It's Been A Month

not my longest absence -- but certainly an unpardonable one, given that i spent so many mornings and evenings in july sitting in front of my computer, staring at it or into the middle distance (grey's anatomy or gmail on the screen, so who cares? nothing was really *changing* or anything...)

now i'm back in philadelphia for the long haul, my hair pinned back in a sensible but odd-looking (because stunted) bun, in front of a different computer, thinking all the time thinking thinking. the to-do list grows longer shorter longer shorter. i should be in bed, but i am paralyzed by the fear that, once i go to bed, i will not want to wake up early in the morning and be productive. i am in a rut, the august rut that in school would have been the june rut: there's tons to get done, but i want so badly to deny that anything is actually important that in the end i get my way, and do facebook and livejournal and blogger, at the ridiculous and avoidable expense of more stress in the days to come.

no matter, i swam today. and someone outside -- maybe a member of the band i read lives across the street from me? but no, they were punk, or something -- is playing a trumpet or trombone or some other kind of wind instrument, alone, random, soothing. no matter.

the universe colludes: i have been thinking about monster books. tim carmody suggested erving goffmann's stigma. now i'm reading mel micir's old blog and i find this, as irrelevant to my life right now as bacon (the author, not the meat) but something i know i want to tuck away -- or put on display -- for inevitable future use:

"It is rare in 'natural' conversation that the best answer is provided on the spot, rare that witty repartee occurs. . . . Indeed, when during informal talk a reply is provided that is as good as the one that could be later thought up, then a memorable event has occurred." (Goffmann)

tuesday i will entertain in this apartment for the first time since the fall. who cares if the living room ceiling is dripping plaster everywhere!? i want more out of my graduate life, especially if this is to be my last year in philadelphia.

Dude, Why's Your Bike Here?

i bought a bike yesterday -- so exciting!

imagine, then, my chagrin, when i took it downtown for the first time, thinking to run errands, locked it up on 17th and chestnut, and came back from the shops to find that some idiot had locked his bike next to mine with my brake cables in the u-loop of his lock!

omg! i'm a new biker, but even i know that that's terrible bike etiquette! i was so pissed! (and totally made sure to tell him so when he came back, ipod'ed, sunglassed, completely duh and apologetic enough to make sure to call me "honey" while he said sorry...)

what does one have to do for an uneventful ride in this town?

Lucky Duck

i would just like to announce -- as i take a quick breather during yet another hazy day of final-paper-writing -- that i am the luckiest girl in the world, because someone loves me enough to make me a container each of rajma and customized tabbouleh for when i'm hungry.

this stuff is delish!

Life Can't Be That Bad

the last few weeks, i've been having bad hair day after bad hair day.

a) my new shampoo + conditioner combo, while it smells great, has undetermined effects on the sheen and bounce of my hair -- i'm testing it one more time, and if i see negative after-effects i'm taking it back to CVS for a refund.
b) the stress of the 50 book exam has been making my hair fall out in large quantities. (yes, even now. what, you thought everything would go back to normal as soon as i walked out of the slaughterhouse?) as someone who has always had thick, thick hair, i'm disturbed.
c) i haven't been swimming as much, but the chlorine is doing terrible things to my hair, i just know it. i've started wetting my hair pre-pool, and have even gone back to using dabur hair oil (i smell just like i did in school -- brahmiaamlakeshtel types!) but i don't know how much of an effect that's having yet.

but today, as i was standing on the steps outside the gym waiting for the shuttle so that i could get home, a random, mildly cute indian guy changed his trajectory down the stairs just so that he could stop by me, look me right in the eye, and say, "you have lovely hair."

... and voilà, life is good again!

Just Call Me "Stupid"

i haven't backed up my data since august '07. (this alone should tell you what's coming.)

said backup may or may not exist on another computer -- i can't remember whether or not i kept the master copy of all the stuff i took off my parents' computer at home. i also can't remember whether what i put on my brother's computer in september '07 is still there -- i think he deleted everything i'd put on there, with my approval, because i'd only put it there as a temporary measure until i got my new imac.

today, the hard drive on said imac failed. the thing is less than a year old.

many minutes of "the spinning wheel" and many conversations with mac support people later, i'm not yet sure what the future of my information is -- i know only that there is a "possibility" that i've lost my data, and that data recovery (if successful) will cost me $300.

i must admit, i am not attached beyond repair to all of the (a) mp3s (b) photos (c) 4 years of work from college (d) 1 year of work from grad school i had on my hard drive. so much of it is useless/outdated/sentimental electronic relics that i haven't looked at in years. so much of it is just music, which can be re-downloaded if need be, but which i also have on my ipod, and would only have to re-sync, not even rename (since itunes takes care of the back end). and so much of the most important stuff (like blog content, or email) is online nowadays, and never sees "soft copy" status on personal hard drives.

but even so: i have to say, suffering the remorse and self-reprimanding that i'm suffering now, that given a chance, i would rather rescue it all as a way to prevent having to learn the lesson than let it be lost just so i could learn the lesson.

i am sad.

and, like i said: stupid.

Happy Little Things

i'm sitting in the grad lab, on a lovely friday evening in the summer, bundled up because it's cold, typing up notes on a set of 10 middle english lyrics -- part of the 50 book thing (see here <http://simran.nomadlife.org/2008/04/summer-of-books.aspx> for the latest official iteration of the list).

now, i like the poems, because they're interesting, and funny, and unfamiliar to me, generically (i've had more exposure to alliterative long-line poetry and iambic pentameter than to the short secular/religious lyric) -- so that's not the problem.

the thing is, one google docs file stands between me and going home for the day. my consolation is that, after i finish this writeup, i'll be just over 1/3 done with the reading for the exam. but still... to be outside, eating ice cream and being worry-free right now.... *sigh*

but my companion, for now, must be a box of cvs salted mixed nuts. peanuts/almonds/cashews. they are yum, somewhat healthy, and motivational. sadly, i think i like the almonds best. this is like what that psychology grad student dude i met once told me about the sort of unthinking decision we make based on a misleading perception that we'll be happier for it -- such as buying mixed yogurt, and feeling like that's better value for money, and that variety is the spice of life, when in fact we're more likely to just eat the peach or strawberry yogurt and glare balefully at the least favourite flavour as it sits in the fridge with no takers. exactly that, in this situation: i suspect there will be a ton of peanuts sitting in the tub at the end of this eating episode... and perhaps a lyric or two that will fall to the bottom of the list and be glared at, as well.

now, back to the notes.

WTF

when did it get to be 11:23 on the night before my piers plowman paper is due?

Good Thing I Like Apartment-Hunting

(and craigslist)

funny how life is.

moral of the story from this past 48 hours: no-one's really ever your friend for life. roommates? even less so. i suppose in a strange way it's my own fault.

I Hate Taxes

i'm good at addition and subtraction, but sadly, 'rithmetic isn't really all that useful (beyond figuring out potential permutations and combinations of the various deductions i could take) when it comes to getting through the tension of the season of april 15.

you see, being an international non-immigrant resident alien is complicated... not to mention that my tax status has changed in some way every year for the last 3 years, so i feel like a moving target!... and i never seem to be able to find my old returns when i need them... and this year i live in a different state from the one i've always lived in... and apparently philadelphia requires people to file city taxes (in addition to state and federal)... and i didn't file my own taxes last year, so i don't know what was going on in that mess of papers!... and i didn't even get a W-2 this year...

upon thinking about all this, actually, i've come to the conclusion that perhaps the most useful tax skill i could acquire would be the ability to get off my ass about these sorts of things before april 10.

Summer Of Books

Fifty Book Exam List

I. Historical Period: Medieval
1. The Dream of the Rood (OE, MS 950-1000)
2. Geoffrey of Monmouth, History of the Kings of Britain (Latin, 1136)
3. Song of Roland (1140-1170?)
4. Chrétien de Troyes, Arthurian Romances (“The Knight of the Cart”) (late 12th century)
5. Marie de France, Lais (“Lanval”, “Bisclavret”) (late 12th century)
6. Winner and Waster (c. 1350)
7. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (c. 1385)
8. St. Erkenwald (c. 1386)
9. Corpus Christi plays: York Creation and Fall of Lucifer, Chester Noah's Flood, Brome Abraham and Isaac, Wakefield Second Shepherd's Play, Wakefield Herod the Great, N-Town Woman Taken in Adultery, York Crucifixion, and Wakefield Last Judgment (c. 1375-1570s)
10. Geoffrey Chaucer, selections from Canterbury Tales (General Prologue, Knight, Miller, Reeve, Cook, Wife of Bath, Friar, Summoner, Clerk) (1390s)
11. Julian of Norwich, The Short Text of Sixteen Revelations of Divine Love (c. 1393)
12. Selected Middle English lyrics: Luria and Hoffman ed. nos. 6 (“Foweles in the frith”), 77 (“I have a gentil cok”), 81 (“We ben chapmen light of fote”), 90 (“May no man slepe in youre halle”), 138 (“Maiden in the mor lay”), 178 (Geoffrey Chaucer, “Lak of Stedfastnesse”), 181 (“I sing of a maiden”), 182 (“Salve Regina”), 190 (“Now goth sonne under wod”), and 197 (“A God and yet a man?”)
13. The Alliterative Morte Arthure (c. 1400)
14. Margery Kempe, The Book of Margery Kempe (c. 1436)
15. ** Mary Carruthers, The Book of Memory (criticism)
16. ** Tim William Machan, Textual Criticism and Middle English Texts (criticism)

II. Genre: Travels and Encounters
17. Heliodorus, Æthiopica (3rd century)
18. The Travels of Sir John Mandeville (c. 1375)
19. Walter Raleigh, “Discovery of Guiana” (1596)
20. William Shakespeare, The Tempest (c. 1610)
21. Sir Thomas More, Utopia (1615)
22. Christopher Marlowe, Tamburlaine (1633)
23. Aphra Behn, Oroonoko or The Royal Slave (1688)
24. Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels (1726)
25. Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865)
26. H.G. Wells, The First Men in the Moon (1901)
27. Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (1902)
28. Ama Ata Aidoo, Our Sister Killjoy (1977)
29. Edward Said, Orientalism (1979)
30. Amitav Ghosh, Shadow Lines (1988)
31. Martin Scorsese, Gangs of New York (2003)
32. ** Peter Hulme, Colonial Encounters (criticism)

III. Theme/Theory: Form and the Material Text
33. William Langland, Piers Plowman A-Text Visio (1360s) (authorial revision)
34. William Langland, Piers Plowman B-Text Visio (Prologue-Passus 7) (1380s)
35. William Langland, Piers Plowman C-Text Visio (Prologue-Passus 9) (1380s)
36. William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Q1) (1603) (printers/publishers/authors + editions)
37. William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Q2) (1604)
38. William Shakespeare, Hamlet (F) (1623)
39. Christopher Marlowe, Dr. Faustus A-Text (1604)
40. Christopher Marlowe, Dr. Faustus B-Text (1616)
41. Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (1852) (serialization)
42. Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, selected poems (1855 and 1891 editions): “A Boston Ballad” (1854), “Song of Myself” (1855), “The Sleepers” (1855), “Song of the Answerer” (1855), “Song of Myself” (1891), “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” (1891), “A Boston Ballad” (1891), “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd” (1891) as well as frontispiece portraits from both editions (authorial revision, self-publication, author portraits)
43. William Blake, Songs of Innocence and Experience (selections) (1789; 1794) (illustrations)
44. Emily Dickinson, selected published poems: “Safe in their Alabaster Chambers —”/”The Sleeping”; “Blazing in the Gold and quenching in Purple”/”Sunset”; “I taste a liquor never brewed —”; “Publication—is the Auction”; “This is my letter to the World”; “This was a Poet—it is That”; “‘Hope’ is a thing with feathers—”; “Because I could not stop for Death” (creation of the authorial corpus; order of component texts)
45. T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land: A Facsimile and Transcript of the Original Drafts including the Annotations of Ezra Pound (1971) (editorial process)
46. Alan Moore, V for Vendetta (1995) (graphic novel)
47. James McTeigue, V for Vendetta (2006) (translation into another medium)
48. ** Robert Darnton, “The Printed Word” (Section 3 of Kiss of Lamourette): “What is the History of Books?”, “The Forgotten Middlemen of Literature”, “First Steps Towards A History of Reading” (criticism)
49. ** G. Thomas Tanselle, A Rationale of Textual Criticism (criticism)
50. ** Jerome McGann, Part I of The Textual Condition (criticism)

¿Qué He Hecho Yo Para Merecer Esto?

it's not even 9 a.m., and already i'm having the most horrible day i've had in weeks.

i got just 4 hours of sleep last night, i dropped my toothbrush down the toilet (what is up with me and doing that with important objects?), summer latin is looking like a vanishing possibility, and a friend just called me crying to tell me that his partner of 3+ years has been cheating on him and wants to break up to be with someone else.

in addition, my hair needs shampooing, my eyebrows need tweezing, i haven't been swimming in 5 days, my throat itches, and it's cold.

whine whine whine.

At This Rate

so far this finals period i have written:

7 pages for heather
17 pages for peter and zack
25 pages for david

i'm currently at 32 pages for ania, aiming for about 40ish.

plus umpteen emails and facebook wall posts, some even with creative bent (one specific person has taken responsibility for precisely 97.3% of my prolific email production -- but the facebook monster is a separate and formidable sinkhole for words words words).

all in less than 3 weeks.

at this rate, i could be done with a dissertation in 6 months. it'd be mad painful (think of the red bull cans i'd accumulate... and the jitters that would keep me bouncing at 4 am... and the amount of wheat thins i'd have to consume...), and it might not even be that good, and i'd keel over and die right after...

but hot damn, i'd be a doctor of awesome!

Two Oversized Ironies Of Finals Week

i'm writing papers on madness and hell.

Negatory

for as long as i can remember i've hated the words "weak", "struggle", "try", "incapable" -- for their overall negative valences, really, but especially when used in relation to myself.

here's another "no" word that actually means something good: never. like, "never never never never never" (cf. king lear, who's currently chewing my brains). but also like, "never again [will i get myself into such a ridiculous pickle over final papers]."

n-e-v-e-r.

someone remind me of this week when it's late april 2008 and i'm frolicking like a fairy instead of writing like a fiend?

Nuclear Meltdown Alert

don't talk to me unless i talk to you.

seriously. just don't.

unless you are prepared for a barrage of some of the most disturbing and life-changing (yet profoundly eloquent, because i'm in graduate school after all) musings i've ever had.


(blog comments are still welcome.)