I just watched the final episode of Stargate and almost cried at the credits.  Ten years on the air, and now there's no more.

This would not, of course, be hitting me quite as hard if it weren't airing so soon after Commencement.  For the most part, I've maintained a persistent state of denial about graduating, aided by a trip to Ann Arbor that kept ( Read more... )

Books that I don't want to return to the libe yet (but must ( Read more... )

What I read:  " ... when President Nixon declared war on cancer, oncologists, and cancer patients."

What the sentence really said: "... ever since 1971, when President Nixon declared war on cancer, oncologists and cancer patients have been caught in a cycle of euphoria and despair ..."

The world is more eventful when I don't read full sentences. 

Dear Essay Compsers:
Due to unforeseen circumstances the English Department will not be able to meet its deadline of notifying you of your Comps results by this Friday, April 6. (We are grading ourselves down one full grade for this tardiness.) We would like to establish a new date of Friday, April 13, and ask you for your understanding.

So, just ( Read more... )

1. If a demon that is supposed to be tempting you to sell your soul to Satan instead tells you
                  "Think'st thou that I who saw the face of God
                   And tasted the eternal joys of heaven
                   Am not tormented with ten thousand hells
                   In being deprived of everlasting bliss?
                   ( Read more... )

( Comps, in three illustrated acts )

True winter has hit, and with it a furor of scribbled comps drafts. I wish I had more enthusiasm for my topic - it is, ultimately, so pointless, and I have been spoiled by the opportunity to write papers exploring applicable extensions of literary theory. Yes, they exist.

The bane of my life this particular afternoon has been a Freudian ( Read more... )

The most recent paragraph I wrote for my comps concludes with a quote as follows from the psychologist-protagonist of LeGuin's "Diary of the Rose":
“After all why should she eat? Who needs her to be alive? What we call psychosis is sometimes simply realism.”

The quote is unfortunately typical of my comps topic, which was inspired by a thought ( Read more... )

"Don't stay up too late," my parents caution me, as they always do when I happen to call them after 10:00 Central Time. (Late, in my parent's world, involves any time after 9:30, rather than any time after 1:00-1:30, as it does in my own). My mother adds, "You can't pull an all-nighter -- you have my constitution, it will wreck you for a week ( Read more... )

"For a thousand years I wielded the power of the wish. I brought ruin upon the heads of unfaithful men, I offered destruction and chaos for the pleasure of the lower beings. I was feared and worshiped across the globe and now I am stuck at Sunnydale High! A mortal! A child! And I am flunking math."

- Anya, Buffy