Tag Archives: English

college

The Light at the End of the Tunnel

2 Comments

I have one paper down, the Shakespearean thing that isn’t anywhere near as good as I wanted to be.

But it’s done.

I’m working on my paper that started out being about Kate Chopin (and, oddly, I haven’t written anything about her at all yet) and is now ass-deep in the exchange of information and relationship building.

It’s been eye-opening, for sure. I still have no understanding of Lacan or how that will play into it, but I am writing up a storm.

11 days, and I’ll be done, done, having walked across the stage, not losing my temper because I didn’t graduate magna cum laude (despite having the GPA, but that’s another rant for another time).

I’ll be done, done, and I never have to think about USM again. Except when I go to work there this summer. I’ve signed on to continue tutoring (at the abysmally low rate, stupid me) until I find a “real job.” While I don’t mind tutoring, I’d much rather be making a wage that is more than what I was making as a non-degreed.

But anyway.

Marie called, asked me if I remembered they were having a birthday party for me this weekend.

I didn’t.

Continue reading The Light at the End of the Tunnel →

college

First Paper

1 Comment

So I’ve been struggling all morning trying to finish my first paper that’s due today. Still more to do with the class, but this is the beginning of the end. I struggled all weekend and had trouble with it.

I struggled last night and fell asleep. I woke up at 430 this morning and struggled with it again.

And I can’t write.  I am saying the same stupid crap in different stupid ways. Over and over.

And I realized…this is the part where I panic, where I pace and drink much coffee and smoke dangerous amounts of cigarettes as a means of coping with the stress of so much writing.

I refuse to smoke, so it would appear that I can’t write.  I’m getting that “Just one won’t hurt you, and you’ll be able to write” voice in my head.

But I know what happens when I just have one.

I want to scream. Seriously.

It doesn’t help that it’s writing about writing, which is the dullest topic ever.

ARGH.

college

Sunday Something

5 Comments

I was going to write about spirituality today. I was going to write about my “Keys to the Kingdom” class and the impact its commitment has had on me. I was write as smoothly as I’d ever written, connecting my kitty commitment to self-commitment to spiritual commitment to whatever-commitment.

But I can’t. I’m too excited. In fact, right now, I’m too excited to do much of anything, including sleep.

That’ll probably bite me in the butt later. But for now it’s fine, just fine. In fact, it’s better than fine.

As I was stumbling and fumbling around after a one hour nap between work and church, unbeknownst to me, my Gmail account was being assaulted by an insistence to give me money.

For writing, at that. Today, I officially became a paid writer.

Continue reading Sunday Something →

college, Shakespeare

Oh Cymbaline

1 Comment

It’s a little too soon to say. Er. Okay, so it’s so-very-too-soon to say, considering I haven’t read any of the play yet.

But I sniff potential. Cymbaline might be my all-time favorite Shakespeare play yet, judging by the article “Misperception in Cymabline” by Cynthia Lewis.

The article ends thusly:

No play appears sloppier at first, and yet few transform before our eyes into such an elegant example of elegant design. Cymbeline, by blinding us at every turn, fools us into seeing anew.

Funny, but before the beginning of this semester, I hadn’t even heard of it.

college, English

And So It Begins, Again

Leave a comment

I have an overwrought mind. My mind is overwrought.

I was going to blog about the weather. Oh, the weather. Frightful, wonderful. It’s raining and has been all morning. It’s also cold.

Cold, wet, miserable LOVELY weather. Weather that makes you stay in bed. Forces you to, really, as you succumb to the warmth and coziness of comforters and covers and, dare I say it, warm balls of fur.

But then I was thinking of Rumi:

“When ink joins with a pen, then the blank paper

can say something. Rushes and reeds must be woven

to be useful as a mat. If they weren’t interlaced,

the wind would blow them away.

Like that, God paired up

creatures, and gave them friendship.

It’s been on my mind a bit for a few different reasons. Partially because whenever I pick up the book, it falls open to that page with my scribbles and exclamation points. Partially because, meaning aside, it’s just lyrically beautiful.

And partially because of the quilt thing.

Continue reading And So It Begins, Again →

college

Going to Meet the Man

Leave a comment

Apparently I’m so boring that I put my computer to sleep and can’t wake it up.

I’ve had it for less than four days now; I apparently have some serious attention-holding issues.

I managed to present my paper in class last night, despite rushing around trying to finish it up and my computer doing its Sleeping Beauty act. More impressively, I managed to get through class without giggling at “erection,” the notion of one’s sexuality being determined by his ability to get one, and a myriad of other sexual comments. White Impotence and the New South was the title, although mis-named–it wasn’t actually the New South. It was on James Baldwin’s “Going to Meet the Man.”

I did have to hiss at Michael “Don’t laugh” from the corner of my mouth as I read. Had she emitted even a mere giggle, I would have lost it, and I was nervous enough already.

Continue reading Going to Meet the Man →

college

Smile

1 Comment

Was it because she smiled that everything changed?

Or did she smile because everything changed?

One of those things I’ll never know, I suppose.

I saw her getting off the elevator, and couldn’t place her. Vaguely familiar, like someone I should have known. I have horrible name recall. Maybe she sat in the back of one of my classes, never saying anything? The one I call the “Red Shirt Girl” although she may have only worn red once?

She smiled, said hi, and stepped out of the elevator.

I smiled, said hi, and stepped into the elevator.

Two ships passing, and all that jazz, and I didn’t have a clue who she was.

Continue reading Smile →