Sunny Sunday of Doom

Today is the day.

I must finish the Benny piece, at least in full-draft, by bedtime… Even if bedtime ends up being tomorrow at noon…

This is starting to sound familiar, huh? And you all thought these whiny deadline rants were over when the course component finished? Not a chance! I’ll be doing this until the internet dries up!

So, yes, I do have a bit of a deadline issue, but I am sure there are ways to conquer it.

(Anyone know a Harvard student with some spare time? I figure if I don’t have time to finish this thing today, I might need an ivy-league-er to help me cook it a bit.)

Maybe I can pad with excerpts from something… Hey! Maybe I can through in a random post from this thing!

I mean, how close do editors read these things, anyway, huh?

Yup. Boned.

You Have the Right to Remain Lazy

Well, April is pretty much over, folks, and I still don’t have the Benny piece finished. I’ve been working on it, but with the cold this week and my brand-new job hunt, it hasn’t fared too well, priority-wise. I will have to finish it Sunday, or at least close to, as May is the official start of my comp study. It’s just a good thing that I have already read six of those books, and I can short-shrift the first couple… But if I take any longer on Benny, my editor will send out a search party (meaning goons with instructions to go for the knees).

But I won’t say that the cold and the one-day-old job hunt have been the only culprits. A recent resurgence in my once-raging Law and Order addiction hasn’t helped, as John and I have spent the better part of the last three days rooted to the sofa just following the stories of the police who investigate the crimes and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders…

You are probably thinking that M*A*S*H and The Milton Berle Show seem more my speed than crime shows, when considering my personality and tastes, but keep in mind my temporary affair with criminology way back when, and you can see the allure.

But, honestly, how am I expected to resist this show?! I swear that I am not generally a TV fan (as anyone who has ever discussed movies and radio serials from the thirties with me can corroborate), and we haven’t had cable for over two years, but if all television was like this stuff, I’d turn in my badge and gun as a cinemasnob, guaranteed. Intelligent scripts, good acting, gripping plots…

Truly, for me, the real L&O (you can keep the jazzy spin-offs, thanks) is the TV equivalent to crack or charge cards, and with our one season on DVD, and over 18 six-hour bootlegged VHS tapes from the long-forgotten era when A&E was actually watchable (before it became a pseudo-respectable, upper-class version of Fox), I may never be free.

My only hope is that someone eventually hires me, and gets me off the sofa.

Other than that, there is not much to report, but I will impart some wisdom for the season. If you fall in love, make sure it is with someone who doesn’t mind doing your taxes. Hearts and roses are nice and all, but fiscal responsibility and resourcefulness last forever. I can do my own taxes. Sometimes I even like to do them. However, John is never so loveable as when he is adding and deducting, and letting me off my federally-mandated hook so I can scurry to finish a project (and immerse myself deeply in Detectives Logan and Greevey’s latest search warrant debacle).

Do I have the luck, or what?

April 28 - Day of Mourning

Today is the National Day of Mourning set aside to remember workers killed on the job, or who died due to work-related injuries or illness. It promotes the idea that the loss of a worker is not just a family or local tragedy, but it is a cause of grief for all workers in solidarity, and it represents a loss to our society as a whole.

It is a day to mourn, but also a day to promote health and safety concerns in our workplaces, and while it may be a good time to reflect on how much working conditions in Canada have improved, it is also a day to acknowledge that they are not good enough as long as workers are still being killed or poisoned just by doing their jobs.

It is a day to mourn the dead, but also to fight for the living.

Something to Save the Two Simpson Children!

I went to campus Thursday morning for a meeting with my advisor (and you can imagine how happy I was to be off my death-bed).

Today the office gets closed up for renovations, and that was the last time I'll see the PhD office for a year. I think there will be temp space for us elsewhere, next year, but it won't be the same. (Goodbye, office. Summer well, and when I next see you, you will be brand spanking new and shiny! *sniff*)

The meeting went well, as usual. My Advisor is actually quite wonderful, and is comforting without being sickening, and is really someone to admire. This was as lucky a pairing as I could have wished for, as she is the only one here who does Judaism, and she just happens to be great!

Anyway, the meeting didn’t result in tuition dollars, or a job offer, but it did net a set of comp books free for my borrowing until I can afford my own, and a good set of tasks for the summer. So I am off on comp readings (I aim for a book a week, at 36 books and nearly 9 months until the exam, leaving me some room for sickness, holiday and review), with my second priority being my dissertation proposal, and my third priority being publications.

As my Advisor so helpfully reminded me, it is only six months until the next SSHRC/OGS deadline, so that should always be a priority.

(This was a little horrible, but she did say that she thinks I have as good a shot as anybody at getting a SSHRC or CGS this year, and I am starting to believe it… No longer am I Charlie Bucket seeking the elusive Golden Ticket on one bar of candy a year! Still, no hopes up too far… Remember the depression from last time!)

When I discussed my financial concerns for the summer, she did some checking for me with grad studies, and it turns out I am able to get a job for the summer, over 10 hours a week, just not on campus! That pretty much solves our worries. If I could get a 20-hour a week cashier job (not a stressful fate in a nice Mayberry-town like this one), that would generally serve to get us out of hot water, in combination with whatever full-time work John can grab.

So, riding on this hope, John and I went over to the bank to deposit a surprise $40 check from Hamilton Hydro. (It seems we overpaid – our life is like Monopoly at times! We were very pleased to get this check, as it would pay a bill and keep the Visa people from breaking John’s legs for a month.) Anyway, when we made the deposit, we made the lovely discovery of extra money! A pile of it. We knew we had stored up rent for May, but there was well over what we expected. Upon investigation, we discovered that I had gotten one more paycheck than we expected!

If there is a joy greater than unexpected money when you are absolutely broke, I have yet to find it!

So this money will keep body and soul together until one or the other of us finds jobs, or the loan comes in, and, as a reward for our good luck, we got a pizza and stayed up until midnight watching Law and Order episodes! Let the good times roll!

Well, cosmos, I said I needed something to revive my flagging belief in the world, and it seems that you came through. Thanks, and don’t give me cause to doubt you again!

(1978-2006)

I can’t possibly still be alive, after the day I had yesterday. You all might think I am a hypochondriac, but, with all honesty, I have not been sick like I was yesterday afternoon in at least eight years.

And, frankly, I still don’t feel all that hot, so I am not too upset over the thought that I must be dead or close to it. Reaper, do your worst, because either this cold goes, or I do!

(Warning: Indelicate subject matter ahead.)

Yesterday afternoon, John and I were sacked out on the couch, trying to recuperate. He was reading. I was just hoping not to freeze to death. But, being us, this situation has not killed our sense of humour, entirely, and we were trading silly shots back and forth. Nothing worthy of Readers’ Digest, mind you, but in our weakened state we were amused.

John brought up the “Clown Party” brand of marshmallows on The Simpsons, and we laughed over the idea that that, when they have a party, that’s the brand they use – so they must be good. I believe it was about the time that I suggested that the clowns didn’t eat them, they produced them (that, in fact, clowns might eat oatmeal, but they poop marshmallows) that The Incident occurred.

Now, I know this was no killer material, but I laughed, mostly because John laughed. This set me to coughing, so I forbad him from laughing. He held it in, bless him, causing his own coughing spasm, because, of course, there is nothing to cause laughter like no being allowed to laugh. Finally, it burst forth, and if you have ever been lucky enough to hear John’s full-bodied and gregarious guffaw, you will know why I couldn’t hold back. We laughed and coughed, and laughed.

Finally, my coughing got so bad my ears rang, and the inevitable happened. I uncontrollably tossed my cookies and lost my cream soda all over myself, right there on the coach. Along with, I am sad to report, the two ibuprofen I had taken two minutes previous.

There I was, covered in what can only be described as a bright pink slick of yuck, trying to lift myself off our damned inconvenient sofa, while not dropping the store brand Kleenex that was the only thing between me and total disgrace.

But, let me tell you, they certainly aren’t as absorbent as the brand name kind, whatever the boxes say!

I finally cleaned myself up and made it into hibernation, and on my bedroom door there is a big, bold sign: “Laughter Hereby Prohibited. All Jokers Will be Shot on Sight.”

Still, I am feeling awful. If I die, tell my mother I love her, and for pity’s sake, don’t bury me in Ontario. In fact, don’t bury me anywhere. Hang me on a meat hook in a mobile set, and take me to animal rights demonstrations. I always wanted to make a statement!

My Educated Madness

This caricature, by the way, is Amanda’s interpretation of me in all my devilish and intelligent insanity. It will be my bio portrait at Swank Puppy when the site is up and running. And, yes, Amanda is available for commissions. Just follow her blog.

If possible, I am actually much sicker today than yesterday, and, even better, I slept in wet hair last night so my appearance this morning rather resembles a sea-hag more than the Svengali above.

I spent a few more hours yesterday working on my field comprehensive exam list, and I was getting pretty darned excited about the process, too. I emailed my advisor, as I was feeling like I should let her know I was still on the case (as I had the feeling the list was due this month or so), and I was feeling pretty OK, having picked 40 pieces of pretty interesting quality.

But I received this disheartening email this morning: “I am unsure why you are working on this. Please concentrate on preparing for your first comp, as this list isn’t due until January.”

Ah! Nothing like getting e-slapped down first thing in the AM!

Well, if I could reply to this truthfully, and without bawling, I could tell her that:

(a) I am not preparing for my first comps because I only have seven of the stinking books, five of which I have already read, and because I am poor and cannot afford cough syrup let alone 30 more books, due to the fantabulous and luxurious (lack of) funding provided by this over-grown high school.

(b) I was not told a due date for this list, and I thought it was reasonable to assume sooner rather than later, as next term I will really have to be preparing for the first comp (which is in early January), and have nothing but time on my hands now.

and

(c) If she doesn’t give me direction, she is quite without the right to snark at me if I take my own initiatives.

Instead of any or all of these perfectly valid answers, I wrote back, “Oh, I see. Thanks for letting me know. I thought it was due soonish.”

Yes, I sniveled like the dog I am.

The academic equivalent to "YES SIR, MAY I HAVE ANOTHER!!" Ah, how I missed the advisor-inspired bowing and scraping of yesteryear... And just think, my back was starting to straighten again.

Oh well, only three more years until I am done, so as long as I don’t get permanent scars on my belly from crawling more than once or twice a term, I think I’ll be OK.

I’m going back to Benny today, and I will endeavour to forget my advisor, forget my cold, forget my list, and forget my empty bank account. Frankly, chewing over gripes is not making me feel any better about my life, which, I must admit, is not all that bad from a rational point of view (and is spent in a school that I like 90% of the year). Sometimes concentrating on the problematic sides of your life, with no foreseeable solutions to said problems, is of no value.

In sum, I don’t have a cure for poverty, advisor misunderstandings or the common cold, so what is the use of thinking about any of those things?

However, writing a paper? That I am a pretty dab hand at by now.

Our Day(s) Off

Finally, I picture of someone who looks worse than I do, today!

Yesterday, John and I were fairly ill, so we sacked out on the couch and watched the five films in the Universal Frankenstein boxed set, then we slept for twelve (!!!) hours. Today, I am feeling a bit better, but John seems worse. We need to go into campus soon to return something before the deposit goes bad, and John needs to start job hunting, and I need to finish the Benny chapter. However, instinct runs me to warmth and relaxation as the cold moves down into the lungs. So if you were expecting things from me this week, you better not hold your breath, as it’s either death or R&R at this point, I fear.

I am not sure how we can follow up yesterday for sheer rest… Creature from the Black Lagoon??

Yom Hashoah

Today is Holocaust Memorial Day. Coming as it does only a day after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (who also has claimed that the Holocaust was a “myth” and has called for Israel to be “wiped” from the earth), has announced that all Jews should return to Europe and leave the Middle East, one cannot help but find the day sadder than normal.

Being that we are approaching the 61st anniversary of the end of the Holocaust, it is depressing to see how little progress has been made. (61 years is bad enough, but the fact that it is 83 years since the Armenian Genocide ended reflects even more poorly on us all.)

Although I have never been shy about my reservations about the current administration of the State of Israel, I am certainly not untouched by the winds blowing out of Iran. Indeed, the problems I have with Iran’s sentiments stems from the same motivation behind my concerns over Israeli policy. All of it comes from my disappointment with humanity (myself included) over our continued failure to learn from history, or even to have the desire to improve.

However, it is not like it is a new thing for people to remain ignorant of the lessons presented by the Holocaust. Just ask the Romany of Europe just how much improved their lot has been in some nations, and we can see that people remain steadfastly ignorant of their responsibility not to kill, maim or terrorize others (even if they belong to another group).

Certainly, this day is a “Jewish Holiday” to commemorate the Jewish dead (on the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising) and, indeed, the Holocaust is seen as “Jewish history.” Nevertheless, I invite all to keep this day.

Please take a moment to consider (in your own way) the approximately 6 million Jews, the nearly 2,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses, the 2,000 to 5,000 Roma and Sinti, the more than 250,000 disabled people, the over 3 million Soviet POWs, the tens of thousands of homosexuals, the millions of Slavs, and the untold numbers of assorted POWs, Communists, clergymen, political dissenters, trade unionists, et cetera, et cetera, who were killed or died as a result of the European Holocaust of 1933-1945.

All told, anywhere from 15 million to 26 million civilian lives were consumed by the brutal combination of frustration, insanity and negligence, as well as hatreds and group narcissism that went unchecked long enough to flower.

In memorial, I remember: If they could die, so could I. Even more important, I affirm: As those people killed, so I am capable of killing. I cannot present here any degree of the feelings that this day inspires, but I will wish us all peace and safety, and the skill and patience of kindness and justice, and I continue to hope for better things.

Let’s all hope!

Kadish for Yom HaShoah: 27th of Nisan

Glorified and sanctified be G-d's great name throughout the world which He has created according to His will. May He establish His kingdom in your lifetime and during your days, and within the life of the entire House of Israel, speedily and soon; and say, Amen.

May His great name be blessed forever and to all eternity.

Blessed and praised, glorified and exalted, extolled and honored, adored and lauded be the name of the Holy One, blessed be He, beyond all the blessings and hymns, praises and consolations that are ever spoken in the world; and say, Amen.

May there be abundant peace from heaven, and life, for us
and for all Israel; and say, Amen.

He who creates peace in His celestial heights, may He create peace for us and for all Israel; and say, Amen.

May they be remembered, and forever have a place and a name.

April 24, 1915

In 1915 there were two million Armenians in the Ottoman region, but by 1918 half of them were gone. And, like all regime abuse, the thinkers and journalists went first.

Today in 1915, 250 Armenian scholars, intellectuals, and leaders were rounded up into custody. The same day several Armenian journalists and editors were arrested without charges. All would later be killed without trial, and many consider this day the start of the Armenian Genocide, which would last until 1923.

Today is the day which is set aside for the Commemoration of the Victims of the Armenian Genocide. It is a day that we can remember (or we can find out about) this horror, one that we have still yet to fully face or examine.

It has not been given its proper place in classrooms and world culture, but it belongs to the world as a warning sign and a sorrow.

A Shaft of Gold When All Around is Dark

John and I, needing to get away from the trashies upstairs and to break the emergency hundred somewhere, took a longish walk in the rain Sunday afternoon. We stopped and pooled our pocket change for a hot smoothie at Tim’s, and then went to the grocer’s. (If there’s one place left in the world that still takes hundred dollar bills, aside from casinos, it’s the grocery store.)

We bought $13 worth of food, including a giant assorted bag of day-old bread products.

So there we were, walking home in the rain, and we were eating an enormous chewy and salty pretzel, when suddenly things didn’t look so bleak. In a world in which there are large German salted snack treats, there is always hope.

Then last night I filled in and sent out my PhD year 1 progress report, and though I didn’t have a ton of accomplishments to list on there, it was very nice indeed to write “Course Work Completed” (that is, pending my Bryant mark, which I still haven’t received).

And then I actually got emailed and g-chatted by more than one person at a time, which doesn’t happen often, but which made me feel much more like a viable human than of late.

And better yet, I now have a contract to fill out for the Benny project, and a website for the company, so it all seems nice and real and awesome now in a way it did not before. Sure it isn't Harper Collins, but I think I like it better.

And besides, it'll have my undying affection when it becomes the first book company to print out my name across white, smooth pages!

So, there! There’s some nice, non-whiny update for you. Enjoy it, for it’s rare this time of year!

(Oh, and P.S. if anyone can place the title quote, I’ll treat them to a pretzel.)

(P.P.S. I have been trying to post this damn update for hours now – Blogger seems to be having a meltdown. It’s sick, and I seem to be getting a doozy of a cold... I guess I was right about cheerfulness being rare!)

Just Thought I’d Share…

It’s rainy here today. Normally, I would think to take a walk and go see a movie. However, funds will not permit. Instead I am stuck in here, and I will clean the apartment and see if that makes me feel human again.

The day has started out bleak, though, as it is only a few hours in and I have already sucked a piece of breakfast rice (yes, rice for breakfast) into my lungs, and will most likely be stuck with a ricey-lung cough all day. Beauty!

I am a bit down today, but John and I endeavour to keep each other’s spirits up. Something nice has got to happen, soon, as my faith in life is starting to dwindle a bit again.

And I will try my damnedest to start posting amusing or energetic things again soon, but right now all I see is rice in the lungs and a crappy four months of agonizing limbo… I promise that if nothing good happens, I will just go on hiatus for the summer, rather than keep subjecting the net-waves to sad “Live Journal”-esque whines.

But something better happen, soon.

Do you hear that cosmos?? I demand that my life get better, immediately!

You have had your warning.

Welcome to the Jungle

Well, Catherine has stepped up to the plate and offered to help give me something to do over the summer. This thing is both creative and demanding, so it scratches a couple itches.

Catherine and I are pleased to announce the birth of our new 10 pound baby Blog!

(Catherine balks at my use of the term “love child,” so I’ll use “baby Blog” instead.)

Unlike my other poor blog of movie reviews, I have a good feeling that this one will actually live to see a year old. Catherine and I will take turns updating it with reviews from currently-in-theatre stuff (mostly her side with that, though, as I have no clue when I will be able to afford another trip to the theatre), as well as older stuff, and even some bone fide old stuff, too.

I am looking forward to this, very much. I am already a little proud of it, as it is showing some good promise.

Oh, and check out the bios we wrote for each other… Catherine, you are the only person in the world who could make be sound mysterious and charming!

Now, I am pleased to present…

The Clapboard Jungle!

That’s the Way to Rest!

I have made an important discovery in day-to-day Jewish living.

I have discovered that the way to make sure you actually rest on Sabbath is to go to sleep at sunset on Friday. Sure, it will not make for great Synagogue attendance, but it sure does cut the boredom and discomfort down to a minimum. Perhaps this is why Sabbath was held so well by our ancestors. They had no reason to stay up past sundown!

So, really, it isn’t that I am undisciplined; it is that I live in the wrong time period!

So it was in bed at 8pm, and up again at 4am, and now, instead of feeling grungy and debauched, I am actually starting to feel like a wholesome health nut! A couple more weeks of this, and I can finally make good on my threats and move in with a Mennonite family.

Finally, I can be the first Mennonite film scholar!

Today was my D-Day for the Benny article, so it will soon be all polished up for sending in. One project over with… And then what is next?

Well, Sunday is housecleaning day, and then we have to work on John’s job hunt (he finished his last exam of the year today)… And then there are those six books to be read over the next four months. Well, it’s all excitement around here, huh?

(Aside from the creepy quiet guy down the hall who has been lugging enough garbage bags out to the dumpster today to have chopped up the landlady… However, I have seen Rear Window (1954), and I know how the mind can build fantasies during a forced vacation, so I am working to ignore it. Though... Didn't Jimmy discover that his suspicions were correct in that film in the end...?)

Oh well, my advisor got back to my email with the typical WLU “Don’t worry,” and we are set to meet on Thursday, so maybe she’ll have some ideas.

Otherwise, I have to admit that I hate to see this Benny project end, because right now it’s my last lifeline to sanity!

If things get worse, I’ll be forced to start breeding the silverfish for racing.

Horrible, Yet I Cannot Look Away

John found this too-good-to-be-true ad (click to enlarge) on a website he was reading for his exam, and I debated with myself on what to do with it…

The garish biblical reference… the “Pre-Pesach Blowout Sale” promise… It was too good to waste.

Finally, I decided that posting it here would be best. I am not sure about the legalities, but, frankly, they are getting ad space for free, so they can bite me.

And in added incentive for them not to sue me, I want each one of you to run out and immediately buy a truckload of discount matzo from the fine folks at The Israeli Source Wholesale Outlet in Thornhill.

Aside from that excitement, I am very proud of myself, as I have been able to remain awake today. There is something about the end of classes that usually inspires me to try to sleep clear through until September, but not today. Today I am working on Benny.

And remember me saying how nice it was to read about a decent man for once…? Yeah, well, the romance of that is long gone, now. Another quote from a “life long Benny friend” extolling his virtues as a “charming, loyal, sweet, grateful, generous, funny, yadda, yadda, yadda,” type of guy, and I will gag.

By the time this is all done, I think I will be more than happy to return to Groucho and Chaplin and all their dirty (and human) ways.

Have a good weekend, and remember to commemorate the end of Jewish slavery by buying something wholesale at this joint.

(And that came out much more “on the nose” than I meant it. Sorry. Oops! That last line did, too. I’m going to shut my mouth now and get back to work.)

If it’s Wednesday, it Must be Waukegan.

Actually, it’s Friday, and I’m in Waterloo. However, I have a good amount of trouble keeping this sort of stuff straight. Days are completely tossed out for me, now. In illustration, here has been my schedule:

Monday: Slept from 1.30pm to 10pm, up until 5am Tuesday.
Tuesday: Slept 5am to 12pm, then up until 11pm, then back to bed until 5.30am.
Wednesday: Up at 5.30pm, back to bed at 2pm until 10-ish pm, then up until 1am.
Thursday: Slept from about 4.30-5am (though in bed longer) and back to bed at 4pm.
Friday: Up at 3.30am…

This all is wrong and unnatural. I don’t know whether I am getting up or going to bed, what day it is, what the days ahead hold…

I have been done school for three and a half days now, and I am already debauched and ruined!

However, I have also had some good this week. Catherine and I had a teleconference yesterday (I think it was yesterday…) and did some very important stuff, which is top secret for now, but which will be unveiled soon.

Also, I have heard that the Jack Benny project will most likely be sent to print in June or July, which is wonderful news, as I had no idea how long these things took.

Also, John’s mother, who doesn’t know this blog exists, has just received news that her dissertation has been accepted, and will become a full PhD this summer. Congrats!

Exchanging Sheep for Granola and Orson for Benny…

Well, I was seriously trying to sleep, but I have yet again abandoned all hope of rest. For the umpteenth night in a row, I have admitted defeat. Not even counting sheep and listening to old Mercury Theatre re-runs on the AM talk station helps this week, so I am all out of ideas.

It is better to get out of bed and try to be productive, than just lie there getting angry.

So now I am up, and back to the Benny research. For breakfast, I am eating my weight in some of the most fiber-volatile granola bars known to man, as they were the only things accessible in my office (thereby allowing poor John to avoid ending up a civilian casualty in my war against sleep).

Oh well, even if I am bleary, there’s always more downloading to do… And while Jack’s Jell-O Program doesn’t put me to sleep, it does amuse (greatly), so at least that may be some consolation.

In fact, Jack is an all-around silver lining for me these days. I know that a number of you out there may not be familiar with Jack Benny, but man what a comic he was! So bloody fearless in his ability to stretch a joke and hold it until it bled. A gesture, a brow, a sigh, a word, a slight smirk, an eye-roll… And such a screen persona that it must have come from some unholy pact with the Comedy gods!

And the real gold of this situation has to be what an all-around loveable man he appears to have been.

Don’t get me wrong. I love Groucho, and lord knows I make no bones about my adoration of Charlie, but those topics can feel like a wallow at times. Some of Groucho’s interviews leave a bad taste, and all that unpleasantness at the end of his life casts a pall over everything. And with Charlie, though I settled my qualms about his morals a long time ago, half of his biographies are too concerned with Freudian analysis and sexual perversion (not to mention STDs) to really be enjoyable reads. Frankly, after a while these research areas made me a little grimy feeling and in need of my own spray of iodine.

However, to refresh one’s pallet with a man who was not only funny as hell, but was also, by all accounts, loveable, charming and caring, as well as handsome, talented and well-rounded… Well, let’s just say it is a treat, much needed to revive the soul. Add to all that the joy of discovering a woman I hadn’t thought too much about, his beloved Mary Livingstone, and you get a recipe for a pretty happy Holly.

And I needed it, too. Between certain school-related annoyances, as well as the distinct impression that certain profs were avoiding responding to any email that might take them into unpleasant territory, and the general malaise that strikes whenever I finish my school each year, I was getting a bit sour. I sat down to write a creative piece today (while downloading, natch) and it came out as one of the most bitter and nasty pieces I have ever read.

(Amanda, I know that you told me that anger made humour, and I totally agree, but the anger and snarkiness in this piece is almost too bile-filled, even for me, so you may not see it. At least, not until after my therapist gives it the all-clear.)

So it is nice to re-discover decency, even if that term is a little sullied from decades of political use.

And I am now at my leisure. It’s 4am, and I am back to downloading Jell-O Program clips and bits, so if anyone out there is awake and feeling chatty, now would be the time to grab me.

I find myself with all the time in the world, all of a sudden.

Real Radio was Easier…

I am busy wasting away hours of my precious youth waiting for old Jack Benny radio programs and ads to download. I hope you are doing something nicer.

If not, you can always make some animated teddy bears and kittens say cuss words, here. That is always worth a lift.

Now on to Ben K. Bennie

It’s early. Man, is it early. I have been up since 5.45am. I didn’t get to sleep until 4am. I went down the road to get a largest coffee they had. Now I am still tired, but now I am nauseatingly filled with coffee.

Must stay awake. Must finish Jack Benny article.

Four pages to go, round about. I can do that, right?

If only the freaking birds would shut the hell up. I can barely stand the cheerful damned sun, but the sickly-sweet damned birds are enough to churn the gut.

What a great mood in which to study one of the sweetest men in entertainment history… I shall be in sugar shock by noon, guaranteed.

I don’t even really have a thesis… But those are overrated, I find.

I think I’m just having one of those lives.

PS. The fantastic Tim's costumes above come courtesy of the Costume Invasion... If anyone shows up in one of these for my birthday, I guarantee them a bear hug, and a coffee on me (and on them, technically).

Wishing My Life Away...

Anyone got a time machine??

I cannot believe that there is absolutely no way to make September get here faster. There must be a way. Does Sony, et all, spend so much time on ridiculous robotic dogs that it just can’t come up with a way to make time go faster? This is wrong.

So I have finished my final paper, my Chaplin one. To celebrate, I have had some extra sleep, and John and I went to the park to see the new spring babies in the petting zoo, and watched The General (1927). (Sorry, Charlie, but Buster Keaton was necessary for a bit of a change.)

Now I am rested, and after I do my taxes and write my Jack Benny piece, I am facing an end of tasks, and four months consisting of a crapulent stretch of nothingness.

Why? I want to work, so why can’t I? They tell me it is because I am required to be a full time student over the summers. OK, that’s fine… But why do they have nothing in particular for me to do with these four months of study-cum-down-time?

Mostly because the profs are all off to Europe or Asia for the summer term, and have left us to fend for ourselves on minimum funding, and with so much time our hands that crime, suicide and dance lessons are really our only options for occupation.

Yes, I realize that only boring people should be bored. My mum told this often enough to me. But, honestly, four months is a long time without projects.

I have four months to read the six books that I already own for the January 2007 comp exam (which has a list of 35 books, but if I can’t afford tuition, I certainly can’t afford to buy 30 academic books), to write a rough draft of a dissertation proposal that is only 10 pages long, to bone up on my French for next October’s translation exam and to “rest.”

(“Rest” will occur naturally enough by itself when I am dead and in my tomb. Now is not the time to rest.)

I have a couple of articles I am working on, and I have some creative writing to do for Swank Puppy, this blog, and perhaps a review blog that I am hoping to start up with Catherine… Somehow this all doesn’t seem like enough excitement to keep me from going alcoholic over these next four months of bleak hell called “Summer Vacation.”

So, please, if you are reading this and have some paying work to do, please (PLEASE!) let me know. Alternatively, if you have something that doesn’t pay, but which may perk my life up (thereby stopping me from taking up glass-eating just to keep my soul from rusticating out of boredom), also drop me a line.

Otherwise, I shall have to look into those illegal games in which millionaires hunt people for sport in order to fill my time, and, with my income, I can say I won’t be on the good side of the deal.

Help keep a grad student off the streets!

Wow! And I Thought I Was More of a London Kind of Girl...

You Belong in Milan

Stylish and sophisticated, you want to enjoy a truly European life - away from tourists! Milan fits you perfectly. Great shopping, high quality food, lots of culture... with very little hype.

What European City Do You Belong In?

And Now We Do the Dance of Joy!

One year down, three more to go…

Well, folks, now I have to find a way to pay that bloody tuition, cause I just submitted my last paper for my final PhD class. And it’s pretty damned good, too, I think, so now I have to stay in school.

(Chaplin brings out the best in me. Will send this to advisor, and see if she will change her mind and let me do Charlie for my dissertation.)

Of course, I have also been up for 24 hours now on three hours of sleep (so that makes 3 hours of nap in 48 hours), so the paper may actually stink and I may be just slap-happy, groggy and high on Charlie.

However, John liked it, although he too was tired when he read it.

Oh well, we’ll see.

Now for a crossword to wait until Dr. B. replies with a “yeah, I got it,” and then off for some much needed sleep.

Happy HollyBloggerDay!

Well, folks, it is one year today since this blog opened its proverbial doors. One year, 356 days, and 455 posts. In this short time I have gotten very attached to this thing, and I hope I have improved since my first post!

The very best part is that I have beaten the stats! Unlike so many of my blogging compatriots, I have not wandered away and abandoned this thing after 3 months, and for some reason that feels like an accomplishment. I have beaten my on-again/off-again attention span and actually stuck to this thing and made it into a sort of a habit, as well as a hobby.

As for how I am celebrating, I can assure you that there is no champagne in my immediate future. I am still editing and referencing my Chaplin paper, and will probably still be attempting to stuff its already bloated 25-page corpse with research until the sun comes up. That’s the problem, I have found, of actually writing about something you like; there’s never enough room to say all you want! (How does one write about Chaplin in 25 pages, when it took 88 years for his life to play out??)

Thanks for reading, and I hope we can meet again here in another year.

Happy CHARLIEMAS!!!

Tonight, at 8pm, let every bell toll, for at that time, on April 16th in 1889 the Great Pan gave his only begotten son to us, the grateful millions, who find solace and inspiration in the graceful dance and bawdy impudence of this, the true Citizen of the World!

“You know this fellow is many-sided, a tramp, a gentleman, a poet, a dreamer, a lonely fellow, always hopeful of romance and adventure. He would have you believe he is a scientist, a musician, a duke, a polo-player. However, he is not above picking up cigarette-butts or robbing a baby of his candy. And of course, if the occasion warrants it, he will kick a lady in the rear – but only in extreme anger!”

(Chaplin on the Little Tramp, or maybe on himself, in My Autobiography.)

Fortunate are we in our generation, because we have heard the story and seen the works of Chaplin, the Everyman of the Twentieth Century.

At once beautiful and awful; Chaplin – a legendary mystery that terrifies and fascinates.

A Meditation for Charliemas Eve

“Interviewers have asked me how I got my ideas for pictures and to this day I am unable to answer satisfactorily. Over the years I have discovered that ideas come through an intense desire for them; continually desiring, the mind becomes a watch-tower on the look-out for incidents that may excite the imagination – music, a sunset, may give image to an idea.

“I would say, pick a subject that will stimulate you, elaborate it and involve it, then, if you can’t develop it further, discard it and pick another. Elimination from accumulation is the process of finding what you want.

“How does one get ideas? By sheer perseverance to the point of madness. One must have a capacity to suffer anguish and sustain enthusiasm over a long period of time. Perhaps it’s easier for some people than others, but I doubt it.”

(Charles Chaplin, My Autobiography (1964), chapter 14.)

Will Work for Tuition

Thought I had a research position STOP May not now STOP Need money, as much as I can get STOP Am being shut out of RA loop STOP They only want so-called real social science students STOP No one wants film students STOP Several students vying for positions STOP Talk of hour sharing and applications and uncertainty STOP Switch from RA to marking? STOP Neither is certain now STOP Trying to write bloody paper STOP Cannot concentrate STOP Discouraging emails will not stop STOP Situation looks grim STOP Time to turn in my chips methinks STOP Please send funds STOP Or a revolver STOP Or just make September get here tomorrow STOP Help!

Signed,
Screwed in Waterloo

Chaplin Knows Me…

“Loneliness is repellent. It has the subtle aura of sadness, an inadequacy to attract or interest; one feels slightly ashamed of it. But, to a more or less degree, it is the theme of everyone.”

(Charles Chaplin, My Autobiography (1964), chapter 12.)

Solid evidence from The Book of Charlie for why he became “universal.”

And good reason to believe, though he never had a formal education to speak of, he must have been peering into grad student windows while they sat, depressed and alone, managing their solitary burdens.

Why is this Night Different from all Others?

Passover again. Again I nearly forgot it, and was blindsided by it, and have been caught without wine, apples, and, this year, even eggs. These sneaky damn holidays. No one mentions them, and that is a problem. You can’t walk into any store in the world and not be reminded that Easter is coming, but Passover is tricky. (And, yes, I know the two holidays are connected ... but chocolate bunnies just don't scream "Passover!" to me for some reason.)

Funny, but I found myself much more concerned with the giant read “PAPER DUE!!” and “LAST DAY BEFORE YOU DIE!” written on my calendar than the discreet “Passover” typed onto it.

So why is this different? Well, for one thing, I am happy not to be schlepping some jerk’s blocks around, so that is good. However, slavery has gone in and out of vogue several times since then, as well as abuse of workers and injustice of all sorts, so maybe instead of patting ourselves on the backs for getting away from Pharaoh we should be looking at ways to help the oppressed in the modern world, huh?

But then that wouldn’t involve wine, so I probably won’t convince many people of that mode of celebration.

(It is different, as well, is that now we wait in dread for when the trashies upstairs unleash their unholy brood for the hunt early some morning this weekend to search amongst their pa's empties behind the couch for their trashie-assed NASCAR treats, brought to them by the ridiculous lupine figment of their diseased minds.)

Other than that, this night is different from… well, from last week, for one, because I got my ritual studies paper back with a nice mark (unexpected), and now have a smile to attack my Chaplin paper with. This is all very good news, because this Chaplin paper is the last class assignment I have to do in this degree (for religion, that is; I may do languages or something later), so if I could only get an A I would finish the school year (and the degree, and a lifetime of classes) off with a nice bang of four aces. (Here’s hoping!) Plus, it will be nice to celebrate Chaplin’s birthday this year by giving him serious thought. (There’s one special day I will be sure to remember!)

Now if I can just get a Passover miracle for my tuition bill, I’d be all set…

So enjoy your freedom, and hoist a glass of Manischewitz for me!

(And have a solemn and contemplative Good Friday, too.)

Chag Sameach!

Celebrating 3000 years out of bondage… Unless you like that sort of thing.

I wish you all a joyous and free Passover!

Worms and Weasels

Snails and puppy dog tails, too, I suspect.

John and I have been going for some wonderful long walks these days, enjoying the drizzly, but warm, spring weather. But this has also brought its own horrors. Like tonight’s carpet of worms all over the sidewalks. There we were, trying to be all Edwardian and take some air, as they say, while trying not to slide in worm guts.

It kind of spoiled the atmosphere.

And there is a particular spot on our walk that is often heavily patronized by skunks (I am clearly in the middle of the Hundred Acre Wood here). So we were trying to keep one eye on the worms and one eye on the bushes, attempting to avoid a worm slaughter and a skunk ambush at the same time.

Wonderful night. Crappy nature.

And a friend has invited us to spend a week in a cabin up north this summer? Yes, I am such a nature girl! If I can’t deal with an urban worm infestation, I shudder to think how I would deal with the real woods! I may have been born rural, but I have come along way from that. Besides, I’d likely die without my computer now, so it is all moot.

John’s parents have offered to sponsor a weekend mini-break in Toronto, to see “Lord of the Rings” and stay at a hotel for a rest, and that is even far from my idea of a true vacation.

According to my philosophy, if it involves dressing, catching any form of transportation other than feet, and leaving my couch, it is not a vacation. It then becomes mobilization, which is something different. It may have worked for Montgomery, Nelson and Patton, but it is not my idea of relaxation.

As to the weasels, I am afraid the worms are not the only pests around these days. I am also sorry to report that my prof was too quick in judging that my TA duties are over. Students, having received their final grades, are crawling out of every nook and cranny to whine, complain and bitch generally. “I had family troubles!” cries one. “You don’t understand – I need to pass!” sulks another. (Has that last one ever worked on any marker??)

Tough tit, says I and the prof.

Why, oh why, can’t they just go away?

All things considered, I’d rather keep the worms.

(And ten points to the first person who can tell me what the above pic is and why it is related to this entry.)

Two Thousand Dollars?!?

Well, I have good news and I have bad news. The good news involves one email I got from the prof I TA for, who tells me that I have a good reference for him any time, and that I am now free of TA responsibilities for the summer because it is all done. The other good news is that I may have a lucrative RAship for the summer.

The bad news is that I got a tuition bill for $2,032, due on the 20th. Loan takes longer than that, so don’t look at me. I can afford to pay the $32, no problem… The two grand may be an issue, though.

Oh well. It’s spring, and I’m well. Something will work out. It always does.

A bigger problem right now is the fact that it is raining, and John does not want to go out in it. Thus we are trapped in the PhD office, and our planned trip to the park to see the new baby animals has been postponed.

Well, if that is my biggest worry (along with the Chaplin paper that I am currently avoiding), I am doing fine.

Tripping the Lake Blogtastic

(Or is that “Blogging the Life Fantastic”? Good title for a blog, that. Probably already spoken for, though, so I guess mine will have to stay put for a while longer.)

Dinner party was actually very fun. There were many good laughs, of the sort that can be best found amongst people who have not had a good guffaw in some time. As we have all been under the scholastic gun for a week or so, it was nice to relax and enjoy some social time. It was much, much, much better than I had anticipated.

One of my classmates, Sio, is a pretty hip sort, and is interested in contemporary spirituality (what is often called “new age”) and its implications in terms of health and self-image, etc. So we got to talking about one of my favourite topics.

Why do so few scholars deal with blogging? For example, why not study contemporary religion via blogging? When you think about it, blogging is a form of auto-ethnography, and you can get accounts of life from all over the world.

Yet this goldmine remains unexplored, largely.

So I broke one of my rules and decided to give her my blog address, so she can explore and see what is out there. I figured she should start somewhere, so why not with mine? If I am urging academic sorts to go poking around in here, I should be brave enough to offer myself as a start, right?

And who knows? Perhaps by the end of the summer, we will have converted her to the blogging lifestyle, which is pretty fun, with none of the messy complications of entering the orgy lifestyle.

Then Catherine will have a blogging grandbaby through me. See how the whole thing trickles? It’s Social Science already!

So, all in all, a very good evening. I’m not even sure I care about the SSHRC right now, and that is a far cry from where I was this morning.

Now to sleep, and then it is on to Chaplin tomorrow. (Then to other fun deadlines for the month, such as the Jack Benny chapter, taxes, the first-year progress report for this past school year, student loan papers, tuition negotiations, etc., etc., etc.) Wish me luck!

From now til April 2009…

(Warning: Sappiness ahead.)

I was a little down there because I didn't get a grad award, and I have to go have dinner tonight with all the first year PhDs, as a last harrah. I fear that all of them will have those “I’m a Winner” smiles, and I will sit there wondering how best to dispatch myself with the dinner fork.

But then I thought of what I have that others in the world don’t have, like some wonderful friends, and John, and an education with some really excellent profs … And the chance to express myself. And a University that I love more than any other place I’ve ever been (with the possible rival of Halifax in general).

And then I realized that if my entire year got SSHRCs except for me I would be embarrassed, but I would also be genuinely happy for these people. They are a great bunch, and there is a feeling here that if one guy on the team does well it reflects well on the lot of us.

It is no shame to lose if these people are your competition. It is honour enough that I can work with them. And I will enjoy working with them more over the next three years.

And the I remembered something even more prettydamnedwonderful. Three years from now, I will be preparing and submitting the final draft of my dissertation, passing my public and departmental defences with flying colours (because I really do kick the ass of presentations, even if I vomit blood when I think about them), and trotting off, very nearly with cat-skin in hand!

Screw SSHRC, anyhow. Even if I do end up working at Chapters for the rest of my life, I will always have those three beautiful letters there after my name: “PhD.”

Not bad for the kid of illiterate dirt farmers, no?

(Besides, who can be sad with Charliemas only five sleeps away???)

I Am a SSHRC-less Freak

All shun me. Warn your children about me. Look the other way as I pass.

My meager grad scholarship clangs a warning bell: “Unclean! Unsuccessful! Unwanted!”

For I have neither SSHRC nor CGS this year. I haven’t even won an OGS.

I am a failure, in a department full of people who seem to have SSHRCs dropped on them from their personal guardian angels in their sleep. I think a student at WLU gets a SSHRC every time a bell rings.

But not me.

I have been rejected, and now there is nothing for me.

My future comes to me now: I will be yet another PhD working at a Chapters outlet, trying to make my way up to manager and looking for sessional work at the local college.

I am the pariah of the academic world: I am SSHRC-less.

Hear and fear my story!

It’s Getting Pretty Swank in Here

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

“Why Can’t Women Ever Understand When I am Done With Them.”

Chaplin was quoted as having said that once. It is brilliant in its arrogance and cruelty, no?

But I understand it… More emails from students today. Why can’t they understand when I am finished with them?? Now that term is over, I feel like making an automatic reply:

“Dear student,
Bite me and die!
The class is over. Let it DIE!
Signed,
Holly”

But I must be polite. *sigh*

It is wonderful weather out there right now … But you know what I am doing?

DISHES.

Yes, I am trapped inside doing dishes. This is wrong and horrible.

I’m making the switch to paper plates. Screw the environment. I’m sick of cleaning up after myself.

Save me!

Countin’ Flowers on the Wall

Don’t get me wrong. I am happy that the term is up. I am glad that this isn’t another Monday from hell. However, it all seems so strange, somehow. It’s as if I wasn’t ready for school to be over. It just seems like it started just a couple weeks ago.

Went to Match Point (2005) tonight. Wonderful. Great. Loved it.

It ate up some hours. That was good.

It just seems that my whole life is one huge loose end right now.

I am in the process of emailing back all the students’ graded papers. (As a side note, would you ever email a prof or TA with an email address that promised that a very personal part of your anatomy was either hot or large?? It seems that some of my students have very poor choice in Hotmail account addresses.) That will kill another hour or so.

And then I have to finish the Dr. B. paper and send that in.

And then I am finished my first year of PhD. Assuming I passed my courses, that really wasn’t so bad. Not as bad as I expected, somehow. In many ways, the MA was far worse. Less learning curve in PhD, I suspect.

But now I have four months of horrible, horrible freedom. Locked indoors with my comp reading and my dissertation proposal. And perhaps a couple articles to polish.

Once John gets a job, I will be completely without company, whatsoever. (Except the cat, but he hardly counts … There would be far fewer suicides in singles' complexes if cats counted.)

It is hard not to feel a little sullen.

I know, I know. Never satisfied. At first, I am too busy. Now I am not harassed enough. I know. Annoying.

Let’s call it “chronic dissatisfaction” and leave it at that.

I wish you all a wonderful summer holiday. While you are out doing great and exciting things, don’t forget your poor hermit Holly. She’ll be wondering why you don’t write.

And waiting desperately for September.

BORED!

Once again, as stress has temporarily left my life I am totally overcome by boredom. All adrenalin is gone. I only have one paper left, and it isn’t due til early next week. We need to clean the apartment, to be sure, but I am as uninterested in doing that as I could possibly be.

The idiots upstairs are clogging again, so I have no desire to stay at home. But I also have no idea what one can do in this town on very little money…

Is no one around? Is there really nothing to do?

Was hoping to see Match Point (2005) tonight, but those friends now have in-law obligations, and they may have to cancel if the in-laws stick around too long.

However, the weather is very fine out… Perhaps cleaning can wait for a day.

If there is wind out there, and a cheap kite available somewhere, mayhaps it is time to make my own amusement.

The TA Stalks the Night, Lopping Grades Left and Right

John and I watched Sleepy Hollow (1999) tonight. It is true that Johnny Depp’s “spitting goat” face gets tiresome, and there are a few odd Keystone moments (especially when, as he hurtles towards a tree on a runaway carriage, the Horseman almost does a comic double-take – it is a shame he had no face, or he may have slapped his cheeks in cartoonish dismay). However, in terms of atmosphere, pure unacademic enjoyment and re-watchability, I find this movie a knockout. Bless Tim Burton, bless The Depp, and bless all the Tim Burton regular players.

The main reason I watched this tonight was that it was a kind of tribute to the end of my Teaching Assistance for the term. Being a TA, I find a great deal of sympathy for the Horseman. Especially tonight.

Since I wrote my last update, I received an email from Dr. G., for whom I TA. It turns out that the 75% average I pulled on my last batch of marking was too high, and I needed to reduce it by at least 2% (but preferably 5%). There went my relaxing evening, at least for a few hours.

For those of you who have not TA’d, and thought school was a place where achievements were rewarded liberally and blindly, I will pause. You see, there are generally established averages expected in courses. For example, in first year courses here at WLU the class average should be about 69%-70%, a C+ or a B-. Ideally this means that the standards should be set so that an average paper gets a C+. This often means that, despite having fulfilled the basic assignment requirements, many papers get a C or C-, so that the exceptional papers can enjoy A’s. Thus, many C papers have not done anything wrong, per say, they just weren’t exceptionally good.

As a result, TA’s must march to the tune of the prof by hacking cruelly at so-so papers, and if the prof thinks we are marking too easily all hell breaks loose.

As was the case tonight.

So there I was this evening, hacking and burning as many papers as I could. Papers that I had nothing against, really, but which I had to beat back simply to meet my quota. I started to feel something of what bounty hunters and the guys who work the nail-guns at slaughter houses must feel. I started to wonder if Dr. G. would at least supply me with extra vodka rations to ease the pain of my horrendous, assassin-like duties.

The problem was that many of these papers were genuinely very good, or at least not bad, so I was loathe to drop them. However, according to my prof, even if all of them were excellent then the majority should still get C+. Even in a class of bright people, an average paper is still an average paper (even if it would be an A in a class of idiots).

So my batch is now down to 73% (70% when all the people who didn’t hand one in get their zeros added). I am not too distraught, as a wee bit of what I cut back was the charity cases (those students who are on the cusp of failing barring 100% on their exams), and many of these didn’t really deserve even the 60%s I had given them out of pity.

But the whole process makes me uneasy. First of all because this prof is currently marking my own paper (the Groucho one), and I know that he thinks that B/B+ should be the average in grad classes (yikes!). Second of all, because I don’t like doing dirty work for other people.

Crane was, in the legend, a schoolmaster. But he was able to discharge his duties with justice and charity. I educate, but I am not allowed to be charitable.

Like the Horseman, I haunt the dark and take off grades whenever I get the chance. I do the bidding of a fiendish master who holds power over me and forces me to be as ruthless as he wants.

I am the Horseman.

And I want my freaking skull back.

By which, of course, I mean either my degree or a SSHRC. Either of these things would win my freedom …

And if Depp could be around to save me, I wouldn’t complain about that, either.

One Week til Charliemas Eve!

It is true that it is also coming close to Easter and Passover and all those religious-type days, but, in actuality, it is much more significant around here that, on April 16th, we will celebrate the 117th birthday of Charlie Chaplin. Already, one can feel the buzz in the air. I hope you all have already finished your Charliemas shopping, as there are only about seven days left!

Other than that excitement, you are looking at a woman who has done dick-all since finishing her marking yesterday at 6pm. I bummed around the net for a while, and then John and I watched The Maltese Falcon (1939) and Singin’ in the Rain (1952) last night in an orgy of former Warner Bros. splendour, and they made a surprisingly wonderful double feature.

I then slept for about 14 hours. It was magnificent!

What is on the docket for tonight? We haven’t a clue, except for the fact that we know nothing is due tomorrow (a pleasant and novel state of affairs), and that we are far too lazy to do much of note. I think it is time for a jaunt down to the Tim Horton's (coffee shop), and then perhaps over to my favourite movie rental joint (the one run by an old hippy who loves my taste in films), and then back to the couch before it misses us too much.

Tomorrow promises to be more exciting, what with the need to clean the apartment before it breeds a new sentient life-form and we have to call in Capt. Picard to deal with land negotiations. Then, I believe, it will be off with friends to see Match Point (2005) while it is still playing at the Princess.

All in all, a pretty rewarding weekend. With luck, all this cleaning, relaxing and socializing will finally make me feel human again.

I hope all is well out there, especially for Amanda (from whom I have still not received word, and I hope it is as simple as a power outage or some fantastic party that has not yet ended). Best wishes, too, to Catherine of the Blessed Thesis, of whom we now inquire (as all our crap is winding down), “Don’t you think it may be time for another visit, soon?”

Take care, all, and get some rest. And to help you in that, here's an image bound to soothe and please:

Quote: “Many people who follow Islam are Muslims.”

Is this shoddy writing, or some sort of complex argument that I just can’t penetrate?

I think the former.

"A for Effort," little guy!

Oh my! Marking undergrad papers is fun!

The Secret Word is “DONE”!

Well, folks, this closes another chapter in the book that Holly’s academic career. The Groucho paper has been edited and submitted. That is over. Dr. G. may like. He may not. He may give me a decent mark. He may give me a less-than-thrilling one. I just don’t know.

But it is done. That is the main thing.

I will likely re-read the thing in a week or so to either allay my fears, or, if finding it awful, so I can start preparing my resignation letter early.

Either way, I have one more term paper to do. The infinitely more rewarding Chaplin paper. One last term paper before I am finished course work forever.

But now is not time for the post-mortem. Now it is time to get back to marking. I will make some coffee, pry open my eyes, and get this finished before my spirit breaks as well as my mind.

Done.

ACID!

Urgh.

5.30am.

Stomach contents are revolting.

Coffee has turned into sulfuric alien blood in the pit of my gorge.

Just got home from campus. The janitor’s weird accusatory looks made me run away. Am ashamed that I am still marking. Marking the product of 43 students’ effort through eye grit and anger.

Birds were singing while I walked home. Damn, idiotic cheerful birds.

Have 16 papers left to mark. Will do those in the morning. Actually, I guess it is now morning. Rather, I will do them later this morning.

And re-read Groucho paper. Again. All in preparation to hand it in by noon to the pickiest prof in existence, who will have nothing nice to say, anyway.

Sleep now. Worry later.

Oh SNAP!

(Title is for you, Amanda.)

Almost forgot you tonight. How odd. I must be getting old.

John is editing the Groucho paper for me as we speak, and he has yet to put his foot through the comp screen, so that is good.

Still over 20 dialogues left to mark for tomorrow by 5pm, so I am working straight through til the dawn, so there will be time to update later.

And since I am currently in chat (between marking bouts) with Amanda, one of my two or three readers, I at least have half of my audience covered personally. That should suffice.

I still wish I were dead, but soon dawn will break.

PS: I don't know if I want to live in a world in which "Hitler" is recognized by my spell-checker, yet the word "Groucho" is not... There is seriously something wrong with that.

Seedy Goodness

My life has become the university equivalent to a Runyanesque melodrama.

I love the unwashed grunge of paper season. I am at my desk, it is the time in the morning that only incredibly healthy or incredibly foul people see, and I am eating a raw cucumber for breakfast. Whole. Uncut. I am just eating it like an apple. It is the second cucumber I have eaten this way. I may eat a third. It doesn’t require cooking, so it was a viable option. I am enjoying it like it was the secret of youth.

It is my first meal in 12 hours, at least.

The rest of the day’s respite has consisted of smokes and coffee.

Regular human activities have been called on account of papers, for only in paper season can you get away with such behaviour.

Like those times when you were a kid and your mum went to visit a sick aunt, and your dad let you eat cake frosting for supper out of the can.

That is what paper season is like.

I am unkempt, anxious, and hyper. I drink waaaaaay too much coffee and eat waaaaaaay too few actual meals. I am in my sweats and I may not wear real pants for days yet to come. My apartment lays fallow and we pick our way through the living room between mountain passes of papers, books, pizza boxes, and our own filth. The cat was consumed by a pile of class notes and hasn’t been seen in days. It will require a snow shovel to rescue him.

Even the silverfish seem to have moved to cleaner environs.

Still we are unmoved from the goals at hand.

It has become a matter of wilderness survival to outlive the wily and deadly Deadline.

We forge ahead. John has an exam today. My paper AND all my course marks are due tomorrow (the final, final deadline – no negotiating room). It is all down to endurance and luck.

Adrenalin has long since replaced healthy blood in my veins.

I love this time of year. It is hell, but I think I get why they all tell me these are the best years of my life.

Bless you, squallier and survival-level subsistence! Sleep is overrated, anyhow.

Hey Hey, Kids! It’s the All-Nighter Show!

Yes, sir, Mr. Teeny. Holly has screwed herself yet again by leaving things so late in the day that she must punish herself now by going through a grueling 30 hours of back-breaking hell and all the fantastic torments of the damned in order to finish her paper!

Doesn’t that sound like fun!?!

This 30 hours will include the super-fun Parade of Chemical Stimulants, including our old friends “Cagey Caffeine,” and “Nick-O-Teen,” as well as a few things that had to be smuggled in from Mexico in a tourist’s colon.

Doesn’t that sound great, kids?

Holly will also give us our educational moment today by doing the ritual praying and crying, while throwing up out of fear, around dawn to show us the importance of acting like a grown up when faced with adult responsibilities. That’s an important lesson, kids, so go get your brothers and sisters and ask them to watch it with you.

We’ll also see our favourite duo, “Stamina” and “Sleep-Deprivation,” battling it out in their whacky ways!

Oh boy, I can’t wait!

So stick around, boys and girls, cause in a few hours we may actually get a surprise visit from our bestest pal, “Dementia,” who we haven’t seen around in a while, but who I think I heard babbling back stage just a minute ago!

And join me in thanking our sponsor, who made all this horror possible, Dr. G. and his ritual studies class from hell!

YAY!

I Think I Feel the Bull Run

Have missed first deadline … But I think I can feel the juices start to flow.

I feel a paper coming on.

Screw it all.

Tried to write an email to a friend, and tried to write the word “procrastinate.” Couldn’t remember how to spell it. Am too tired to spell “procrastinate.” Thus, too tired to do the work I was procrastinating from. That is solid logic.

Will sleep now. Worry later.

The paper will have to write itself, for once, for I shall not do it tonight … I mean this morning … I don’t know what I mean.

I told you the good mood wouldn’t last.

Night.

Must. Fight. Whims.

Oh, that devil on my shoulder is riling me up again. And his name is Chaplin, I’m afraid.

Don’t really want to write the paper I have to do for the morning. (This is the Groucho paper, upon which I presented on the 15th of March, and haven’t looked at since.) It is midnight now. The paper is due in around ten hours. I have yet to start … Because, you see, watching The Cat’s Meow (2001) was so much more valuable, bad acting and all.

I am floating through life … Should get serious, but yet, still, I am unapplied.

Should I go to bed until my brain fever passes? No. It is unnatural to go to bed before 3am. Besides, I have only ten hours … Must focus.

Have a slight urge to toss out my Groucho paper, altogether. Not that I have fallen out of love with Groucho, but, rather, I am having trouble switching from Chaplin back to Groucho in enough time to write this paper. Especially seeing as how I will have to switch back to Chaplin again to write the RE700 paper for the 17th, and, of course, for Charlie’s birthday on the 16th, a national holiday in Hollyland.

(Hollyland, btw, has just as many movie stars running around it as Hollywood, but better air quality and a tad more sincerity.)

Am caught by a whim to do something completely new, knowing the prof is expecting Groucho. Just to get his attention, and bring some excitement into my life.

Am seriously contemplating comparing Chaplin in The Great Dictator (1940) to Hitler in Triumph of the Will (1935), performance-wise. It fits the course, fits my interests, and would shock the prof.

Yet – am I really so crazy as to completely change topics 10 hours before a 25 page paper is due? A paper that I have yet to research? A topic that I had not even thought of until an hour ago?

Is this what my life has come down to? The academic equivalent to bear baiting for thrills? Is my life so boring?

Perhaps.

Tune in tomorrow for the results of this musing. Until then, I say, “sauerkraut mit der lager beeren!”

(Ha ha … I am completely insane.)

I Should be More of a Wreck, Really.

Folksies, I am not sure what is wrong with me, but, even though I have a paper due by 10am tomorrow morning, I am actually very mentally stable. Perhaps this is because the prof has offered us lea-way with the due time (I could submit it later in the day if I choose), but in general I think it is due to a kind of warm security that keeps swirling around, for some reason.

I am sure it will not last, so I am enjoying it for the time being.

John and I are taking a breather in my office. He is doing a crossword and I am updating this thing … such is a “break” when you come to the last week of classes!

My coffee is hot and delicious. For once the coffee shop in the Concourse was not too bothersome, though they have hired some Fonzie-wannabe “hunk” down there, and this appears to have increased the number of girls hanging around the joint.

Still, I am unfazed.

Got an email from Dr. B. today, re: Chaplin presentation, which he called “smart and interesting” and “excellent,” and for which he had no critical comments. This has, understandably, slapped a smile of gratification on my face. It is nice when you do something well and you know it, but it is nicer still when this feeling is confirmed.

He says he is looking forward to the paper. And, actually, I can honestly say I am looking forward to writing it. I have never had such a gratifying topic to chew on, and this has renewed some of my resolve to work more with Chaplin … Can anyone else see a book on the horizon?

Comprehensive exam book list for January 2006 PhD exams was sent out today, and I notice they have added Film and Religion (John Lyden, 2003). I feel so touched by the inclusion. And I still look forward to submitting my second comp list. And, strangely, I am anticipating some real enjoyment from writing these exams … Why? Not sure, but it is exciting. Imagine it: 35 books picked by experts in the field! Imagine the things I will learn.

Gives me goose pimples. And, yes, I am a nerd.

So tuition is due in a month, and I am less than flush right now, and we have no idea what John’s job will be for the summer, but I find myself surprisingly content in my situation (as Charlotte Lucas would say).

Now I must get to the hairy business of getting 25 pages written in the next 12 to 15 hours. But I’m still smiling!

Hope you all are same. Peace and contentment to you all.

Ego Venit , Ego Lectured , Ego Victum

“I came, I lectured, I conquered.”
- Holly, upon surveying the bodies slain by her powerful wit, charisma, and public speaking abilities, Waterloo, 2006.

Man, for a day that I was preparing for right up to the last minute, this turned out to be a freaking thrill and a half.

I worked on my undergrad lecture until 2am, and then practiced my Chaplin talk until 4am Sunday night/Monday morning, and though it wasn’t terribly polished everyone seemed to really get a kick out of the thing. One woman said, upon seeing my topic, “Oh! Thank G-d! I am so tired of dry stuff!” All in all, a great success, and the prof seemed to love it.

Actually – this was the best presentation I have done all year, without a doubt. Possibly the best, ever. I love that feeling of having nailed something, and knowing you did.

This feeling of victory easily slipped me through my two hour talk for Dr. G.’s undergrads, and it went like a dose of … something good.

(Sorry, my words have been all used up.)

A stray thought: I love to hear people laugh at Chaplin when I show a clip. One forgets how great it was to watch these things in an audience until one sits and watches it with a fresh group.

So tomorrow I invigilate an MA exam (ha ha – the power of being in PhD!), and then it’s all business for Dr. G.’s paper, due on Wednesday, and then to marking for Friday.

So no rest for the wicked, but, man, I needed to kick some ass, and I did.

How am I ever gonna get to sleep now?

Oh, Those Brats!

(No, not the ones upstairs.)

Other than one righteous sugar buzz, I am feeling semi-OK.

I believe I am ready… or on the cusp of ready… for presentation and lecture tomorrow. Dr. G. really digs this PowerPoint presentation, and has praised me for being a “fast learner”… feel like telling him that I am bound to be after having been publicly disgraced by him the last time I tried to do a PP in front of him.

Just need to practice both talks and time them both, and cut off excess dead weight, and make sure all my clips are listed and accessible.

And practice again, with luck.

Am barely hanging on, though, to both sanity and insides. Campus food service was shut down today for a “Staff Party,” so I had to go without, except for a ton of brats (tiny candies shaped like fruit, with enough sugar to bring down a non-diabetic dinosaur, and enough chemical colouring to strip wood paneling). All I had on my tummy was room-temperature water and brats, for several hours… I was wired, and about to throw up… Yet I could not stop eating them.

Horrible. Need to stop thinking of them.

Am home now, so I think something non-sugary is in order.

And more practicing.

(Very pretty, but - momentarily - nauseating, photo above from Stan Sholik Photography.)

What the hell?

This better be an April fool’s joke! The busiest weekend of my year, and it would be today that the clocks change! I went to bed, and when I woke up I had lost an extra hour.

No fair. I needed that hour.

I really, really did.

Stupid railways.

Suicide Averted. (For Now.)

I have managed to complete a rough draft of my seminar presentation for Monday. 10 pages, so it may be too long, and I still should reduce it to speaker’s notes (rather than a paper). I also have to make a handout. However, it is making good progress.

My confederate, Andrew, keeps tempting me to just go in and speak off the top of my head, since I am such a Chaplin devotee and he has long held a yen to see someone do this. This is tempting, as it involves so much less preparation, but I think I will play it safe and have notes present.

The topic is sound, the theory is fresh, and I think my paper contributes something strong… And if the prof thinks so, too, then off to The Chaplin Review with this little paper.

Wish me luck!

Oi Gevalt!

Presentation is going well. FBI file finished, processed and annotated for handout use. A big job finished. Still, could use an extra day to get all this done, and this weekend I lose an hour due to time change. Stupid railways!

Am fighting off panicky and horrible feelings, as well as visions of my failure and subsequent demise… Must think positively.

Help!

Break Down? No. Break Through!

I got stuck with nearly a thousand FBI pages still left to read at sundown, so I ended up on the wrong side of the Law tonight. Oh well - In for a penny, and all that.

Have only just under 500 left. I will see the light of day through Hooverland!

And it has provided the key to unlocking this paper, too, so it was all worth it (thankfully).

I have had a major break through in my presentation preparation, and I think the stuff is turning out beautifully. A way to meld discussion of both how the Jews and the FBI saw Chaplin as Jewish, using “authenticity,” performance studies, allo-Semitism and other good theoretical tricks. Very good, indeed.

Weather here is wonderful – a nice steady and cool rain. However, was not a joy when John and I, while popping out for a smoke, heard the “clunk” of the automatic locks on the doors outside my department's building. That, I guess, signaled midnight. We had to wait until some drunken undergrads came out before we could get back in.

And no windows or doors had to be broken in our daring midnight infiltration of the oh-so-precious Woods building.

Nevertheless, the sun is shining a bit around my pile of work.

Yes. Back to it.