ifeelbetter

In case there is anyone who, like me, did not know there was a cast album for David Tennant and Catherine Tate's Much Ado About Nothing, there is.

No, really:


In other news, I have a computer again. That means I have to honest-to-goodness work on my prospectus again. Which means that I am in a low-level panic at all times again. Only more so.

I'm just gonna go listen to David Tennant and Catherine Tate sing again.

I expect to have my ass handed to me on Friday in an action-packed day of meetings about my pre-prospectus. THEREFORE. I am focusing on the positive: I have a trip to Denmark to meet my sister's in-laws this summer to plan (and re-new my passport for because the bugger just insists on expiring a couple weeks before we leave), I have a mountain of home-made ice-cream to convince other people to help me eat, and I have a "reading practices" interview to conduct over cornish pasties (which I must teach myself to make) tonight instead of going to the crappy prospective students party. So. Everything is looking up.

Also.

I desperately want these things....and they give me joy:
( clothes clothes clothes bookshelf...like duck-duck-goose but...different )

Also, some hilarity I stumbled upon this week:


Also. This blog of 50 Inexplicable Black & White Photos gave me a good three hours of head-scratching last night. Check it:


Lastly, my new favorite thing EVER:

So I've been putting off grading all day. It's now quarter-to-eight and I really ought to at least start. What have I been doing with my time, you may well ask. I have been making a New Jersey mixCD for my ex-roommate.

AND NOW I'M SHARING IT WITH YOU.

I'm calling it New Jersey (only the strong survive).

1. Belle & Sebastian – Jersey’s Where It’s At
2. Naughty By Nature feat. Queen Latifah – Sleepin’ On Jersey
3. Stuckey & Murray – Garden State of Love
4. Bruce Springsteen – Born to Run
5. Bobby Long – Jersey City
6. Dionne Warwick – I Say A Little Prayer
7. Robert Lee – Jersey City
8. Bobby Rydell – Wildwood Days
9. Yo La Tengo – Night Falls on Hoboken
10. Cobra Starship – Being From Jersey Means Never Having To Say Sorry
11. Frank Sinatra – My Way
12. Emma Beaton & Nic Gareiss – Jersey City
13. Erykah Badu feat. everybody – Love Of My Life Worldwide
14. Bon Jovi – It’s My Life
15. Tiffany & Rocco – Jersey Girl
16. Lesley Gore – It’s My Party
17. The B-52’s – Roam
18. Mark Winter & Ellen Winter – Proud To Be In New Jersey

And because it's worth seeing, here is the music video for track #3.



Now, I have a lot of pride in my home state....but some of that is legit criticism. The hair we must own, I'm the first to admit that. But we also gave you ("you" being "the world") Old Blue Eyes and Queen Latifah. So. It evens out.

So I am in this trend of incredibly soul-crushingly sad films. It started with the NTLive production of King Lear....then Another Year....then, yesterday, Blue Valentine. Guys, this was supposed to be my Spring Break. I've been told people find Spring Breaks to be fun and whimsical....this has not been the case for me.

( Some thoughts on the films I've been seeing... )
I have, of course, been solemn and a tad melancholy since this onslaught of sad films began. I didn't intend it originally. It just sort of happened that Blue Valentine showed up at the same time as Another Year at local indie arthouse cinemas.

It does mean the couple of friends who I shanghaied into watching Another Year and King Lear resolutely refused to join me for Blue Valentine and have sworn an oath to always check the summaries of films I suggest before agreeing to anything in the future.

On top of all this, I just finished reading Hard Times. I ration my Dickens out carefully....the day I finish the last one will be a truly sad day for me. I love my Dickens. So it was sad to tick another one off the list anyway but....DON'T KEEP READING IF YOU WANT AN UNSPOILED PLOT WHEN YOU READ THE BOOK EVENTUALLY WHICH YOU OBVIOUSLY SHOULD DO....there's a killer couple of chapters near the end of the third book. And. Yeah. I'm a Victorianist, right, so I'm no stranger to crying into my books. (God, when I read Ruth the first time I was actually in a cafe and I had to run to a bathroom for a good cry.) So. Book 3, Chapter 6. Be warned. And keep your tissues nearby.

MY POINT. I HAVE A POINT. My point is that I need cheering up. GUESS WHO I LOOKED TO FOR HAPPINESS?

Apparently my adviser--who is also the only other Victorianist's adviser as well, and he's a lovely hipster type who puts a lot of effort into trying to seem like he's not putting a lot of effort into anything--so yeah, my adviser told him, point blank, "I'll be surprised if you pass prelims."

....o.O....

Nobody--NOBODY has failed prelims at this school in, like, a decade. It never happens. Why is she going all Mr. Hyde on this poor little hipster? I have a feeling I've been getting Dr. Jekyll all along and he's been getting Mr. Hyde and, while I am glad for my time with Jekyll, I am totally terrified of her turning in the middle of the exam.

Also. The only guy on my committee has this face. His face is always saying to me, "Did you really mean to say/do/think/be as stupid a thing as you just did?" I think it really is just how his face is. I ran into him in the hall and said, "Did you get the e-mail about the room assignment for the exam?" and he made the face at me. So. Probably not a reaction to me actually being stupid like a block of wood in his opinion and more to do with how his face is. I try to ignore his face in meetings. It's hard, though, cuz it's his face.

So. Prelims concerns: Mr. Hyde-Adviser and That Dude's Face. Oh, and, you know, allllll of the nineteenth-century.

Now, because I have been nattering on about prelims ad nauseum or WEEKS, have a fun thing:



And another one:


And lastly:

I LOVE CHRISTMAS. I JUST BARFED CHRISTMAS ALL OVER MY HOUSE AND MY ROOMMATES WERE ALL "WTF?!?!" BUT OH WELL, MY CHRISTMAS JOY CANNOT BE CONTAINED, YO.

(PS -- That vid is from last year but THIS YEAR, they're giving away their new Christmas album if you donate a book to The Richmond Book Drive. Pomplamoose is love!)

((PPS -- When I just typed "Pomplamoose is love," it reminded me of "Soilent Green is people!" and that is an entirely different kettle of fish and ought not to be associated with Pomplamoose. Pomplamoose is people, yes, but mostly they are love.))

Back from Thanksgiving and, apparently, not done with lists yet...still looking for suggestions for what to make a list of next.

( Top Five Songs about Friendship )

Now, I should go back to reading Contending Forces for class tomorrow or A Yankee in Meiji Japan for prelims or grading papers for Tuesday...anybody want to lay odds on me not doing any of those things?

-_-;;

I was reminded (by having to go into campus by 8:30AM yesterday to sign up for a slot to teach next semester) that I have to choose my course topic by Oct. 29th and my texts by Nov. 5. I had all sorts of ideas for the topic that I was batting back and forth (Shifting Perspectives, History and Literature, etc...) but I have decided to go with.... Bromance. That's my topic.

( thinking out loud about my Bromance texts... )
But enough about my class for next semester.

On another note, I had a student come to my office hours earlier this week. She's an interesting student....she wants to improve her writing, it is so very clear, but she doesn't understand that I can't wave my magic wand and just make her better. She said at one point, "so we've done two papers now. Do you want to tell me what patterns of mistakes you've found in my writing?"

It's such a good impulse, right, to be thinking of patterns of mistakes. But, really. Come on. I spend HOURS writing those comments all over your papers. THAT'S where you'll find what I think about your essay. And I can't just give you a thing like, "you need to use a quote in the second sentence of every paragraph" or something. That's not how writing works. It's definitely not how TEACHING works.

I gave a speech (a lot like Frank Chimero's post about having ideas) about how writing is hard but it pays off. She told me her parents would love me because I'm making writing ("and other stuff like that" I think meant "art in general") sound horrible. Did I? I thought I was describing the best part of art. Who would want to read a book that was churned out in an hour? We love The Mill on the Floss (I mean, those that DO love it...Dammit, Jim! I'm a Victorianist!) because George Eliot tore her soul in half to write it. Look at Keats's "This Living Hand" and tell me that didn't wring out everything he had to write.

And then...somewhere in the second hour (this was at least a THREE HOUR CONVERSATION), after we'd talked about how she thought Lady Gaga was "a bad person" because she wears lingerie and the poor are selfish to demand that the rich help them in any way...the student brought up Ayn Rand.

This was both the high and low point. Because I could die happy tomorrow if I could convince ONE PERSON to leave the Ayn Rand school of thought. I am totally serious about that. ONE PERSON and a double-decker bus death tomorrow WOULD be a heavenly way to die.

OMG I am totally just blabbering on. HAVE A MUSIC VIDEO.

So now I'm 26. That happened.

Also, I am beginning to think that I have dug myself a fairly deep hole with this summer of faffing about (and not reading nearly as much as I ought to have done) as far as prelims are concerned. SIGH. The problem is that I've reached this point where all the things I read--since they're so narrowly focused--are beginning to sound alike. It's like, yes, translation is hard to theorize but that was said in 700AD. MUST you repeat it in every book, article, novel, poem, etc. to mention translation from now till the end of time? Because I do not want. So I'm avoiding reading for prelims. That's stupid, I agree, but I'm doing it anyway.

Also, in case anyone missed it, there was a segment of pure genius on The Daily Show last night. Staten Island is the only borough in NYC that hasn't supplied a supreme court justice and Wyatt Cenac goes to see if he can find the most qualified candidate available.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Staten Island Supreme Court Justice
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

Also, I have a music rec. If you don't know Pomplamoose, I suggest you start with their cover of Don't Wanna Miss A Thing. It's a song I have never been entirely fond of but I am re-evaluating that opinion based on the awesomeness of the cover.

I am the type of person to buy a Special Notebook for every new class (whether I'm the teacher or the student) and, for my Detective Fiction/Comp class....I bought a notebook from Urban Outfitters that says "Put on your fancy pants."

The cashier was like, "Oh, are you a high school student?" (which never even happened when I WAS a HS student so I assume he was doing what I used to when I was the cashier at IHOP--flatter the customer so they don't yell at you about their money) and I was like, "No, I'm teaching." And he's like, "teaching high school?" and when I tell him I'll be teaching at the university, he boggled at me. And, yes, I conveniently left out the fact that I'm a grad student so, yes, I'm mad young for teaching at a college. But....duuude.

I begin teaching Baby's First Course next Tuesday. I am so all kinds of thrilled I can't even say. But my head keeps spinning through uber-romanticized versions of what it will be instead of making rational predictions. I'm like, "What if they all stand on their chairs and recite O captain my captain at the end of the first day instead of waiting till the end of the course? What am I gonna do then?" And then I have to sit my brain down for a Talk. There will be no chair standing. I feel like that should be my new mantra.

There will be no chair standing.

PS - Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros. WHAT. Why so perfect? Why can't I BE THERE TOO?