bookish dreamer

Among other inanities (becasue there were so many in terms of Bush's policy that I just can't even stand to speak about) I was appalled to hear the presedent of the US, folksy guy that he is, say that he wasn't trying to "diss" his staffer for giving him a cold while he was trying to run for election.  This is NOT the vernacular of his people.  I wanted to scream STOP!  STOP THE MADNESS!

Of course, I should've known it was a sign of things to come for the day.

You see, I'd created this fantastic little jeopardy game for the class I TA for.  It was the last day, and instead of doing a wrap up that might leave them teary eyed and even more tired than they already are, I thought, "Hey, let's do something fun!  Wouldn't that be great!?  And then they can get some extra credit to boot."

That was the wrong decision.  They were all so point hungry they turned into raving animals.  Do NOT TRY THIS THING AT HOME kiddies.  Or don't reward the winning team with extra credit, because they will cry foul play on eachother, howl to the rafters when you nix points because you accidentally skiped to the answer slide when they were answering, and complain complain complain that they're being missed, that they're under points, that they're... somehow being cheated of EXTRA CREDIT.  It was a circus of nightmare proportions.

The only good thing was that I still kind of had fun with it.  Honestly.  It's scary but true.

However, the sexy yummy tasty day didn't end there - oh no - today we got a presentation in our grad seminar from a woman who is so literal I actually compared her in my head to Bush this morning.  She's about that analytical too.  And we were reading this fantastically weird and wonderful story by a Japanese author named Edogawa Ranpo (it's a made up name based on the japanese pronounciation of Edgar Allan Poe).  First we got beat up by this guy who wants to be a professional translator (always fun having someone from outside your class just pick you apart) and then we had to listen to the most boring woman in the world present on the history of mystery writing in Japanese literature.

Now here's the thing: Edogawa is known as the king of Japanese mystery, it's true.  BUT, he was also a member of this awesome group in the 20's & 30's that wrote erotic-grotesque-nonsense (ero-guro-nansensu in the Japanese).  And THAT'S what this story was - a fantastic dream piece about changing bodies and frenetic dances and wandering in the woods of one's unconscious.  It had NOTHING to do with mystery writing at all.  So what does this woman's presentation focus on?  MYSTERY WRITING. 

It was frightening because I had to actually quell the impulse to bang my head on the conference room table.

However, the day is done.  I did manage in the last 15 minutes to slip in jouissance for the hell of it, so it wasn't a total loss.

Then I forgot where my car was parked and ended up walking around the entire school to get back to it because I'd walked to one parking lot on one side of the school, realized my mistake, then walked back to the other.  Inane, I tell you.

I think I've learned my lesson - no more presidential speaches in the morning.  It's just wrong.

so, in good news, i got another in-state tuition deferral!  yay!  This time it was through my department, and for about $400.  But every penny counts right now, you know?

( the shorter, but still dissapointing, journey through the uni finan aid system )

Onto other things...

I have a test on Monday that I will be studying for all weekend, and meeting with my tutor on Friday about! (the tutor part is good). I called the plumber (our back toilet has not been working... hopefully it will soon).

One of my favorite college friends EVER is coming to visit next week, and taking us out to dinner on the company dime to boot!

I have nominated somewhere around 20 people who do buffy art for SFA awards!  Which means that I can feel less guilty if I self-nom.  lol.  And Dishes, I'm coming for you!  Finally, we actually have plans for a super bowl party!  I seriously do not watch the superbowl, but ... the commercials.  Who doesn't love the commercials?  And the friends are ALWAYS great to see.

Is she-vamp  really a word?  And if it is, who do we petition to get rid of it?  Cuz, seriously, I didn't realize that the word vampire was inherently gendered male, but if someone feels the need to qualify that the female vampire is a she-vamp ...

someone should cold cock me, smack me in the face and call me kitty, while they're at it.

The good: I didn't nail my Spivak presentation, I didn't bomb it either.  Something about actually presenting complex theory makes me talk too fast.  And gods, the woman references deconstruction, semiotics, Lacanian self & other, and half a dozen other things all in a sentence.  There's NO easy way to talk about it, except in the way she did (which wasn't easy, but was at least precise).  And I know I had the professor frowning at certian points.  But I loved the article, regardless.  Even if I'd never encountered subaltern studies before, I feel like I should've read Spivak anyway.

The hilarious thing is the way the Prof talks about her.  His description:  She's a rather imposing woman at over 6 feet, who wears elegant and quite expensive saris, and is quite striking.  She's hugely invested in the community and goes back to India and Bangladesh at least once a year to teach people reading -- so it's not like she's an ivory tower intellectual who has no connection to the people she talks about.  However, she's also very much interesting in weightlifting, and she's brillant, so she makes a rather imposing figure.  And she's quick.  But she's very gentle and very passionate.

How's that for an introduction?  I mean, she's no Foucault who used to come to class in bondage, but hey, we can't all be crazy French philosophers.

Other stuff?  I got new shoes today.  I finally bought a lock for my locker, so I don't have to drag my swim stuff with me every single day.  Rock. I joined facebook and have 2 friends (yes, count them, 2) so if anyone else is on there come over and friend me... so i don't look totally pathetic.

( the bad and the whiny )

1.  It started at 9, because that's what time I had to get out of bed.  So that I could pet the kitty and kiss the boy and check the email and print out the homework and leave the house to get to school.

2.  Even though class starts at 11, I try to get there by 10 so I can lay in wait for some departing student and steal my parking place from the desperate clutches of other frantic parkers.  Every day is a new attempt, every time I pull in it's a new victory, wrenched from the grip of other drivers.  My strategy is complete though - I give rides to parking spaces, and steal them before anyone knows the student's gone.  Evil?  Not really.  Calculating?  Definitely.

3. There's nothing introspective about Japanese.  It's not critical, it's repetition.  And practice.  But I oh-so-politely asked the girls who chatter through the professor's grammar explanations to try to whisper.  Their conversations are not quite mumbled, mostly spoken, although occasinally they dip into that kind of under the breath vocalization that grates on me like nails on a chalkboard.  I will try to sit further away from them tomorrow.  They gave me the confused stare of "huh?" when I voiced my request.  I didn't wait for a reply.

4.  Ren fair!  They have Ren Fairs in Texas, and there's one going on right now ... somewhere ... about 2 hours from here.  Neil keeps telling me not to expect the same things as our Ren Fairs, but I think they're pretty much all the same.  Maybe this one will have pony rides or something, though.  We're going to try to find out where it is, and maybe go next weekend. 

5.  We laughed a lot in Suicide in Japanese Lit today.  Not nervous laughter, but the kind of thing where someone actually says something downright funny.  Oh, and Kalinda actually told the boy who sat next to me to move over, because he was sitting in her seat.  Possessive?  Perhaps.  Did I find it adorable?  Yes. 

6.  I want to say profound and interesting things in the History of French Film.  It's the kind of class that demands it right?  Quasi-pretentious, light on the theory, but heavy on the superiority of the French Cinema, taught by a woman who says "we" about the French and "you" about the Americans.  She's delightful, and utterly unapproachable.  I love it.

7.  An hour an a half for Pepe le Moko.  A movie about French gangster caught in Algiers, in the Casbah.  What's not to love?

8.  My hands cramp in the Western Art History class.  I can't help it.  It's three hours.  I despise history, and I'm not a huge fan of American art, especially American/European art that's ostensibly "defining" the West.  But it's leaking in and perverting my brain anyhow.  Notice that I capped the West?  Yeah.  There's not a ton of analysis there, just history, history and this weird nebulous enjoyment on the part of the professor about the beginnings of the American Dream.  Like anyone can realize the american dream anyway.

9.  The miles and miles and miles (or 20 minutes) it takes to get to my car are hot and humid, like the night picked me up in it's arms and wants me to float directly on the air.  Instead I have to chug my way down steps and back up other steps, moving to the beat of the shuffle I caved and bought myself because I developed technology envy when Neil got his ipod for his birthday.  It's probably the best invention I've ever bought - I might actually like music this way.  So I end up walking, huffing and puffing my little chunky way across the campus in the dark, when it's deserted and left to those who decide they can't stand the air conditioned dorms, but basically quiet and empty compared to the landscape of day.  The present I give myself is the car ride home, when I put the shuffle down and turn the radio up, and leave the windows open and try to make all the lights on the drive back.

10.  Now I sit in front of the computer, burned and a bit breathless, after making my way through 100 or so posts (damn you LJ people post a lot!) and realize I've got more homework due for tomorrow that I don't want to touch.  It's coming up on midnight here.  Time for a smoke.  Time for a break.  Then ... the deluge.

Dear Mister Idiot:

Please stop posting on cyberpunk .  I'm really really tired of your horrible wanking.  Especially since you like to dress yourself up in the postmodernist cloak and pretend you know what the fuck you're talking about.  You don't.  You really really don't.  I wish you'd shut up and die somewhere.  Preferably not on-list, so I wouldn't have to read your trite, badly phrased, idiotic soliloquy. 

You're the kind of nutso that gives postmodernism it's bad name.  We have enough trouble getting people to read the theory and understand the terms without your additional confusion.  Get a dictionary, learn to say what you mean and mean what you say, and come back in 10 or 15 years.

Thank you,
Kate

the post:  here

don't want to work, don't want to learn, don't want to. It's the broken record of mantras, isn't it? I'm done before the semester's done. Lost my will to learn one more thing. Can't find it, don't want to find it. Would like to just take a night or two off and be done. Instead I find myself back in front of my computer, procrastinating, clicking 'refresh' on the flist and email, waiting for a decent distraction before I get back to work again.

Of course, distraction came in another form. My hysterical mother frantically, sobbingly, telling me that she can't do the job she just started a week ago, and she's sorry again that she's calling me to tell me so. ( I want to give her some of the strength she seems to have given me. )

No, I'm not my mother. No, I can't be her mother. No, nothing is perfect in the world. Isn't going to be, wasn't supposed to be, can't be.

The only constant is change.

Just wish... I just wish some things would truly change.

(lit 101 for postmodernists that can't get a clue)

All outlines require a thesis. A thesis cannot be in the form of a question. A thesis must be an actual statement of some opinion. That you can prove. A thesis should be able to be distilled into one sentence (that sentence may require expansion, which will constitute your paper, but really, for a 10 page paper? One sentence is *plenty*). Remember, this is the concept you are going to prove with the rest of your discussion, so make it something that's worth proving.

( click for more outline bitching )

The main things NOT to do:

Don't try and write two papers to make it long enough. If your thesis is too simple to be 10 pages, simply ask "why" again. Don't add in random "free association" and expect someone to grade it like it makes sense. Also, don't turn in an outline that isn't an outline. We've all got copies of a word processing program, and all the current word processing programs have the ability to create sophisticated outlines. Easily.

Also, if you're infatuated with theory, know it before you try to spout it. Don't have some bullshit idea that you're going to do a postmodern feminist reading of the story but then have no definition of postmodern feminism, include no conclusion about what your reading implies, and for gods sake don't sit there and tell me that you don't want to do a psychological reading and then proceed to talk about the self and other. Hello - self and other? It is a psychological construction, dammit. And if you want to use it differently, go find some other theorist to back you up that it's not. I doubt you'll find one, but sure, try. I'm willing to admit there's a lot of theory out there I haven't read. But, most of all, don't be an annoying prissy girl who tells me she doesn't have "enough time" to re-write her outline so that it's ... intelligible. Because honey, just because you look up to her doesn't mean you're the next Octavia Bulter.

The sad part is that I'm a postmodernist myself. And she made me disgusted with postmodernists. Bleh.

I'm sitting in the car today and I hear James Atlas say some profoundly stupid things.

( narrative rant, dumb author, etc. )