I could be, should be, would be doing something productive right now...

But instead I'm blogging.

You know how diss. advisors have that knack for picking at the weak parts of your argument like an obsessive-compulsive with a bit of dirt stuck to their shoe? Yeah.

I thought that since the proposal went in on Friday I would have 1 blissful week in which to catch up on a sundry stuff before my meeting this Friday. One blissful week of cleaning, Oblivion, commenting on papers, doing laundry, and filing.

Alas. An advisor got back to me on Sunday night with a list of questions that I need to answer for Friday. Ass.

Although, I have to be thankful for the comments, interest, and effort on her part.

I'm currently hanging in the the Writing Program cubicles, and will be all week as I wait for my kiddies to stop by for individual meetings on their papers (due Friday). $5 says they all show up on Thursday afternoon. Feel free to stop by, throw m&m's over the walls, bring me bagels, rig up a pyrotechnic lights display, bring in a hovercraft, whatever... because I will be bored out of my mind.

These bitternesses aside, It is positively LOVELY outside, and I will be able to sleep with the windows open tonight. This will make me a VERY happy girl. I'm thinking that this evening I will dedicate a little bit of time to the laundry, a little bit of time to the sunroom, and a little bit of time to making sure that my Oblivion character closes the oblivion gate that opened up outside of the cave I'm currently exploring. And I wil drink cider. Cider sounds really good. Perhaps soup will be made. Soup is good too.

Ok, rambling - back to work.

Panic

AKA: getting down to the point where I have to put the theory with the text nail down all those floating ideas and integrate all those books I've forgotten about reading in my proposal panic.

I have 1 day to get this done.

26 pages written,
3 theories of the ugly to destroy
5 chapters that need their theoretical background worked out / articulated
100s of sources that need to be compiled into the bibliography

all for the

3 people on my committee

and

1 chance at getting this approved before summer.

Feeling better.

Better enough, that is, to realize that it will only increase my personal store of bitterness and not even be amusing to relate the absolute ridiculosity of my attempting-to-get-well experience.

On the up side I've got 20 pages of the proposal written (good pages? that remains to be determined), and nowhere that I can go until Tuesday (sorry about 13 de Mayo, I'm sure you don't all want what I've got). So I have a chance of getting the proposal in by Wednesday with a minimum of hair-pulling.

So on to something more interesting.

Doctorice and I have been batting back and forth ideas for our school's English T-shirts. Frankly, some of them have been very funny.

So I'm compiling a list. Let me know if y'all think of any others.

University of ------- English
- I would prefer not to

University of ------- English
- Heart of Darkness

University of ------- English
- It is bitter, bitter... but I like it because it is bitter, and because it is my heart

University of ------- English
- Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.

University of ------- English
- They gave themselves up wholly to their sorrow, seeking increase of wretchedness in every reflection that could afford it, and resolved against ever admitting consolation in future.

University of ------- English
- provided that nothing like useful knowledge could be gained from them, provided they were all story and no reflection, she had never any objection to books at all.

University of ------- English
- for the stress of circumstances, Fred felt, was sharpening his acuteness and endowing him with all the constructive power of suspicion.

These are, of course from Melville, Conrad, Crane, Lovecraft, Austen, and Eliot

Perhaps we should have t-shirts made or something.

Anyway, back to convalescing

Ill

It figures. I'm thinking that God does not want me to finish my proposal.

Because if God wanted me to finish my proposal he would not have made me Ghastly Ill yesterday. and today.

I believe that my tonsils may close off the back of my throat.

Nice.

Proposal is due next Wednesday, and I have a headache that feels like the apocolypse.

Oh, and as an update on the loopyness thing - they think it's epilepsy. So lots of tests in my future.

I'm going to go eat pudding now. I will update more later when my keyboard is working properly and I don't have to cut-and-paste every "a" in my documents.

Hugs,
KT

What's been going on...

Alright, catch-up time on my postings

Here's what's been going on with me these past weeks, and also - at the end - a CONTEST!

Self-absorption first:

(1) Saw F-------e M-----r get Knighted by the French Government in a ceremony on campus Monday. There were fewer swords than I imagined, but she did get a really cool medal (which apparently has an accompanying tack-pin for daily wear)


(shiny, isn't it?)

Anyway, her new title is Dame F-------e, which I find fairly hilarious. I'm thinking of addressing all future emails to her like that. In any case I have decided that I would like to be knighted, and I know that Doctorice is with me on this.

(2) I have been writing recommendations for my preceptees like a crazy person. I don't have any clue why we only have a week to get through all of these and somehow write letters of recommendations to the dean about how wonderful these kids are and how much they deserve honors, but I'm getting pretty burnt out.

(3) because this was the week that I was supposed to be working on my proposal - sigh.

(4) So next week is the week that I will be working on my proposal. And I really have to get it done this time too because I promised WXYZ, V----r, and B-----t taht I would have it to them by the 17th. PANIC.

(5) I'm going to the doctor today because I get so loopy. I'm hoping that they don't tell me I have an insulinoma or little tiny seizures (my current paranoias). I DO hope that they tell me I have hypothyroidism, because that would go a long way towards explaining the confusing quirks of the KT. I'll let you know if it's something tragic or anything.

OK, got all of that out and now? ON TO THE CONTEST!

(11x44)+(22x3)=506 pages of suck

Mostly done with the grading. Now that my bitterness has shifted into totally unhealthy laughter, I am proposing a contest.

(1) bottle of wine (chosen by someone with taste in wine - i.e. not me) to wash away the trauma for the person who posts the most horrifying sentence from a student paper.

That's right folks, belly up, open up those old files and drag out a winner.

Here are the rules:

- No fabrication - this must be a direct quote.
- No names (obviously)
- No more than 2 sentences (we're looking for concentrated evil here)
- Feel free to give, however, an overall gestalt of the paper and context for this horrifying quote.
- Post as many as you want.

Since we don't keep copies of papers (usually), I'll have everyone work on the honor system here - no embellishing for added crappiness.

I will choose the winner sometime at the end of next week.

Good luck!