· write Prospectus
· start first chapter of dis
· read all the things I only skimmed for prelims
· be outdoors more
· don't be misanthropic and/or emo when it's hot
· reject apathy

There. That should do it.

PS - I can't manage November NaNoWriMo so I do it in June with a bunch of friends. If anyone wants to join in, feel free!

My To-Do List for the Next Two Weeks:

(1) finish reading Bring on the Books for Everyone by Jim Collins for class tomorrow.
(2) write a brief response paper on Bring on the Books for Everyone by Jim Collins for class tomorrow.
(3) write an aprox. 4-pg account of my reader's interview for class tomorrow.
(4) plan a lesson for my own class.
(5) condense a 20+ page essay about Darwin and detective fiction into 10-pages for the conference on Friday.
(6) come up with and begin to write an essay for the Reading Readers class.
(7) get my wisdom teeth taken out.
(8) see Jane Eyre and NTLive's Frankenstein before I leave for the conference on Thursday because they will both be gone by the time I get back.
(9) do fun-person writing.
(10) grade the papers I will be getting tomorrow night.

Speaking of Jane Eyre, does everybody agree with me that this dress on modCloth would allow the wearer to become a modern-day Jane? I think it would.


Am I the only one who feels like modCloth is getting more and more prohibitively expensive every day? It used to be only the occasional dress was over $100. Now there are plenty over $300. I was already an envious lurker before...now I'm even moreso.

PS - I can't wait for romper weather to come back. I own two rompers--despite agreeing with everyone that they are shameful purchases--and I am dying to romp around town in them.

This is the latest installment in How Is That Bromance Class Going, Anyway? for those who are interested. Last episode, we were making the transition between the philosophizing and homo-eroticism of the idea of male camaraderie into a discussion of women, feminism, and how female friendships compare/contrast with all the male-dominated ones.

So I gave them this article by Jennifer Scanlon called "If My Husband Calls I'm Not Here": The Beauty Parlor as Real and Representational Female Space. I also gave them an assignment that should have been familiar since we've done similar things throughout the semester: they had to go find some instance of fashion in the "real world" and bring it into class for a quick close-reading. These presentations/close-readings were supposed to be 2-3 minutes MAX.



It was brilliant. It went EPICALLY over the time but it was so brilliant. The boys who caused a minor ruckus--a planned, calculated, ultimately productive quasi-misogynist ruckus--a week or so ago are still grappling with how "silly" fashion is and how "silly" women are for caring about it, right, BUT. These two boys--oh, this was brilliant--they each thought of presenting their own sneakers for their item of fashion. And they were competing brands of sneaker. The boys actually acted out--without any prompting from me--how heated and contentious fashion can be for men as well, even men who had already identified fashion as "silly" and "just for girls."

ANDANDAND. ( This anecdote completely got away from me in my enthusiasm... )

In short: I sometimes have glorious days teaching. I sometimes have these moments when I look at a student and I think to myself, "Yeah. I'd leave a planet to you, no problem."

To prevent this entry (and me) from seeming overly optimistic, I should conclude with this lovely piece of literary criticism from the same group of students:

Taking the violence against women one step further, and much more literally, it is easy to see how Eminem and Dr. Dre approach the line of homosexuality.

Ah. Right. Life is awful sometimes, too, and students can be the worst humanity has to offer as often as they can be the best. I almost forgot.

So I'm now the only Victorianist in my year. The only other one has had a giant kerfuffle happen around/to him--I am hazy at best on the details but it seems like his committee advanced him to candidacy and then dissolved itself??--and so I am now the only Victorianist. He's apparently moving to Brooklyn to start a chicken farm.

We share(d) an adviser, though, and I'm not seriously terrified of her. If one half of the things he says about this experience are really as little his own fault as he claims they are, she's done him serious wrong. I've never heard of such shady, back-door dealings before. And if she's capable of it with him, she must be with me as well. So. Terror. Good for staving off lethargy, I guess?

So I just drafted my pre-prospectus in the last three hours. I'm going to submit it after I edit out the crazy in the morning...but I want something on her desk before she decides she wants my head on a platter too. She likes me now...but I keep getting only Dr. Jekyll. Mr. Hyde must just be biding his time...

So. My pre-prospectus. It rambles between Austen, wood-print porn, Whistler, Wilde, Dickens, postcolonial feminism, and about a thousand other things. I think I can predict at least one comment she'll make: "You might want to include a little organization in your next draft." True fact.

PS: Mondays. I hates'em. They usually end up with me being awake for 21 hours straight.

I caught something nasty in the woodshed yesterday and am now stuck inside with allllll the tissues and only a hacking cough for company. Thanks, world. This is like that time you attacked me with tonsillitis just because I worked at an iHop. You're not nice, is my point.

So. I feel like death on wheels and I have 9 more papers to grade. I think it's the papers that got me sick, honestly. I think I caught unhappiness in viral form from them.

Also--since I'm on the subject of writing--have an anecdote:
( Anecdote (and a switch of tone) be here. )

So that was my anecdote. I have no sense when stories about my mom are going to be sad or happy to people--they're all sort of happy to me.

In case there's anyone out there who isn't interested in my Academic Woes, be warned: this way leads to Feelings.

( Prelims, a saga in many parts. )

On a lighter note....things I have texted to people in my madness over the past week or so:

yes maybe so true but what about sudden death. like with newborns. i could get behind some sudden death right about now.

hank youn dont jinx knock all the wood

Do you think curly hair looks disrespectful?

sdfghjcvbnm

That last one--the keyboard smash--was actually what my phone sent when I replied to a text by hitting it against my forehead.

In conclusion, I would like to offer some advice to people preparing for prelims:

1) You're more likely to pass than not if you cared enough to do the work.
2) Nerves are something you have to just admit as fact. Work around them if you can, expel them when it's possible, but don't ratchet up the stress by feeling guilt about your stress.
3) Your gut already knows your problems. They will agree with what your gut has been telling you all along. So just listen to your gut in the first place.
4) I found Edith Piaf and Garth Brooks equally energizing right before. That and cutting myself off from caffeine.
5) Read all the books.

My prelims are just slightly more than two weeks away. I swear, there's an "oh shit oh shit oh shit" mantra going through the back of my brain all the time these days. I am panicking so much I have begun to forget things--like manners and the English language and to eat.

SO. Like I always do in times of need--when my mother used to say, "when the going gets tough, the tough get going" because, honestly, she was made of different stuff from the rest of us--I am procrastinating. I am procrastinating like there was an Olympic event for it and I was aiming for the gold. I am procrastinating like it's going out of style.

On the one hand, internet, you should have this in return for the love I bear you:


AND NOW THIS. This is what the internet gives ME because it loves ME:

"How d'you know I don't have a big house?"

I have also been knitting like a crazy person. I am making the most fugly teal circle (you could ask why but then I would have to say something annoying like "ask me no silly questions, I'll tell you no silly lies" or "..to make a fugly teal circle?")...all I want from life is to knit the fugliest sweater some day, the kind I will give to relatives at major holidays and they will make faces behind my back because they are so ugly. I am majorly excited, no joke, to someday be that crazy aunt.

When I fail prelims--I know, I probably won't, yes, I get that in my brain but, guys, panic is panic is panic--I will move to a shack in some frozen woodland with a cow (whom I will also name Bessie and she shall be called Bessie 2 or The Return of Bessie) and I will knit all my own clothes and own several cats who will be mostly feral and kill lots of mice. That is my backup plan.