{ my narcissistic object-choice. }

[delga]

I really sort of hate doing this in the IT room. And yet: here I am. My 19th C. lecture was full of information, half of which I didn't get down because the lecturer talks SO DAMN FAST. Which, you know, I don't really have a problem with because (a) I write damn fast and (b) it forces you to be selective about stuff. No, my real issue is that I have memory interference issues so I get down the first half of the sentence and forget the rest because I'm trying to listen to three bits of information at once. I'm completely the type of person who forgets the end of her own sentences because she was waylaid by her own thought-process/interrupted by something else. I do it all the time, and it drives The Flatmate insane. My short-term memory = for shit.

--

I really want my books to be here TODAY. Like, RIGHT NOW. I'm inordinately excited about my dissertation again, even though I have to go and talk to my supervisor about it and have actually done NO WORK. But I'm having, you know, thinky thoughts about the whole damn thing and I've decided that, you know, 8k is a STUPIDLY SHORT length for a dissertation. On the other hand, I have a 3k essay due in a fortnight for which I have yet to receive the damn essay questions because they haven't been approved by the exam board. WHY DO THEY LEAVE THESE THINGS SO LATE? It's basically going to be a critical commentary on a piece of 19th C. criticism (YAWN, GUYS, SERIOUSLY) and depending on how today's seminar goes, I'm leaning towards either Shelley's A Defence of Poetry or Hallam's review of Tennyson's Poems - Chiefly Lyrical. Still. YAWN. You know, if the poetry was dealing with topics in a way that I found even remotely interesting, I'd be so much more into this course. But we're not even really looking at the poetry, mostly at the critical debates surrounding it. And naturally, those are the critical debates that I find not only least stimulating but also least relevant to modern-day appraisal of literary types because (a) those are chiefly the sets and standards to which modernism and post-modernism are reacting and (b) 19th C. poetry is in a state of crisis that is trying to be buffered by states of radicalism which just aren't as different form one another as the poets may suppose. Also: I did this already. I did this at A-level and I did it in-depth. Whilst I understand why the degree stipulates that you have to study a range of time-periods, i also feel like the choice offered ot us from each time period is hampering me in my desire to learn. I don't think the 19th C. is entirely boring - the critical aspect of it is very interesting, especially the philosophical repercussions of the 'failure' of the French Revolution (i.e. The Terror) - but I do find the poetry of the time to be stale. And when it's not stale, well, we're not actually studying those parts at all. The structural and formal standards of poetry at the time are brilliance. And we're just not looking at those aspects. It's infuriating.

(ALSO. We haven't touched Byron. BYRON. Sigh.)

--

My next class is my lecture for Experimental Writing. Hahahaha - why, yes, the workshop is tomorrow, and no, I haven't written the mirror thing yet. Further, yes, this is causing me considerable stress (especially because all my brain wants ot write about at the moment is: water and memory). I'm thinking that doppelganger is an apt enough subject, although, really, Wendy Cope's As Sweet is definitely an inspiration.

I don't know, I'm going to have to work on it today. You know, so long as I can stop thinking about the numb3rswriteoff/numb3rswom3n fic that I have to write. Those, too, are floundering somewhat. For the first, it seems that bodies (in motion) said a lot about Edgerton that I wanted to get said and now I'm wondering what else to say; for the second, water is taking me away from Amita and California, and much further East. Which is a claptrap way of saying, I can't stay in the narrative and whilst the prompt carries you away (all water has perfect memory, and thus is ever trying to return from whence it came - um, I'm totally paraphrasing) the fic and Amita are loci, she should be centred as we know her. Which is a little trying if nothing else. But really, I should be looking at mirrors.

--

As Sweet

It's all because we're so alike -
Twin souls, we two.
We smile at the expression, yes,
And know it's true.

I told the shrink. He gave our love
A different name.
But he can call it what he likes -
It's still the same.

I long to see you, hear your voice,
My narcissistic object-choice.

by Wendy Cope.

--

OK, class now, lunch later, and then to do some writing before my 19th C. poetry seminar. Note to self: stay awake.

Comments

[sepiaxtoned.livejournal.com]

IT suites fail at life. Clearly! DU has them in the basement of a tower building with no fucking windows and the atmosphere gives me a headache. I've got class their on Wednesday *headdesk*

GET WRITING YOU!