Well, it is 10:12 PM, and I have finally finished my "draft" of my paper. Given the fact that I missed
A) Swaction
B) Beer
C) Sushi
D) Dance, Dance Revolution
E) Movie or other activity
F) Fun in general with my non-homework bound friends,
I have to say that I am relatively pissed, especially because I'm done, with just enough time to do absolutely nothing before it's time for me to go to bed so that I can get up and go to class tomorrow.
Basically, I looked at my paper before I left work and thought, "Oh, heck yeah! I'm only about an hour from done." Then I got home, took a shower, came out to read it to find that it looked like someone had cut paragraphs from about twelve different essays and pasted them down on four pages of blank paper with little to no regard for whether or not the ideas had anything to do with each other. Also, said person apparently had no concept of chronological or logical order or paragraph organization.
At first, I thought I could merely move things around and be fine, but the more I read the paper and tried to move things, the more I found reasonless repetition and a complete lack of transitions/cohesion/controlling idea/thesis. So, pretty much, I had to re-write the entire paper. From scratch. Then I cut and pasted the lines I liked from the old paper and built new paragraphs around them. It was a nightmare. It was the single worst paper I've read in months, and that's saying something. It was the worst paper I've written in... I'm gonna go with EVER. I never tell anybody to start from scratch. There's always a way to salvage a paper. Not this one. It was more like notes to myself about all the possible things my paper could be about.
I re-wrote it, but I refuse to re-read it on the grounds that three times is quite enough re-writing for a draft that I will have an opportunity to revise before it's officially graded. I know it still has a split focus, but I have no idea what to do about it. I'll have to keep it in the holding pen of ideas for awhile and see what it becomes. It's as good as it's going to get tonight.
I don't know what it was about this assignment. In my proposal, it went so well, but in practice, it was a complete mess. I think I let my form be dictated too much by his two page checklist of requirements. I finally said to myself to screw it and did what I wanted and went back to look at the checklist afterwards.
And all of this bugs the hell out of me because I remember when my Friday nights were filled with what I wanted to do and not what my class dictated I must do. B-O-G-U-S!
To begin with, my grandma is in the hospital. It sounds like she's going to be OK, though. She had the flu, and they are still running some tests, but all sounds well now. I'll keep you posted.
In other news, today, I am watching Cowboy Bebop: The Movie. I have to say that I do not like it as well as the episodes. They kind of stretched out an episode and made it longer than it needed to be. L-A-M-E.
I'm not sure if you all appreciate how great Cowboy Bebop is. It's pretty much the only anime I really, truly love. It doesn't have too many people with funny faces and weird eyes and bizarre expressions running around playing games against each other. It's about bounty hunters. It's packed with symbolism. It has a character named Edward who is funny. And I love it. I am about to get Read or Die tomorrow, which I am excited about. Supposedly, it's good anime as well.
As you may have guessed, I got a subscription to Netflix from Carl and Jill for Christmas, which is a wicked cool gift. I have two months free, and I am taking as much advantage as possible. So far, I have watched all of Cowboy Bebop. My goal is to watch all of Read or Die and all of Farscape. I don't know if I will accomplish this. I may renew. :)
I've had a cold for the last few days, so that's been fun.
Finally, I am putting off doing homework because that's what college students do best. I am going over to the ol' alma mater library tomorrow to do some research. It occurred to me today that I was putting off something that I don't know how to do when a librarian at my old school could help me with it. That's me at my smartest: always really good at remembering that I can ask for help. NOT.
Well, all I know is that I intend to procrastinate for a few more hours. Peace and love and peaches, everybody!
Well, I started my second graduate class.
I don't think I'm going to keep doing it. It's kind of boring, it costs a lot of money, and I guess I don't really want to be in that field. So... there you have that. This semester is better, at least, because it's creative writing, which I love.
Apparently, what I want to do is get what experts agree is a fairly useless and expensive degree and then sit around paying it off for the next rest of my life. I want to get an MFA in Writing. I want to teach writing, and I want to write a lot. That's really all I want to do. I don't really like high brow "literature." I find much of it boring and depressing for no reason. I much prefer sci fi and fantasy.
But apparently, even after ten years of trying to follow my mom's advice about putting some dreams aside, I can't get past the fact that there's nothing I'd rather do than write. Not one thing.
How do you deal with a love like that? There's nothing to do but give in, I guess, so there you have that.
Hi all. I only read one book in December, and here it is:
Phantastes by George MacDonald: 1.5 Stars. Well, I guess I am just an uncultured swine. C.S. Lewis loved it. Amazon.com customer reviews love it. My student loves it. I hated it. It is not even 200 pages long, but it took me three times as long as Eragon or Eldest, which are probably triple the length and written by a teenager who really could have benefitted from a better editor.
I personally found this to be a very difficult read. While Amazon.com calls it allegorical, it does not start out that way in my view. I don't think the author really made up his mind what the story was about until about halfway through. I found bits of the story incredibly interesting, but much of it felt like someone had taken one too many hits before sitting down to write.
I guess I just don't like stories that read like dreams, so that's probably part of it. I also don't like random bits of poetry thrown in for the hell of it.
I can't even really tell you what the story is about because its plot is very unclear. It starts with this guy winding up in fairy land where he wanders around for about 20 pages. Then he's chased by evil trees for 20 more (which pretty much never come up again. They were just there being evil and not the scourage of fairy land that all the people at the beginning would have you believe). Then he gets a demon shadow, and for the rest of the book, that haunts him, which is interesting but irritating all at the same time because his own stupidity and inability to follow instructions got him the shadow in the first place. I like the part where he's in the fairy palace library reading books and tells two of the stories to us, and I like everything from when he meets an old lady in a cottage until the end.
Overall, it gets a star and a half for being better at the end than at the beginning, and I could maybe even go a star and three fourths for having really good side stories in the library. I like C.S. Lewis and generally trust his judgement, but I think C.S. Lewis does fairy tales better. I also understand that this is an allegory, but I think there are holes in it that prevent it from being effective.
Since it took me all month to get through this book, I really can't recommend it at all. Feel free to share your reads in the comments.