Episode 636: Chilling Out Before My Last Paper Of The Year...

Have just finished re-reading my selection of eight poets from The New Poetry, after putting it off successfully for the entire day by buying food and watching TV shows. The selection I made was unsurprising, thematically and in terms of form. I guess you could say my preferences in poetry are somewhat predictable. Okay, very predictable. Am now faced with a choice between watching more of the already-cancelled Defying Gravity, which is one of those vaguely interesting science fiction shows that can't seem to survive in the USA, or continuing to read China Miéville's The City & The City for next week's review at Evolve Journal. Have got through two chapters so far and it's riveting, although this is partly because I have a rough idea of what the plot is, so I'm very curious to see how it plays out. Will probably read the book instead, since that way I can convince myself I'm working towards clearing some of the stuff that's been accumulating in the space between finishing with examinations and flying home for summer. I've even managed to get involved with tweeting for Evolve Journal, which shouldn't be too hard, provided I can find the time to research material for the tweets, which are all meant to be topical. 10-15 a day is no small task...

Episode 635: Boom

So the paper went okay, sort of. The questions I needed to come out did come out, but I think my organisation of the essays wasn't strong enough to do any of my ideas justice at all, so can't expect more than a mid 2:1 from this, I guess. Damn it, that's not enough for a First on this module with the essay marks I already have. Would be more upset about this, but I'm at that stage where I just want the academic stuff to be over and done with, so really couldn't care anymore. (I'll eat my words for sure when it comes to applying for MA sponsorship from MOE and I don't have a First overall because I've adopted the same attitude for my final year.) So just one more paper to go on Monday, and I'm free for the next two weeks. Well, sort of. There's still that archaeology report to compile, which is going to take a while, even if I don't try too hard and just throw together some data hashed out from all the stuff I've got floating about. Then there's another book review to write, and possibly have to start tweeting regularly for that journal as well. Plus there's that blogging stint at Incwriters coming up in a month. Argh. All these things I would normally enjoy individually, but their conjunction is almost feeling like it's too much to take. Almost. I'm literally not used to having what passes for a busy schedule in my book. Oh, Doctor Who was awesome tonight, by the way, in case you were wondering. Quite a good way to decompress after an afternoon of furious scribbling, although I wish I liked Ben & Jerry's Cheesecake Brownie more. It really isn't that impressive a flavour.

Episode 634: Tock

Should I be happy that an editor whose critical views I personally don't respect that much (because I find them too vitriolic and sarcastically dismissive to be taken seriously) has rejected my work for not being to his taste? At least for a change, I'm confident that the stuff I sent in was actually rather good, if I may say so. Oh well. As of right now, have read those 18 pages for tomorrow's paper seven times in total, with at least one more round before I go to bed, and another round tomorrow before leaving the house. Hopefully, everything'll work out like it did last year and I'll surprise myself by getting a decent mark again. Noticed something interesting in the 'Willowwood' sonnets, so that might be useful to stick in my essay somewhere, especially when comparing to some minor points I wanted to make about form in Levy's short lyrics. I feel like I'm being a bit too blasé about tomorrow, but at the same time, I feel like the amount of preparation I've put in is commensurate with how hard I secretly think it's going to be, although I would never publicly admit it. This is mostly me trusting Mel's judgement, I guess, since our perspectives on academic difficulty are likely to coincide, given our common educational background. Will update on how it went tomorrow...

Episode 633: Tick

Woke up this morning and was strangely productive, if you consider skimming articles for possible quotes to be productive. I got pretty much everything that I think I'll use on Saturday by about 2 pm, and since Sophie happened to be in the Library, I got her to print off 18 pages for me and stick it in a book for me to pick up when I got to campus. Very pseudo-espionage. Have read those pages twice today, and bits of them are finally starting to stick in my head. My favourite is still Edward Hirsch: 'Lyric poetry speaks out of a solitude to a solitude.' I'm randomly quite pleased that I can finally remember the start of that Shelley quote, i.e. 'A poet is a nightingale who sit in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds,' although what comes after that has yet to fix itself in my head beyond 'his auditors are'. I suppose the first part is what matters for my essay though? Right, think I'm going to go off and read the 18 pages again. Need to try harder to remember stuff. I mean, all the poems rhyme, so that's already a big help, isn't it?

Episode 632: The Buzz-phrase Is 'Paradoxical Solitude'

Am done with revision for Clare. Could be done with Keats as well, if I didn't want to do some reading up on the odes. Am sorely tempted not to do so, simply because I've just read a PhD thesis by a University of St Andrews student that I think would read very impressively even if all I did was borrow its main ideas and shove them into an essay that was about nature, and not specifically solitude. All I need is for a question on nature that's worded vaguely enough, and I can probably twist it to write the essay that I want to write. Of course, a vague question on solitude would be even better, but let's not be too greedy. Oh well. May just quickly skim through what I was going to read for the odes and see if there's anything in there on nature that I can pick out. Keats's odes would obviously be good to analyse, but they're just too long compared to the sonnets I've picked out, and I'm running out of time in which to memorise stuff. As it is, I'm probably going to end up paraphrasing most of my quotes from critics and picking out single words from the poem when doing the close reading. Incidentally, there's another anthology coming out from Six Sentences, this time for stories titled 'The Mysterious Dr. Ramsey'. I've submitted a story, which returns to the theme of prostitution I employed in 'The Green Bike'. I think it's a pretty interesting six-sentence story, so maybe this time I can win the prize money. (Just read the prizewinner from the last anthology, and I didn't think it was actually that great!)

Episode 631: Laura's Birthday Picnic

Just got back from Laura's epic birthday picnic, which was still going strong when us Coventry boys (Alex, Dan and me) had to leave to catch the 12 home. Had been there since about 4 pm, so I clearly haven't done much revision today, apart from reading a bit more of the book of quotations I mentioned yesterday. Am going to finish that off once I finish posting this entry! Feeling a lot less worried about examinations now, having just worked out that even in my worst-case scenario, I probably will still get a First overall for the year, just barely. This is assuming I get as low as 70 for LL209 overall, which I think is tremendously unlikely even if the examination I sat for a couple of weeks ago won't get as good a mark as I'd aimed for, and do averagely for both upcoming papers, which is entirely possible, given how ill-prepared I actually am at this point. Ah well, it'll sort itself out somehow. Our landlord says we can leave our stuff in the house at our own risk over the summer, so that's a really important thing sorted out. Also managed to sort out our Internet situation with Virgin, which is now getting terminated when it should be, with no extra charge.

Anyway, rejections have been trickling in over the past week or so, but I've stuck to my resolution about not sending stuff out until I'm actually done with work for the year. With the benefit of some distance from the work, gained by the simple passage of time since that last frenzied round of submissions, as well as the self-awareness prompted by some of my recent reading that my desire to see my work published is in danger of becoming a goal for its own sake, and thereby displacing the actual desire to write, I can now see that some of the pieces are just not good, and while the others are decent, I shouldn't feel like finding them a home automatically equals a validation of their quality. Don't get me wrong here, as I'm grateful to all the editors that have accepted my work in the past. I just think that I've succumbed to the temptation to view my acceptance/rejection ratio as a judgement on the value of my work in general. There is a correlation, certainly, but it's by no means meant to be an absolute pronouncement. Randomly, all this is probably going to make for an interesting series of posts when I take up my guest blogging stint at Incwriters. Probably should write those out in advance, given how busy I'll be while on attachment. Add one more to the list of things to do right after finishing on Monday...

Episode 630: The Weather Is Still Bipolar

Woke up early to wait for DHL to collect one of my boxes, but the guy didn't show up until after noon. Oh well. Then waited some more until the latest delivery of books arrived, out of which I was returning two. Taped everything up, and then did a balancing act with two boxes in hand and one parcel in my bag on the bus ride to campus. I could have just walked to the post office further down, but I wanted to return a book to the Library anyway. Have spent most of the time since then procrastinating and reading The Bloodaxe Book Of Poetry Quotations, edited by Dennis O'Driscoll. It's actually quite entertaining, and I'm telling myself that this will be useful for EN238 next Monday, so I've actually done work today for a change. I've looked up some articles that might be relevant for the EN227 essays anyway, although I suspect a lot of my argument this time is going to be me imposing logic on my close readings, as opposed to relying on a bunch of critics to do it for me. So basically, I'll finally be doing what my tutors have been gently recommending since last year.

Episode 629: Re-reading Done

After suffering a mild crisis, in which I acknowledged to myself that the attempt to re-read all of the set texts was laudable but ultimately too much, too late, I've abandoned said attempt. I have, however, just finished re-reading all the poems that I plan to use in my essays. Had to make some changes in the Victorian half, as having picked religion and sexuality as themes, I'm wary of being forced by the question into writing an essay too similar to what I did for my assessed work, even if the poets I'm using are completely different. Have substituted the theme of death for sexuality instead, which is handy because both Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Amy Levy have written poems that deal with death. Am actually starting to feel quite positive about this paper now, especially because I am beginning to see the clear links between the poems I've chosen. (I know it should work the other way around, but I'm an incredibly lazy student at times.) Right now, I'm in a position where I probably won't fail, since I'm capable of doing close readings on all the poems I've chosen. What I don't have is some sort of broader argument with which to anchor said readings. I mean, I have vague ideas, the one for the two Romantics striking me as reasonable, if not really based on any critical material I've encountered so far to the best of my knowledge. No idea how I'm going to fit the two Victorians together yet, so I'm hoping for a really vague question on either death and/or religion to come out. If a question comes out that explicitly relates the two, it might be the best thing to happen to me in an examination. Ever.

Episode 628: Epic Re-reading Session!

Just read Peter Blegvad's The Book Of Leviathan, and that comic is quite possibly the most intelligent and witty one I've ever come across. Well and truly impressed now. Anyway, am I the only one who found Matt Smith's shower scene in tonight's episode gratuitous? He's not terribly unattractive, but not to the point where the writers absolutely had to have him get his kit off. Okay, no more spoilers from me. I did get quite a bit of re-reading done today while I was in the Library, including a few minutes when I totally figured out how to link Keats firmly to both nature and solitude. At the same time! The idea came from his first published poem, 'O Solitude! if I must with thee dwell', which isn't actually one of the set texts, but does bear relating to poems that are. Plus it's a sonnet, and I'm going through a bit of a phase right now. (It'll pass. Eventually.) In other news, my earlier flight is still not confirmed. Am resigned to flying on the original one, but am also thinking it's probably a stupid idea to start the attachment suffering from a case of jet lag. (Not that anyone would actually notice, I think. I'm extremely professional that way.) May try to get a flight somewhere between the two Saturday ones instead. Have actually sent an e-mail to both my mentor at HQ and my scholarship officer in which I suggest that, after apologising profusely for any inconvenience I'm causing. (I just want them to like me. Is that so wrong?) Am actually secretly hoping they'll tell me to book a new flight if I want, but they'll give me a one-week postponement anyway, hence eliminating the jet lag problem! Do you think I'll be that lucky? I was very, very apologetic in my e-mail.

Episode 627: My Shabby Eating Habits

Slow but steady progress. Have re-read the Wordsworth poems, and they are tolerable. I am just not a particular fan of the 'first-generation' Romantics. Duncan Wu doesn't help, with his glossing that I sometimes find downright insulting to my intelligence. Granted, maybe not everyone would know the meaning of 'fructifying' or 'liveries', so I really ought to be more forgiving. Whatever. Have been playing Fractal to procrastinate, but I can't get past this set of levels and it's starting to get frustrating. Incidentally, I haven't eaten anything substantial for the past 48 hours. Since yesterday, here's all I've had: one bag of Sensations crisps, about a dozen pieces of After Eight, one bag of Doritos, a quarter of a carton of Innocent smoothie, a fifth of a pint of Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Fudge Brownie. Am about to consume a tube of Pringles while soldiering on through the Romanticism anthology, but that's about it. May consider venturing onto campus tomorrow for solid food. I do have stuff in the freezer, but I haven't been out of the house for two days and it's starting to get on my nerves a little. Thankfully, have plans to be out for at least two days of next week. Not the best idea with papers looming, but hey, we can all afford to live more dangerously, right? Oh yeah, remember that mysterious bundle of Topman bling that showed up a while ago? I've figured out where I got it. I Googled my name (admit it, you've done it as well) and realised that I'd actually won a competition, which I'd completely forgotten I'd entered. You know, one of those click-to-participate, no effort required at all. So there we go. Mystery solved!