The art of losing ( Read more... )

So I like New Year's resolutions. It's a good annual opportunity to think about self-improvement. And you know, even if the initial burst of January effort fades and fails, I like to think a person ends up a little bit further ahead than they had been previously ( Read more... )

"I don't sit in judgement of my characters. They live their lives, I live mine." - Mavis Gallant

Thinking about aging and death ( Read more... )

NOWADAYS. I prey yow hertyly, worschyppull clerke ( Read more... )

This is a more up-to-date and likely more readable version of 'what I have read for my comprehensive exams.' 6 days to go before the first one!

( A long list of novels, plays, poetry, and non-fiction, vaguely chronologically arranged. These live in my brain now. )

What have I read for my comprehensive exam? Here follows the list of what I've read. Texts in italics are ones I read previously in my life which I have not re-read, but which I have reviewed/will review.

( List One: Old English to Early Modern )

In a lot of my dreams I am a disembodied presence, usually identifying more strongly with one of the dream 'characters,' even perhaps exerting some influence over that character's actions, but ultimately watching events unfold from that position of disembodied watcher. Probably it comes from a brain trained in watching television, movies, and video ( Read more... )

Today I got myself a thesis supervisor and learned I've lost 6.5 of the ~15 lbs I gained last semester.

Studying for comprehensive exams continues apace. I am afraid they will eat me alive.

Finished Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Liked the first third best. Found Stephen Dedalus as an undergraduate kind of irritating, perhaps because I resemble him in certain ways? Seeing himself in SD is probably something most intellectual men in their twenties do, though, especially if they have pretensions of being writers or artists. In ( Read more... )