Tranquil as a forest, but on fire within

First year exams complete!  At least the writing part... I have my first year exam defense coming up at the end of this week.  But the miserable hell weekend is over!  And you know what?  It actually wasn't that miserable.  Not that I want to do it again anytime soon, but I actually managed to spend most of the weekend feeling happy and fulfilled.  I will say, thank goodness we got cats!!!

Day 1: got to school at 9:00 AM, got the questions.  Then out came several of my colleagues with breakfast and gift bags!  We looked over the questions together, talked strategy for a few minutes, then home I came prepared to write my first question.  But first, I opened the gift bag.  It contained ten little packages (two to open before answering each question), dinosaur stickers, half-pops, owl erasers, a package marked "Open for Chocolate-y Good Luck," a few packages to open before beginning, and letters from all of my colleagues wishing me good luck and reminding me to stay calm, to take care of myself, and to remember the important things in life.  By 10:30 AM, I had made an outline for my first question, and I was off!  I finished the first question by early evening, took a break to get gelato, and began on the second.  And that was with two twenty-minute breaks for lunch and dinner!  Zan was soooo good to me this weekend.  He made so many meals, never asked me to wash dishes, and woke up early so that I didn't have to write all alone in the office knowing he was all warm and sleeping.

Day 2: finished the second question by mid-morning.  Started the third.  The third fought back.  The question just didn't want to be answered.  I also talked to my colleague Lezlie on the phone A LOT.  She was so wonderful, letting me talk through things, pointing out where the weaknesses were in my ideas and helping me to strengthen them.  It was a long, hard day of writing (but still had regular meals and bolstered my resolve on a short walk to Bartell's for coca-cola and cereal), and the question was finally knocked out by 11:30 PM.  Then blessed sleep.

Day 3: my colleague Samer came over bright and early to make breakfast for me and Zan!  He made us Turkish coffee (so rich!) and a meal whose name I can't pronounce, but it was basically tomatoes, onions, mushrooms, and spices all stewed together in a pot with poached eggs over top.  AMAZING.  I worked on setting up my fourth question while the guys cooked, then we had a leisurely breakfast, and then I wrote.  Fourth question knocked out by 4:45 PM, then I got cupcakes with my colleagues Michelle and Jyana.  Jyana was so wonderful and already had twelve beautiful cupcakes waiting on plates when Zan and I arrived!  I took it more slowly that evening, watched an episode of Buffy, and set up the fifth question.

Day 4:  Woke up early, and wrote.  And wrote.  And wrote.  And took a short lunch break.  And wrote some more.  By 5:00 PM I had the question complete, I went over my papers and footnoted them properly, and then DANCE PARTY!!!!!  Florence & the Machine, Billy Joel, Toto, Mulan (thus the title of this post)!  Dance dance dance!  Then PIZZA!  Off to Flying Squirrel for their pepperoni and garlic pizza and Fremont Summer Ale!!!!  And bought a dress online!  Hooray!!!!!

So overall, while an incredibly busy, stressful weekend, I stayed calm, powered through, had the help and support of the most amazing boyfriend, colleagues, family, and kitties in the world.  Moving on to the last two weeks of the quarter, then looking ahead to a fun-filled summer!

Into the Fire

Tomorrow it begins.  My first-year exam.  Tomorrow at nine a.m sharp.  They will give me five questions, four days, go.  I think I'm up to the challenge. 

So goodbye for the weekend, dear friends.  I will return on Tuesday, exhausted, but hopefully triumphant.  I will have written five eight-page (or more!) papers.  I will probably be a little grumpy when I see your blog posts about all the fun you had over the three-day weekend.  But it will be done.  This exam has been hanging over my head since I visited Seattle in April, 2011, so I'm looking forward to moving past it, letting it go... until next Friday, when I have my defense, of course.

Think of me, ok?

Those Honorable Mentions

Remember the Book Quiz I filled out a few days ago?  I promised that I would think of five honorable mentions, and boy, have I compiled a list!  In an effort to keep the list short, though, I cut it down to only books that have had some kind of impact on my life.  They are books that I return to again and again, as old friends.  So, here are a few of my favorite books that did not make it into the book quiz! 

Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
In Summer by Jeremy Jackson
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
Anne of the Island by L.M Montgomery
The "American Girl" Felicity Series by Valerie Tripp
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

We'll have to do this again soon using my history books :).  And I leave you today with two more photos of the new kitties!  The first is at PAWS, just before we brought them home.  The other was taken yesterday-- they seem so happy!

Rhett & Felix

At the end of April, around the time I became obsessed with YouTube clips of munchkin kittens, an internet search turned up a photo of a cat named Rhett.  He lived at PAWS, a no-kill shelter near Seattle.  A few minutes later, I saw a picture of his friend, Felix.  It was love at first sight.  Since late April, Zan and I have been talking about Rhett and Felix as if they were our kitties.

But, they weren't.  And we kept saying we didn't need kitties, that if we got them, we'd wait until September, that there were other cats on this earth, so even if Rhett and Felix were adopted, there would be other kitties in September.  But we checked to see if they were still available everyday, you know, just out of curiosity.  Then we started to slip.  On Friday, we went to the Seattle location of PAWS and filled out an adoption survey.  Yesterday, we ran an errand about five minutes from the farther away PAWS shelter-- the one with Rhett and Felix-- and decided just to stop in for a bit.  About half an hour later, we headed home with two adopted cats in the car.

Rhett (Butler) is a Siamese mix with gorgeous blue eyes, Felix is a very large black and white cat, named-- we assume-- after the cartoon Felix the Cat.  We have since given him the middle name Andre, in honor of Andre the Giant: Felix weighs in at 16.4 pounds.  They are eight years old and have lived together since kittenhood-- PAWS let us adopt them at a reduced rate as a bonded pair.  They love each other, they seem to love us, and now-- as strange as it seems-- Zan and I have cats!  Together!

Book Quiz, But the Good Kind!

Typically the word "quiz" freaks me out a little, and putting the word book in front of it makes me think I forgot to finish reading something for class, but today I'm going to answer some questions about my favorite books.  Thanks to Laura Elizabeth for inviting me to participate in the Book Quiz!

These are the rules:
1. Post these rules
2. Post a photo of your favourite book cover
3. Answer the questions below
4. Tag a few people to pass the Q&A on to:I'm thinking Kay and Jenna.

So, number one!  Favorite book cover!

I adore this cover of one of my favorite books, The Alchemist.  It's full of color and whimsy and mystery.  Gorgeous.

What are you reading right now?  You mean, in addition to Avant-Garde Course Pack Part II, Early Modern English Drama and Material Culture Coursepack, and a variety of plays for my seminars (you read a lot in grad school-- just usually not full books in one sitting, as professors pick and choose chapters and articles that fit with the subject of the week, rather than a whole book).  All right then, you caught me.  My guilty pleasure reading right now is A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness.  She's a professor of history at USC, so the book sort of reminds me why I'm in academia-- days spent reading in the Bodleian at Oxford, with a healthy dose of the occult on the side :).

What will you read when you're done with that?
Anything I want!  It will be summertime!  I'm looking to read some more books by Catherynne Valente and a book called Sophia Goddess of Wisdom, Bride of God.

What five books have you wanted to read, but never got around to?
Jane Eyre
Emma
Evelina
Lord of the Flies
Slaughterhouse-5
 ... there are many more that I could list... 

What magazines do you have in your bathroom/lounge right now?
Uhhh, none in the bathroom.  I have an Entertainment Weekly on my desk right now, and for Christmas my mom got me a subscription to Southern Living.  Zan subscribes to The New Yorker.  So that about does us for magazines.

What's the worst book you've ever read?
Probably Twilight.  I could feel my IQ dropping with every page I turned.  I made it through the first one as I was reading in a depressed haze, but once I came back to my senses I couldn't make it through the rest of the series.  Worked out well, though, because I got to write a great paper about the dangers of Twilight to its teenage fan-base based on the theories of Janice Radway.

What book seemed really popular but you actually hated?
See above.

What's the one book you recommend to just about everyone?
Just one?  Ok... The Alchemist.  And The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway.  Sorry, that was two.

What are your three favorite poems?
Come to the Orchard in Spring by Rumi
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S Eliot
My True Love Has My Heart by Sir Philip Sydney

Where do you usually get your books?
Depends on if they are academic books or for fun books.  Academic, at the library.  For fun, at either the Campus Bookstore or Amazon.  I love going to bookstores so much more than I love buying off of Amazon though.  Bookstores are amazing.

Where do you usually read your books?
Academic: at my desk, on my couch, on the balcony.  For fun: in bed, on the balcony.

When you were little did you have any particular reading habits?
Uhh... no?  When I was really little, before I could read, I would memorize the books my mom read to me down to when to turn the page and I made it look like I knew how to read when I didn't actually.  Otherwise, after I could read, no particular habits except that I read ALL THE TIME.

What's the last thing you stayed up half the night reading because it was so good you couldn't put it down?
Haha if we had stopped at "stayed up half the night reading" it would have been Shakespeare After Theory by David Kasten (which, actually IS really good, btw).  I would have to say the last book that sucked me in, though, and that I couldn't put down because it was so compelling was The Hunger Games.  I also really liked Ruby in the Smoke by Philip Pullman.

Have you ever faked reading a book?
Sometimes in grad school there is just so much reading that you have to kind of... skim or read reviews of a book and hope that will float you through the discussion.

Have you ever bought a book just because you liked the cover?
Yes, A Great and Terrible Beauty.  I also really liked the cover of The Tower, The Zoo, and the Tortoise, although I think I bought it because it took place at the Tower of London.

What was your favorite book as a child?
... Baby-sitters On Board in The Baby-Sitters Club Series.  Don't laugh.  I was pretty little.

What book changed your life?
The Alchemist.  
Le Petit Prince. 
The Awakening.  
The Sun Also Rises.  
Eat Pray Love.

What is your favorite passage from a book?
 Too many to list.  Basically just read any of the books I listed above.  I also really love the short vignettes of "Sally" and "Rafaela Who Drinks Coconut and Papaya Juice on Tuesdays" from the book The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. 

Five favorite authors?
Ernest Hemingway
Maud Hart Lovelace 
Neil Gaiman
... lots of others

What book has no one heard about but should?
The Betsy-Tacy Series by Maud Hart Lovelace
The Chrestomanci Series by Dianna Wynne Jones
Shadow Spinner by Susan Fletcher

What is your favorite classic book?
What exactly constitutes a classic, I ask?  I suppose The Sun Also Rises.  But I dislike creating a canon that excludes books from "classic" status.  It feels elitist and limiting.  Then again, I'm in a textual studies course right now where we are discussing the processes of culture that create that limited canon, so I'm pretty jaded.

Five other notable mentions?
Oh wow.  Just five?  I love all books.  Go read!
(I'll think about these five notable mentions).

Ok-- off to hit the books for school now!  Two weeks and five days til freedom!... gulp.  I have A LOT to do in two weeks and five days!

Catching Up (With Everyone Else)

I saw The Avengers!  Finally!  After a week of super-stress (working on a Surrealism presentation, beginning on papers/abstracts, grading grading grading, freaking out about impending first year exams, oh yeah and reading), I took a break tonight.  Zan and I went to the movies!  I absolutely loved the film (of course, it's Joss Whedon!), and about halfway through I thought, "I would see this again in the cinema."  Rare thought for me.  Although, getting me out to the cinema is rare itself. 

But, I love that feeling of sitting in the darkened theater, totally oblivious to anything but the world of the film.  For a few hours, you have nothing to do but enjoy.  You can let yourself be swept up in the action, care for the characters, laugh, cry, stuff your face with popcorn, and all the while the film holds reality at bay.  Responsibilities melt.  For a few hours you feel totally free.

Then the movie ends, and it all comes crashing down around you, and you realize that you'll probably never be a movie star, but wouldn't that be so much more fun and fulfilling than grad school?

Sigh.  If only.  Hey Joss, can I be in your next film/tv series? 

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons

"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"




There is literally no word in this poem that I do not love.

It speaks volumes to my soul, especially to the parts of me that think I'm not quite good enough.

I think this is what pure beauty looks and sounds like.

Doctor Who Hoo!

Since I forgot to watch two short films for my avant-garde class, I had to bring my computer to campus to view them during my office hours.  Since they were short (i.e.-- I'm finished watching them) and I now have a computer at my disposal, you lucky people get a short blog post! 

Mostly, I'm blogging because I found this adorable t-shirt design of all of the Doctors as owls.  What a glorious picture to ramp up the excitement for the start of Series 7 in just a few short months!!! 

You can buy a t-shirt with this design on it here!!!

Dark Night of the Soul

Yesterday, for the first time, I thought, "I can't do this."  I've never thought that before (though, I probably should have when I was taking calculus, but noooo I kept right on channeling the Little Engine That Could).  Part of my despair stemmed from lack of sleep-- I had a lot to do last week, didn't get much sleep due to some incredibly late nights (also known as early mornings), and when I finally got to Friday and thought I would sleep past 7:15, a jackhammer woke me up at 6:57 a.m.  So I was tired.  And grumpy.  And the last straw was seeing on Facebook that literally everyone else I know in grad school (except Megan) had finished their finals.  Then something snapped.

I tried to cheer up in a pretty skirt with my Victorian tapestry boots, but I ended up breaking down at the bus stop.  All I can see ahead of me are two barely conceived of 15-page seminar papers (each due in 3 weeks and six days), a presentation on Surrealism (due Wednesday), first year exams (five ten-page papers which must all be written over Memorial Day weekend), 43 papers to grade by Thursday, then on Thursday I get 12 Group Final Project Rough Drafts to grade by Monday.  I know it will all get done-- and be done-- in 3 weeks and 6 days.  But right now, that extra month of work and classes is breaking me, especially considering that I've been going like this non-stop since January 3rd. 

Zan says that if my life were a movie script this would be my Dark Night of the Soul.  Soon, something glorious will happen and I'll pull through to the finale, triumphant.  I hope he's right, but I guess when you're in the midst of the Dark Night of the Soul it's hard to see such things.

The one bright spot (literally) in my Dark Night has been the weather-- clear blue skies, highs in the 60s and low 70s, sitting out on our new balcony furniture for dinner with a glass of white wine... sometimes it's the little things that pull you through the tough times.  I'm alive, I'm healthy, I have food in the kitchen, wonderful friends and family, and a loving Zan.  I have so much to sustain me, and for that I'm thankful.  But sometimes it's hard to keep up the optimism...

Thursday, Thursday

Since starting my PhD back in September, Thursday has quickly become my favorite day of the week.  I teach two sections, then have a grad seminar, and then-- freedom!  It's like most people's Friday night!  Granted, on Fridays I attend 101 lecture and tomorrow I'm going to special collections (to see a Shakespeare First Folio!), but no class for THREE WHOLE DAYS.  Thursday evenings are spectacular.

This Thursday afternoon/evening, I got fro-yo with Liz, then walked halfway home and met Zan at a cute little coffee shop that we've been meaning to try.  The sun came out this afternoon after a chilly, gray morning, so I felt justified in my choice of a nice, cold raspberry Italian soda, instead of a warm latte.  Then I graded rough drafts.  And next up I'm grading quizzes.  Less fun.  BUT, I can actually go to bed at a reasonable hour tonight because after all that grading, I don't have to read for class unless I feel like it.  HA.  Excellent.  I love Thursdays.

Sunshine, Gelato, Grading

Just around the corner from us there's a little tiny gelato place that I've been frequenting more often the past two weeks.  Who doesn't love gelato on a sunny day?  Or a rainy day?  Or any day at all?  I've recently rediscovered a love for pistachio, salted caramel, and stracciatella.  And, despite the colder weather today, the sun has bravely shown its face without fail since Sunday, shining through the heavy clouds that threaten the skies.

(Oh yes, and I've graded 18 acting assignments and four paper rough drafts in the past 24 hours.  I'm a grading machine!  Time to work on a presentation on The Knight of the Burning Pestle...)

Here Comes the Sun

As if in response to yesterday's post, the weather took a turn for the better today!  Clear blue skies, 63 degrees (Fahrenheit), gorgeous.  I'm hopeful that this is the fabled spring which everyone told me would arrive soon, because with weather like this I think I can push through to the end of the quarter.

To celebrate the sun, Zan and I went to Target and got furniture for our balcony!  I'm so excited!  We've been meaning to get balcony furniture, because when it's nice out, our balcony is lovely and gets sun exposure in the afternoons.  Today, we finally took the leap and got two chairs and a little table!  We inaugurated the new furniture with a sweet-smelling candle and a bottle of dessert wine.  Hopefully the nice weather will hold, so many more afternoons can be spent whiled away in the sun (although now I'm feeling panicky about getting everything done for school-- eep the trade-off!).   

 

the grey in this city is too much to bear

It's May 5th-- Happy Cinco de Mayo!-- and for the past two days I've had to wear a winter coat, I've been rained on, and I can see my breath in the cold.  This is unacceptable.  The weather literally hasn't changed since February.  We've had basically no sunshine yet this spring.  I think every time it's been sunny I've written about it in my blog because it's so wondrous and rare.  The situation is even more unacceptable considering that I'm still in school while it seems that everyone else is posting on Facebook about finishing up with finals, graduating, finishing 3L, going ABD, or making spring-time al fresco dinners and breakfasts on the porch.  I hate the quarter system with a fiery passion.

On the bright side (since I said I would try to look at the glass half-full), yesterday I got cupcakes with two of my colleagues/friends.  I went all out and got four mini-cupcakes instead of my usual three-- Lemon Meringue, Coconut Lime, Almond Creme Anglaise, and the featured flavor of the month of May, Strawberry Prosecco.  Yum.  Paired with a cup of peppermint tea they were just the thing to cheer up a cold, rainy afternoon.

Hello, May!

May 1st.  Typically a great day, the start to a great month.  School ends, the sun is shining warm and bright, interspersed with some thunderstorms, and sweet tea abounds.  Sadly, not here in Seattle.  Here in Seattle it's still gray and chilly, and instead of finishing up the semester, I have another month and a half of school left and first year exams to look forward to over Memorial Day Weekend.  Yay.

Yesterday I gave my Shakespeare lecture, which went pretty well, and today I taught Twelfth Night.  My first section was observed by the head lecturer, and it's the first time my teaching has been observed (by anyone but my students).  It was nerve-wracking and I don't think I did that well.  My second unobserved section went amazingly well, though.  Of course.  I guess even though no one observed my second section, it was very rewarding to see my students actually learn something.  I could actually see it happen today!  I could see them being awed over by Shakespeare!!! 

I also forgot to tell my first section students the very fun fact (that I remembered to tell my second section students) that the phrase "Mighty Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" is a line of perfect trochaic pentameter.  Rats.  Teaching metrical form is my favorite thing, too.  Ah, well.

Sometimes I get this feeling that everything is going to be wonderful, but then I think about how dismal my observed teaching was, and how much reading I have to do, and how really, really stupid most of our politicians are (really, Ron Paul, trying to claim that the Byzantine Empire was a good economic model?  Do you know Byzantine means deceitful?), and then that feeling that everything is going to be wonderful is just quashed.  Ok, ok-- time to start looking at the glass half-full.

Personal goal for May: be happy/optimistic at least 93% of the time.  I might give myself leave to slip a bit during first year exams :).