Thinking on My Resolutions

I hate to call a year before it's over (and we still have a few hours left!), but I've already started to think about the new year.  In my reflections on this past year I've discovered that I didn't do so well in my resolutions: I only made it to church seven times.  I Rosetta Stoned diligently for a month or so, picked it back up over the summer, then lost it again.  I bought ballet slippers but never got to a class.  I came close to the kind of road trip I imagined with a weekend drive up to Pennsylvania, and I spent a few days in New Mexico seeing my grandma, a few days at the beach in Florida, and a few days in Disney World, but never really got to do the kind of spontaneous, freeing holiday that I envisioned.  And, finally, though I tried to choose happiness each day, I didn't quite succeed in my endeavor.  In fact, I came close to failing that resolution totally in October.

I'm not saying that 2014 was a wash-- many good things happened!-- but it could have been better.  I could've been better.  I let stress overwhelm me.  I fell into bad habits like using Facebook to 'relax' (hint: not a good way to relax), instead of using my time to try out new classes or to start new projects.  This isn't to say I didn't work hard-- I did.  I worked harder than ever in my courses this year.  But everyone needs some time for themselves, and instead of using my 'me' time productively, I wasted it.  The thing is, this isn't the first year this has happened; in fact, it seems like a pattern.  Whenever I'm not actively reading or writing for grad school, I have trouble engaging with other projects, classes, and commitments.  Even attending church fell victim to the idea that leaving the house meant waving goodbye to a potentially academically productive morning.  But having identified this pattern, I hope to remedy it in 2015.  Instead of choosing to stay home (thereby falling into internet rabbit-holes), I will go out and experience the city.  And if I do stay in, I'll get off the computer and start some new artistic projects.  Plus, I have a beautiful new kitchen perfect for trying out recipes from the new cookbooks I got for Christmas! 

I don't know what will happen with my blog in the new year.  I've not felt like writing regularly in a long time.  It's been a struggle to get to five posts a month for awhile now-- much less the ten per month that I used to strive towards!  Perhaps I need to refresh the look, or to move my writing to a new place altogether.  Perhaps I need to take a break and start up again once I've finished my M.A.  Or maybe I just need to come to terms with posting only once or twice a month.  So don't look for me here as much in 2015.  I don't consider myself a 'blogger,' obviously-- I'm just writing for friends, not to appeal to a large audience--but until this becomes a place to share my inspirations and creations again, I don't think I'll visit too often.  But perhaps when I do return it will be with news of a ballet class, or a tasty new recipe, or the progress of an embroidery project, or just how excited I am with my thesis work.  I hope to return with my resolutions on track, and a sense of hope regarding the path(s) before me.

Here's to 2015. 

Books and Movies, 2014

Time for the yearly round-up of books and movies!  I think this will be the last year-- at least for awhile--that I keep track of these things on my blog.  I might keep a reading list just for me next year, but include academic articles and chapters in edited volumes, since those comprise the bulk of my reading.  The book list stifled me a bit this year; in past years I've had fun with it, but this year it started to feel like a mental block.  I pushed through some books just so I could add them to my 'Books' list, and that's not how I want to live my life.  I shouldn't waste time on a book I dislike or don't need to read, when I have so many other things I need and want to read!  Other things, like The Lunar Men, didn't make the list despite their deep impact on my life this year and despite the hours I engaged with them-- simply because I didn't finish the last 75 pages or so (of a 600 page, very tiny print book)!  And I didn't need those 75 pages as much as I needed other pages this year, so I had to make choices.  And what of all of the poetry I've read this year?  My thesis is based entirely on poems-- poems I've spent hours with-- but they had no place on the list since they didn't come in the kind of poetry 'book' that would meet my self-imposed criteria.  When my reading list ceases to reflect the things that I've read that really resonated or changed me, it's time to call it quits.  But here it is: 

The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Neil Gaiman; Kit Learns a Lesson, Valerie Tripp; Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Gawain Poet (trans. by Marie Borroff); The Tragedy of Gorboduc, Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville; Before Reading: Narrative Conventions and the Politics of Interpretation, Peter J. Rabinowitz; Kit's Surprise, Valerie Tripp; Pearl, Gawain Poet (trans. by Marie Borroff), Sir Thomas More, Anthony Munday and others (ed. by Gabrieli Vittorio and Giorgio Melchiori); Professing Literature: An Institutional History, Gerald Graff; Showings, Julian of Norwich; Arden of Faversham, Unknown(s); King Richard II, William Shakespeare; Happy Birthday, Kit!, Valerie Tripp; The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Díaz; King Edward IV, Part 1, Thomas Heywood; King Edward IV, Part 2, Thomas Heywood; Eastward Ho!, George Chapman, Ben Jonson, John Marston; Troilus and Criseyde (in Middle English), Geoffrey Chaucer; Kit Saves the Day, Valerie Tripp; The Literature Workshop: Teaching Texts and Their Readers, Sheridan D. Blau; The Roaring Girl, Thomas Middleton, Thomas Dekker; Changes for Kit, Valerie Tripp; Really, Truly Ruthie, Valerie Tripp; Bartholomew Fair, Ben Jonson; The Witch of Edmondton, Thomas Dekker, John Ford, William Rowley; A Game at Chess, Thomas Middleton; What Katy Did, Susan Coolidge; A Kit Mystery: Danger at the Zoo, Kathleen Ernst; Five Children and It, E. Nesbit; The Blazing World, Margaret Cavendish; The Country Wife, William Wycherley; Gulliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift; Candide, or Optimism, Voltaire; Utopia, Thomas More; The Beggar's Opera, John Gay; Brave New World, Aldous Huxley; The Rover, Aphra Behn; Don Quixote in England, Henry Fielding; The Crying of Lot 49, Thomas Pynchon; A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole; A Kit Mystery: Missing Grace, Elizabeth McDavid Jones, A Kit Mystery: A Thief in the Theater, Sarah Masters Buckey; The Dud Avocado, Elaine Dundy; Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn; The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet, Kate Rorick, Bernie Su; Perdita: The Literary, Theatrical, Scandalous Life of Mary Robinson, Paula Byrne; Heaven to Betsy, Maud Hart Lovelace; Frankenstein, Mary Shelley; The Vampyre, John Polidori; The House at the End of Hope Street, Menna Van Praag; Lessons for Children from Three to Four Years Old, Anna Letitia Barbauld; Original Stories, Mary Wollstonecraft; Vampires, Bones, and Treacle Scones, Kaitlyn Dunnett; Organizing Archival Records, David W. Carmichael; Eat Pray Love, Elizabeth Gilbert; Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen; Yes Please, Amy Poehler; Persuasion, Jane Austen; Little House in the Big Woods, Laura Ingalls Wilder; Emma, Jane Austen

As for movies, I've actually enjoyed this list.  It did inspire me to watch some films I wanted to watch, but probably wouldn't have otherwise, like Le Tableau.  However, I've found myself wanting to watch multi-part documentaries or mini-series, but then not doing so since the episode won't make the list.  Also, I had no list for theater, so going to see things like Peter and the Starcatcher or Little Dancer had no place, nor did seeing singer/songwriters at local bars.  So, I think I subconsciously devalued these experiences, and didn't seek them out like I should have.  Again, like with my books list, not super healthy.  So, adieu Movies List!

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013), Saving Mr. Banks (2013), Inside Llewyn Davis (2013), Robin Hood (1973), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), Divergent (2014), The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), Monsters University (2013), Pretty in Pink (1986), Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), The Secret of Kells (2009), Gulliver's Travels (1939), Wreck-It Ralph (2012), Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004), Begin Again (2014), Dirty Dancing (1987), Labor Day (2013), Tammy (2014), Austenland (2013), The Triplets of Belleville (2003), The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe (2005), Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July (1979), 8 1/2 (1963), The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949), Halloweentown (1998), Halloweentown II: Kalabar's Revenge (2001), Muppets Most Wanted (2014), The Jane Austen Book Club (2007), Practical Magic (1998), Sleepy Hollow (1999), Hocus Pocus (1993), The Addams Family (1991), Addams Family Values (1993), Le Tableau (2011), The Santa Clause (1994), Little Women (1994), Big Hero 6 (2014), Frozen (2013), Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas (1978), Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas (1999), Elf (2003), The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992), White Christmas (1954), The Lego Movie (2014), Love Actually (2003)

I hope you all did some excellent reading and watching in 2014!  Let's let go of categories for 2015, and just read, watch, and participate in whatever inspires us! Instead of rushing from one book or movie to the next, I will give myself leave to think about the art, history, and theories I imbibe.  I want to slow down, to re-read, re-watch, to dwell, and consider.  Perhaps that's my resolution for 2015.

Return of the Elf, 2014

He waits in the dark.  This year, he has a friend.

I open my closet doors, blissfully unaware of the horror within.  We're so far into December I think that perhaps the elf has been defeated; I am a ranger caught off my guard.  At first, I do not see him there.  I bend down to grab my laundry basket.  I turn back around to shut the door, and there he sits-- I scream, genuinely frightened and surprised!  His High Evilness, his All-Seeing-Eye, has waited for this moment the whole year.

But Rudy seems nice.

On Finishing a Thesis Chunk

At 1:06 this afternoon I officially finished the semester.  At 1:06 I printed off my sixteen-page thesis chunk (5657 words!) and my four-page semester self-reflection paper and placed them in my adviser's mailbox in the office.  It's a nice feeling, but not so sweet as the end of a semester usually feels.  Despite having spent more time on these sixteen pages than I ever have on a paper of comparable length, I know it's not really over.  I have my work cut out for me on this thesis, and turning in the chunk today only means that now I have time to get more research done--in a very compressed time.  The whole thesis is due in late March.  I read a thing online recently called "The Manifesto of the Cult of Done," and one of the tenets said: "Done is the engine of more." I liked that.  I'm done, so I can do more.  I used that to push myself to complete the introduction-- once I finish this task, it will leave me free to do more research.  And I am looking forward to the research finally.  The path looks so much clearer than it did from August to early November.  I wish I had another six months to continue researching.  I have a nice stack of books and articles to take home with me over the break, and while I've spent this afternoon not doing very much of anything, I really intend (and need) to read and write quite a bit over break.  If I can get a chapter draft done by January 10th I will be a very happy camper.

But this afternoon I langoured in the freedom of not having a paper immediately due.  I sat on the couch with an episode of Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, a plate of almonds, dried cherries, and goat cheese, and finished up some online Christmas shopping--while I longed desperately for every piece of clothing in Miss Fisher's wardrobe.  The week stretches busily before me, but at least this afternoon afforded me a moment of quiet, calm, and relaxation.  

Writing a Thesis at Home: A Haiku

Sitting on the floor
Attempting to concentrate
Two too many cats.

Writing a Thesis at the Grad Write-In: A Haiku

Click-clacking of keys
Books strewn across the table
I belong right here.

Writing a Thesis in Disney World: A Haiku

Sweet Florida sunshine
A gorgeous day at Disney
Inside I'm writing.