In spite of everything that happened this semester, I still managed to pull a great GPA. I submitted my abstract for the Conference of the Americas. I’m submitting for the Mandala journal. The students I tutored did well on their finals. I have amazing friends. My job isn’t completely horrible. And, in three days I’m heading west for Christmas break to see more of my amazing friends.
I’m happy.
And, as an added bonus, I win.
December 17, 2008
I’m in the home stretch of this theory paper. N is still here crash out in my living room, and all I have to do is conclude something. I’ve had 7 hours of sleep since Wednesday night and am still not entirely sure I’ve written anything worth concluding in these dozen pages.
This is not why I’m panicking.
After all this insanity, I’m still loving my paper topic, and I still want to read another of Banville’s novels over Christmas break.
Grad school is a sick, sick world.
December 6, 2008
It’s nearly 1am. My paper is due tomorrow by 5pm. E and N and I are currently camped out in various places throughout my living room/dining room writing furiously. E is nearing page 10. N is somewhere in the quagmire of page 6. I’m beginning to get annoyed at page 8. It won’t seem to get full. We’re all headed to 12…eventually.
Which totally explains why I’m blogging at 1am.
This is going to be a long night.
December 5, 2008
It’s the half-truths that kill you.
The ones you tell to those you love.
The ones you tell to yourself.
The ones that you believe without them ever being spoken.
The half-truths mold you—shape you into the worst version of them.
They slowly kick out the truth-half
and mold you into the half that began as deception.
It is the thin line crossed.
The variation so small that it becomes
difficult for you to see the truth yourself.
But eventually, so many half-truths
become a half-lie.
No more pretending.
No more fudging in the name of encouragement.
Smoothing over for the sake of optimism.
Dodging details so as not to disappoint.
No more pretending.
Its time to acknowledge the truth.
The whole truth.
Time to become legit.
And face whatever pain might come along with it.
This was in a book called Half-Life/Die Already (Mark Steele) that I’m reading between papers. Check it out, it’s pretty awesome.
December 1, 2008
Two big things have happened in the last 24 hours:
1. My productivity has ground to a screaching halt (due in part to my extreme annoyance)
2. I received a box including penguin soap my dad made
That’s right, it’s penguin soap and it’s awesome!
If I don’t turn in any papers at least I’ll be squeaky clean!
November 30, 2008
I’ve officially hit my end-of-semester groove; I’ve finally started my papers! And by “started my papers” I mean that I’ve cleaned my room and have clothes in the dryer and am now contemplating cleaning my bathroom. Oh, I’ve highlighted a bunch of stuff too. Eventually this will give way to scrubbing, and finally writing.
This gives me faith though, this is how I work. First I clean anything and everything I can get my hands on. Then I start organizing, first my closet and desk, slowly working my way towards my notes. Then I color-code everything. And finally, I drink my weight in coffee and stay up for two days straight writing.
My professors have always begrudged me my inability to make outlines, but I think it’s because they are never privy to this process. Because really, if they could see the vacuum tracks in my carpet, they would totally get it.
November 25, 2008
“I ask what I have asked already: what did it benefit me to take on his identity? It must be, simply, that it was not so much that I wanted to be him–although I did, I did want to be him–but that I wanted so much more not to be me. That is to say, i desired to escape my own individuality, the hereness of my self, not the thereness of my world…Yet I have lived as him fo so long I can scarcely remember what it was like to be the one that I once was…I pause in uncertainty, losing my way in this welter of personal, impersonal, impersonating, pronouns.”
“If, as I believe, as I insist, there is no essential, singular self, what is it exactly I am supposed to have escaped by pretending to be [him]?”
“To be someone else is to be one thing, and one thing only. I think of an actor in the ancient world…The crowd knows him but cannot remember his name…He has a mask, he has had it for years; it is his talisman…Increasingly, indeed, he thinks the mask is more like his face than his face is. At the end of a performance when he takes it off he wonders if the other actors can see him at all, or if he is just a head with a blank front…”
John Banville.
There are times when our own words are simply not enough. Finding the words of others makes us feel less alone, reminds us we are not the only ones who struggle. My words are jumbled, they have no coherent meaning. They are a sporadic Scrabble game played with a dyslexic, a crossword puzzle in a foreign language. Even I don’t know what I mean anymore. I want a break from words, but they haunt me. They follow me around, springing up in my head in the middle of the night, while I drive, in the shower; my words appear in others’ books, they spill into essays, show up on the sides of buildings and Coke cans. They find me on sidewalks, crosswalks, overpasses, bridges, trains, parking lots, posters, textbooks, novels, films, stores. They never leave.
No matter where I go, words find me. And so I leave a breadcrumb trail of crumpled papers smeared with potentially incomprehensible haikus.
Someday, they will all come together and create something beautiful. In this alone I have faith.
November 13, 2008
July 23, 2008 By J-NYU
The summer of 2008. A summer drowning in recession, debt, ridiculous gas prices, and boring, trashy television (I mean, Greatest American Dog??). Lots of things seem to be going wrong…or at least…discussed to the point of having us all believe they’re going wrong…and many teens and twenty-somethings are turning to the web to air their grievances.
Because 2008 isn’t just the summer of expensive corn and Obama-rama, it’s also the summer of TMI. Over-sharing has become a form of communication for our generation; from blogging about bad dates, to blogging about our self-indulgent issues, to blogging purely to become famous. No matter who we are, we can become stars overnight by uploading naked photos, name-dropping about a wild party, or simply having an ounce of literary ability and a snarky way with words.
By late July, 2008, the percent of people in the US who haven’t seen a celebrity vajayjay flash or heard someone say, “dude, I’m gonna blog about this!” is monumentally small, and it seems like every day a new gossip or 24 hour news site pops up. However, amidst the clattering of fingers on keyboards and snapping of flashbulbs, I can’t help but wonder if this constant need to be seen and heard is actually doing us any good.
Is all this over-sharing about our drug, drink, and sexual exploits really helping women cultivate a strong, intelligent persona? Do we feel more empowered now that Britney, Lindsay, and Paris have made trashy the new black? Are our lives more complete now that we know what David Beckham had for breakfast?
These aren’t rhetorical questions. As a twenty-something myself, I really want to know.
July 28, 2008
shebeen (shuh-BEEN) noun
An unlicensed drinking establishment.
[From Irish sibin, diminutive of seibe (mug/mugful). The word is popular in the south of Africa and in Scotland and Ireland.]
On June 16, James Joyce aficionados the world over celebrate Bloomsday. The day is named after advertising salesman Leopold Bloom, protagonist of Joyce’s novel Ulysses. The entirety of this book recounts an ordinary day, June 16, 1904, as various characters go about their ways in Dublin, Ireland. If those 700+ pages are too much, check out this illustrated and irreverent summary of the book.
June 9, 2008
Word a Day:
jackanapes (JAK-uh-nayps) noun
An impertinent conceited person.
Probably from Jack Napes, from “jack (man) of an ape”. This word was the nickname of William de la Pole (1396-1450), Duke of Suffolk, as his badge was a clog and chain, as might be tied to an ape.
Mark Twain once said, “When angry, count to four; when very angry, swear.” While swearing is considered uncouth and vulgar, it has its place and purpose. It helps provide an emotional release and clears the system. Isn’t a verbal venting of emotions better than a physical manifestation?
You don’t have to rely on those worn-out four-letter terms to inflict rude remarks on the offending party. With careful selection of words, it’s possible to elevate insults to an art form. Why not use this week’s exquisite words for one of those times when nothing less will do?
June 5, 2008
I love weird facts, so here are a few about books, language and literature.
- “Go,” is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.
- For several decades the well-known Belgian mystery writer Georges Simenon wrote, on the average, one Novel every eleven days. Besides the more than 230 Novels he penned under his own name, Simenon wrote 300 other books under a pseudonym.
- The origin of the Latin word for book, liber, comes from the Romans who used the thin layer found between the bark and the wood (the liber) before the times of parchment. The English word comes from the Danish word for book, bog, meaning birch tree, as the early people of Denmark wrote on birch bark.
- An original copy of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales sold for a record £4,621,500 (9 times the expected price) at Christies, London, UK on 8th July 1998 by a private collector. The book was the first major work printed in England by William Caxton, in 1477.
- The Nursery Rhyme “Old King Cole” is based on a real king and a real historical event. King Cole is supposed to have been an actual monarch of Britain who ruled around 200 A.D.
- The Library of Congress, Washington DC, USA contains 28 million books and has 532 miles of shelving. If you were driving at a constant 70 mph in a car it would take you just under 8 hours to pass them all. And thats without stopping to go to the toilet!
- Johannes Gutenberg was not the first man to produce a book printed with movable type. Printed books were made in China five hundred years before their appearance in Europe. These books were set in movable type made with metal or porcelain characters, were printed on paper (which also was invented in China centuries before it reached the West), and were bound in a manner much like contemporary volumes, complete with title page and cover.
- Between 1986 and 1996, Brazilian author Jose Carlos Ryoki de Alpoim Inoue had a massive 1,058 novels published. He writes westerns, science fiction and thrillers. Does he ever eat?
- The sentence “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog”, uses every letter in the alphabet.
- A 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable.
- The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year by the weight of books.
- The dot over the letter “i” is called a tittle.
- There are no words in the dictionary that rhyme with orange, purple and silver.
- On average, 100 people choke to death on ballpoint pens every year.
June 2, 2008
This week I’m reading How to Read Literature Like a Professor, which is a much better book than the title might imply. Written by an English professor at U. Michigan Flint, it really is (as the subtitle implies) a lively and entertaining read. Usually I go through a book or two a week, but I think I’ll take longer on this book simply because its so fun to read.
I’ve gotten to the chapter entitled “Now, Where Have I Seen Her Before?”, a look a references and repetition in literature. Honestly, this chapter makes me feel a little more sane. I remember being in undergrad asking my Spanish professor if something in the work we were reading for class was an allusion to something I had recently read for my History class, and he looked at me like I was crazy and said something to the effect of, “that happened hundreds of years before this story was penned”. I stopped asking him questions like this after that. All that is to say though, that I am in love with this book! And that’s something, as I have a harder time falling for non-fiction.
Can I also add that I love how he has a recommended reading list at the end, complete with his thoughts on why these books are worth reading?!
May 19, 2008
The newest post on Stuff White People Like:
White people love rules. It explains why so they get upset when people cut in line, why they tip so religiously and why they become
lawyers. But without a doubt, the rule system that white people love the most is grammar. It is in their blood not only to use perfect grammar but also to spend significant portions of time pointing out the errors of others.
When asking someone about their biggest annoyances in life, you might expect responses like “hunger,” “being poor,” or “getting shot.” If you ask a white person, the most common response will likely be “people who use ‘their’ when they mean ‘there.’ Maybe comma splices, I’m not sure but it’s definitely one of the two.”
If you wish to gain the respect of a white person, it’s probably a good idea that you find an obscure and debated grammar rule such as the “Oxford Comma” and take a firm stance on what you believe is correct. This is seen as more productive and forward thinking that simply stating your anger at the improper use of “it’s.
Another important thing to know is that when white people read magazines and books they are always looking for grammar and spelling mistakes. In fact, one of the greatest joys a white person can experience is to catch a grammar mistake in a major publication. Finding one allows a white person to believe that they are better than the writer and the publication since they would have caught the mistake. The more respected the publication, the greater the thrill. If a white person were to catch a mistake in The New Yorker, it would be a sufficient reason for a large party.
Though they reserve the harshest judgment for professional, do not assume that white people will cast a blind eye to your grammar mistakes in email and official documents. They will judge you and make a general assessment about your intelligence after the first infraction. Fortunately, this situation can be improved if you ask a white person to proof read your work before you send it out. “Hey Jill, I’m sorry to do this, but I have a business degree and I’m a terrible writer. Can you look this over for me?” This deft maneuver will allow the white person to feel as though their liberal arts degree has a purpose and allow you to do something more interesting.
Don’t worry, it is impossible for a white person to turn down the opportunity to proofread.
May 14, 2008
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.
May 13, 2008
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?
May 12, 2008
