A Return to the Land of LiveJournal Devolves Into a Post About Books
Dear LiveJournal
I've been gone for awhile. The events of the summer were rough. Still are rough. On top of that I had comp exams which I emerged from a couple of weeks ago. I keep making these commitments to start blogging seriously again, and well I tend to fail miserably at that. And I like LiveJournal, (except for their rather draconian "improvements" but then Facebook is still the evil empire as far as data sharing goes) and I'm sad to see it to some extent slipping as the rest of the world squees about Facebook or Twitter or whatever the next big inane waste of time is (we can argue about the relative merits of our various waists of time elsewhere). And I realize that I am part of the problem. So I'm evaluating precisely what I want to do with this blog. I don't know if I'll keep it, or start a new one, or what.
So my life at present:
While that introduction seemed a little maudlin, I'm actually not in bad shape. The after-effects of this summer's trauma are still being felt, and the holidays are going to be tough. I want to thank everyone who gave us condolences when I posed about it (or talked on the phone about it, or saw in person, or whatever).
I took my comprehensive exams a few weeks ago. It was grueling, but I found out a week ago that I passed with distinction. So, after the paperwork goes to the Dean of the Graduate School and gets signed I will be officially admitted to doctoral candidacy and can officially begin working on my dissertation. I've got my committee together and I've got some pretty hefty work done on my prospectus. It is strange to think that a year from now I will more than likely be in the midst of my first year on the job market. Getting back to the nitty-gritty of my dissertation and getting it down on paper has been really great. After months of focusing on a broad swathe of literature in three periods and a body of theory going back to the texts that I want to write about is refreshing. I've been reminded of why I wanted to do this in the first place. I'll be teaching an Intro to Lit course next semester and I'm looking forward to getting back into the classroom. That too is the reason I'm in graduate school, and I need to remind myself of that fact.
Anyway, I've also gotten some pleasure reading done and thus some recommendations for anyone looking for a good read.
Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente. - I've been intending to pick thus up for awhile. Really excellent. It's imaginative and beautifully written. And sexy, very sexy.
Zero History by William Gibson. -Gibson's new novel is, like the two before it, set in the contemporary world. Gibson has an amazing ability to estrange the reader from normal everyday objects and this works best when in the familiar settings of today. While Pattern Recognition remains my favorite, Zero History is good.
I re-read Peter Straub's Ghost Story, a book I first read probably a decade ago. I was suprised to see how much of the kind of metafictional territory he explores in later work is apparent here.
And currently I'm trading between reading for my prospectus and Jeff VanderMeer's Finch.
And as always this post has become a post about books.
I've been gone for awhile. The events of the summer were rough. Still are rough. On top of that I had comp exams which I emerged from a couple of weeks ago. I keep making these commitments to start blogging seriously again, and well I tend to fail miserably at that. And I like LiveJournal, (except for their rather draconian "improvements" but then Facebook is still the evil empire as far as data sharing goes) and I'm sad to see it to some extent slipping as the rest of the world squees about Facebook or Twitter or whatever the next big inane waste of time is (we can argue about the relative merits of our various waists of time elsewhere). And I realize that I am part of the problem. So I'm evaluating precisely what I want to do with this blog. I don't know if I'll keep it, or start a new one, or what.
So my life at present:
While that introduction seemed a little maudlin, I'm actually not in bad shape. The after-effects of this summer's trauma are still being felt, and the holidays are going to be tough. I want to thank everyone who gave us condolences when I posed about it (or talked on the phone about it, or saw in person, or whatever).
I took my comprehensive exams a few weeks ago. It was grueling, but I found out a week ago that I passed with distinction. So, after the paperwork goes to the Dean of the Graduate School and gets signed I will be officially admitted to doctoral candidacy and can officially begin working on my dissertation. I've got my committee together and I've got some pretty hefty work done on my prospectus. It is strange to think that a year from now I will more than likely be in the midst of my first year on the job market. Getting back to the nitty-gritty of my dissertation and getting it down on paper has been really great. After months of focusing on a broad swathe of literature in three periods and a body of theory going back to the texts that I want to write about is refreshing. I've been reminded of why I wanted to do this in the first place. I'll be teaching an Intro to Lit course next semester and I'm looking forward to getting back into the classroom. That too is the reason I'm in graduate school, and I need to remind myself of that fact.
Anyway, I've also gotten some pleasure reading done and thus some recommendations for anyone looking for a good read.
Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente. - I've been intending to pick thus up for awhile. Really excellent. It's imaginative and beautifully written. And sexy, very sexy.
Zero History by William Gibson. -Gibson's new novel is, like the two before it, set in the contemporary world. Gibson has an amazing ability to estrange the reader from normal everyday objects and this works best when in the familiar settings of today. While Pattern Recognition remains my favorite, Zero History is good.
I re-read Peter Straub's Ghost Story, a book I first read probably a decade ago. I was suprised to see how much of the kind of metafictional territory he explores in later work is apparent here.
And currently I'm trading between reading for my prospectus and Jeff VanderMeer's Finch.
And as always this post has become a post about books.