Negotiating Priorities
I have no idea what happened to this week (as a realist I expected this). I've really disappointed myself in my ability to produce good work. This week especially, time has not been the constraint - I am not over-burdened by teaching, going to class, even reading for homework. I am left with me - my sometimes worst enemy - and now I have three days left until I go back to school and I easily have 16 pages of writing to do and polish by Monday. I fear disaster ahead. I also think that I'll be better off just scratching any hope to get my video project filmed this weekend, just based on the reality of people around & willing to help out.
This isn't getting my work done.
Yesterday I had a somewhat productive morning and afternoon working on my Classical Film Theory paper. In the late afternoon I went to see
21 Grams. My, what a
gritty film. I have mixed feelings about the film, even having slept on it. In some respects, I like how the pieces are woven together, but I think there were some glaring problems with the narrative / character motivations / even some unresolved ellipsis (what guides the Sean Penn character, anyway? Are we really suppose to believe Naomi Watts's overnight crash and burn ~ or even the plausibility of her and Penn together?). The cinematography is interesting - but I would posit that this film is almost unwatchable on a TV-screen (I think the erratic, jostling camera movements and the close-ups really benefit from big screen theater projection).
Following the movie - I made full use of the openness of my vacation schedule. I went for an extended dinner at an Indian restaurant near the theater, I think it's called
Maharaja and I'd recommend the cuisine whole-heartedly to any locals in search of high quality curry and nan. The rest of the night I pissed away, spending a long time happily engaged in post-dinner conversation - and then came home to meet up with Eric and go out for the requisite St. Patrick's Day beverage (or Wednesday night beverage, call it what you want). One observation - it was a strange night out - just a different crowd than usual - and all of our sincere attempts to "try new things" were systematically thwarted and it ended routinely after a few gin and tonics, beers, and the bar closing at 2am.
This morning I slept later than I planned and then spent the rest of the day at school, working in my office until almost 7pm. While there, I was of course distracted by my teaching binder and spent some time getting things ready for the week ahead. Otherwise, I've been diligently working on my Chicago paper (but the more I do, the more I feel needs to be done - it's a defeating thing). Tomorrow's plan is to go back to school, where if nothing else, I have access to a great printer and it helps speed along the revision process. At this rate, I'll spend the weekend tethered to the desk doing what should have been done already - there may be no multiplex-sneaking for me this Saturday, and that would make me a very sad girl. Just the same, not finishing these papers isn't an option and I've clearly made enough choices that privilege fun over work for one week, even a vacation week.
posted by lmjasinski at 11:14 PM
