Scrolling through the course offerings at LSU looking for an Environmental class I'm supposed to work with, I passed the English offerings and saw the class "Literature and Madness". What I wouldn't give to be able to sit in on that! Maybe they'll offer it again some time.

Ok, so this damn cold thing that I thought was just cold + fever has gotton worse, not better, and now I have a particularly sore throat. Not ouch-I've-been-coughing-too-much sore throat, but big-swollen-strep-feeling sore throat.

Lovely.

I guess I'll be heading to the health center tomorrow. Not to mention that I finally took a look at our take home final and the question is more like term paper material. Not sure how she expects us to answer that in an exam-length essay. And the fever means that my brain doesn't work very well, so I'm pretty much drawing a blank even on where to start.

On the good side -- Serenity trailer!!! And since I'm in the mood, I'm gonna go watch an episode or two of Firefly while sipping hot soup and pampering my sickiness.

4 1/2 pages. At least that's progress. It only has to be 8 pages, but I have a feeling it's going to take me more than 3 1/2 more pages to say what I have to say. I hate papers.

Ok, so I've been hit hard this weekend. No motivation to work whatsoever. I sat down to write my paper last night and only got about a page done before I gave up. Now I've got to write the other 7 pages today. I'm feeling petulant and whingey and have an overwhelming urge to pout and say "But I don't want to write a paper!"

It's also annoyingly chilly here in the library today.

Ok, so I survived the period of no internet access -- the internet just came back on a few minutes ago and I go home in 15 mins.

I wrote the biography and synopsis of Carter's career, the critical reception of The Bloody Chamber, and a few extra pages on Carter's use of fairy tales in general. The only thing I haven't written that needs to be included is the statement of purpose and scope and the justification of format. That should be pretty simple -- purpose is to provide a starting point for people studying The Bloody Chamber, scope is all critical articles, dissertations, interviews, and book reviews concerning The Bloody Chamber written since its publication in 1979, and format is chronological under categories (book reviews, interviews, etc.)

Basically I just have to elaborate on that and turn it into about a page.

Of course, I figure there will be tons of revision required, and I expect some "you need to take some of *this* out and elaborate more in *this* area" type comments that will require reasonable amounts of rewriting and new material. But basically as a first draft it's pretty much done.

I also wrote 3 annotations and read enough of 3 more articles to determine they didn't fit the scope and were thus rejected. So that's 6 off my list. Only about a hundred left, now. *sigh*

Stuff left to do today:

Finish the last couple sections of the first draft of my introduction. Compile works cited list.
Edit paper for Dr. Feldman and compile works consulted list.
Read Charlotte Smith.

The first two shouldn't take more than about half an hour each, if that. The last one depends on how much material is in our anthology, and I haven't really looked yet.

Tomorrow's job is to prepare my presentation for LSU. GC&SU wants me to come on the 23rd, although I asked if we could make it a little later, like the 25th. Considering I'm at LSU on the 21st and I have a presentation on the 22nd, heading out to GC&SU on the 23rd is going to make me not exactly my best for said interview. But now I wonder if they're going to ask for a presentation too? I understand that a presentation is pretty standard for these kinds of interviews, but I also thought they generally gave you more than a week's notice to prepare one and they haven't said anything about it yet.

Of course, I'm only starting to prepare my LSU presentation tomorrow, but we all know what a horrible procrastinator I am. Plus, I'm pretty confident of the material. It's just the formatting I'm not so sure about.

Oh, and all that stuff I have to do today? I'll start it *after* my nap.

Well, I have 8 full pages. Unfortunately I haven't really finished saying what I need to say, so I have to try to wrap it up in the next two pages without going over. Which is surprising -- rarely do I have trouble with respecting the *upper* page limit of an assignment :)

The paper is supposed to be 8-10 pages. I am comparing/contrasting two works. My goal for tonight was to write the introduction and section on the first work, and then do the second work and the conclusion tomorrow. I also planned to write at least 4 pages.

Well, the 4 pages are done, but I still have a little more to say about the first work. I'm going to take a break for a bit, having reached a good place to stop, and then try and come back and write another page or two finishing up the first work before bed. Tomorrow is the second work, which is shorter than the first, so it'll probably take less time and space to talk about. This means I will hopefully go to bed tonight with more than half the paper written, which will be a very nice state of affairs.

Chances are, in fact, that I will be able to finish the paper before dinner tomorrow, which leaves after dinner to either veg or get started on the thesis introduction.

Interview with GC&SU went pretty well, I think. Now I'm just hanging around waiting on tent hooks to see if I get called back for an onsite with them. I *really* want to work there. And not just because it's close to Atlanta (hey, I'm selfish). The people I talked to seemed really nice, and somewhat less stuffy than the LSU folks. Plus, LSU is pretty set in their ways. GC&SU just became part of the University system of Georgia, and they're in the process of expanding the library and beginning some new programs, and all sorts of other stuff that sounds exciting to be a part of. Plus, they offer tuition assistance for the entire University system of Georgia, so I can take classes or even get a PhD at Georgia State University or any of the other state universities for radically reduced tuition. And while they encourage research and publication as part of their tenure program, there are other ways to earn tenure as well, so there's somewhat less pressure in that area, which I like. And they pay more. So yeah, I *really* want this.

I've been bad the past two days. I talked w/ my prof about my paper, and it has somewhat more direction now. Unfortunately, I didn't get as far yesterday as I wanted to on the organising my thoughts thing. No biggie. Just need to focus more this next week.

Meanwhile, I'm now here at shadesong's. Fun, fun!! I am now getting my shadesong fix. Very, very important. Tomorrow begins the work focus. Today is just for me.

Well, it is Saturday once again. Am attempting to read, in small bits, the poetry of Aemilia Lanyer. So far I'm almost through the dedicatory material, which is almost as long as the main poem itself. I also have a selection of Mary Robinson's poetry to read for Tuesday.

Yesterday I spent some time at the library getting books on the general topic of my abstract, to try and do a better job at revising it. The main goal for today, after I wake up a bit more, is to go through said material and actually revise said abstract. I'm not really sure where this is going -- I have my doubts about this paper already, which is not a good sign, but I also don't have any better ideas. I think I can pull off a pretty decent explanatory paper on this topic, what's got me worried is the prof's insistence that it be 'cutting-edge' research. I'm pretty good at taking things that have been studied before and putting them together in new ways, but not so good at the whole discovering new things. I guess I'll just do what I can.

It's cold in the library today for some reason. I hate Saturday mornings.

Ok so this was a really bad week to get sick. I managed to go to both class and work yesterday, although it was a good thing work was slow because I was about ready to fall asleep after I got off. Slept for several hours but had a bout of insomnia in the middle of the night. Met with my thesis advisor this morning and got several pieces of good news:
1) Of the three theses she's directing this semester, I'm the only one she feels is on schedule.
2) She got called by the library at Georgia College & State University, where I have an application in (she's one of my references) and gave me a glowing report. Apparently the woman on the phone said that I was exactly the sort of person they were looking for.
3) GC&SU emailed me asking for a phone interview next week.

Took a brief nap after my meeting with Dr. James. Went back to work for Dr. Thesing this afternoon and managed to get the layout of the James Dickey Newsletter (which he edits and I put together) in its final form. Left there and went straight to work at the Med School Library.

I've been here for three hours, all of which I've spent researching and trying to come up with the paper abstract that is due tomorrow. I've already gotten my topic pretty much approved, but I'm stuck at the "oh look, isn't this interesting" stage. That is, I've noticed something that I think is meaningful -- namely a difference in the way male and female Romantic poets portray female sexuality. Where several female poets are able to portray women as sexual beings in a positive light, the male poets seem to have only two models -- the chaste flower or the sexually destructive demon (think Keat's "Lamia", "La Belle Dame Sans Merci", and Coleridge's "Christabel").

My problem? The abstract is supposed to "sell" my topic. It's supposed to make it sound interesting and new. It is also supposed to explain exactly why this "new" revelation is important. I'm not quite sure how to do that.

And don't even ask about the phone interview for LSU tomorrow. I haven't even started to prepare for that.

Oh, and another thing I noticed today: the 10 page paper that I'm currently trying to write an abstract for? The paper itself is due March 17. Same day I go to court. That's going to do wonders for my concentration and the quality of said paper.