blather
What is with the phrase "head shrinking" when talking about psychologists/psychiatrists? Where does that come from?
Things, non-chronologically:
1) Today sat Literature and Cinema exam. Am now very tired. Wrote on Rope (Hitchcock, amazing, one of my favourite texts of the semester), but not well and didn't finish, and Brazil (Terry Gilliam, dystopia. I appreciated but wasn't hugely subjectively thrilled with it), really well, and at length. Go figure. But, overall feel good about it. Thus ends Literature and Cinema.
2) On Sunday, submitted National and Transnational Cinemas essay. 3000 words on Beau Travail (French, Claire Denis - with whom I am now quite enamored - set amongst the French Foreign Legion in Djibouti. Male insecurities, repressions, and longings, war training that operates like dance. Beautiful. Dennis Lavant dancing. I love this film) and community. Wouldn't end. So hard. Think it ended up coherent, slightly. Theories of community are complicated. Was made extra hard by sick (see 3). Thus ends National and Transnational Cinemas.
3) Am recovering from a fierce cold. Now have only cough, blocked nose, and slight sore throat. This is good. Is progress.
4) Was at home all last week. Was good. Needed that. My nephews are smiling and laughing now, and stare at me a lot. They throw up constantly and underwent three bib changes each over a two and half hour period. One of them, the chubbier one, clasps his hands together like a villain plotting. Dad calls them darlin' and fusses over them. He always wanted more kids, he's such a sap for babies.
5) Tomorrow will commence writing of Film Music essay. Due on Saturday. Worse-organised course of the semester. Wording of the question I have chosen reflects this. 3000 words on South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut* as a modern musical, which can do, plus something else about it, but will have to email to find out what. Vague not helpful, damn lecturers.
6) Then, can slow down. Ahhh. Have Film Music exam next Friday, so if get essay done have week to study and therefore peace.
7) WHO THE HELL ASSIGNS BOTH AN EXAM AND A MAJOR ESSAY, A WEEK APART, AFTER TWO ESSAYS ALREADY DURING SEMESTER??? I, what, WHY? The point of an essay due during stuvac or exam period is that the students use the time they'd have spent studying for an exam on writing an essay. We need stuvac to study. How hard is it for lecturers to get that their subject is not he only one their students are enrolled in? Wanky, tossy, stupid, dense, badly organised, pretentious, boofheads.
AAAAAnd. They still haven't given us a Unit of Study evaluation survey. It's a new course, I have legitimate feedback and criticisms. One of them whispers his lectures. The other is a bit of a melvin, which is fine, and a bit of a tosser, which is annoying, but acceptable. BUT. He posted his lecture slides, not as a PDF, not in Powerpoint, not even in Word, but as single image files. Twenty very large images, with very little text on each, and with full black backgrounds. I have no idea why he thought that would work. Did he think of the ink? I mean, what?
However, I am looking forward to trying to sound academic while discussing Satan singing about wanting to take over the world so that he can go on gay cruises.