(no subject)
The Virginia Tech news is horrifying. I'm sure I would be horrified by a senseless shooting of this magnitude under any circumstances, but it strikes a particular chord because of the academic environment. I've always thought of classrooms as safe places, you know? Not just physically, but emotionally and intellectually, as well, and there's something about violating that space that's particularly terrifying to me.
I have some connections to Virginia Tech, as well--a college friend who went there for an MA and married a local guy and is, I presume, still in the Blacksburg area, and some third cousins that I haven't seen since they were children who are undergrads there. But in both cases the connections are distant and I don't have any way to contact them.
***
More trivially, I'm still in the throes of writing hell, trying to meet my Wednesday deadline. How did I ever survive graduate coursework, writing 60-70 pages of academic prose (on three different topics) within the space of a month or so, twice a year?!?!?!? Perhaps I'm losing my touch, but I suspect it's more that I have become increasingly aware of just how much work and research and baggage underlies every single sentence, and that's a bit paralyzing.
And no time for escape in the form of Farscape today or tomorrow, most likely, and I miss it with a bit of a real ache. I realize that it's totally my balm of comfort and emotional release when I'm under a very particular kind of academic stress. Oh Farscape, how I love you!!! And I've been thinking a lot about Chiana, and I even changed my default icon from Aeryn to Chiana in hopes that it will serve as inspiration to actually write "The Water Carrier."
I have some connections to Virginia Tech, as well--a college friend who went there for an MA and married a local guy and is, I presume, still in the Blacksburg area, and some third cousins that I haven't seen since they were children who are undergrads there. But in both cases the connections are distant and I don't have any way to contact them.
***
More trivially, I'm still in the throes of writing hell, trying to meet my Wednesday deadline. How did I ever survive graduate coursework, writing 60-70 pages of academic prose (on three different topics) within the space of a month or so, twice a year?!?!?!? Perhaps I'm losing my touch, but I suspect it's more that I have become increasingly aware of just how much work and research and baggage underlies every single sentence, and that's a bit paralyzing.
And no time for escape in the form of Farscape today or tomorrow, most likely, and I miss it with a bit of a real ache. I realize that it's totally my balm of comfort and emotional release when I'm under a very particular kind of academic stress. Oh Farscape, how I love you!!! And I've been thinking a lot about Chiana, and I even changed my default icon from Aeryn to Chiana in hopes that it will serve as inspiration to actually write "The Water Carrier."