Two Long Days
Narrative theory ties me up in knots and requires a breathing period. Before I settle in to presumably read my on-going paper assigned book for narrative theory, I need a little venting time. I needed more than a little venting time last night (and a venting bottle of wine) because Monday wore me down to a nub. Thankfully, by this point in the week, I am already over a hub and the rest usually falls easily into place.
But Monday is a marathon - teaching, numbing CA 100 meeting, and a numbing three-hour Avant Garde lecture. On Monday, my students turned in their topics for the next speech and overall, it was a pitiful and shoddy lot. I was disappointed and as I note that this is my weakness, I tend to take it
too personally when my students turn in the bare minimum or appear not to care. The CA 100 meeting was worse than usual (and this is standardly the worst two hours of my entire week). We didn't cover any new material, there was a latent antagonistic mood in the air, and it was its usual waste of time. Lecture last night in Avant Garde wandered, tied together a flimsy art history lecture and I felt every one of the 180 minutes in my painfully plastic chair. Grrr... but Eric and I found solace over a bottle of Shiraz and a complementary brie and carmalized onion pizza at MoMo.
Today... less eventful, but just as long feeling. I went to the office early and still didn't make as much progress in my lesson plans as I had hoped. Doc lecture in the morning and then I spent the afternoon at home tying up loose ends for Narrative Theory and enjoying a hot meal at home. Too many sandwich dinners in the windowless Vilas office are starting to take their toll. My office, despite its comparative comforts (mood lighting & a couch) and even its "cool kid" company, still plays like a socialist bureaucrat's cell. Time just elapses, unnaturally, without sunlight. Most food stuffs are either defrosted, reheated, or unwrapped from shiny noisy plastic. But I did get to escape to home today and my plan is that by lightening my daily time in Vilas, the long-term effects won't be quite as taxing come Friday. Such is life and the beginning of the week always strike me as being very uphill.
Anyway, I have to make a decision as to make a productive decision and read for a while or give in and watch what everyone tells me is a wonderful documentary, Ross McElwee's
Sherman's March (1985). Ah, maybe I'll read until my ambition leaves me or the crappy, pseudo-communication science methodology of the book destroys me.
Ah, I did learn an important lesson tonight in Bordwell's lecture, a helpful hint to all potential would-be published authors out there. He said that humanists MUST delete the middle initial in their publishing name. He said that social scientists often prefer to use the initial, but when someone from a humanities background keeps the initial, it's a tip off that lousy scholarship lies ahead. He's tested the theory at conferences, skimming the program and checking-off the predictably least interesting / worst talks on the docket. It just so happens, these speeches tend to be paired-up with speakers who pepper their name with a
middle initial. Although, back in my college days, I divided my time and efforts between the humanities and social sciences proper. But, I will note and applaud that my instincts were more than not correct. I just verified it, but I turned in my senior thesis, sans
M. I also had my name printed, bare and sparse, in the graduation program. Some people in the Middlebury program really indulge too many WASPY family names in the graduation program, but I went for the pure and unadulterated sort - just the first and last. Maybe I have found my calling in film after all. But to anyone out there who holds onto the middle initial, realize, it very well might be holding you back.
posted by lmjasinski at 10:20 PM
