Evil Wrapped in a Fangirl Disguise

So, spring quarter.

The Nineteenth-Century French Novel: This was originally "European Novel," but Dr. Weber focused it down. Apparently a course like this hasn't been taught in some 20-25 years at SU. I'm really looking forward to this one and a lot of that has to do with Dr. Weber. Such a nice, funny lady. Today she brought us muffins. (She's of the belief that if you eat together, you're family.)

We will be reading de Stael's Corinne, Sand's Indiana, and Flaubert's Madame Bovary. Should be interesting.

Donne and His Critics: McDowell is still a big NERD. I feel a lot more comfortable in his class this time around. I've said before that sometimes I feel he's a bit over-rated, but I think a lot of that has to do with the fangirls that tend to populate his classes. I think he's funny and he keeps me interested in class. But I'm not going to sit giggling in the front row, thank you. (Those girls are weird. I think trademybike has told me several times about the girl who very clearly said she would "do" McDowell.)

Anyway. I love Donne. I think he's clever and hilarious and touching and all kinds of interesting. Now that I've had the class twice, I'm much less worried about it than I was when I first signed up.

Today when he went through the roster, he had us say our names and a word of the day. Funny because I had just been talking to someone about words. So I went first with "puerile." He asked if that had to do with his reaction to the previous professor's coffee spill in the room. I said no, that it was my favorite word to call people in high school because no one knew what it meant. He pointed out that this probably says a lot about me in high school but he wouldn't psychoanalyze. I'm well aware it says a lot about me in high school. A lot of people were puerile.

Chaucer: Also a lot less frightening that I thought when I signed up for it. Of course, I say that now. I could take that back any time. Bullon-Fernandez seems slightly less intimidating. Don't know why. We'll be focusing on The Canterbury Tales. She was going to include other works, but she decided to focus it down even more. Sad, but I can read those other things on my own.

There will be quizzes over translating in the class. I'm not too worried about them. I really don't have too much trouble reading Middle English, especially after I've been doing it for a little while. Last quarter I'd switch over to modern English and try to impose ME pronunciation on it and get confused when it didn't work.

So, yes. Should be an interesting final quarter.

I was really anxious about today. I didn't get to sleep until sometime after four am yesterday because I was wide awake. Having not had any caffeine since lunch time, there was no reason for this other than the slow constriction in my chest commonly known as me freaking out over finals. Even though I know I'm going to be fine. And, yes, I'm well aware that it's pushing three am. This is normal for me.

Things I Did Today (Monday):

- Turned in Yeats paper. FINALLY. Irish Literature is done. Last Friday we watched Gaelic football. I could actually see myself getting into it. Unlike American football, which always seems to be full of waiting for things to happen if you ask me, those guys didn't stop moving once. Today we watched hurling. That was fun, too.

- Wrote seven pages of the (minimum) ten page paper for Masculinity. They're not as bad as I thought they would be. I'm a little concerned at the organization of the thing, but other than that it feels pretty solid to me so far. Due tomorrow before 4:30/5:00.

- Watched The Riches on FX with Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver. I'm going to give up watching The Black Donnellys to watch this instead. Weird hearing EI without his accent, though.

- Refrained from posting fanfic. Apparently my avoidance technique when it comes to writing essays is fiddling with fic. I think it has to do with being forced to stare at the computer and having all those wordy documents waiting to be opened.

Tomorrow (Tuesday) I Will:

- Finish the Masculinity paper, turn it in, and do a dance of triumph. Okay, so maybe not the dance. And if there is dancing it will definitely not be done in the English Department. That would be awkward.

- Meet with people from Asian American Lit to go over the take home final. Apparently half of the people in the group that was meeting decided they weren't going to do the take home (it was optional). Which is all well and good, but then it was just going to be me and one other girl and I'm not necessarily very helpful with stuff like this. But someone else is coming too, so hopefully we'll all get something out of it.

- Work. Which will be less annoying than it sometimes can be (it's really not bad at all) because I don't really have any homework to worry about completing. Just a paper that's due Friday and the take home mentioned above.

After tomorrow afternoon, I'm taking the rest of Tuesday and at least half of Wednesday to do nothing at all. Read for fun. Watch TV. Sleep in. Y'know, lazy things. Lazy, pre-spring break things.

Speaking of spring break, olivelavonne is coming home with me! I'm excited. Hopefully she won't be bored out of her mind.

I hate people who talk together during class while someone else clearly has the floor. I know you may be bored, but is it so much to ask that you give the professor the respect they (usually) deserve? I mean, I was slightly bored, too, but I'm not going to disrupt the rest of the class because of it.

There was a moment of "Ha!" afterward, however, when they moved on to writing notes to each other and Fr. Duffy (I'm still automatically writing "Buffy") called them on it.

My final quarter at Seattle University looks like this:

- English 352 - 19th Century European Novel w/Dr. Weber
Mondays & Wednesdays, 10:00 - 12:05

- English 415 - Donne and His Critics w/Dr. McDowell
Mondays & Wednesdays, 1:30 - 3:35

- English 328 - Chaucer w/Dr. Bullon-Fernandez
Tuesdays & Thursdays, 3:45 - 5:50

I'm really excited for all of them. I had Dr. Weber for English 110 and have been trying to get her ever since. And just now I've realized that I'm ending with her. Full circle, or something.

A week ago I was a bit wary about taking the Chaucer class, but I think I've become better at really participating in class to not fail completely at participation with Bullon-Fernandez.

I will admit to lingering nerves concerning the decision over the Donne class. I love John Donne, but McDowell is a big Donne fanatic (T-shirt to prove it) and that makes talking about it with him a little weird because what do I know as a student, y'know? But it's his thing and it's Donne and Katie will be there and I'm really looking forward to it regardless.

Meanwhile, OMG SERIOUSLY SHOOT ME IN THE FACE. The end of this quarter is RAPIDLY approaching and I'm so not prepared to have to write final papers. I may be freaking out a little internally at the moment.

Not that I'm that worried or anything, but if I don't get into the classes I want my FINAL QUARTER here I will be most seriously displeased.

Should be fine though.

In Irish Lit we found out that and option for our final paper was to write something creative in which characters from two or three of the texts engage in conversation with each other. Fr. Duffy (I just wrote "Buffy." Whoops.) kept emphasizing how important it was to make sure the characters were still in character. Of course, I'm sitting there thinking about how it's all really just crossover fanfiction and how I can't imagine attempting to write anything in the voice of Stephen Dedalus.

I think it's great that he's offering us a more creative option, but I was also a little surprised by how many people were excited about the chance to write creatively. Um? Aren't some of them creative writing majors? I know I'm not the only person that uses down time to write creatively.

Someone also asked, "Isn't it supposed to be a research paper?" Well, I'm certainly not going to attempt to write a short story/play about post-WWI Ireland without doing some research.

Anyway. Reactions were interesting. And while it's refreshing to have the option, I think I'm going to stick with my interest in Yeats and Eastern philosophies/theologies.

Meanwhile, I have a prospectus and annotated bibliography due tomorrow in Masculinity. I know what I want to do my final essay on, so the prospectus isn't that difficult. But I'm still looking for at least one other essay for the bibliography. And one of the ones that I already have makes me a little nervous. Somehow, as students, we get into the mindset that what we have to say, our interpretation of the texts involved, isn't as relevant as what someone published has to say. Because we don't have that gloss of authority. Which is kind of silly, because no one just starts out with authority. They get it through publishing essays that enter into dialogue with people who had "authority" before them.

So I'm reading this essay and it's saying that certain ways I would like to read The Knight's Tale are wrong and I'm sitting here going, "But I still think I have a valid point to make." I just have to remember that that's the point of essay writing (at least of this kind). And I feel pretty comfortable with my reading of The Knight's Tale (Theseus in particular). But that doesn't mean I'm not a little iffy about taking a stand and arguing it when I feel less than qualified.

So. Lent starts tomorrow. That kind of snuck up on me.

Because I am a big, gigantic literature loving dork/geek/nerd, my parents got me (for Valentine's Day/making the Dean's list - excuses we/they are going for) The Riverside Chaucer. Because I've been going on about Chaucer and Masculinity and Koppelman suggested I look into it. It's huge! And wonderful. I'm currently geeking out over Middle English and glossaries and footnotes.

Also, randomly, I always feel weird associated "geek" with the literary stuff I'm into. "Geek" always feels more science/science fiction related to me. There's a very fine distinction between "geek" and "nerd" in my book.

Other than the bird incident, I can't really complain about this weekend. Kirby was fantastic. He's such a good dog. And, of course, the fish posed no problems.

I'm finding Capellanus's The Art of Courtly Love hilarious.

From Book I, Chapter V, "What Persons are Fit for Love" -

"You should know that everyone of sound mind who is capable of doing the work of Venus may be wounded by one of Love's arrows unless prevented by age, or blindness, or excess of passion."

Later it says, "Blindness is a bar to love, because a blind man cannot see anything upon which his mind can reflect immoderately. But I admit that this is true only of the acquiring of love, for I do not deny that a love which a man acquires before his blindness may last after he becomes blind."

I'm having entirely too much fun reading this. And the thing is, even though it's all ridiculous, a lot of it's pretty true. I think the hilarity comes from the fact that these "rules" are laid out on the page, right there, and they're stated so matter of factly that you can't help but laugh at them. And then there's the fact that, seriously, everything is hilarious when I'm tired.

Oh, like today the girl I sit next to in Irish Lit was telling me about how her friend's boyfriend just got deported. Which we both found inappropriately funny. And then she told me he was deported to Canada and that just made it better for some reason. I think we were both a little stressed over the midterm that was minutes away.

Midterm went well enough. Don't want to think about it anymore.

I've been doing a lot of writing lately. I have a Word document entitled "Drabbles & Things" which is a catchall for very short stories and drabbles and the occasional random idea or line and I just realized that it's thirty pages long. Thirty pages of random stuff. I was skimming through it earlier and found some things that made me pause and go, "Wait a minute, I don't remember writing that..." And then it all clicks and I wonder why I stopped.

( Like this one, where Rodney and John are captured by restless natives... )

I'm not sure where I was going with that. Well, specifically. I can imagine where I was going with it generally.

Vaguely inspired by Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. By which I mean I go the idea while watching the movie. I remember digging through my bag for pen and sticky note and scribbling it quickly in the dark. This is exactly why I have sticky notes in every bag I own.

Okay, back to courtly love.

And it's funny that I just typed that about blindness and love and right now Music From Another Room is on TV and the blind character is currently in the process of falling in love.

Because I missed Family Guy, I missed Stewie dancing with Gene Kelly.

ETA: Well, that clip's been removed.

Also, I totally rocked in both of my classes today. Even got a "brilliant" from Tung. This makes my week somewhat better.

I've been reading Chaucer all day. I'm not going to work so that I can continue to read Chaucer. Oh, joy.

Don't get me wrong. I'm still enjoying Troilus and Criseyde, but you cannot skim Middle English. It just does not work. And I keep finding myself wanting to yell, "Troilus, grow a pair!" Which isn't to say that he's not a man and that men can't display their feelings, but really, he should stop fainting every time Criseyde looks at him.

Anyway. I thought this was interesting: The virgin birth of Komodo dragons.

This is not the best week ever. It's not the worst, either, but it's long and stupid.

It's really not that bad, but I made a seriously stupid mistake on my poetry assignment and now Fr. Duffy is going to read it and go, "Um. What?" and probably leave a note saying just about that same exact thing.

Ugh. I'm going to go watch Black Books or something to distract myself.

*

( SGA - The Ark )

( SGA - Sunday )