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| On Thursday I taught my last class. I liked my students, and, eventually, I’ll miss them. But right now, I don’t, because I’m still grading dozens (and dozens!) of their essays.I’m also preparing for my candidacy exam, which I’ll take on Monday, 14 December.Here are some preliminary steps for the exam.- Assemble a committee of three examiners. (I did this at the beginning of the semester.)
- Submit a prospectus for the dissertation. (I submitted my most recent draft at the end of October. It was about 40 pages long.)
- Agree on an exam date. (Done.)
- Fill out paperwork; gather signatures; submit paperwork to the Graduate School. (Done.)
- Revise the prospectus; write a tentative bibliography for the dissertation. (I’m still working on this.)
The exam itself will be held in my adviser’s office. It should go on for a couple of hours. My adviser likes tea, so we might drink some. My adviser and the other two examiners will ask hard questions to figure out whether I’m capable of writing a dissertation. They’ll offer some suggestions, and then either give me a grade of “Pass” (because of pity) or of “Conditional Pass” (because of conscience). Or they might fail me instead.But I don’t worry about being failed, just as I don’t worry about dying (anymore) or going to hell (anymore).Would I fail me? No, because I like my main argument and because I need to pass. | | |
| My soccer fantasy: (1) get past the defense; (2) dribble toward the open net; (3) near the end line, do an about-face and kick the ball at a trailing defender; (4) watch the ball bounce off the defender and into the net.
Afterward, I may have to run away from the defender.Luis Antonio Valencia is the artist of the deflected shot. Today he made one against Everton. A few weeks ago, he made a really beautiful one against CSKA Moscow; it was like a trick shot in pool (or in pinball).♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦I watched another British tragedy: An Education. It’s hilarious and horrific. Charming schoolgirl meets charming older creep. Allows herself to receive an education. Does she look back on it fondly, or regretfully? The last line is devastating.The reviews and trailers give away the plot, so avoid them. How do you know you’ll enjoy the movie? Well, imagine what Alfred Molina would look like as a medicine ball.
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| Previously, I wrote about Bright Star, a tragedy. Today I watched The Damned United, an even more tragic tragedy. Roger Ebert calls it “Shakespearean.” That it is. Imagine a version of King Lear in which Kent (Timothy Spall) abandons Lear. Add a bit of Macbeth and Othello. | | |
| Tomorrow I’ll take my students on a field trip to the campus library.
The well may be drying up. My adviser told me to apply for a “diversity” fellowship.
My hair hasn’t been cut since July. Now there are strange little curls in the back.
I watched Bright Star, the Keats movie. Keats was wimpy, but he did have a monumental (platonic) love affair, until he died young.
I’m not jesting; I was moved. A few scenes were downright poetical. Here’s one of them.
Keats seemed to want to die, which was unfortunate for Fanny Brawne, his girlfriend. Near the end of his life, Keats went to Italy and left Fanny by herself to worry about him.
Maybe if Keats hadn’t been so in love with dying young, he would’ve worn a warmer coat, wouldn’t have caught a chill, and would’ve made Fanny (and himself) happy instead of miserable.
I guess I didn’t like Keats much, except for his gentleness with the young children and the cat. But Fanny, I liked. She was ordinary, steadfast, brave, optimistic. So I find myself thinking kindly of Keats, for Fanny’s sake. | | |
| Here’s one of my favorite passages from David Copperfield.I was such a child, and so little, that frequently when I went into the bar of a strange public-house for a glass of ale or porter, to moisten what I had had for dinner, they were afraid to give it me. I remember one hot evening I went into the bar of a public-house, and said to the landlord:“What is your best — your very best — ale a glass?” For it was a special occasion. I don’t know what. It may have been my birthday.“Twopence-halfpenny,” says the landlord, “is the price of the Genuine Stunning ale.”“Then,” says I, producing the money, “just draw me a glass of the Genuine Stunning, if you please, with a good head to it.”The landlord looked at me in return over the bar, from head to foot, with a strange smile on his face; and instead of drawing the beer, looked round the screen and said something to his wife. She came out from behind it, with her work in her hand, and joined him in surveying me. … They asked me a good many questions; as, what my name was, how old I was, where I lived, how I was employed, and how I came there. To all of which, that I might commit nobody, I invented, I am afraid, appropriate answers. They served me with the ale, though I suspect it was not the Genuine Stunning: and the landlord’s wife, opening the little half-door at the bar, and bending down, gave me my money back, and gave me a kiss that was half admiring, and half compassionate, but all womanly and good, I am sure.♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦A year ago on this date, Barack Obama won the presidential election. Since then …It’s OK. I didn’t accomplish much this year, either.
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