Love In The Asylum

Thou Goddesse of Torment

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 07:50:18 GMT

Representative excerpt from my reading this week:

"To thee clepe I, thou goddesse of torment,
Thou cruel Furie, sorwing ever in peyne;
Help me, that am the sorwful instrument
That helpeth lovers, as I can, to pleyne!
For wel sit it, the sothe for to seyne,
A woful wight to han a drery fere,
And, to a sorwful tale, a sory chere."

HOW IS THIS ENGLISH. FUCK YOU GEOFFREY CHAUCER WHY CAN'T YOU SPELL.

(I have 1000 lines of this to read before I'm allowed to go to bed. On the bright side, I'm hearing it in my head in Paul Bettany's voice. So there is that to improve the evening.)

comments

No Brontes On My Lists

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 07:17:07 GMT

Books purchased today:

1. Mothers and Others: the evolutionary origins of mutual understanding by Sarah Hrdy

2. Troilus and Criseyde by Geoffrey Chaucer

3. Neuromancer by William Gibson

4. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Pillip K. Dick

Books I am buying for a course: all of the above

People who tell you English majors only read stodgy boring books about people suffering artfully and stabbing themselves are people who are LYING. I deeply love that out of the classes I've taken since I declared, my reading lists have consisted mostly of Victorian-era erotica, magical realism, stories about robots, 12th century romance novels, and comic books. <33333 It's like the English Department is going out of its way to make me never regret this decision at all.

Meanwhile, Being Human is still adorable, and Ray Kowalski and his shoulder holster are still unspeakably hot.

comments

So This Whole English Major Thing Is Working Okay

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 06:23:05 GMT

So what was the best part of today?

Well, I got both my midterm papers back in my lit classes, and I did decently well on both of them - a B+ on the AmLit paper and an A- on the Victorian Lit paper. A little baffling since I thought the AmLit paper was much more strongly written, but hey, I'll take what I can get. And the second paper for my AmLit class is actually just a substantial revision of the first paper, so I'm reasonably sure I can get high marks on that. I also managed to survive 45 minutes worth of popcorn-style discussion in that class without revealing that I had not, in fact, read the book we were discussing (the bookstore was sold out, and the copy I ordered online hasn't come yet).

After dinner I went to Cubberly to hear Joyce Carol Oates read one of her short stories, which was pretty much awesome. She did a Q&A afterward, and she is both very interesting and very funny and personable. The story, about a woman who gets assaulted by a robber who breaks into her house, was good, if a little grim. And she talked a lot about her process as a writer, especially compelling since she has the kind of prolificacy that most of us only dream about (159 novels, plus short stories, reviews, and critical essays?). I felt like I should have been taking notes. I would have gone to the table after to buy one of her books if I wasn't feeling broke as hell right now.

But given both of those, the best part of my day was actually this: walking through the plaza and seeing written on the sidewalk in chalk the message "Nothing is Free." And next to it, in much smaller letters and someone else's handwriting, an arrow pointing to that and the words "The chalk was free."

comments

Go Me?

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:31:06 GMT

So. Declaring. I, uh, did that.

I mean, I'm still waiting to get approved. But I have an advisor, he signed off on my form and I turned it into the department, I submitted my proposal online. Barring any unexpected complications, I'll officially be an English Major with a creative writing concentration.

Wow.

comments