The World According to J.

This has been an insane semester so far.  I’m teaching Western World Lit from 1700-1900 and auditing French in the afternoons MWF.  TR I have Poetry, 19th Century Lit, and Literature & Sociology. W afternoons I have a class on teaching methods. And in the evenings I run. This doesn’t leave me a lot of time to do things like grocery shop or remember to get my glasses fixed.  Also I kinda need to take the cat to the vet but I can never seem to find the time. Poor D doesn’t get to see a lot of me and I’m glad I live with my friends otherwise I’d never see them.

The world according to J is this: I can’t wait until I can just have a normal job, live in one place for more than 10 months at a time, grow some tomatoes, have time to go to the grocery store, and remember what it’s like to have a life.  I yearn for the day when I can do something crazy like take a vacation, read a book for fun, or sit through an entire movie without remembering 1,000 things I should be doing instead.  I never thought I’d say it but the real world is kinda looking good. Being an adult is easier than being an adult and a student.

Currently reading:

• Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen
• Selected Poems, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
• From Mandeville to Marx, by Louis Dumont
• Platero y yo, by Juan Ramon Jimenez
• The Complete Book of Running for Women, by Claire Kowalchick
• Mise en Scene, by Cheryl Krueger
• Pause-Cafe, by Nora Megharbi
• What to Eat, by Marion Nestle
• Ahead of All Parting, by Ranier Maria Rilke
• The Red and the Black, by Stendhal
• Lyrical Ballads, by William Wordsworth

I think you can guess which ones of those are for my classes.

800 Miles

Katharine: (turning up her TV) Can you hear this?

Me: (pressing the phone to my ear) Wait. Hold on.

Katharine: Are we on?

Me: Checking…Yes! It’s perfect!!

Katharine: (reading from her TV screen) “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2″

Me: (happy sigh) Yay.

Katharine: Ok, let’s just sit back and watch a movie together.

Me: I heart you! (pause) We’ve really got to move to the same state…

Confessions of a Literophile

Literophile. Its not in my dictionary. In fact, right now Firefox is telling me that I ought to change it to either necrophiliac or audiophile. It might not be my most ingenious concoction of my linguistic knowledge, but I like to think it would make Jasper Fforde proud. I like language. I love words. I am obsessed with the written word.

I adore wandering around libraries and bookstores, but used bookstores are my personal favorite. There’s something sacred about books that have already been loved looking for new homes. I find my desire to buy used books is pretty much equal to my desire to take home the homeless puppies outside the pet store on adoption days. And that’s pretty bad, just ask my boyfriend. I find it impossible to get rid of books. What if I want to refer back to something in them…someday?? I broke this code when I was moving a few years ago, and every once in a while I set off in search of one of the two dozen or so books I gave away and, when I come up short, kick myself all over again for letting those books go.

If you’re not a book nerd, you probably haven’t made it this far. Although I’m never able to quite put my finger on it, there’s something amazing in the way a good book smells, the rustle of pages in a quiet room, the texture of a spine under your fingers. So I would like to offer my sympathies to those of you out there who don’t experience what my friend Sonya once termed bookgasms.

Literophelia does have its drawbacks, though. Namely this: books are expensive. And heavy. I move a lot, which means that I rid myself of everything unnecessary each time this happens. Furniture (save bookcases) goes, kitchen appliances go, clothes go, TVs and DVDs go, books stay. I think its safe to say I have a problem.

In a modern culture that values literature (and reading outside the computer in general) much lower than ever before, what’s a literophile to do? I have so few friends who read, and I mean really read. I’m not talking Nora Roberts here, I’m talking actual literature. I took my dog to the clinic where my boyfriend works a few weeks ago, and had a disheartening talk with the vet about books. He asked my what I wanted to do with my life (a loaded question to an aspiring professor who works in a bank) and I said I was going for my MA in Comparative Literature. He then proceeded to expound on the greatness of James Patterson. All I could think to say is that Patterson has, indeed, written a great many books. I’m sure this did nothing to make me look intelligent in his eyes, but that’s ok. What strikes me is how common this reaction is, so many people pulling their B-rated movie version of book knowledge out when I say that I want to be a literature professor. It makes me wonder, if I met someone who wanted to be a film professor, would I expound on my love of Scrubs?

To be honest, I don’t think so, but I’m not altogether sure. Lately, I’ve started to feel as though I’m very different. And I don’t mean in the cool I-love-her-awesome-haircut kind of way, but rather in the is-there-something-wring-with-that-girl kind of way. I’m pretty sure there’s nothing wrong with me. I’m pretty sure I’m not exactly average either.

What You CAN Do With That Humanities Degree

Fun things to do with your Humanities degree:

1. Write the next great American novel. Regardless of whether you majored or minored in English, or just really liked that British Lit Survey class you took Sophomore year, having an interest in your native tongue makes people think you’re the next Fitzgerald. It doesn’t matter that you don’t want to spend your formative years banging your head against the wall in an attempt to combat writers’ block. It doesn’t matter that you were a literature major and not a creative writing major. However, this is one of the best ways to shove that liberal arts degree in the faces of your friends who are sitting in med school classes trying to name diseases they’ll likely never encounter.

2. Wow people in everyday conversation with your stellar grasp of the English language. Just remember that this can have the adverse effect of others thinking that you’re a grammar nazi/general snob.

3. Create a position for yourself as a post-grad writing lab. Your friends who are still in school continually email you papers, speeches, and other emails to spell and grammar check. Yes, they expect prompt replies. Hey, you might not be able to balance your checkbook, but at least you can articulate your ignorance in a beautiful manner.

4. Become one of those people that other people hate. You know the ones. We look at you as the credits are rolling in the movie theater and say, “The book was so much better”. We know its annoying. But its usually true.

5. Become a starving artist. Let’s face it, the Humanities are less than appreciated these days.

6. Find a grad school and earn another (only somewhat) useless degree.

That’s all I’ve got.

Ideas? Please?

Pizza, Beer, Jane.

As I write this, several things are happening simultaneously. 1. Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park is loading in my (ancient) DVD player, 2. the oven is preheating to 400 for my pizza, and 3. I am holding a glass of (tasty) Sam Adams Boston Lager.

These things go together. Right?

Well, at least my beer is in a glass, that makes it (a little) more girly.

This Song Should be in a Zach Braff Movie

This song needs to be in a Zach Braff movie somewhere.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vg7BEHIo-g4