UGH. I think I have finally finished my syllabus for 101. At any rate, I've completed the schedule, including reading, paper, and homework assignments, and banged out a set of course requirements I think we can all live with. All that remains is to crib and personalize the course description from the department. (Well, and I haven't written the final paper assignment yet, but...I'm hoping the syllabus workshop next week will give me some ideas, because I'm out of them.)

I also have six pages on my thesis, yay! I realized about four pages into it that what I thought was my "introduction" was actually my "critical/historical background" (note to self: if you haven't mentioned the poet you're writing about by page five, ur doin' it rong), so now I have about a third of an introduction I like much better. My goal for tomorrow is to complete said introduction.

But now, I am going to write fic and read the Millay biography I got from the library the other day.

I finished The Mill on the Floss. Siiiigh. I guess that was the only way to end it, but man, these Victorians. No one escapes unscathed in their novels.

Downer ending aside, I really liked it! It got to be a page-turner by the end, and she has an excellent eye for familial relationships, and writes interesting female characters. I also detected more than a hint of biographically-related bitterness in the "shunned woman" part, and a sort of incipient "rah rah women's rights" kind of feeling that I much appreciated. Maggie is a great character.

(BTW, yes, the subject line is a direct quote. Not, perhaps, one of Eliot's finest clauses. Although it truly amuses me that, instead of the usual meaning of "clogged," i.e., "filled with," I think she means "shod in clogs." CLOGS OF EVIL.)

*

I'd do that sorting hat meme thingy, but really, is there any doubt which House y'all would sort me into? I mean, really? (For that matter, is there much doubt about which house basically all of fandom would be sorted into?)

Title: Language Lessons
Summary: Susan and Michael discover what their friends have been teaching their daughter. Mentally, I'm setting it a few years on in the Closet Idealism 'verse, but it stands alone. No spoilers for the show.
Notes: bessemerprocess is entirely to blame for this. I accept no responsibility.

( I have committed kidfic. I am so ashamed. )

I somehow have started imagining a whole alternative timeline set in the universe from Closet Idealism/The Little Dreams We Dream. First, people *glances at bessemerprocess* were suggesting a sequel in which Ivanova and Garibaldi send Bester to a very bad end, which is certainly fun to contemplate. Okay, I can deal with that; it could basically continue on from the last fic, and I can cope with linearity.

Then suddenly this plotty thing that involves political intrigue and a visit to Russia showed up in my head and refused to vacate. (I have a really cute scene involving Susan being all, "Snow! I missed snow so much in space!" and running around catching snowflakes on her tongue in my head. It's so cute it might give me diabetes. Although, dude, PLOT? WTH is happening to me?) And there's a comedy ficlet involving G'Kar and a baby. (A baby! I hate kids! I don't even like kidfic very much! Argh!) And then an AU version of the finale, of course, because this timeline just goes on forever. Thankfully, I have not managed to drag it out to the material covered in "Deconstruction of Falling Stars," because that would break my brain. Although now I have the line, "And Ivanova the Strong and Garibaldi the Cunning, who destroyed the diabolical Bester with holy explosives" running through my head, and dammit, I did just extend it into DoFS. The kid is definitely still there in AU!SiL, BTW, so I guess she's a permanent feature of this universe I'm building in my head.

So, yeah. That's been my night, in between reading The Mill on the Floss.* How have you all been?


* Maggie found religion and decided to become an ascetic. Oy. But there are hints that she's not fully committed to denying herself everything she possibly can, so maybe she'll come back from the brink! Although she's also apparently heading for a Romeo and Juliet-style relationship with a young man from another family, so this could be bad. But only if she figures out he's totally in love with her, which she might not! George Eliot is tricksy like that. I think that's why I like her.

One page down, fifty-nine to eighty-nine more to go!

(And no, I will not update with each page I write. I just felt this was momentous.)

I wasn't really planning on doing more than skimming through The Mill on the Floss for our study session, since while it is on the reading list for the Victorian era, I've read enough other Victorian novels to do me for my orals, but...I kind of fell in love with Maggie. And I have to see if she eventually manages to get one over on that jackass big brother of hers. Crap. Now I have a five hundred-page novel to read.

(Maggie totally reminds me of Elizabeth Bennett, only ten years younger,* and Mr. Tulliver is pretty much Mr. Bennett under an alias. But there aren't any irritating sisters, and Maggie is too young to be worried about marriage, so it's like Pride and Prejudice with the annoying bits removed! Plus George Eliot blows Jane Austen out of the water. Trufax.)


* And also a bit of Maggie O'Connell from Northern Exposure. No, really. It's not just the name.

So, uh, I was not planning on a sequel to "Closet Idealism," and then one day a couple of scenes appeared in my head, and the people in them told me in no uncertain terms that actually, I was going to be writing a sequel, thank you very much. Susan is kind of scary when she doesn't get her way, you know?

Title: The Little Dreams We Dream (Are All We Can Really Do)
Author: icepixie
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 9,089
Summary: Susan hasn't been as careful with her heart as she should've been. AU. Ivanova/Garibaldi. Angsty, but I do promise that the epigraph is pertinent. Sequel to "Closet Idealism."
Timeline/Spoilers: This is significantly less canon-adherent than its predecessor--I compressed and reordered a few events to suit my needs, and completely changed others--but still spoils all of season four and one or two things about the first few episodes of season five.
Note: One scene in particular, as well as a few scattered lines of narration, owes a debt of gratitude to mylittleredgirl's "Dead Souls," which you should totally go read, because it's amazing.

( It has been seventeen days since her life took the express transport to hell. )

Apparently one of the classrooms I'm teaching in next semester doesn't exist. I went to look for it today, since I'd never been in the building before, and I did not find the number I'm assigned to. I did find [number]A, though. It was written in pencil. On a PostIt note stuck to the door.

This does not fill me with confidence.

If this is in fact my classroom, it means I'm going to be teaching in the ROTC area. Which is in an athletics center. Where I will be teaching English.

...I don't even know. This campus has baffled me since I got here. At least my other class is in the humanities building.

Well, at least the TNT order has Crusade ending with the best episode they did. [B5 character name redacted] always brings the goods.

( Amusing bit and general chatter )

*

I somehow have almost EIGHT THOUSAND WORDS on the sequel to "Closet Idealism." I figured it would take, like, four thousand at the absolute max. And it's STILL NOT FINISHED. *cries*

I just realized that Bear McCreary was my age when he started composing for BSG. God, I feel inadequate now.

That said, the season four soundtrack comes out at the end of the month! And it has all the cues I wanted from "Someone to Watch Over Me" (Kara's Day, the Final Four theme) on it, plus the Roslin/Adama theme from the end of "Hub," the cue from Laura running through the ship, and two versions of Gaeta's lament. Plus, apparently, practically everything from "Daybreak" on the second disc.

So exciting!

ETA: Also, the soundtrack to Twelfth Night, which was composed by Hem, comes out August 1st. Music, music everywhere!

You guys! I just read a book chapter that analyzes Eavan Boland's writings about place with a deconstructivist lens, and it didn't make me want to bash my head against a wall! Progress!

(Or, you know, I finally drank the Koolaid. If I start blathering about signifiers and signifieds, send me to detox, eh?)

Apparently my local Kroger has turned into Import Central, particularly for European countries. This is AWESOME. McVitie's biscuits! Blackcurrant jam! Malteasers! About twenty different varieties of black and flavored black tea! Interesting herbal teas from Caribbean countries! German mustard and Swiss chocolate! Thai noodles! Indian curries!

This last one brings up a question. The only Indian food I've ever had that I can remember is korma--once at fair, and last week out of a jar.* I've liked what I've had so far, but don't really know where to go from there. Does anyone have any favorites to suggest? (I know making from scratch would probably make anything taste better, but let's be honest--I'm not even all that great with stuff where I know what the end product is supposed to taste like. I'm gonna go with the jars and cans at least until I figure out what I like.) There were lots of jars with interesting names full of interesting-looking sauces and chutneys, as well as things like naan bread mix and cannisters of poppadums (sp?). I like food with a lot of flavor--if it's bland, I will undoubtedly douse it with salt, pepper, garlic, and/or sugar. What should I try?

(I got a jar of tikka masala sauce today that I plan on trying later this month. The description sounded good, and I remember hearing the name when I was in the UK...)


* I know, I know--I lived in England for nine months and completely missed out on Indian food. I don't know how that happened. It wasn't intentional.

Oh, MY. I don't know why JMS decided to do a parody of The X-Files on his show. It doesn't really seem like something they would have time for, trying to save ten billion people from a plague and all. And yet...I'm kind of glad he did, because that was pretty hilarious. RIDICULOUS, but hilarious.

(The premise of this episode was that there is an alien Mulder and Scully hunting down aliens and conspiracies, and humans are the aliens with an agenda. No, really. Alien Mulder and Scully. Who, given the way she kept clinging to his arm, are obviously going the same route ours did. They have an office, and they use cell phones. Their office window has a "Y" in masking tape on it. There is even a cigarette-smoking man. Plus the non-visual stuff: Durkani ["Duchovny"?] rambling on about how the truth is out there and he trusts no one, Lyssa being a non-believing scientist whom he eventually convinces, etc. etc. Oh, and they went for the green time/location title, but they got the font wrong, so it looked a little weird. Good effort, though!)

And damned if I didn't like the explanation/ending to this episode more than I did the actual series.

I think whatever's in Gideon's apocalypse box is at least part Vorlon. I guess that would've been addressed if the series had continued. Too bad.

I think it might be time to admit that I will not in fact be able to remove the entire contents of Hodges Library to my apartment. No, not even just subclasses PR8000-9000. (For those of you who haven't had the opportunity to basically memorize large sections of the LOC classification schedule, that would be where they put the Irish literature.)

Yeah, I broke 50 items checked out this morning. I have no more room on my bookcases for these books. I swear, I went into the library this morning for just three volumes. I came out with ten. (In my defense, the Best American Essays collections were right across the aisle from the Nebula Award collections. I didn't stand a chance!)

It might be time to haul several of these up to the English department, make copies of the relevant sections, and then turn them back in. Probably I've absorbed the basics of postcolonial theory by this point...

Urk. How is it July already?

However, I have two paper assignments down. I stole my assignment for the contextual analysis nearly wholesale from one of the PhDs who put hers up on Blackboard for that express purpose. The internet is for stealing!

Now, if I can just write the other two assignments over the next two days, all that will remain is to flesh out the reading schedule (I have not quite half of it down) and come up with a few homework assignments. I think I'm going to have to get one of those "Best American Essays" volumes and look for good material in there, because I've already added the ones from their reader that aren't utterly uninspiring.

I'm also about to start actually getting some words out on my thesis. I think that'll be next week. I told my advisor I'd have ten pages by the end of the month and twenty by the time the fall semester starts in mid-August; hopefully this was not overly optimistic.

*

In addition to working like a dog, July means corn. I've never had much of an opinion on corn on the cob--I like it and all, but I don't wait for summer with baited breath because of it--but I got some ears at the farmers' market last weekend, and they were delicious. Yum. Plus, at this point in the year, you can get them for as little as ten cents an ear at some places.

(Query: Am I the only person who thinks a partially-shucked ear of corn, with the casing and silk all pulled down but not pulled off yet, looks like weird representation of a hula dancer?)

Hooray summer for feeding me well, healthily, and cheaply, and also for giving me entertainment with my food. Even if it does mean I have cornsilk all over my kitchen floor now.

Aha! I remember these episodes! (Remember how I said I shipped Gideon and Lochley hard as a teenager? These were why.)

( Ruling from the Tomb )

( Rules of the Game )

( Appearances and Other Deceits )

I'm on a hunt for interesting photographs, paintings, drawings, PSAs, images in general, and, perhaps, even short YouTube videos that I can collect together and give to my 101 students as choices to write a rhetorical analysis on. (If you're not up on your Aristotle, this is essentially a 1,000-word explication of what argument you think the image is making and how it's making it via subject matter, composition, color, pathos/ethos/logos, etc. etc. etc.)

Anyone got some favorites I can add to the list?

Current ones I'm considering are:
- this photo of New York, New York in Las Vegas
- Lange's "Dust Storm at the War Relocation Authority Center..."
- at least one William Wegman photograph
- Tim Davis's "Searchlights"
- one of Layla Essaydi's Converging Territories series
- Roe Ethridge's "Great Neck Mall Sign"
- #2 (both images) in Yeondoo Jung's "Bewitched" series
- Florien Maier-Aichen's "Untitled (2005)"
- others I can't find online, but which are in a book called New Perspectives in Photography (I particularly like an Anna Gaskell photograph that's sort of a modern take on The Wizard of Oz)

Along with finishing Midnight's Children, I renewed my acquaintance with Edna St. Vincent Millay today. Although, yes, I'm writing my thesis on Boland, and I've always loved Yeats, Millay might actually be my favorite poet. Well, tied for first, anyway. I always think of the latter half of my teenage years when I think of her, because I discovered "Renascence" when I was perhaps sixteen and fell utterly in love with it. (Here, read it. Very melodramatic, yes? You can see why a teenager would love it.) Then my AP English teacher gave me a volume of her selected poetry as a graduation gift, and I discovered, oh, pretty much everything in A Few Figs from Thistles and Second April, and just...ah, I think it's wonderful. She wrote a lot about grief and mourning, which perhaps turns people off, but which I always thought was beautiful.

Now that I'm no longer a teenager, I find some of my old favorites even more nuanced. I think I've begun to better understand the aura of ephemerality that hangs around poems like "Recuerdo" and "First Fig" ("My candle burns at both ends;/It will not last the night;/But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends--/It gives a lovely light!"). "The Un-explorer" also makes more sense to me now that I am older.

However, I am dismayed to discover that she's not as well-known as I thought she was. (The MLA database has been shattering illusions right and left tonight.) Hence, a poll:

Poll #1423068
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Edna St. Vincent Millay: major or minor American poet?

I've finally finished Midnight's Children. It was really good! I can see why so many people love it.

What I can't see is why there are only two articles in the MLA database discussing the relationship between this book and both Portrait of the Artist and Ulysses. I mean, is it not obvious that this is in part a response to both of those books? Where Joyce went wild and crazy with form, Rushdie goes wild and crazy with content (and occasionally with form). Saleem Sinai's life bears not a few similarities to Stephen Dedalus's--the importance of the nanny/ayah, the descent into whorehouses and consequent purification (either through confession or being knocked out by a spittoon), the overbearing sense of importance, the way women impact his life (pointed out, I would argue, near the end of MC, where Saleem is all, "the women in my life are images of Maya and India!" and I write furiously in the margin, "It's been SEVENTY YEARS since PoA was published! You haven't moved beyond this?" and then Padma goes, "Or they're just women and you're being arrogant," and I note, "THANK YOU."), and the way their respective nations lurk in the background, influencing/being influenced by them. Saleem even, at times, narrates almost self-consciously like Molly Bloom.

I'm tempted to write an article that says all this.

Fifteen books (and/or plays) you've read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes.

1. Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (also Ulysses)
2. Anderson, Winesburg, Ohio
3. Bujold, Barrayar (also perhaps Shards of Honor and A Civil Campaign)
4. Steinbeck, East of Eden
5. White, The Trumpet of the Swan
6. Dahl, The Witches
7. Waugh, Brideshead Revisited
8. Helprin, The Winter's Tale
9. Byatt, Possession
10. Sewell, Black Beauty
11. Russell, The Sparrow
12. Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
13. Tolkien, LOTR
14. Wilder, Our Town
15. Stoppard, Arcadia

Fifteen Twenty poems:

1. Yeats, "The Lake Isle of Innisfree," "Song of Wandering Aengus," "The Wild Swans at Coole," and "Sailing to Byzantium"
5. Boland, "That the Science of Cartography is Limited" and "Mise Eire"
7. Parker, "Resume"
8. Millay, "Renascence," "Spring," "Recuerdo," and "Journey"
12. Heaney, "Digging" and "A Kite for Michael and Christopher"
13. Collins, "Fishing on the Susquehanna in July," "Nostalgia," and "Lying in Bed in the Dark, I Silently Address the Birds of Arizona"
17. Longfellow, "Woods in Winter"
18. Donne, "Song" (aka "Go and catch a falling star")
19. Coleridge, "The Nightingale"
20. Anonymous, "The Seafarer"