Sam's Backup Page

I.....*blank stare*

I got everything done on my list of "to do" today except for "pack" which, really, is not something one gets done so much as something one does, continually.

I did buy a newspaper to use as packing material when wrapping fragile objects! It cost almost precisely a dollar a page to get my 111-page thesis bound -- they have to print it on paper made from the skins of endangered animals, apparently. (This is sarcasm. No animals were harmed in the making of my thesis. Which I think shows admirable restraint on my part.)

I also turned in my keys and all the rest of my library books -- this being the first time in two years I have not had at least one book checked out at all times -- used up the last of my bookstore gift certificate on a DVD and a book of short stories, and got passport photos taken for my passport renewal, which I then promptly mailed off.

Look out world, SAM IS IMMINENT.

All right, now that I've decompressed a bit and had something to eat... *grins*

Thank you to everyone who's been supporting me through this -- your kind words and thoughts have meant the world to me today, and I promise someday soon I'll stop spamming my LJ with thesis stuff. But it was very helpful to know that folks were thinking of me. Sorry I kept you all in suspense :D

My mum even sent me a mask! It arrived this morning in a package with a bunch of chocolate and some mail that came to her house by mistake. It's absolutely gorgeous -- I'll post photos tomorrow -- and it came from Bali, from a maskmaker who supplies a troupe of the famed Balinese dancers that Artaud was so mad for. I haven't gone over all the neat description stuff that came with it, but if it was made in the traditional fashion (as it seems to have been) then it was carved from a living tree.

Either way, it's cool -- it's reversible. It's called the frowning man, and if you hold it with the corners of the eyes slanting downwards (and the inside signature right-way-up) it looks like a large-nosed, unhappy sort of soul with a furrowed brow. However, if you turn it around so that the signature is upside down, instead you have an impish, pug-nosed face with an enormous grin. It's quite one of the most beautiful things I've ever owned.

As for the defence itself....

Man, they invented the phrase "academically rigorous" to describe examinations like that. I spent about ten minutes going over my process and my feelings on the paper with my committee, talking about what I would do if I were going to publish, or if I were going to expand it into a dissertation. After that, they took turns asking questions; as expected, my Classics prof nailed me on Atellan farces, so I have to rewrite that section, and both of my other profs asked for more discussion of the place of the mask in realism, including an examination of whether film's interaction with theatre (in particular, the close-up) precludes modern society from ever really interacting with the mask in the way earlier cultures have. Not a slam-dunk to fix, but not beyond my range.

They also discussed the possibility of a closer examination of the development of the American Democracy as a unique and unusual form of government/culture, and whether that interacts with masked theatre at all, but I responded that while it was an interesting idea, it was a thesis in itself and I didn't feel that it was relevant enough to my particular studies to warrant inclusion. This, and the fact that I pointed out the parliamentary system is pretty much first cousin to the American mode of government, made my advisor very happy (so she informed me afterwards).

But they still signed the Petition to Graduate and I delivered it to the administration office literally as it was closing, and then I sat down in the lobby and breathed deeply for a while.

So, I have all three copies of my thesis back, with copious revision markers, and I'm meeting with Advisor on Monday to discuss said revisions. I took notes, too, and as I took them with my IoPen I'll upload them for all to see, if you so desire, when I do a belated photo update tomorrow.

Not that you'll be able to read them, but it's the spirit of the thing. :D

Thank you again, everyone who wished me luck and who is popping champagne in the earlier post :D

I wake up at six, drop my theses off at seven, pick up some groceries am back by eight-thirty, I take a nap, and --

JAYSUS did I sleep through the rest of Monday or something? Is it Tuesday? I come back to the computer to find 44 new emails and I'm on skip=60. WTF, intarweb?

Anyway, the theses are turned into my committee, so there's nothing more I can do until the 15th, when I defend. I will be doing a bit of re-reading, and some of your questions on the meme were ones that I should know the answers to and don't, but the writing itself is finished.

'Scuse me while I go throw up.

(it scans to Hendrix. Go on, try it.)

(Your cats are looking at you strangely now, aren't they?)

Mental note:

When turning in a draft of your second thesis chapter make sure you have edited out all the bits where you have not yet managed to find the title of the reference book and so wrote "For more information on this topic see BLEARGH BLAH DE BLAH" because your thesis advisor will, in fact, notice and mock you mercilessly.

"Ah yes, Bleargh, of the infamous Italian DeBlah family..."

In other news, can you tell a programming language inventor from a serial killer?

I scored 9/10, so according to the test "your liver is safe" but I think that's partially because I recognised two of the serial killers (I read true crime novels occasionally. Shut up). What struck me as hilarious was the profile of one programmer: He "retired in 1995 to spend more time on number theory and the computational and mathematical aspects of weaving."

This man RETIRED in order to DO MORE MATHS.

By tomorrow I have to have graded seventeen more papers; by Friday I have to have completed the section on drag for the thesis and turned it in.

I think I'm going to be spending much of this afternoon curled up with a large book about cross-dressing and a movie about blackface. My life has achieved a pleasant level of surreality.

Must write paper on minstrel shows as the direct ancestor of modern musical theatre. Probably already been written, but if not, MUST DO. Advisor will squee. (Advisor is Very Into Musicals.)

It's amazing how much you don't know you know till you set down to explain it to someone.

*looks at four pages solid of good firm writing on blackface performance*

*shiftily looks at chapter fourteen of LC, which is begging to be written*

*runs away to do more thesising*

PH3@R 7H3 L173R@RY L337N3SS, baby.

I packed up most of my books today, the ones I won't need between now and May. The upside of this is that I've whittled my library down to three small packing boxes. They represent the careful distillation of a much larger and less discriminating collection; they are the finest books I've encountered in the twenty-three years I've been able to read. :D

They include everything from Ed Emberley's Big Orange Drawing Book to The Complete Works of Tacitus*. Rex Stout, Dorothy Sayers, John Steinbeck, Terry Pratchett, Bernard Shaw, and a handful of books on religion and classical history compose much of it.

* He had Annals. Hur hur hur.

The downside is that I had a lot of unread books on the shelves, so my to-read pile, which I had been carefully whittling away, just jumped up to larger than it had been when I started. It isn't my fault -- Lucky's mum gave me two full Renault cycles (Theseus and Alexander, some of which I've read) plus The Mask of Apollo.

I have a very difficult time thinking about Lucky's octogenarian, southern-Baptist mum reading the big book of gay sex that is The Persian Boy.

At the moment I'm torn over which book to read next: Merton's The Seven Storey Mountain or Calvino's The Road to San Giovanni. Though I'm tempted to pick From the Mixed Up Files Of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler just because of the sheer thinkyness of the last few books I've read. A little YA infusion might be a relief, and of the two YA novels I have, that one looks less thinky.

Chapter one of the thesis is in for advisor-beta, chapter two is revised except for one or two major research points I have to look up, chapter three is outlined, and I give up on chapter four for now since basically the second half of my thesis is now totally different.

I feel vaguely accomplished without actually having done a whole hell of a lot.

It is extremely embarrassing to be pulled off one's feet by a dog.

*rubs skinned knees* ow.

BUT! Four more pages on the thesis! I seem to work in two-hour bursts. Also, I could kiss E.T. Kirby on the mouth. Wherever you are, Sir or Ma'am, I am indebted to your badass love for the Indigenous Australian.

I've worked through most of the tribal masking, except for a nod to Hopi mystery plays and what little South American masking exists (yay for Peru?), so now I'm into the syncretism of Greek and Roman theatre, which is pretty much covered in the Mask of Menander book, plus a few volumes on Roman theatre and sexuality.

From there it's onwards to Asian/Indian theatre, yay Noh and Khon and possibly those wacky Chinese Chous! Then Europe, a few words about modern theatre around the world, and I'm done.

Listen, I've got the books, I've found the articles, I've done all the fetching for my thesis...

...do I really have to read them?

Bah.

(ETA: I LOVE the fact that all the comment notifications on this post bring up "Term Papers For Sale" links on Gmail's sidebar. How GREAT is that. :D)

Just in case anyone suddenly had a compulsion to read Felinecor's Land, btw, it's now undergoing a rewrite. Oh my god, I hate my 1999 self SO HARD right now, and am only glad he never inflicted this on anyone he knew.

Anyway, the old FL page is now a redirect to the Shiny New FL page, which looks exactly like the old one except the first nine chapters are missing and have been replaced with the rewrite, which turned nine chapters into fifteen. I haven't actually written much new stuff, maybe a thousand words not counting altering sentence structure, but I'm making much smaller chapters now.

And [info]nassima, I haven't ignored your feedback *grins* I was waiting for the rewrite to incorporate it, and I'm going to start relying more heavily on it in the near future.

For those of you who have asked, I'm not neglecting Laocoon's Children, either, it's just being difficult *grins* Book two is really quite intricately structured, but as I'm discovering, ninety percent of JKR's structure is based on HUGE PLOT HOLES that I'm trying to stitch up, plus plot holes I've created for myself by removing Lockhart.

Plus, you know. Thesis, et al.

Well, my thesis meeting was awesome, but aside from that this day has been too damn long. Up to and including the bit where I had to help the professor demonstrate Foley-style sound effects. Not that I mind sound effects, but I feel a bit of an idiot standing before the class and demonstrating bo'sun whistles and duck calls.

To do for next week:
1. Not be sick.
2. Catch up for rendering class (which concerns making drawings, not bacon, as is popular belief)
3. List off biblical corollaries to Shakespeare's works.
4. Rewrite prospectus.
5. Find polite way to brush off student who wishes me to write his papers for him.

That last one resulted from a solicitation today. One of the TDs wants me to write his paper for him or, failing that, do his research. He called it "streamlining my commitments to the department" or something similar, which I told him was the best euphemism for cheating I'd heard in a long, long time. I halfway don't blame him for asking, because he sucks at papers -- I know, I've edited his papers before. Still, I won't. Eurgh. Wrong.

Sad thing is I could totally use the money. Bah.

PS: There's been a very interesting discussion going on in my comments about Honeycrisp apples, and now I'm afraid to try one because I know, no matter how good they taste, I will be disappointed because they will not actually taste like honey. It's the iceberg lettuce fiasco all over again.

Comment Conservation:

metallumai
Sounds like an admirable list except for #5: some people don't deserve polite brushoffs-- they deserve hails of derisive laughter and scorn.

Sam's lj: best site for tips about food, good fics, and insight into the life of an intrepid whistle-blower. (duck caller?)Ah, the ivy-tower existence if the intellectual life

copperbadge
Well, I did laugh at him until I realised he was serious, and said I'd never done it before. He picked an odd place to ask me about it, too -- right in the lobby in front of everyone.

dramaturgca
You wanted iceberg lettuce to taste like icebergs?

copperbadge
I want it to be like snow. You know -- crunchy and tasting of nothing in particular and melty in your mouth. I want iceberg lettuces to be shaved ice, really, is the essence of it :D

shehasathree
what do icebergs taste like then?
:p ;)

(Anonymous)
Very cold.

shehasathree
cold *so* isn't a taste

copperbadge
Cold isn't a taste, but it is a part of the eating experience, and to some extent a texture -- taste, temperature, scent, and texture are all a part. :D

I've just spent about an hour reviewing a colleague's thesis proposal -- well, former colleague. Dragon Lady was in her final year when I was in my first, and so we've had classes together, and Sexy Advisor gave me her thesis proposal to work off of. Clearly I'm going to be spending tomorrow afternoon in the library. After I go get my bed, anyhow. Bleargh, that bed is going to kick my ass.

I have a lot of source material listed out that I just have to go and have a look at, and I have a ton of articles to read (translation: tonight is All About Reading) but my introduction is pretty snappy and by the time I look through a few more of these books I'll have a handle on how to proceed. I'm not going to hold myself to Dragon Lady's standards because she was writing her thesis about solo performance and guess what she'd been doing for the five years before grad school? Solo performance!

Besides, they said in the comments on her proposal that she lacked focus, so I figure if my research is a little weak but my focus is strong, I'll be okay.

In addition to this there's the dramaturging for the big Shakespeare next semester, which is actually looking amazingly awesome, except I have the feeling since there's no assistant director and the director's wife just had a baby, I'll be, er, directing a bit.

Also, somehow I got roped into assistant directing someone else's doctoral capstone. I'm okay with this, because the director is a control freak who probably won't want me to do much. The production itself is an early Renaissance operetta, which should be fascinating, except I think it's in Italian. So I have a meeting for that this afternoon.

It's a damn good thing I only have one class plus the TAship. I don't know how I'd write a thesis having class five days a week. As it is, the TAship gives me time to do my drawings for Rendering class...