papers still in nebulous state, but I did bake cookies
Seminars are officially over. Papers remain. But cookies were a big hit (they're really good cookies—
Tyler Florence's "My Big, Fat Chocolate Chip Cookies") so that's always fun. I'm a fairly decent baker. Part of it is genetic—my mom makes really good baked goods—part of it comes from working at a gelato/pastry/bakery place, and part of it comes from my ability to, you know, read. If I could bake my papers, I'd be in good shape but no, I have to write them.
It was sad to leave the AmLit seminar last night, because everyone was fun and nice and our prof is
awesome. We read
Uncle Tom's Children for class last night, and the man burst into song on three occassions. Thank god he can actually sing! Everyone in the class wants to have some sort of get-together, so we probably will.
Such was not the case in my methods class, that's for sure! One particular person didn't even come to the last class, and we all assume it's because her presentation was
so terrible that she just didn't want to deal with us (she also didn't come to the theory class right after bad presentation, or the final theory class after the final methods class). Yes, this is the same person who
wrote a dreadful poem as part of her presentation in theory class on a René Wellek essay. For our presentations in methods class we were simply to explicate a short story or poem or passage. Most people chose to look at it from a specific critical perspective, some people chose to give examples of how one would discuss it using a few different critical perspectives, etc. [If you're wondering what I did, I discussed formal and intertextual analyses of "Becky" from
Cane).] Most everyone did fine, normal things. This woman, though, managed never to discuss her story let alone explicate it, and better yet said she was going to discuss formal, intertextual, and structural analyses...and explained each of those things
incorrectly. The whole thing was a train wreck, and the entire class knew it. The prof, not one for confrontation, was visibly agitated. I (I'm told) had a look on my face like "oh my god I can't believe she's saying this stuff, can you all believe she's saying this stuff? isn't anyone going to stop her?" I wrote a note to my friend sitting next to me and said "should I ask a question?" meaning should I actually ask a question during the end-of-presentation time for asking questions/discussing things and she said "oh yes." So I did. I asked a three-parter, which was basically in the form of "So, if you were to discuss a [theory] analysis of this piece, which would be [correct definition of theory], would you say [example A of using particular method of analysis], [example B of using particular method of analysis], or perhaps even [example C of using particular method of analysis]?" times three. My classmates (besides the one giving the presentation) silently cheered. Of course, this might not be the reason she hasn't been to methods or theory class, but it sure gave us something to chatter about for a few days. I know, I'm going to hell.
Oh yeah, papers. And work. Mostly work, then papers. Although tonight I'm going to hang out at the library with some people from theory class, to help them with
their papers because they're all behind the eight ball with regards to knowing how to write their fourth analysis and roll it plus the other three into one coherent paper. In the meantime, would someone please invent some sort of brain-dumping device wherein I could plug one end of a cable (preferably USB) into my brain and the other end into my laptop, thereby allowing my papers to come directly out of my brain and into a word doc? That'd be great, thanks.
