I take a minute out to dash off a post in between papers. Or numbers-of-papers. I am typing my comments into my lappy here at the dining table, rather than writing them by hand as my handwriting is embarassingly poor. And I have to stop every half hour or so to think of something else for a couple of minutes or I end up just skim reading the essays, thinking ‘yeah, I get the point’. And having to go back to re-read, because this isn’t like reading journal articles or academic books – you’re not reading to ‘get the point’, you’re reading to see if they understand what they’re writing about, and to see if they’re actually capable of writing about it with any coherency.
I guess one advantage to my using the dining table to mark is that I can’t just nick off for a spot of sewing – it’s difficult to cut fabric when your cutting table is covered in papers.
Author Archives: dogpossum
perhaps a decoy lamp
We have ant problems at the moment.
The coffee table is COVERED in them. They’re busy making trails to the giant bunch of (lovely) waratahs and banksia and protea Crinks gave me for my birthday (one of the birthday highlights I forgot to mention in that last maudlin, birthday sook post). Some of them have made it to the dining table where I’m marking. The ants, that is. Not the flowers. Unfortunately. I have to keep brushing them off the students’ papers. Or blow them off my laptop. Every now and then one gets under the keys. I wonder how they’re all doing in there.
Bugs freak out The Squeeze (or should that be freak The Squeeze out?). But not me – I’m from Brisbane. There are very few bugs in Melbourne. It’s cold. And it’s urban. I have almost completely lost my leap-out-of-bed-when-you-feel-something-in-there-with-you reactions. And my super-fast-removal hand flick. When we’re sitting on the couch watching Kerrie in the evenings, I just pick up my glass and tuck my feet under me while The Squeeze shrieks and tries to wipe the table clean (again). He is obsessed with Ant Rid (which I don’t even think about, ever).
It’s difficult to care about a few busy ants when you’ve slept with giant cockroaches and had to type with the lights off and the computer monitor on a low glow, with perhaps a decoy lamp on in another part of the room because you had no flyscreens.
how could i leave this job undone?
You should go here and read B’s giant panda story.
I know how the protagonist feels. But for me, it’s standing on the pavement outside the fabric shop, thinking about just getting on my bike and riding and riding and never coming back. Then thinking of my poor students’ papers piled up on our dining room table, and how they’ve all tried so much harder with this assignment, and obviously all studied their guts out for the quiz. How could I leave this job undone?
Laura would like this
i wish
I had time to blog about procrastinating.
But I’m settling for:
a) very short entries
or
b) very odd and stream-of-consciousness entries.
I write my entries straight into movabletype and then click ‘save’. Sometimes I proof-read.
I wish I had more discipline. But not too much.
Today in this book* I read about hypergraphia and hyperlogia.
I wondered (for a little moment) if I was a hypergraph**, then came to my senses.
But really, imagine that – being a compulsive writer. They’re the sorts of people who produce hundreds of novels or pieces of music or …other written down things. I think you have to be using a pen/pencil and paper rather than a keyboard to qualify, though.
It kind of reminds me of the story about Donald Friend on the 7.30 Report last night. Apparently he was a talented writer and artist. According to Lou Klepac,
Donald was given all these gifts, you know, writer, painter, draughtsman, could do anything, and he didn’t squander his talents but he went in each direction a bit.
I’d like to think that’s me – tremendous talents, but unrealised because I’m going just a bit in each direction, rather than actually getting my head down and going for it in one field. ahahhaha.
..ah. Uh. Well, that’s what I’m going to think, so I don’t get all low self esteemy.
But I wonder if part of Friend’s problem was that he was a bit hyper…something. Couldn’t settle and not do something. Had to be writing. Or painting. Or something.
I’m not sure where I’m going with this – I know nothing about Donald Friend (I didn’t even watch the telly when the 7.30 Report was on, I just listened).
But I think my attention’s been caught by all this obsessive-compulsive overwork type stuff in the air.
The university was in holiday mode today – the average age of people eating lunch had doubled, and people looked tired. Staff and postgrads were wandering the halls talking about being tired. And also (sneakily, I’m sure), in the midst of a writing-binge euphoria. On the parts of the postgrads at least.
Me, I feel on the edge of being hyper-productive. If I had a thesis to write, I’d be whipping off chapters by the dozen. But I don’t. I just have papers to mark (I’m 7 short, which means I’ll have to go in again to collect some… or get them mailed to me. Good thing I’ve been investing all that office-lady-kissingup, huh?). And an exchange to run. But they’re very low-brain things. Lots of nittygritty detail, no real creative work or highbrain work. When I say ‘lowbrain’ I mean that it doesn’t involve much serious thinking. Dancing is necessarily lowbrain (well, the way I do it, it is). Thesising is highbrain because it involves seriously complicated thinking over a long period of time. And you combine tasks – reading, writing, thinking. You plan ideas out over a long period of time, and have to keep all that stuff in your head without losing any. Careful, don’t jostle – it’ll spill.
…and right now, all this stressy overwork stuff is making me feel like I should be being creative. Writing interesting things. Solving difficult sewing problems.
But I’m talking crap on the internet instead. And wishing my latest CDs would arrive.
*you know, I couldn’t remember who wrote this or what it was called – I had to go find it and see. It’s because I read so many of these sorts of sort-of-SF and seriously-SF books whose names all sound the same. I don’t really care about the authors either (unless it’s MZB or other doods who I re-read religiously). I don’t even buy these books – I borrow them from my ps.
You know, why is it that music nerds are freakishly anal about copying and borrowing music (ie they think it’s a bad-naughty-wrong), but book lovers (who’ve been around for far far longer than recorded-music-lovers) are all over that shit?
I’m rapidly losing interest in the precious ‘don’t copy!’ music argument. I have yet to hear a thorougly convincing case for never copying music.
So I’m taking a leaf (tee hee) out of my book-brain and being ok with borrowing. Though just with books, I’d really rather have my own copy of something really great.
**ahahahhahahhahahahah
this is some weird shit
Not being a big fan of bananas, this guy‘s arguments fail to convince me to become a creationist.
aeon flux
I was a fan of the original television series.
The strange, angular characters and odd storylines really appealed. Not to mention the female protagonist. I liked the way she was ‘sexualised’ but not in a conventionally sugary way.
But I also liked the film version.
Watching the extras on the DVD now, there are some interesting things working in terms of body shapes and aesthetics of movement. It’s a very white, European aesthetic at work – lots of pointed toes and extended legs and arms.
But you can’t help but think about issues of gender and body and sexuality when you’re watching an ‘action’ film, whether we’re talking about female or male actors and characters. I was recently seriously annoyed by a comment from a peer about these sorts of female characters – that they were, simply, sexualised eye candy for computer game playing adolescent boys. Because for me, these type of female characters (from Lara Croft to all the Milla Jovovich characters) are exciting and interesting and far more than just eye candy.
I think that my main criticism of that comment is that it suggests that male action characters are somehow not sexualised (because, obviously, the female body is always the object of desire, the male is always the subject). And that a woman being physically active or violent or acrobat is somehow inherently sexual or sensual because she is a woman. And that this somehow mediates the affect of her violence.
Sure, there are some fairly heavily sexualised images in the representation of female action figures.
But then, there are a range of ways of sexualising women and associating them with sexualised symbols.
Whether they’re ‘feminine’
or ‘masculine’
or really ‘masculine’.
But I do think, despite these things, that when the protagonist is a woman, and when she is a powerful character, the phrase ‘sexualised violence’ is too simple. Surely, Charlize is one seriously sexualised body flipping and fighting her way through that film. But the fact that she is a character I feel comfortable imagining myself to be (in a classicly psychoanalitic moment) suggests that there must be some sort of feminist pleasure to be found in these sorts of characters. And that there must be more to them than simply a little hawt body action for teenage boys to scope.
As even my undergrads have well and truly gathered, audiences are active. We make active use of the images on the screen. And so I can make Aeon the type of female character who doesn’t make me uncomfortable.
Aeon herself is an interesting characer, as a result of her original placement as an animated character in an MTV text who died quite regularly.
If you’ve ever seen the original animation, you’d know that Aeon (and her co-characters) aren’t entirely comfortable.
They don’t fit nicely into archetypal ‘objects’ and ‘subjects’. The program was difficult to watch. The characters were difficult to live with.
I know that there are problems with the film. I know that it didn’t bring with it all the subversive and interesting aspects of the animation. But I think that for someone like me, who has seen the animation, the film cannot help but echo the animation – the two are inextricably linked. Intertextual. Cross-polination (to use an image from Aeon Flux the film).
Charlize herself carries interesting echoes of sexuality and the body and speculative fiction.
And Aeon Flux is far less disturbing than silly films like Ultraviolet, though no where near as interesting as Razor Blade Smile.
i’ll never get to sleep
I’m sitting in front of the telly watching a Blur concert on ABC2. If you don’t have ABC2 – get a digital set top box so you can. They have heaps of great concerts. Last time I tuned it was Radiohead (wasn’t that a dreary waste of my time).
Tonight it’s Blur.
I saw Blur live years ago, and thought they were bloody great live. I know all the songs, but I wouldn’t have a clue who the bandmembers are. I do know that when I was at the concert (Festival Hall in Brisvegas btw) the lead singer guy threw himself into the crowd halfway through that woo-hoo song and I thought I was going to burst. They were so young and British and rude.
That concert and the two They Might Be Giants shows I went to were the best live shows I’ve ever seen.
So I’m sitting here in front of the telly, getting all excited (I’ll never sleep tonight) and thinking about how long it’s been since I saw a live show that wasn’t a jazz band. I miss the rudeness. The adolescent posing. Radiohead were too much for me, though – dang they’re boring, miserable sods. We like jumpy rock n roll types here. Not sulky, broody I’m-so-serious tossers.
I wish I could remember that lead singer’s name. The Blur guy.
i yearn
Today I saw the Basie Mosaic set at Basement Discs for only $150. I could only let myself listen to one CD (including the finest version of Jive at Five recorded in the 50s) before thrusting the headphones away. I. Do. Not. Have. One. Hundred. And. Fifty. Dollars. In fact, I don’t have any dollars, nor any way of earning any for the foreseeable future (well, unless you count those massively lucrative DJing gigs – that’s me. Earning my way to prosperity $25 at a time).
But it was just so sweet.
I yearn.
but who’s counting?
Today I had the final visit to the dentist. There was no anaesthetic, there was no crying (though I did tear up a bit at one point).
There was some filling, some polishing of fillings and some cleaning of teeth. Then there was a whole lot of cleaning out of credit cards…or should that be filling up of credit cards?
It’s nice to think that now I have no income I will still have a massive dental debt to keep me company.
Reassuringly, I am officially a ‘twelve month person’ – meaning that I actually have such great teeth I need only turn up at the dentist office once a year. If only, if only I had gone in to see the dentist earlier and avoided that horrible root canal.
So that is officially that.
On other fronts…
- the marking continues. Slowly, painfully. It is reassuring to see vast improvements in almost every student’s case. One good scare and they suddenly discover they need to actually, well proof read.
- The MLX is well in hand. The DJs are rostered. The volunteers are rostered (with only 3 of 20-odd needing re-rostering). The website is current. The Ham’s Whereabouts Timetable is compiled (hm – in bed at 4.30am Thursday, up at lunchtime Friday. In bed at 8am (if I’m lucky) Saturday morning. And so on until I die. This is a formidable program of events: gold stars to all those who manage to attend each of the 16 (or was it 17?) events. And sees all 5 of the bands and 10 of the DJs. The door sheets for the volunteers need doing, but we have time for that.
- The conference papers are written. Not well, but … look, I’m not that amazing. One needn’t be perfect (I was informed – it’s just meant as a sort of peek into the work I’m doing, not a final draft), the other… well, I will find time to re-edit it and do up a powerpoint with clippage (can’t talk about dance without showing the dance).
- The paper waiting at the publisher/journal thing has had its corrections done. So you might see that soon (well, some day, some time, some century)
- The birthday is done (32 and counting, thanks very much). Not the best birthday ever (what with the ongoing anxiety and general over-workedness and exhaustion), but at least it’s done. Perhaps I’ll have another one in a few months where I can really enjoy myself. Thanks, though, to those who turned up to consume unhealthy quantities at the pub – that was nice.
- Drop-in visit from parents en route to Canberra handled
- Other parent’s drop-in visit enjoyed (huzzahs to the Matriarch for bringing cake)
- Supervisor present purchased
There are other things that’ve happened, and other things that need doing* (catch me at the Spiegeltent this weekend between 2 and 4 if you’re up for a bit of Olde Timey music and an off-colour joke or two), but right now I’m concentrating on the marking. And trying not to think about the 3 house guests who’re arriving next week (and one of whom is currently bedless).
Think of me, will you, and send me calm thoughts – only… um… at least four weeks before I actually get a weekend off. It’s been six months since the last one, but who’s counting?
*Not the least of which is cleaning our house and actually planning a meal more complex than fresh filled pasta with spinach and salami and fresh tomato and garlic. Sounds good, I know, but try eating it 3 days out of 7 every week. WE are living in squalor: orange peels, dirty socks and used tissues? I wish we could find our orange peels amongst the rubble in our nest. And do NOT ask me about the happy mouse family living in our compost bin.