(whew)

I got a two-day extension on my Shakespeare paper, which means that I'm now looking at five real days, instead of what was in theory five but really more like three, to research/write it. It's still not a great position in which to be, but it turns out that a few other people in class are facing the same thing. The semester's two weeks shorter than usual this time around, and it's put everyone in a tight spot.

My motivation is flagging on this PM&R paper--I've devoted some eight or nine hours of work to the research and some writing today, but still have eight or nine hours' worth of writing to go.

The old apartment is cleaner by the day...I can get at my stuff in the kitchen now, and could probably even cook there if I wanted, not that I do.

I forget what else I was going to say. But hey, I'm sorry for being, like, the CNN of academic and practical disaster over here. I'm not trying to make you miserable...or bored. But the two great knee-jerk reactions of my life, under stress, have always been to write and to read. Not to write well, as any recipient of my e-mails will attest, but to write all the same. So that's what I waste homework and/or sleep time to do.

I hope all of this goes well and is over soon.

On Doing What I'm Not Used To...

...in part, partly ignoring my professor. Today's presentation went all right, and Dr. JSA thinks I've got a good draft and a great topic, but she wants a lot out of my revision, including several other research/theory angles, and essentially dismissed my objection that the paper is due in 48 hours, saying that I can get a lot done in 48 hours.

Yeah, if about five of those hours weren't to be spent in class, an additional four in the Writing Center, one to two on spiritual matters, one on transportation to and from campus, one on two days' worth of showering (or bathing: Hyewon's been re-moved into a 100-building apartment and might need her shower curtain back), and hopefully at least ten on sleep and one total on acquiring and consuming food. All things considered, even if I work relentlessly, I have less than twenty-four total work hours, and at least ten of those will probably go into writing, especially if she expects me (and I can't tell if she does) to outright delete the parts she disagrees with. In other words, is she crazy?

So, despite the fact that it makes me feel like a bad person, I will do what I feel I can of what she says, but no more. Already I'm going to have to research and write an entire fifteen-page Shakespeare paper over the course of less-than-five days. If she wants to grade me down, so be it. Actually, what I'm still more worried about is someone being disappointed in me--a much worse fate than a potential B--but I can't act like hers is the only class I have, or the only responsibility.

With that, I'm going to go read her suggested diasporic theory. Or at least some of it. And then, regardless of whether I'm supposed to, I am going to sleep.

Thanks for the prayer and good will.

I got a lot done today (um, thanks to the aforementioned class-skippage, but I won't do it again) and should be able to hit twenty pages without a problem, considering I've got about fifteen right now and still have to make the last major part of my argument. (I think I wrote about seven pages over the course of only six-ish hours, which is better than my average, but then, I've had a lot of quotations taking up space.) All I have to worry about now, really, is how much historical background I can get away with not providing. Well, and hopefully my whole argument isn't super-lame, but I think it mostly isn't.

I'm actually relatively awake right now, which is unexpected, and maybe even a little hungry, which, after feeling funny all day, is pretty welcome.

So thanks for the support. I can't believe I'm going to have to undergo this whole stupid process again, for Shakespeare next, across only four to five days, then pull together my rhet/comp paper after that (though that'll be much easier this second time around), but I guess that's my fault for...being in Ninth Hour and not skipping most Tuesday meetings to research? Zoning out so many Monday and Wednesday nights after not getting home from class until 7:30 or 8:30? Yeah, probably.

I've rewritten a lot of this, but I didn't take more than a few minutes doing it, really.

Anyone so inclined to pray that I will succeed this week, rather than merely survive, has my gratitude. Considering that I would have had to have taken twenty-four hours off this weekend, regardless (more on that some other time? probably not), I'm having a hard time figuring out whether going to Alfred at all, past Friday, was merely silly or whether it was flat-out idiotic, despite the goodness that was seeing everyone. I've lost a lot of work time in bringing stuff from one apartment to the other, having to go to Wegmans to get food that doesn't require pots and pans, in trying to sleep (which has been harder than I expected, given the alternate locations in which I've been doing it), and now in the sense that I may actually be getting sick. Tomorrow is my presentation on the paper so far and a summer-job interview, and I got an e-mail from the outside professor who's responding to my panel's work, asking something that the other people's responders did not: could I send him a draft of my paper? Um, not before ten tonight, I'm not.

One victory so far, however: the main office was unreceptive to my request, on the grounds that I'd only be here for ten to fourteen days, for them to provide me with a shower bar and/or curtain (I had to take a bath on Friday morning, which was weird), so this morning I went back into the old apartment, which is stripped right down to the wood and noisy with the drone of multiple large fans and crinkly with sheets of plastic laid down on many sections of the floor and stuffy with the smell of formerly-wet wood and insulation (the place was built less than five years ago, though, so I assume I haven't put myself at any asbestos risk, ha)...and stole Hyewon's bar and curtain from the downstairs bathroom. I think she got moved into a 300-building apartment, which means she won't need it. I'll call her later to double-check.

So I'm pretty much a walking disaster right now. At least I've made a little progress on the paper.

Four Sentences

I'm back in Binghamton. IV was nearly heartbreaking in its warm familiarity; Andrea's shower was very nice. I'm so tired, though, that I keep tearing up. Rather than do any homework past eight tonight, which would be the sane thing, I'm going to bed and doing it in the morning.

Having it Both Ways

I had an epiphany at three or four this morning. Part of it, I thought, involved inspiration for my paper. That turned out to mostly not be true; the paper is still only seven pages long and is going to be fairly horrible (I'm pretty much in over my head in that class...that's mostly been the case this semester), barring divine assistance.

Anyway, the part of the epiphany that was helpful was that if I skipped the actual carnival part and paper-wrote from noon to six, then I could have Saturday night and Sunday morning/afternoon to do what I'd been hoping to do: Gallagher, IV chapel, Andrea's bridal shower.

So, obligingly, I wrote from noon to six, except for when I was researching or (only for about thirty minutes) napping because of having that epiphany (it took me a couple of hours to get back to sleep). It didn't go very well, as mentioned above. Then my family, Jo and Aunt Cath (and Jo's cool boyfriend Matt) included, got Mexican food for dinner at the newish place on Main Street. I'm pretty excited about it because it's another Sonora's, which is the restaurant that one or two of you will remember as the one to which we all took Jo just before she went to Spain. I like their food. It's just as good here in the Alfredian digs. (On the other hand, it's where DP Dough used to be, so they can't seat a whole lot of people at a time. And the service was not the most attentive. But the food and the company compensated for those things.)

After that we watched people ride the mechanical bull in Powell. Yeah, they'd brought in a mechanical bull. It was pretty random. And pretty funny. Jo and Matt and my dad all rode it.

And after that we waited in a long line to see Gallagher for free. How was that? The food-smashing at the end was fine. Some of the random word-nerdy tirades, which I also remember from Comedy Central, were funny. His general self-righteousness, however: unimpressive. His sacrificing courtesy and pitching diva fits and slamming the event staff, Dan Napolitano and Mark McFadden included, in order to be self-righteous about how he alone exercised common sense: about quartered my respect for him.

Eventually I ended up at the fire hall, hanging out with Chris, Tim, Allison, Jen, and Jenny (and, briefly, Evan); that was fun.

I realized last night that the five-and-a-half months it's been since I was last in Alfred (for the square dance) represents my longest separation from campus since I came as a freshman in August 2003. Over five years, I never spent more than a little over three months at a time away from the place. Being back seems surreal. I want badly to stay.

Right now, though, I'm going to bed; I'm so tired. Tomorrow shall be wonderful InterVarsityness, the last bright thing before mid-May.

I should also mention that CB's memorial went all right, and that it was wonderful to see people there, and that I was warmed and flattered by the enthusiasm, far beyond my expectations, of Vicky and Sophie Westacott's greetings.

Yeah, I know, this isn't written very well. I'm headed to bed.

Deluge

My apartment flooded last night, but all my stuff is fine.

I live in an apartment complex with several buildings, each of them with at least two floors. Well, my apartment is on the first floor, which always seemed like a good thing until last night, when the people in the apartment above us overloaded the washer, started it, then left the place. Their washer broke and just kept on running, pouring out water, and nobody knew because no one was there. And I should mention here that the odd thing about my apartment complex is that the cheapest apartments are "townhouse-style," which is to say that they have two floors. My building is made up of those, and so, because the washers are in the upstairs bathrooms, their whole apartment got flooded so badly that it flooded both floors of our apartment. Like I said, though, all my stuff is fine (our actual bedrooms were essentially out of range). I'm also not liable for any of the damages (I genuinely pity the four people upstairs on that one).

So, all things being as they are, I've been moved into another apartment building within the complex until further notice while the "disaster crew" replaces the carpet and deals with the bubbly ceilings and walls. I have two temporary apartmentmates, both very nice, and get my own room, of course (since I don't think any in the whole complex are shared), not to mention my own bathroom (these're the expensive apartments, heh).

But, um, so much for last night's planned big chunk of paper-writing--and I was behind already, of course. Potentially, then, there goes much of Hot Dog Day.

The people on disaster crew are really nice, though, very friendly. Everyone from the administrative staff has been as accommodating as they can. And Rupa and Darshad, my temporary apartmentmates, have been unfailingly kind and even offered to help me move my stuff (I can go in and out of the old apartment, though, so I only asked for their help with my computer while I carried my bedding).

So I don't really know what's going on this weekend, except that it feels important, seeing as I'm within easy driving range, to go honor someone who taught three of my classes and helped me get to Peru and met and remembered my family and generally took an interest in my life. I'll be in Alfred tonight for CB's memorial service. After that, we'll take things the way I've been taking them for a little less than twelve hours now: as they come.

The comic below (yesterday's "Brevity") was too cute to resist.

On another note, I will almost certainly not have 14 pages written by Friday afternoon. In fact, I'd be surprised if I made it even as far as ten.

But when my mom started trying to get me to Hot Dog Day by telling me Gallagher (you know, the comedian who sledgehammers fruit and stuff) was listed for Saturday night's entertainment, I had this awful flashback to times when I'd try to get people to do things with me and they'd say they were too busy, but then I'd tell them who else was coming and suddenly, if the people in question were cute/fascinating enough, they were free. If my mom thought Gallagher, of all people, might lure me when she, Jo, et al. could not, things had come to a sad and guilty pass. So I told her I would come for the weekend.

Or maybe that's not where she was going with that reference and I overguilted. But either way, I'm going to Alfred this weekend. I really want to see everyone else, too, don't get me wrong. It's just that I really shouldn't. As things look, I'll have to spend my time right up to the May 1st deadline writing my paper, then throwing together, in what promises to be a wretched four-day stretch, a fifteen-page Shakespeare paper. And then, over the course of an additional two days, doing my twelve-page rhet/comp paper (though that'll be the easiest). All of that on top of class attendance (I've not missed one class all semester, but that may change) and homework and probably two summer-job interviews.

And then correcting fifty-seven ten-page 300T papers until about the 14th.

So, um, Alfred is pretty much the last moment of beauty before the descent of two-and-a-half consecutive weeks of misery, or something like that. In that case, hey, happy early birthday to me. I'll have an easier time working through my real one if I think like that, right?

You may well ask why I've been blogging so much this week instead of writing my paper or at least sleeping. If I figure that one out, I'll let you know.

In a (sort of) word, *squeeeee!*

Dr. Kinney asked to talk to me after class--I figured she just wanted a status update on my paper, since it's an open-ended extension but I'm already a week past my original estimate on handing it in (not entirely my fault: I'm trying to interview two people for it, neither of whom can talk to me before next week). But then she added, "Don't worry, it's good news."

After class, she asked me if I wanted to teach two sections of 115, freshman composition, next semester.

This is, for a Master's kid, a big opportunity. The Ph.D candidates get to teach freshman comp, not us. We MAs can TA discussion groups--children's lit, for example, the one I almost got--but only a couple of us every semester get to take on a 115. But one of the instructors for next semester had to drop out, and there apparently aren't other people to fill the place, and I'm in Dr. Kinney's rhet/comp teaching training class, and even though she knows I've never stepped in front of a classroom before, things came together and she picked me. Soli Deo gloria, dude.

And the timing is impeccable. Now I'll be able to begin to make an actual informed decision about whether a Ph.D (in composition, thank you, not literature!) is in any way ever in my future, since I wasn't about to do that without ever having TAed anything. And that decision is connected to whether I'll write an (optional) MA thesis.

The downside, I suppose, is that now I'll be one of the "exploited graduate students in English" for which our campus has been criticized by outside reports. Basically, 40 students per term (the two sections add up to that) is too many, both in terms of how much work that will be and how I'll only be monetarily compensated for about half of it. Next semester I only have to take two grad classes, so I was looking forward to having actual potential free time and can hardly believe I'm going to make myself insanely busy again, by choice, no less. But I really want a TA job, and this is the best one out there. ::grins:: So, um, my freedom in exchange for a bit of hard-knock experience--"misery and poverty offer, society accepts"?

In sum, this is a startling, exciting end to a day that I began by grading papers and whining to God about how much I hate big schools and the BU English system and (if I remember correctly) about how bad I would be at teaching. Apparently, next semester, we'll see whether I'm right or wrong.

...um, update?

I am behind on everything. But I think I'm making progress.

A thought before I go back to more paper-grading: I guess I've always had a sense that I'm a sucker for the concept of home, but I had no idea how much until college. I think my PM&R paper's going to end up bringing in diaspora, something I hadn't even really considered discussing until tonight. I mean, this is good news: at least I know something about diasporic theory. And I'm in favor of a chance to make reference to Radhakrishnan if applicable, even if he likes to raise a bunch of questions without actually intending to answer them (no, it's true, he says so). On the other hand, I have this bad habit of selling back books that I might need later, just to keep them from taking up my room's limited space (though I still can hardly believe I actually pulled that with a Riverside Shakespeare--I would ask what I was thinking if it weren't so clear that I wasn't), and I think my Fictions of Diaspora text met that fate, which means a trip to the library to borrow their copy if it's there.

I keep wondering--no doubt a melodramatic thing to do, despite my lack of depression about it--where my home is right now. Alfred seems to be the closest thing to an answer, but even Alfred is rapidly feeling more unfamiliar, and no doubt will feel more so. Binghamton would be a candidate if I could devote all my time to IV and church, or if I liked my program better, but even then I don't think I could love a place as much, after only one year, as I do Alfred, even if Alfred only encompasses four years of my life. And then there's Rochester, which I also miss.

Ruddy. I've spent over twenty minutes on this post. I have papers to grade before I can let myself go to sleep--and even that will be without having done any actual writing today. Argh. I guess posting at all was a bad idea, but then, it feels important to have a record of all this, even when it's not that amazing.

My life is too full of important things to do.

One huge problem with grading 300T papers...

...besides the fact that, thanks to the lack of freshman-composition requirement, half our English majors (or at least that's what it feels like) still think that simply stating their own opinion counts as a valid rhetorical point...

...is that sometimes I can't shake the feeling that I probably pulled a few of their lame tactics as an undergrad (though I can't think of any examples offhand), hopefully not realizing how truly lame they really were. Unfortunately, rather than wanting to grade them more mercifully for this, I end up simply wishing I'd been graded down. Thank goodness for Tolhurst, the first and most notable (though not the only) example of an Alfredian English professor actually making me work for good grades.

Clearly, it's time for me to go to bed.

I am doing schoolwork, but...

...but some quick research on Sting's line "I like my toast done on one side" indirectly led me here, and I think you guys need to see this:

Mr. Breakfast

When I write just "If," I think of Rudyard Kipling. Or Amy Carmichael now, thanks to Reverend Anne.

If...

I can get an average of three pages of my PM&R paper done every day for the next six days, starting tomorrow (because I've started to grade 300T papers tonight)...

then I will have drafted eighteen pages out of a required twenty, which would put me in good shape going into my "conference" presentation on the 29th (we're not required to come in with the whole thing done). Having only, say, sixteen pages done would also be passable, though that would give me more work between the 29th and the actual May 1st due date and would push back my starting my other two papers.

It would be far enough, however, to justify to myself--despite that I should spend that Saturday working--going to Alfred for Hot Dog Day.

But NO PROMISES. Eighteenish pages in six days is a tall order, considering how much research I have (read: haven't) done, how many papers I have to grade by Wednesday (fifty-seven, if you're curious), and all the stuff that goes into a typical week for me.

Still, CB's memorial is that Friday, my parents and Jo will be around on Saturday, and Sunday stuff that I'd like to be there for is going on, so I think I'm going to try.

I'm sure not getting anything done by writing this, though.

Back to work!

"Wah-oh, I'm an alien, I'm a legal alien, I'm an Englishman in New York..."

I changed my side-column to read "premier," which is what Binghamton is to the SUNY system, not "premiere," which it would have been if it were the first SUNY school, which I believe it wasn't. And I clarified the IV-B thing so it doesn't sound so weird at the end.

I also did pity Tuttle, as of last post, not just fear him. Nobody called me on that, but all the same.

It's Passover break; I am going to spend it researching and writing (and, sigh, grading 300T papers. Let's hope I do a better job this time). If I am very good and get lots of stuff done, then I can justify coming to Hot Dog Day on the weekend of the 25th for more than just CB's memorial service and a quick hello to Jo and Aunt Cath and my parents.

But considering that the paper's to be 20 pages and I have very little research done, we'll see.

Trying to be trustful and diligent

My baking is done. It went pretty well. But even discounting the time spent on that, I'm behind. 47 pages to write across three subjects by May 5th (well, or 7th or 9th, depending on how far I feel like pushing Dr. Kinney's generous extension).

I have a four-day weekend for Passover. I had better do a ruddy fantastic job of working through it, that's for dang well sure.

And dear God, please let me never, ever have whatever Tuttle has.

Huh.

From howstuffworks.com:

Government regulations have greatly improved the efficiency of modern dishwashers, so unless your dishwasher is a pre-1990 model, it's probably efficient. Using a dishwasher saves energy and water, and it certainly saves time. This depends on individual dish washing habits, as some people take more time and water than others. The Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers estimates that a dishwasher saves about six hours per week, and uses just over eight gallons of water for one load of dishes. It takes roughly 16 gallons to wash them by hand.

I kind of wish those figures had been by someone with a little less stake in the matter than the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers. All the same, I guess I don't have to feel guilty about running the apartment's dishwasher.

Culinary Commentary and Promised Quotes

I may have to roll the dice on leaving the banana bread until tomorrow, since I ran out of white flour (something I didn't realize I needed and therefore didn't buy during tonight's Wegmans jaunt). It's getting pretty late anyway.

Also, I've never had raw, ripe mango before (though my family has long appreciated the Wokery [in Rochester]'s mango chicken, wherein the fruit is cooked and tastes just about as fantastic), but after tasting some of what went into Pam's bread: wow. I can't remember the last fresh fruit I've had that tasted so good. If you've never had it--hmm, how can I explain the taste? This is the best I can do so far: take the best peach you've ever eaten, then make the flavor more complex--deeper, spicier, less sweet, sort of buttery. That's mango. At least as well as I can describe it. Pretty interesting, considering that the mango is technically related to the cashew.

I hope Pam's up kind of late, but I think she usually is.

Anyway, the promised quotes (I hope they're worth all this hype they've gotten!):

Professor Schneider:

[apparently going for "B.C." and failing] "In the year negative seventeen or negative nineteen..."

Dr. Whittier:

"[Someone once told me,] 'He thinks you're an agent of the devil!' ...It's happened to me twice!"

[on telling stories about other professors but preserving their anonymity] "I always call my unnameable colleagues 'Ivan.'"

"Footnotes are very convenient. They're like storage drawers."

"Most of us don't do our real work very often...but when you walk out of it thinking, 'This could kill me,' you've done it right."

[on Othello's "Keep up your bright swords, for the dew will rust them"--a line Dr. Mayberry also loved] "Someone has commented that it's the most beautiful line in Shakespeare. Fortunately, we don't have to choose."

No quotes yet, but they're coming

Within the next 48 hours I am baking:

-one loaf of mango bread, so's to finally discharge my service-auction debt to Pam

-one loaf of banana bread and...

-...one loaf of some other kind of quick bread (prune? honey? peanut butter?), together comprising my baked-goods debt (I promised to bring stuff in on Thursday for the conference) to Popular Music & Representation

-chocolate chip cookies, Laura-Kim-style, because long ago I promised Tuttle I'd do so for his birthday, which is tomorrow.

And my mangoes and bananas have come ripe together, and if I wait any longer I think they'll spoil, and that means I'd better get cracking tonight on the first two items despite my random, persistent headache.

To Wegmans! To the kitchen! Tallyho!

And a note

The thing about poetry is that it's hard to give the whole story. I wanted to write something skillful and balanced and good in CB's honor (especially as she herself was a poet), like a sestina, but it wasn't going to happen in the amount of time I had; I wanted to get to the point, not be stuck wrangling the form.

So I should underscore that what got left out was that I truly liked her, both as a person and as a professor (the more I learn of composition instruction, the more impressed I am by how she taught us). Just so you know.

Semi-relatedly: more professorial quotes, et cetera, soon. It is Monday, after all.

Notice

Alfredians, please read.

*

Statement

Of everyone in the department,
you got the most imperfection from me
but returned the most patience.

Nearly all my memories of knowing you
involve my doing stupid things:

My thank-you letter was months late in coming
and sounded, I realize now, like an essay.
Next time, you had me send a postcard.

Chris and I were admonished once after class.
I came so sick another day that you made me leave,
threatened to call my parents if I didn't go to bed.

I rushed through so many assignments.
I neither kept nor even read some of your comments;
I was too shy to see what you really thought.

You always made me nervous in spite of all.
That voice, that stare, that candidness.
Sometimes, I confess, I outright avoided you.

And you'd probably disapprove of my writing this.
You pegged me as guilt-ridden long ago.
Let it be okay.

Hear me, though: in something we succeeded.
Early on you balked at my qualified sentences.
Say it like you mean it.

So I did. I knew it wasn't just a style point.
Later I tried to teach my tutees and freshmen the same.
No written hedging. Less fear of uncertainty.

I don't yet live without hedging. But here's what I maintain:

You always gave me better than I gave you,
but you saw enough to like and to encourage.
And I've learned from many people about conviction,
but from you I also learned something about grace.

Tim and Tom, where are you when I need you?

I went to a free chocolate festival after IV tonight. Seriously. Taste Buds teamed up with Late Nite and there were multiple free chocolate desserts for everybody. I wouldn't have thought you could do that at a school this size without running out (I'd forgotten, though, that bigger school = bigger Late Nite budget), but it turns out that you can do not only that, but more: it was open to the entire community. I had an Oreo truffle, some kind of chocolate mousse cake thing, and a "chocolate smoothie" (more like a thinner, icy sort of chocolate milkshake). I wanted a s'more, too, which they were making via--was it actually via George-Foreman-type grill? I can't remember--but didn't stay long enough for one, and anyway, I'd have felt pretty gross if I'd eaten any more. I have to say, though, it was surprisingly difficult to persuade people to come with me to the function; Binghamton is simply not as dedicated to chocolate as Alfred is. I'm no chocolate addict, but this is a little disappointing. C'mon, IV-B, get with the theobrominated program!

Four other thoughts:

1. Question from a still-a-little-bit-of-an-emetophobe to a proud serial vomiter: you know that kid in elementary school--I think there's always this kid in elementary school--who was always throwing up? Yeah. Matt Tuttle, were you that kid?

2. Not to sound unduly uncaring about a dead guy, but what I'm really wondering is, has the chicken dance really only been around since 1982?

3. Um, how bad-slash-arrogant is it that today I read a section about culture shock in an ESL-instruction book and thought, whoa, that sounds surprisingly like me last semester!...?

4. I should probably tone down the frequency of my Alfred references. I'd probably find it a little obnoxious if I were my audience.

On the bearers of alternatively-spelled names

Two people here in Binghamton that I should mention because they're very cool:

-Kaitlyn, who's a fellow Writing Center tutor. She's in APO-Binghamton (they have a Greek-lettered name for their chapter, but, bad inactive that I am, I can't remember it) and is really friendly and talkative. We, um, tend to distract each other from homework when neither of us have tutees (here we're big enough that there're three to four tutors holding hours at once). It's a good time.

-Arik, whom I just met today, but who went to Alfred State(!), class of '06, and has just joined the IV graduate Bible study. He knows Dave S.! And Tim No., though not as well. I guess he was in one of AU's instrumental groups for a while, too, though I don't remember which one.

Yay!

Sidenotes

Last night I got the baking out of my system: I made some prune bread. Laugh if you want, but it's pretty good. The problem, though, is that breadmaking is incomplete without friends with whom to share the product. It's not like my apartmentmates won't eat it, but the connection isn't the same. It's not just Ninth Hour I want to feed; what I really want back are the 8 Park dinners. And Alfred in general. And those two things are exactly what I'm not going to get.

I think Jessica, the newest apartmentmate, doesn't like the rest of us. I should probably try to talk to her just to know her better, but she exudes leave me alone; she doesn't even reply anymore when I greet her.

I learned yesterday that most MA-English programs only require their students to take two courses per semester. First-years in Binghamton, though (like me), are required to take three, and I have to attend/read the texts for a fourth because it's the class for which I grade. So I'm potentially (though not likely) doing double the work of some other MA students. That explains a few things.

Traveling blog-reader

Whomever it was that I thought was my parents checked my blog again for the first time in over a week, but this time from Westdale, which's somewhat northeast of Syracuse. I'm curious as to (and, now that I figure it's not my parents, much more amused by) who this might be.

I really want to make, or at least eat, some cookies.

So, um, not only was Dr. Kinney not mad at us (well, she says she was a little disappointed at first by our having so much trouble, but that come to think of it, we were never really taught the kind of research methods that would have helped us a lot), but she was really helpful in helping me refine my project, it's now not even due 'til the 21st (though that's as much potential curse as blessing, given that now I have three papers to be starting to juggle), and she wants Natalia, Kevin, Jihye, and me to see if we can put together a panel proposal for next year's Four-C's conference (a big thing in the rhet-and-comp world).

Let the record show that I am a person with a good amount of religious knowledge, but pretty bad at living as though my faith is true.

I am back from tonight's Ninth Hour meeting, at which I stayed longer than I should have because it felt so good to see everybody after not seeing everyone over break or (thanks to rhet/comp work) last week. And because I can't resist talking like I know what I'm saying even when I don't. I'm really starting to bother myself on that account.

I'm as tired as ever of pompous English majors, too. But hey, rhet/comp scholarship is generally more readable. So I think I'll go and, as assigned, read some.

On the slight lessening of doom

We all got a message about an hour and a quarter ago from Dr. Kinney, who's just gotten to her e-mail for the first time in days and sounds like she's gotten worried things from more than just me (this is a relief, since humiliation and incompetence love company). She says that we who aren't done should bring tomorrow everything we have so far as a gesture of good faith and having done work, and we'll talk from there about what's next. And, thank goodness, she cancelled the reading for tomorrow, which none of us had any intention of doing anyway, thanks to the paper.

So I still have to get my draft done. But at least it's not the end of everything.

On how, yeah, I'm doomed

No e-mail, granting extension or not. No progress on the research. The project is a complete disaster. I e-mailed Dr. Kinney again and tried not to sound panicked while knowing I sounded panicked, explained the situation, abased myself, and begged for help and an extension. Not that I have time for an extension, given everything else I have to do in the coming week and month, but I can't imagine handing in that paper on Monday, so I'll take whatever time she gives (oh, please let her give me time) and do it all somehow.

I can't think. There's nothing to think about anyway, paper-wise. I'm going to bed.

Anne won Iron Shepherd. It was a good time.

On how I'm pretty much doomed on several levels

The rhet/comp paper: going so badly for everybody that on Wednesday I volunteered to e-mail Dr. Kinney, tactfully enumerate our woes, and beg for a classwide extension. People agreed to this, so I did, but she's been at the CCCC's annual convention (it's a huge event within the field of composition) and hasn't gotten back to us yet. The paper (about 10-12 pages) is due Monday if we don't get more time. I'm on page two and still have canyonlike research gaps. My future in composition, according to what information I have found: still just as bleak as it was a week ago.

So, since at this point three hours is really probably not going to make the difference between one letter grade and another, I'm going to do something that superficially is very immature and irresponsible: I'm going to go see Reverends Matt and Anne face off at the first-ever Iron Shepherd Competition (think Iron Chef, but as a fundraiser on behalf of Wycliffe Bible Translators and NEGST in Kenya).

And maybe when I get back, Dr. Kinney will have e-mailed, since the conference will be over by then. And we'll probably get at least some extra time, and maybe then I'll feel like there's some hope left for this project.

I would have done more for it over break, but I was stuck doing what was supposedly due for Dr. S-A's class, as mentioned. But then she didn't even have us talk about most of it. Supposedly that'll be this week instead.