11월, 똥월
How the hell is it already December? Jesus.
1. Earlier today I got the response back from the regrading of my Foreign Service essay: I ended up getting a lower score, so no passing this year. Well, it's kinda sad that I didn't get through this time, but it can't be helped, you know? I know what my weak points are (writing like a high school student and the "job knowledge" section), so I can... I dunno... hopefully do better on them next time, I suppose?
2. This week. Jesus. Monday I had a presentation on 이상, where I focused on the dadaism and surrealism that appeared in his poetry- but turns out I kinda messed up and there wasn't any goddamn surrealism. Jesus fucking christ. Wednesday I brought what I've written of my melancholia paper- which ended up being about 8 pages thus far, which, of the 3 people (of 12...) who actually made progress on/brought their papers in this week, was far and away the most. I was told that I was way too broad and didn't to actually find a point, which I absolutely agree with, and I actually have figured out how to narrow down my paper idea quite a bit since then.
2.5. Tuesday I got an email from the English KGSP advisor, saying that we had to turn in thesis proposal evaluation forms on Friday (tomorrow). I hadn't even heard that we had to do a fucking thesis proposal, let alone a goddamn form. So I contacted my advisor, who is in America this year on a visiting professorship, asking for advice. He basically said to ask someone else, that he'd be coming to Korea for a couple days this week so we should meet up on Friday, and oh yeah, he didn't know that he was my advisor because nobody had told him. WHAT THE FUCK. The shear INCOMPETENCE involved in this situation, my god, it's fucking ridiculous. The real issue here is that I signed up for a 1 credit pass/fail "Thesis Advising" class at the beginning of the semester and then forgot all about it because I haven't heard anything about it from anyone. Well, this thesis proposal evaluation form is what will give me a grade in the class. Because I keep experiencing this situation- not being told of something until the last minute, going through 77 different people to figure out a way to solve my problem, etc- I decided... fuck it. I am BUSY and I have SHIT TO DO. I am NOT in the GODDAMN mood to deal with this bullshit right now. I am also depressed on a pretty fundamental level and this was causing so much stress and angst- that you know what I did? I didn't talk to anyone. I decided, fuck it, I'll take the goddamn failing grade. I am going to take an extra semester to work on my thesis and not spend all of next semester giving myself a hard attack over all the work. I do NOT want to not only write up a thesis proposal, but flat out come up with an idea for my goddamn thesis in less than TWO fucking days. That's bullshit. So yeah, I'm going to get a failing grade on my transcript for the first time in my life. Fortunately, I can sign up for the class again next semester and get a passing grade then. I am a bit concerned that it'll impact my potential for getting a PhD in the future- but on the other hand, it's not going to affect my GPA, and thus far I've gotten nothing less than an A+ in every single class I've taken. So I don't know. I'm frustrated and angry and depressed but... resigned. I'll talk with my advisor tomorrow and see what he thinks.
2.75. Current thought on my senior thesis: gender awareness in Gong Ji-young's early novels. It covers both masculinity and femininity, it's very broad, and her works aren't terribly difficult. There's also a decent amount of research done on her novels already so I won't kill myself trying to find sources.
3. Tuesday morning I got the last gardasil (HPV) shot. It's been a process- I got the first one way back in May, the second in August, and the third now. Hopefully it'll prevent other types of HPV. Wednesday I went to the doctor to get my bum checked out. He prescribed a cream a few weeks ago- which was so strong that I only used it four times before giving it a rest for a week, because it was chemically burning my skin. No difference, so I'm using the cream for 3 more weeks (once every three days) and we'll see. Cross your fingers that it helps. I've been getting these fuckers lasered off every other week since fucking May and it is painful, embarrassing, and I REALLY fucking hate it. It's improved a bit but they still keep coming back. So yeah. I'll take the cream over the laser treatment any day of the week, to be honest.
4. Today I put off studying until pretty late, but I finally managed to complete the last worksheet and paper for my undergrad prereq class. That means, from here on out the only stuff I have left to do is work on my final papers. Here's what the final papers situation is looking like:
Lit Crit (undergrad prereq): 3-5 page paper on gender and violence in Han Kang's The Vegetarian and Gong Ji-young's Our Happy Time
Modern Korean Poetry: 13+ page paper on melancholia (and gender???) in Gi Hyeong-do's poetry
History of Korean Lit: ?? page paper on something by Yi Sang (probably melancholia in his poetry... I'll be able to recycle the discussion/research from the Poetry class paper. The paper can be any length we desire, so I'm gonna aim for 13+ pages in an attempt to get myself an A+ for "hard work" ahaha)
Semiotics: 15 minutes presentation/analysis of a poem (also by Yi Sang...). This would be maybe 4-5 pages written down. We may also have a final paper? Or maybe not? I'm confused. I'm crossing my fingers that we don't have a final paper, because that'd be AWESOME. If we do, I'll take one of the other poetry papers and examine the semiotics of masculinity/melancholia in those poems. Because that would help me a lot as far as time is concerned.
Everything is pretty much due from the 18-21st, so I'm going to try to whip my way through them earlier rather than later.
Current study plan:
- tomorrow/Saturday, do the 3-5pg Lit Crit paper.
- Saturday/Sunday/next week, finish the melancholia paper for Korean Poetry class.
- next week (perhaps from Wednesday on; take a break from the melancholia paper if I must), complete my analysis/presentation for semiotics class.
- finals week, do the melancholia in Yi Sang's poetry paper.
And if I end up having a final paper for semiotics, then I'll piece something together at the end of finals week.
I've already done a lot of research/work on a lot of this stuff (melancholia is thoroughly studied, as is Yi Sang's poetry), so I may actually be able to get through these papers with minimal pain and agony. I hope. I am just crossing my fingers that there is no final paper for Semiotics. If there isn't, then I quite possibly will be done with all of my work by the end of finals week- a first. Usually it drags into the following week. Crossing my fingers...
1. Earlier today I got the response back from the regrading of my Foreign Service essay: I ended up getting a lower score, so no passing this year. Well, it's kinda sad that I didn't get through this time, but it can't be helped, you know? I know what my weak points are (writing like a high school student and the "job knowledge" section), so I can... I dunno... hopefully do better on them next time, I suppose?
2. This week. Jesus. Monday I had a presentation on 이상, where I focused on the dadaism and surrealism that appeared in his poetry- but turns out I kinda messed up and there wasn't any goddamn surrealism. Jesus fucking christ. Wednesday I brought what I've written of my melancholia paper- which ended up being about 8 pages thus far, which, of the 3 people (of 12...) who actually made progress on/brought their papers in this week, was far and away the most. I was told that I was way too broad and didn't to actually find a point, which I absolutely agree with, and I actually have figured out how to narrow down my paper idea quite a bit since then.
2.5. Tuesday I got an email from the English KGSP advisor, saying that we had to turn in thesis proposal evaluation forms on Friday (tomorrow). I hadn't even heard that we had to do a fucking thesis proposal, let alone a goddamn form. So I contacted my advisor, who is in America this year on a visiting professorship, asking for advice. He basically said to ask someone else, that he'd be coming to Korea for a couple days this week so we should meet up on Friday, and oh yeah, he didn't know that he was my advisor because nobody had told him. WHAT THE FUCK. The shear INCOMPETENCE involved in this situation, my god, it's fucking ridiculous. The real issue here is that I signed up for a 1 credit pass/fail "Thesis Advising" class at the beginning of the semester and then forgot all about it because I haven't heard anything about it from anyone. Well, this thesis proposal evaluation form is what will give me a grade in the class. Because I keep experiencing this situation- not being told of something until the last minute, going through 77 different people to figure out a way to solve my problem, etc- I decided... fuck it. I am BUSY and I have SHIT TO DO. I am NOT in the GODDAMN mood to deal with this bullshit right now. I am also depressed on a pretty fundamental level and this was causing so much stress and angst- that you know what I did? I didn't talk to anyone. I decided, fuck it, I'll take the goddamn failing grade. I am going to take an extra semester to work on my thesis and not spend all of next semester giving myself a hard attack over all the work. I do NOT want to not only write up a thesis proposal, but flat out come up with an idea for my goddamn thesis in less than TWO fucking days. That's bullshit. So yeah, I'm going to get a failing grade on my transcript for the first time in my life. Fortunately, I can sign up for the class again next semester and get a passing grade then. I am a bit concerned that it'll impact my potential for getting a PhD in the future- but on the other hand, it's not going to affect my GPA, and thus far I've gotten nothing less than an A+ in every single class I've taken. So I don't know. I'm frustrated and angry and depressed but... resigned. I'll talk with my advisor tomorrow and see what he thinks.
2.75. Current thought on my senior thesis: gender awareness in Gong Ji-young's early novels. It covers both masculinity and femininity, it's very broad, and her works aren't terribly difficult. There's also a decent amount of research done on her novels already so I won't kill myself trying to find sources.
3. Tuesday morning I got the last gardasil (HPV) shot. It's been a process- I got the first one way back in May, the second in August, and the third now. Hopefully it'll prevent other types of HPV. Wednesday I went to the doctor to get my bum checked out. He prescribed a cream a few weeks ago- which was so strong that I only used it four times before giving it a rest for a week, because it was chemically burning my skin. No difference, so I'm using the cream for 3 more weeks (once every three days) and we'll see. Cross your fingers that it helps. I've been getting these fuckers lasered off every other week since fucking May and it is painful, embarrassing, and I REALLY fucking hate it. It's improved a bit but they still keep coming back. So yeah. I'll take the cream over the laser treatment any day of the week, to be honest.
4. Today I put off studying until pretty late, but I finally managed to complete the last worksheet and paper for my undergrad prereq class. That means, from here on out the only stuff I have left to do is work on my final papers. Here's what the final papers situation is looking like:
Lit Crit (undergrad prereq): 3-5 page paper on gender and violence in Han Kang's The Vegetarian and Gong Ji-young's Our Happy Time
Modern Korean Poetry: 13+ page paper on melancholia (and gender???) in Gi Hyeong-do's poetry
History of Korean Lit: ?? page paper on something by Yi Sang (probably melancholia in his poetry... I'll be able to recycle the discussion/research from the Poetry class paper. The paper can be any length we desire, so I'm gonna aim for 13+ pages in an attempt to get myself an A+ for "hard work" ahaha)
Semiotics: 15 minutes presentation/analysis of a poem (also by Yi Sang...). This would be maybe 4-5 pages written down. We may also have a final paper? Or maybe not? I'm confused. I'm crossing my fingers that we don't have a final paper, because that'd be AWESOME. If we do, I'll take one of the other poetry papers and examine the semiotics of masculinity/melancholia in those poems. Because that would help me a lot as far as time is concerned.
Everything is pretty much due from the 18-21st, so I'm going to try to whip my way through them earlier rather than later.
Current study plan:
- tomorrow/Saturday, do the 3-5pg Lit Crit paper.
- Saturday/Sunday/next week, finish the melancholia paper for Korean Poetry class.
- next week (perhaps from Wednesday on; take a break from the melancholia paper if I must), complete my analysis/presentation for semiotics class.
- finals week, do the melancholia in Yi Sang's poetry paper.
And if I end up having a final paper for semiotics, then I'll piece something together at the end of finals week.
I've already done a lot of research/work on a lot of this stuff (melancholia is thoroughly studied, as is Yi Sang's poetry), so I may actually be able to get through these papers with minimal pain and agony. I hope. I am just crossing my fingers that there is no final paper for Semiotics. If there isn't, then I quite possibly will be done with all of my work by the end of finals week- a first. Usually it drags into the following week. Crossing my fingers...