Goals

That last post about why I feel the need to post my summer reading has gotten me thinking more generally about goals for the summer. And I guess that this is as good a place as any to start to hash out some of that. I mean, there's a lot I'd like to get done over the summer (yoga, writing, sewing, painting my bedroom, lose weight), but it seems overwhelming just thinking about it, you know? And the problem (or a problem, anyway) that I tend to have is that I love, love, love setting goals, and I tend to set these ridiculously high, unrealistic goals, and then when I don't meet every single goal down to the last detail, I feel like a total failure. Please don't tell me how silly and unhealthy this sort of perfectionist thinking is--I'm well aware of it. Logically, I do see the problem here. This very tendency has recently made me a bit hesitant to set concrete goals of any sort. However, I always feel like if I have no goals, I won't make any sort of progress at all towards anything. At this juncture, I'm asking myself why I can't be OK with just "being," why I have to focus on the "becoming." I don't know how to answer those questions.

So it seems that I have a love/hate relationship with goals. On the one hand, I need them to feel OK about myself. But on the other hand, they clearly make me feel not OK about myself. Arrgh! Why does this have to be difficult? It sounds like I need a good therapist, doesn't it? Oh wait, the last therapist told me to dump all my friends because you all only valued me for my appearance, not for who I am on the inside. I don't know why, but this statement is especially ridiculous, IMO. I mean really--I'm not quite cute enough for that to be my only source of social currency. Oi.

So now that I've written about goals, I don't know where to go from here. Do I make a list of goals? Do I not? Fenway is especially lovey today--do I spend the day cuddling with him?

More on Summer Reading

Ok, I know that I'm obsessing about planning my summer reading.  I also know that probably noone cares, besides me.  And I'm fine with that.  I guess that I feel like in order to actually get anything done, I need to have goals.  And those goals seem real when I say them aloud, you know?  So here's my summer reading list, so far.  It needs to be prioritized somehow.  I haven't got to that yet.

Reading List, Summer 2009

In no particular order:

1.       Mrs. Dalloway

2.      An Abundance of Katherines

3.      Old Curiousity Shop

4.      Finish Dalgleish novels

5.      To the Lighthoues

6.      Harry Potter Series

7.      The Waves

8.      Woman in White

9.      Till We Have Faces

10.  Graveyard Book

11.  Thackery

12.  Trollope

13.  Eliot

14.  Forsyte Saga

So this’ll work if I read one book / week.  Oh, except for that HP is one entry.

Then, plus I have all that feminist theory I’m supposed to be reading.

LT Creates Jewelry on Etsy

Ok, so I wanted to give a little "shout out" to LT Creates Jewelry on Etsy.  Etsy.com , as you may know, is a web site where individuals sell their hand made wares (or sometimes, just craft supplies).  I think it's such a fab web site, and I love looking at what people are making.  However, I've only ordered anything once or twice.  But there's this great vendor who makes and sells jewelry from vintage silver-plated flatware.  Her work is really, really nice in my opinion.  After C. got a spoon watch from LT, I was ready to go ahead an place my order.  I got a spoon watch and matching spoon bracelet.  You can see a pic of the watch above.  The bracelet I got is identical, except that instead of the watch face, it has a turquoise bead.  I love both pieces, but if I had to pick one, I'd probably say that I actually like the bracelet best.  The pictures here and on Etsy really don't do the pieces justice--they are much prettier in person.  You send LT your wrist measurement, and she custom sizes them.  And I just love, love, love that this is vintage 1940s silverware that's been repurposed; that idea really appeals to me.  I ordered online and had the pieces in hand in less than a week.  And I think the prices are quite reasonable.  The only drawback IMO is that they are both somewhat difficult to clasp.  The clasp is large, and I'm sure that the piece is secure while one is wearing it, but it's a bit difficult to negoiate.

More on Summer Reading

So I guess that if I'm going to "do" the 19th century English novel this summer, I should throw in some Trollope, Thackeray, and Eliot.  This is starting to feel overwhelming.  But then again, I have always wanted to read at least one novel from each of the three aforementioned writers.  And maybe I can wrap it all up with Galsworthy's Forsyte novels, which I know are really 20th century.  But they feel like a commentary on Victorian society, don't they?.  Oi.  I'm losing control over my summer reading list.  And it's only 16 May!

#10 on summer reading list

Gaiman's Graveyard Book.  Am dying (pun! pun!) to read this one. 

My Summer Reading List--A New Take on the Thursday Thirteen

Ok, so last night, I was lying in bed, watching Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban on DVD, and man I love that movie.  And I had a really good idea for today's T13.  Well, clearly I should have written it down, becuase I've totally forgotten it.  (You may note that I'm making an effort to post more regularly--this is part of a larger effort on my part to simply write more regularly.)

Anyhow, I'm working on putting together a summer reading list, so I thought this could be a collaborative T13.  You know, I'll start, and if any of y'all have suggestions, please contribute in the comments section.  So my "theme" for my summer reading list is this:  Virginia Woolf, 19th century novels, murder mysteries, lots of quickie YA lit, and rereads (this could include Harry Potter and JRR Tolkien).  Ok, so that's not really much of a theme, nor is there a lot of unity there.  I guess the connection is basically stuff Drennan reads for fun but doesn't HAVE to read for work.  So your suggestions should fall into one of the aforementioned categories. 

1.  Mrs. Dalloway (obviously Virginia Wolf, but also a reread)

2.  John Green's An Abundance of Katherines (YA, although not trashy like so many YA reads)

3.  Dickens's Old Curiousity Shop  (19th century)

4.  Finish PD James's Dalgelish series of novels (murder mystery)

5.  To the Lighthouse (also Virginai Wolf and reread)

6.  Harry Potter series (yes, the whole thing.  Do you think I can do it in 2 weeks?)

7.  The Waves (Virginia Wolf again, but not a reread)

8.  The Woman in White by Collins (which I've already started--19th Century)

And that's it of the top of my head.  Oh wait.

9.  CS Lewis's Till We Have Faces (definitely a rearead but an old favorite)

Ok, so that's really it--can you give me four more so I can get to 13?????

John Green--The Next Big Thing in YA Lit

So my considered (dare I say "expert") opinion is that John Green is the next big thing in young adult lit.  And seriously, I'm making a career out of reading YA lit.;  So here's the break down:

A couple of weeks ago, I read Green's Looking for Alaska.  This novel was published in 2005, and many critics have, apparently, compared it to Catcher in the Rye, which I think is highly overrated.  But maybe that's just me.  So Looking for Alaska was not wonderful, didn't change my life, but it was very good.  And I read a lot of YA lit, and most of it is crap.  I've been reading some of the Gossip Girl series, and seriously, those are so very vapid that 48 hours later, I can't even remember what the books were about.  So to find contemporary YA novels that are actually meaningful is always exciting and refreshing.  So basically the novel follows a nerdy protagonist Miles (oh, he's obsessed with "last words" that is, what people say on their deathbeds) as he goes away to boarding school.  He soon meets Alaska, with whom he promptly falls hopelessly in love.  Alaska is far too cool for our protagonist, but he becomes friends with her.  And I supppose that the novel is about Miles's attempt to really understand Alaska, but it becomes his attempt to find himself.  And maybe what he finds is, in part, that other people are unknowable.  I like Miles, as a character, and maybe that's just because, as some of you know, I just really tend to like nerdy men.  Miles feels familiar and irresistable.  A librarian colleague of mine says that the book glorifies underage drinking and sex and such.  I would say it's not so much a glorification as an authentic representation of teenage behavior.  And that's certainly not to say that all teens behave like Miles (or more accurately, Miles's friends), nor am I saying that it's acceptable behavior.  It just is.

Green's second novel is titled An Abundance of Katherines.  It is high on my reading list, along with The Old Curiosity Shop.  That seems like an odd paring.

Yesterday, I read Green's Paper Towns, his latest work.  I have to say that although I enjoyed it and appreciated it, it felt a lot like Looking for Alaska.  Here we have another nerdy teenage protagonist, Quintin, or Q.  He's hopelessly in love with Margo, the too-cool chick next door.  Like Alaska, this young woman is unobtainable but also incredibly troubled.  And Q. feels the need to save her, in a very literal sense.  In his quest to save Margo, Q. grapples with the problem of our inability to really understand or even know another person.

I say that Paper Towns and Looking for Alaska are alike, and they are.  Maybe that shouldn't detract from our ultimate enjoyment of these novels.  Green's protagonists are lovable, nerdy teenagers, on the cusp of adulthood, and they are dealing with questions that certainly seem universal.  And while they may not find the answers they hope for, the novels move toward finding meaning in our relationship with the world around us.  This seems to me to be an essentially optimistic way of looking at life and and young adulthood.  In the world dominated by Gossip Girl and the Princess Diaries, I'll take Green's novels any day.

A few more fun facts about John Green and his work:  Apparently the rights to all three novels have been purchased by movie studios, and Green is currently writing a screen play of Paper Towns.  Green can be seen weekly on YouTube, where he and his brother, post vlogs directed towards the "nerdfighters," their loyal followers.  Green also owns Willie, who is quite possibly the fourth cutest dog in the world, after my Bostons, of course.

Reflections on a Sick Day

So on Sunday, I had a fever and body aches for most of the day.  And despite my initial panic related to swone flu, I now seem to have recovered.  But yesterday, Monday, I stayed home from work.  I should add that there was no real reason I needed to go into work.  We're in final exam week, and I didn't have any finals to administer on Monday.  So a sick day, a do nothing day seemed in order.

One thing I did with my sick day was to get caught up on some reading I'd been meaning to do.  I read the first 150 or so pages of Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White.  Collins is a contemporary of Dickens and writes in the same sort of way.  Anyway, here's something I've noticed only recently:  I really, really enjoy the Victorian "triple decker" novel.  This is worthy of comment only because for years I maintained that, with a few notable exceptions, the long, Dickensian novel was not for me.  And Dickens himself rather annoyed me, with the exception of A Christmas Carol.  But last summer, I read Collins's The Moonstone and enjoyed it.  I also read Dickens's Bleak House, not so much because I wanted to but because I thought it was something I should read at least once in my life.  Much to my amazement, I really, really enjoyed Bleak House and would like to move on to either The Old Curiosity Shop or Our Mutual Friend.  So do our reading tastes change as we get older?  When I think of the books I really, really loved as a child and young adult, I know that I still really, really love these works--The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Frankenstein, The Wind in the Willows, Little House in the Big Woods, which is by the way the first chapter book I read at the ripe old age of six.  But I'm also finding that I'm growing to love works that didn't appeal to me, not at all, when I was younger.

Oh, and next time I'm in CA, I really, really, really want to visit the La Brea Tar Pits.  I've been before and all, but I just really want to go again.

Thursday Thirteen: Personal Anthems

I haven't done the Thursday Thirteen in AGES.  But this morning on the way to work, I realized that there is this whole set of song which, when I sing them at the top of my lungs, make me feel somehow better.  And I decided that a list of such songs would work for the T13.  I have to say that "personal anthems" doesn't really seem like an appropriate term for this list, but I can't think of anthing better.  So here we have it:  songs which, when I sing them, automatically make me feel better.  They work best sung as loud as possible while driving down the highway, windows down.

1.  Willie Nelson:  "Where the Soul Never Dies"

2.  Creedence:  "Lookin' Out my Backdoor"

3.  The Pixies:  "Here Comes Your Man"

4.  Tom Petty: "Mary Jane's Last Dance," but I'm also big on the one about "you don't know how it feels to be me."

5.  U2: "Stuck in a Momen," but "Mysterious Ways" is right up there

6.  The Beach Boys: "Sloop John B."

7.  Dusty Springfield: "Son of a Preacher Man"

8.  Aerosmith: "Rag Doll."  I'm a little embarrassed to admit this, but for a while my "party trick" was knowing (and singing) all the lyrics to this particular song.

9.  The Beatles: "Here Comes the Sun"

10.  The Specials: "Enjoy Yourself"

11.  REM:  "The End of the World."  Oh, but I am also quite fond of "Superman."

12.  ABBA:  "Take a Chance on Me"

13.  The Eagles: "Heartache Tonight."  Oh, and in case I've never told you this, I think "Hotel California" is cursed.  So don't listen to it all the way through.

So things have felt weird lately.  And don't ask me what I mean by "weird."  It's just like everything's been a little off, you know?  So maybe I should be embarrassed to admit this, but I've been reading some of the _Gossip Girl_ novels, and boy are they bad.  Really, really bad on just about every conceivable level.  Seriously, these novels have no redeeming qualities whatsoever, as far as I can see.  Of course, the logical question at this point is why am I reading them.  And I can't really even say why.

Also, adding I think to my general feeling of weirdness is that on Tuesday, I attempted to explain literary postmodernism to my students.  And I can never really define or explain postmodernism in a way that really works.  So I always resort to just looking at some examples, and I think it works, but I am never quite sure.  And so we spend all this time looking at _The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales_, which is OK because it's a children's lit class and stuff.  But I guess I feel unsure.

More later about general weirdness.

Degrassi

OK, have I mentioned that over the past year or so, I've watched a ridiculous number of Degrassi episodes?  It's so, so bad on so many levels, and yet, it's like I can't stop watching.  Here's a break down for those of you who may not know what Degrassi is.  There are several incarnations of Degrassi, the most recent being Degrassi: The Next Generation.  But basically, it was a series first produced in the late 1980s and early 90s in Canada.  The program apparently received subsidies from the Canadian government and ran in the States on PBS at that time.  The Kids of Degrassi Street was followed by Degrassi Junior High and finall, predictably, but Degrassi High.  The series was resurrected as Degrassi: the Next Generation, which is now on season 8, I think.  Currently, The Next Generation (which sounds Star Trek-y but isn't) runs in syncdication on the cable network The N but also elsewhere, such as my local Fox station.  Episodes are available on hulu and can be streamed from Netflix, if anyone is interested.

I guess that originally, the show was conceived of as dealing with "issues" that face the real teenager:  drugs, alcohol, sex, unwanted pregnancy, all the things that "real" teens in the "real" world apparently deal with.  It was supposed to be a realistic look at being a teen, as opposed to the more sugar-coated representations that were available.  Anyway, one result of this is that we have a limited cast, maybe 12 teens, who deal with an inordinate amount of problems.  Seriously, I hope that no one teen has to face as many problems / issues / drugs / cases of sexual assault as any one of the teens on The Next Generation faces.  There's a truly soap opera quality to the whole thing, IMO.

Anyway, I cannot at all figure out why I find this compelling.  I mean, I tend to read and watch a lot of pretty trashy media aimed at preteens and teens (I tell myself that I need to keep up, as part of professional development or something, but really I find it relaxing!)  But why am I drawn to this nonsense, which in no way reflects my own experience of junior high or high school.  What I'm trying to say is that I'm pretty sure it's not about nostalgia.  Nor are the issues dealt with in a particularly interesting way.  For all the attempt at being progressive, it strikes me as a repackaging of hetero-normative, white, middle class values and lives.  In fact, when I went to a conference a couple of weeks ago, I went to a panel dealing with Degrassi, and one of the papers I heard explored this very topic--the ways in which, although the teens have sex, the representations of promiscuous females is really NOT terribly progressive. 

One thing I do like about the earlier episodes, even of The Next Generation, is that the males do, for the most part, look very much like average, teen males, often complete with acne and a physical awkwardness that seem authentic.  The producers seem to be using more of the beautiful people in the more recent episodes.  And on the whole, the females are more attractive than the males.  Is this sending the message that it's more acceptable for males to be somewhat unattractive but that females have to be pretty all the time?  I don't know.  I'd like to see more average-looking women with leading roles.  I guess that's not going to happen. 

I am not sure where I'm going with this post.  Maybe it's just this:  long before Gossip Girl, the Canadians depicted teens partying, sleeping around, and living with little adult guidance or even interaction. 

Oh and one more thing:  Have I mentioned that there are days when all I really want is to be in So Cal?

OK, I'm sitting here eating a hot, toasted, buttered bagle, thinking that I really should post more often.  Everything's just felt so crazy lately.  And it's like I have ZERO motivation to actually get anything done, particularly work-related stuff.  And I know that when I feel this way, writing--blogging, journaling, even e-mailing--often helps me feel more grounded.  So yeah.  There are only three weeks of class left in our semester--and I guess that's good.  I mean, in some ways, I'm so "over" it, so ready to be done.  But in others, it feels overwhelming, like there's so much to be done in so little time.  I am looking forward to simply having some time off, to having time for other stuff.  I feel like my house is a totally mess, and my yard needs some serious attention.  But really, I'm thankful just to have a yard.  I don't know--I've been feeling weird about things lately, like there's something missing from my life, but I can't totally put my finger on what it is, although I have my suspicions!  And it feels like there's really nothing I can do about it anyway.  And so I just try not to think about it, you know?  Seriously, I just never really featured myself as a "career woman."  And what really gets to me are those people (some of you know the types) in the church who are all critical of "career women" and who would probably say that my personal problems stem from my choosing of a career over marriage.  And that really gets to me because I didn't choose career over marriage and family.  I can honestly say that I never one put career above those things.  I've just tried to make the best of the hand I've been dealt (metaphorically speaking), even if it's not the hand I would have chosen for myself.  And sometimes, I want to say to people, "Look, instead of the criticism, how about extending a little kindness and understanding."  I mean, really, I kinda always assumed I'd end up like just about everyone else I know, living a quiet life as a homemaker in suburbia, spending time with family, attending my same little chuch, the one I grew up in.  And it just didn't work out that way for me.  And it's not that I'm not content with my lot in life; it's just that it's really, really hard sometimes.  And I feel like so few people get that.  There are times when I want to say, "Umm. . . .a little help?"  But there's no one to ask for help.  It gets overwhelming.  And even now, after 5 years, there are still nights when I miss J. so much that I cry myself to sleep.  Wow!  When I started typing, I had no idea I'd get into all this--guess it's what I needed to say just right now.

To Tweet or Not To Tweet

So I've been debating about getting aboard the Twitter Train.  My hesitations?  It seems somewhat self indulgent--I mean does anyone really need updates of what I'm doing every 30 minutes?  Also, I'm afraid it's just another way to waste time.  And do I need that?  I spend FAR too much time on the internet and such as it is.  At the same time, there's something appealing about "tweeting," I have to say.  I like the idea of little updates popping up here, on my bloggy, or even on my new Facebook page.  And yes, I got sucked into Facebook; I'm blaming A.H. for this.  I saw him last week, and he seemed to think I needed to be on Facebook.  And of course, I always do what he says.  Haha.

Anyway, if you have thoughts either way, I'd love to hear them.

And now for something completely different:  allegedly, there are major changes coming to YouTube.  It sounds like there pushing aside the "You" in favor of more TV/movie/advertising driven content.  That sux.

Some People Never Learn. . .

And by "some people," I mean me.  This is not the first time I've had this SNAFU.  It's not even the first time this semester.  And it's all totally, totally my fault.  So this afternoon, I left work kinda early-ish with the intention of coming home and grading tests for two sections of the same class (this is maybe about 45 tests).  Anyway, I have a tote bag that is dedicated just for totin' around work stuff--papers and tests to be graded, books to work on prep, that sort of thing.  And I was convinced that I had my 45 Touchstones tests in my tote bag.  I even looked to make sure my grading scale thingy was in the tote bag.  And I *saw* a bunch of papers.  But guess what.  I just finished some other work, opened up the tote bag, and the tests aren't there.  I left them at work.  So since I promised the students I'd have them for tomorrow morning's class, I have two choices:  I can hop in the car and drive the 30-miles, round trip, and go get the tests to grade this evening, or I can go into work really early, like at 6:00, tomorrow morning.  Oi.

Ok, so 9:15 on Thursday morning.  As soon as I finish this post, I'm going to start working on my conference talk.  I don't know why, but it's like I have to write myself into writing.  Did that make sense?  Yesterday was a good day in terms of getting work done.  As a reward, I bought some wildflower seeds to sprinkle in the wooded area around the perifery (how do you spell that?) of my lawn.  I'm pretty excited.  Spring in New England is a much bigger deal than in central or southern CA, let me tell you.  I remember my first spring in Vermont thinking, "Oh, I finally get it.  I understand what spring really is."  And seriously, after such a long, cold, relentless winter, spring is a big relief and so joyful all at the same time.  And after it's been in the 20s for so many days 45 or 50 feels really good.  There are days when I take the dogs outside for a potty break, and Guinnie especially just wants to lay on her back in the grass, sunning her belly.  And it's like I know how she feels:  Your enitre being wants to soak up warmth and sun all the way to your bones.  I'm hoping that today it won't rain so that, even if it's only high 50s, I can sit on the deck and read and listen to my iPod.  It's just so wonderful.  Ok, so maybe I should move on to Twilight, which isn't so spring-timey.  In fact, it's set in a particularly dreary part of the Pacific Northwest.  So far, I'm finding the writing of this whole thing less a chore than I was expecting.  And in spite of dispising the novels, I'm rather enjoying thinking about them and analyzing them.  I feel like I'm mostly doing a close reading and that I should have some sort of theoretical framework to which I can refer.  I've never been very good at that.  And I'm sure that the paper will work well enough for this particular conference, so I guess it's fine, but I kind feel like it's really not much more than a glorified undergrad paper.  Glorified only in the sense that I do speak with authority.  Oy.  What would Eco do?  As you may know, chatting with Umberto Eco is my big fantasy.  Maybe it's like porn for academics--I really don't know.  And normally, I really bristle at the use of "porn" as metaphor anyway.  But seriously, I often think my way into papers or talks or just topics by this whole imaginative game of what Eco would say and what I'd say and how he'd think I'm just dazzlingly clever, or at least "adorable."  (As me later about the whole "adorable" thing.  I'm not sure it belongs on my blog.)  And sometimes I wonder if Eco would be at all weirded out if he learned that he's the nexus of my fantasy, because I'm pretty sure he doesn't think of himself that way.  Ok, I really need to get to work.

More on Twilight

Ok so my goal for the day was to draft four pages of my Twilight paper.  I've got four and one-half.  And I think I'll keep going.  Here's the thing.  As I'm rereading and writing, I'm seeing that the whole thing is just as annoying and insipid and even insidious as I first thought.  For a while there, I was second guessing myself:  Maybe I'm just over reacting--maybe it's not that bad.  But it is.  For me the bottom line is that Edward, no matter how charming and handsome and yummy-smelling he may be, is basically just really controlling of an infantilized Bella.  And it makes me ill.  It makes me ill that 12-year-olds (and I maintain that it's "tweens" who are most at risk and probably most reading all this) are absorbing all these ideas about how relationships should be and how romantic E's devotion to B really is, when he's like the classic abuser.  He tells her what to do, questions her sanity, even ultimately isolates her from her family and friends.  This is so not OK.  And yet, in the context of the novel it's presented as not just acceptable but desirable, the mark of Edward's love.  And as I was writing I realized this:  isn't this the very rhetoric that the abuser uses?  Doesn't he say that he somehow has the right to be controlling because it's in the best interest of the female and because it shows how much he loves her?  Excuse me while I barf!

So here I sit.  It's nearly 10:00 on Wednesday morning.  One of my goals for today is to draft 4 pages (single spaced pages!) of my conference presentation, you know, the one that could accurately be titled "Why Twilight Sux and What It's Doing to Our Young Women."  Oh wait--that wouldn't be academic enough.  I need to throw in terms like "reify" and "Foucault" and "Power" and even "Binary" and "Otherize."  Then it would be fine.  No really, the title is something like "A Veneer of Vampirism: A Feminist Reading of Relationships in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight Saga"  That's pretty good, right?  I guess it begs the question, what's the difference between a saga and a series.  I don't know how to answer that other than to say that I think a "saga" is more overwraught than a series.  But what do I know?  Oh wait, I'm the PhD; I'm supposed to know these things.

So I intended to get an earlier start, like maybe be writing by 7:00.  But I didn't get to sleep until 2:00.  If you are on the West Coast, and your caller ID tells you I called at 9:45, your time, which would be 12:45 mine, it's because I had wicked-bad insomnia last night.  So I allowed myself the luxury of sleeping in.  I mean, what's the point of spring break otherwise?  So here it is--nearly 10:00 and I haven't started.  And seriously, I'm thinking about going out for a bagel in a minute.  Because I'm pretty sure I have nothing breakfast-y on hand.  And how can a gal work without breakfast?

So here are my goals for the day:

1.  Draft 4 pages of my Twilight thingy
2.  Write up a budget for April
3.  Balance and rectify my checkbook
4.  Pay bills
5.  Return library materials due today!
6.  Mail DVDs to NetFlix so that I have something to watch over the weekend

I think those are manageable, right?  OK, now for that bagle. . .

Random Rant-y-ness

So where do I begin? I feel like crap just now. No really. And there are probably lots of reasons for that, but I'm trying to focus on the things I really want to get out, you know?  So basically, I just kinda feel like I never get anything done.  Today, I went into work (although it's spring break) with the intention of getting a set of exams graded.  Well, when I got there, the heating in the building was malfunctioning, and it was, no kidding, 98 degrees in the building.  And I thought I could just open the window, because it was like 40 degrees outside, but then it was just all windy and papers and stuff kept blowing around.  All this to say that I didn't actually get grading, or much of anything else, done.  And oh yeah, also the fire alarm keep beeping intermittently in the building, which it does occasionally.

But that's really the least of my issues at the moment.  You see, I have this essay that I want to revise.  It's a long (and boring) story, but it's possibly been accepted for publication pending revisions.  Anyhow, so one project for this week, it being break and all, is to at least work on revisions for the piece.  But I'm feeling lost as to what the editors are wanting me to do.  I mean, they've emailed suggestions for revision, but I just don't "get" it, which really kinda makes me feel dumb.  But what's even worse is that I finall today read through the piece today, and I feel like it's total crap.  I mean, I think I have some interesting ideas, but it's like there's no cohesion, and I've no idea where the essay is really going.  It's all this and that about Narnia and the cultural context of WWII England, but it's like there's no point or direction to the whole thing.  And I feel like I need some sort of theoretical grounding that I can't really get ahold of.  I mean, I open by trying to situate my discussion within the context of current critical responses to Harry Potter, which makes sense in one way, but it's just not working.  And I don't know where to go from here.  I'm always a believer that I can somehow write my way out of this sort of thing, which is probably part of what's motivating this particular post.  Uggh!!!  Why does writing have to be so painful?  The thing is that I sorta just don't even care about this essay any more--I have no passion for it.  And yesterday C. said that maybe I need detachment to get it done; this seems reasonable.  But I'm not really detached in a healthy way; I'm more just annoyed and want it to be over.  This is exactly the feeling I had to get to in order to get my dissertation done.  So maybe it's a productive annoyance.  But really, it's not very pleasant.  But who said life was supposed to be pleasant????

My other writing project for the week is to work on this conference presentation on S. Meyer's _Twilight_ saga for this conference that I'm presenting at next week.  And seriously, I just increasingly hate the series for a number of reasons, and am kinda annoyed with myself for deciding to present on why I think something is dumb instead of why something is really great or really interesting or whatever.  Anyway, I guess that I just need to sit down and draft some pages and see what I can come up with.

On a happier note, Fenway thinks I'm just the cat's pajamas.  And that makes me feel better.  Also, being off of work for the week is nice.  I've been reading lots of interesting stuff, including Ian Rankin's Inspector Rebus series.  I've also been watching as much of Prime Suspect on DVD as I can.