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Thursday, October 23rd, 2003
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1:19a
So, yeah...
Been busy the last few days with uni work, which is getting a little bit easier, though I'm still quite scared of having my brain fried by Professor Levene on Friday, and of the Graduate Seminars which start in earnest next week. With speaking and everything. I guess it depends on how I feel on the day. I mean last Friday my period had just come, feeling hormonal and wondering whether horrible pain is going to strike me down any second - not the best format for intellectual exchange. Not that I feel in the slightest bit prepared for intellectual exchange anyway because I know nothing about epicurean philosophy! But I'm learning, and that's what it's all about. (Or so the Prof says!)
Also, Dr. Clare? Beginning to scare me a little, beginning to remind me of R. a bit too much for comfort. And seen as they have the same first name it's a bit hard to ignore! It's not as if they look anything like each other really (!) but some flashes of similarity feak me a little. It also doesn't help that the Parkinson building, where the classics department lives is built along the same lines as school. Another reminder.
But anyway.
Made a new friend on Tuesday. (Go me!;)) I was getting my train back to Sheffield, and was just about to get on when somebody says hi from behind me. And it's this guy from the department, who's seen me around. I noticed him myself at the library induction thing, when I was on the look-out for talent! He stood out because he didn't seem to be grouping up with the freshers. That was probably because he wasn't a fresher. He did two years at Cambridge, got very ill and dropped out for two years and has now transferred to Leeds. So we sat on the train (he was going to Worcester) and chatted.
I'm actually quite work-motivated at the moment, but towards the wrong kind of work! I just want to work on my story on the train and in the library instead of doing my reading, which I'll normally try and do on the train just because it's a useful 45 minutes of sit-down time (in theory, but Virgin trains being what they are...). I think I lasted about 10 minutes with Epicurus before I got my notebook out and started working on my imagery and themes for my story! They're going well, but, as usual, it's the actual plot that needs an injection of inspiration! I figured though, that if I worked out a comprehensive framework for the progression of time I can work out events that would certainly occur within a school year and actual plot events will come to me from there. I'm not going to know what happens until I write it anyway - that's just how it goes for me. I don't even know exactly what they are to each other at the moment. In love, of course, does not pre-suppose a romantic relationship as everyone else would recognise it. And all the books I've read (and I've read a lot about this situation, believe me, besides having first-hand experience) have a different, and wrong for the most part, take on the thing. Usually they end up with the girl dobbing the guy in. She's almost always a pseudo-Lolita figure (e.g. 'Blue Angel'. I forget who this is by, but seen as it's crap I'm not going to go and check it) or at best she has to 'suffer for her man' (e.g. 'Fortune's Rocks' by Anita Shreve which is better by far than 'Blue Angel', though that wouldn't be hard, but is still a bit contrived and unrealistic and not exactly this kind of situation). All in all I usually find them depressing and unsatisfying. I know authors might not feel themselves morally able to make this kind of relationship meaningful, given all the paedophile fear that's current at the moment, but not all men are child-abusers and not all girls are gold-digging Lolitas. Trust me, I know.
current mood:  artistic
current music: Radio Buffy (2 comments |comment on this)
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4:09p
I'm feeling unduly stressed. My pulse is a lot faster than it normally is, and it's all coz of this stupid Epicurean philosophy! There are a bunch of articles and books I have to read, or at least get the feeling of before tomorrow's brain frying session and I just can't get some of it. I guess now that I'm not doing formal Latin classes I have to have something that's really hard and results in fortnightly humilation, but hell! I know I can opt out and ask for a history topic instead, because he gave me that option last time, but I don't want him to think I'm stupid. God, my pride and competitiveness really gets me in some hot water sometimes. I just want to go to bed, go to the pub with my friends and write my story. Hell.
current mood:  sick
current music: Lords and Ladies::Terry Pratchett, read by Tony Robinson (comment on this)
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10:06p
Well, I've been at this philosophy thing since 3.30 this afternoon and I think I've covered one of the things I'm meant to be reading. Urrghh. I'm almost certainly going to ask him for pity tomorrow! I find all this interesting and everything, but as soon as we get into the really heavy articles I go cold with fear and uncomprehending. I've decided that this is because these philosophical thinkers are exactly the same kind of people who find Latin prose composition easy, and therefore have completely different sorts of reasoning processes than me. As Buffy said, "your logic does not resemble our earth logic". I could probably get it, in about two years. But Idon't think I should be risking my average in my MA like I did in my BA by willfully taking subjects that I have no natural affinity for. At least learning Latin had a point, and I'm glad I did it, but this has no readily discernible benefit to my eye, except getting into Professor Levene's good books, and presumably I could do that with history topics as well. Now history I know I'm good at, so for the sake of my average I might go with that. But obviously I have to live through tomorrow first!
current mood:  rushed
current music: Sting::Shadows in the Rain (comment on this)
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