Yes, somehow I have 300 fewer words than I did six hours ago, but I have 16 pages highly readable and another 8 getting there. Perhaps I should break and throw together more notes... I keep thinking that might be a good idea, and then I get into polishing the PF material again. It's not where I want it to be, of course, but it's where I need it to be for tomorrow.
I have a habit of, instead of working from where I left off, starting from the beginning again, so that I write a then b, then go back to a through b to c, then a b c d, then a b c d e, and so on, which means that the beginning, even if it doesn't say exactly what I want it to or lead logically to the end of the paper, reads pretty well, is remarkably more polished than the end, which has basically fallen apart (or, rather, not been put together) in comparison. I think I may have side-stepped that this time, however, but I'm not sure exactly what I'm doing differently. I have nine documents open and am cutting and pasting and editing and moving things all over the place, what have you. And I'm still building in one document and moving it to the one that says "draft" as I go, but somehow I'm a bit more organized this time. I think it has to do with Microsoft OneNote, which has been a lifesaver on this project, as I think I've mentioned before. I wish I would have known about it before two months ago. I love anything that lets me be scattered and organized at the same time.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
7100
That's how many words I have right now, with 24 hours to go. That's over half, but that's only the intro and a rough sketch of what I want to write about in PF. I didn't even consult the post-it notes in the book itself. And I haven't gotten to the other two books. And I think I have a total of 2 Derrida quotes.
I'm so stressed I could throw up. I need to eat something. I'm afraid to take my fingers from the keys, though.
I took a little nap around noon, and - wait, I just put together 14 pages in an hour... - I had this dream that I was trying to make it look like I wasn't online because my adviser could see me and I had to come up with a brilliant excuse for not having my thesis done, but there was nothing I could do, she knew I was still connected. It was weird. And then when I woke myself up I was repeating 'I can do this,' over and over in my head, and then I thought, what if I can't do this? What if I'm not capable? That was a weird feeling.
And then I got up and threw 14 pages together in an hour. Because I can totally do this.
I'm so stressed I could throw up. I need to eat something. I'm afraid to take my fingers from the keys, though.
I took a little nap around noon, and - wait, I just put together 14 pages in an hour... - I had this dream that I was trying to make it look like I wasn't online because my adviser could see me and I had to come up with a brilliant excuse for not having my thesis done, but there was nothing I could do, she knew I was still connected. It was weird. And then when I woke myself up I was repeating 'I can do this,' over and over in my head, and then I thought, what if I can't do this? What if I'm not capable? That was a weird feeling.
And then I got up and threw 14 pages together in an hour. Because I can totally do this.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Idea!
I know what I can do with my blog after I'm done with my thesis! I can't believe I didn't think of this before, and I also can't believe that I'm goofing off when I have roughly forty-eight hours to go. I have to admit that I think the music I was listening to was contributing to my scatterbrainedness (five syllables), so I've put on some classical and it's time to get this taken care of. It was good music, and it was motivating in its own way, but really it just made me want to go dancing with my favorite dance partner (he knows who he is).
I also have a friend I haven't heard from since Feb 18 when she sent me a brief article about a fire at the university she attends. Is she okay? Well, she was able to send me the article, so I guess so. Repeated attempts to ascertain whether or not something has befallen her since then have gone unanswered. --And I'm reading (analyzing) characters who are borderline paranoia cases, so needless to say, I'm just worried. I know she's busy. ...And now I'm feeling guilty about a certain friend that I haven't been calling back. I'm angry with her. Which makes me wonder if my missing friend is angry with me (paranoia, I told you!). I don't think I've done anything wrong. And now I'm questioning myself, and I'm trying to write a brilliant essay, so that's bad.
Okay. Let's do this.
I also have a friend I haven't heard from since Feb 18 when she sent me a brief article about a fire at the university she attends. Is she okay? Well, she was able to send me the article, so I guess so. Repeated attempts to ascertain whether or not something has befallen her since then have gone unanswered. --And I'm reading (analyzing) characters who are borderline paranoia cases, so needless to say, I'm just worried. I know she's busy. ...And now I'm feeling guilty about a certain friend that I haven't been calling back. I'm angry with her. Which makes me wonder if my missing friend is angry with me (paranoia, I told you!). I don't think I've done anything wrong. And now I'm questioning myself, and I'm trying to write a brilliant essay, so that's bad.
Okay. Let's do this.
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
I wrote
on post-it notes. It's something. I was up until dawn again, though I don't feel like I accomplished much. I think I have my intro locked down, so today I'm going to arrange my notes in some semblance of a thesis and see where that gets me. Three hours, high-impact. Go.
Monday, March 3, 2008
Four days
for real this time. I have PF and CC post-ited, PF noted to such a ridiculous extent that I could write a book about it at a later date, and I know what I want to write about in Castle, so I'm going to mark those pages very quickly, I think. I also need to read a bit more Derrida this afternoon, while I'm eating lunch or something, no, maybe just after, I'll go sit in the living room, out of this uncomfortable wooden chair, take my notebook, actually write sentences and paragraphs with a pen on paper. Wow, I miss that.
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Why does life
have to be so crazy sometimes? ...If it wasn't I'd be bored, yes, I know this, that's what I always tell my friends, and it might ease things if we talk things out, but it's so hard. But we sort of did, didn't we? Sort of.
I'm having a hard time getting through PF with the post-iting because the text is just so goddamn rich. I really think I could have written my whole thesis on it, but, as I've said before, I do think it will be better in the long run that I'm not.
I'm glad I've gotten this extension because I'm finally getting to the point where I know what I'm going to focus on (I'm ridiculous, I know this, and I also know that I would probably gotten to this point earlier if I had been working harder this whole time, yes). I'm going to discuss two cataclysmic events and how they are figured in each of the three novels. That's still pretty broad. Each of the events is portrayed in writing, that's important, essential in fact, because my point has to do with how they are recorded, how they are re-presented. In PF I'm going to focus on Shade's portrayal of his daughter's death (most likely suicide) and Kinbote's portrayal of Shade's murder (the latter is where I'm getting caught up because there are many angles I can take with this one, but I'll get to that in a second). In CC I'm going to mention the book Jonah is working on in the beginning of the novel but spend the majority of the section talking about the book he ends up writing, which is (as he portrays it) a direct result of the first. In WHALITC (which is not what I will be calling it in my thesis, don't worry), I will discuss Uncle Julian's work on a book about the day of the family murders, and then Merricat's narrative about the fire and all that.
In all three novels, the first event I've just mentioned is part of the larger narrative that constitutes the second event. If I was in the superimposing causality business I might say that the first event causes the second, but really it is the narrator of each novel that represents it that way.
The thing with PF and how Shade's murder is that it's almost a dead horse well beaten type of thing. Critics are pretty much in consensus that there is sufficient textual evidence that Kinbote has 'invented' the Gradus narrative (whether he 'invented' the Zembla/King Charles narrative or not, which is slightly more debatable), so perhaps what I should focus on is where these two chains of events coincide. For instance, and I can't find it now, but I feel like there was a section that juxtaposed Gradus's journey with the King's escape the year before. Perhaps they were in adjacent notes. I'll find it later. My point here is that I'm not concerned with the metaphysics of the novel, with how death is treated as a subject, though this is obviously linked to how the specific deaths are represented, or with whether or not what is presented as fact is factual - though what is explicitly contradicted by Kinbote is certainly important. This is the one I'm bogged down in.
Which means I need to devote more energy to the other two, and fast, because we're really close to the deadline now. I also have to finish reading the Derrida I want to include.
And I need to go to the grocery store, but it's cold outside. And it's cold inside, so I'm uncomfortable, and I am a grown woman and should stop whining and do something about it, huh? Let's do this.
I'm having a hard time getting through PF with the post-iting because the text is just so goddamn rich. I really think I could have written my whole thesis on it, but, as I've said before, I do think it will be better in the long run that I'm not.
I'm glad I've gotten this extension because I'm finally getting to the point where I know what I'm going to focus on (I'm ridiculous, I know this, and I also know that I would probably gotten to this point earlier if I had been working harder this whole time, yes). I'm going to discuss two cataclysmic events and how they are figured in each of the three novels. That's still pretty broad. Each of the events is portrayed in writing, that's important, essential in fact, because my point has to do with how they are recorded, how they are re-presented. In PF I'm going to focus on Shade's portrayal of his daughter's death (most likely suicide) and Kinbote's portrayal of Shade's murder (the latter is where I'm getting caught up because there are many angles I can take with this one, but I'll get to that in a second). In CC I'm going to mention the book Jonah is working on in the beginning of the novel but spend the majority of the section talking about the book he ends up writing, which is (as he portrays it) a direct result of the first. In WHALITC (which is not what I will be calling it in my thesis, don't worry), I will discuss Uncle Julian's work on a book about the day of the family murders, and then Merricat's narrative about the fire and all that.
In all three novels, the first event I've just mentioned is part of the larger narrative that constitutes the second event. If I was in the superimposing causality business I might say that the first event causes the second, but really it is the narrator of each novel that represents it that way.
The thing with PF and how Shade's murder is that it's almost a dead horse well beaten type of thing. Critics are pretty much in consensus that there is sufficient textual evidence that Kinbote has 'invented' the Gradus narrative (whether he 'invented' the Zembla/King Charles narrative or not, which is slightly more debatable), so perhaps what I should focus on is where these two chains of events coincide. For instance, and I can't find it now, but I feel like there was a section that juxtaposed Gradus's journey with the King's escape the year before. Perhaps they were in adjacent notes. I'll find it later. My point here is that I'm not concerned with the metaphysics of the novel, with how death is treated as a subject, though this is obviously linked to how the specific deaths are represented, or with whether or not what is presented as fact is factual - though what is explicitly contradicted by Kinbote is certainly important. This is the one I'm bogged down in.
Which means I need to devote more energy to the other two, and fast, because we're really close to the deadline now. I also have to finish reading the Derrida I want to include.
And I need to go to the grocery store, but it's cold outside. And it's cold inside, so I'm uncomfortable, and I am a grown woman and should stop whining and do something about it, huh? Let's do this.
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