Episode 884: China Miéville Reading From Embassytown!

John Fletcher's lecture sounded intellectual. I wasn't quite sure because I kind of lost focus midway. He was basically reading off his own printed lecture transcript, which made me feel like he could've just sent it around by e-mail and I could have had a few more hours of sleep instead. I suppose it bothered me less that he was reading off a printout than the fact that he was pretty blasé about it. I got there late, but apparently when he began reading, everyone was apparently still chattering away. Got a decent mark on the mock listening comprehension we did in last week's LL251 seminar, so I guess I'm reasonably prepared for next week's examination. Did some reading related to my creative project while waiting for the China Miéville reading, which, by the way, was awesome. Embassytown seems like it's going to be incredible! I've got to wait for the American paperback to come out though, which is a bit of a bummer. China was being his usual erudite self. Today's big word was 'autotelic'. I had to Google it. (It means 'having a purpose in and not apart from itself', in case you were wondering.) I queued up to get an autograph (Looking For Jake because it was the first of his books I ever read), which I don't normally do. To be fair, I don't normally go to readings apart from when I'm at university anyway. It was just a bit weird, I guess, since China teaches me. I mean, I'm going to be seeing him for a seminar on the Brontës in less than 12 hours.