02.02.10
First offer
Just got an email from the University of Alberta (in Edmonton) admitting me in the PhD, with a very very decent funding package.
Soon the nagging of University of Toronto for an answer will start, if I can find an elegant way to do this.
01.28.10
Damn
Well, unless I win the lottery or something, there will be no ACCUTE for me this year. If you don’t present, they don’t help you pay for your plane ticket (obviously). So since I can’t afford those tickets, no can do Montréal. I’m otherwise waiting on an answer from the Caribbean Studies Association.
It’s too bad I won’t be able to present a paper at my undergrad institution. But there’ll be other occasions.
In other news, PhD applications are all done and sent. All there is left to do is wait. The thesis has not been going well since last week, and I sometimes doubt I’ll be able to finish on time.
01.26.10
The mind/body divide
As I read a bit further into the textual circulation of emotion, and about pedagogical theory. I read a bell hooks essay, in which there is a mention of the problem of the mind/body divide in our teaching careers.
The idea that academic life has more to do with the mind than with the body is rather prevalent. Western culture has us believe in the supremacy of the mind over the body; Descartes was assured of his bodily existence only through the workings of his reason. I have never been convinced by the Schopenhauerian argument that to attain pure reason (and thus “real” humanity) we must castigate the body and deny carnal desires.
Paradoxically, I have been attracted more than once to Buddhism, and finding myself, in the end, unable to separate desires from the workings of my mind. I’ve always thought that paradoxes defined me, and this is yet another one. I love living in my mind, and I work better when the body is comfortable (warm, in pajamas, my reading chair). When I find my body in uncomfortable situations (tight clothing, standing up or sitting uncomfortably, cold), I am unable to focus properly. I get tired faster, I can’t concentrate. This isn’t even considering when I am sick, or otherwise indisposed.
The mind, just like ideas, or history, or narrative, doesn’t exist in a vaccum. The body is both the surface we present to the external world and an important internal source of well-being (or not). I’m sure a lot of us grow figdety or moody without certain foods, or physical activities. Think how easily we get addicted to caffeine for productivity.
I am very interested in how our bodies determine our very lives as intellectuals, how ideas have to be embodied in spoken words, on paper, through the bodily presence of a professor in the classroom or in a conference. I have never taken an online class but I wonder how it changes the relationship to learning.
01.21.10
Correspondance
I feel for my thesis about Romola kind of the same as George Eliot did when composing it: “Will it ever be finished?–ever be worth anything?”
01.19.10
They say variety is the spice of life
It seems I will teach Shakespeare this semester as part of my practicum. I am a bit scared to be honest. My knowledge of Shakespeare is basic at best, and I am sure I would gain more from sitting in the class than standing in front of it.
It’s an interesting thing to be so suddenly thrown out of our comfort zone. I could have taught any kind of novel more easily than I would any kind of drama. And I must teach the best-known drama of them all. It’ll be challenging, to say the least.
01.15.10
Thoughts (somewhat) related
I’ve done a bit of research on George Eliot as an undergrad, and back then I thought she was really smart. I’ve done a bit more last year, but it was more focused on Leighton than her. Now, I have to go back to Eliot herself, and whenever I read something I am constantly wowed by her ability to make all her knowledge (somewhat) accessible through her novels.
I can’t help but wonder what kind of life she would have led had she been born 100 years later. Would she have been a first-wave feminist? Probably. A post-structuralist intellectual? Likely. And what a modern intellectual would she have made… her erudition is impressive for a Victorian (men and women included). How would 20th-century advancements in knowledge have affected her, I wonder?
I was just reading Neil McCaw’s George Eliot and Victorian Historiography and he mentions that she consulted 300 works on the topic of history in one year. 300. In one year. That’s almost one every day. Not counting all the other stuff she read. And she wrote letters, 800-page novels, kept an intellectual circle, maintained a healthy sex life with Lewes, traveled, ALL AT THE SAME FRIGGIN TIME.
Then I am struck with the thought, why would anyone even attempt to analyze her work? I mean, its depth is what makes it so fascinating and so endlessly analyzable. But really, who am I to pretend that I might have even a small insight of her mind? I thought this was going to be the fun part of my thesis, but now I feel her challenge is insurmountable. I could never read enough to make sense of everything I think I need to make sense of.
At least the first chapter is done, even if I am afraid it’ll need much work. 700 words every day, 5 days a week. 5 weeks to go. My level of pain of writing has happily gone to down from “throwing myself in front of a bus” to “break my leg with a hammer”. Hopefully next week it’ll be down another notch, at “falling down from a tree branch and accidentally break my arm” level.
01.10.10
One week
So, my thesis is due on February 22nd, so something must be done about the “writing it” part. Last Monday I started getting up at 7h, getting to the library by 8h30, and writing at least 700 words before lunch. Then it’s reading time.
Unfortunately, a few things are not working well: by Friday I wanted to take three months off school altogether, and I also can’t seem to read fast enough to feed my writing properly. This morning I was stuck making up stuff just to fill my word objective. But I NEED to write because if I don’t it’ll never get done.
Just six more weeks, and after that it’ll be proof-reading, re-writing and fine-tuning the argument, which isn’t so bad as coming up with the stuff in the first place. I’m still reading things that make me re-think my whole approach to my basic thesis statement, which means I’ll probably end up with something completely different than I had planned. Not that this is a bad thing, though. It’s a characteristic of academic work that it always changes, and it is probably why, despite all my hatred of writing, I enjoy it so much. You start up a project thinking something about a topic, and find things that make you reconsider everything and see things from a new angle. I kinda love that.
In PhD news, two applications are left to send out: McGill and Simon Fraser. At this point I am rather fed up with the process, and to be honest I don’t have much brain space to worry about them. In March, I’ll start worrying.
I should go read!
11.24.09
Homesick
The warmth of the metro brake-heated station hits my face and hands cooled by the November frost. The train just left as I stepped down on the platform, but sitting on the bright orange plastic bench calms my annoyance. “C’est pas grave, j’suis pas pressée”, I think as I watch the people on the other side rush up to the surface to catch their bus.
I reflect on this city’s set of rhythms: above ground and underground, day and night, open and hidden, sophisticated and pedestrian, old and new, rich and poor. Here you can have deux faces, two lives that coexist and enrich each other. I have yet to find somewhere else where I can be a proper, serious student in the day, and the dumbest drunk club girl at night; where I can be a busy socialite and a cocooner in the same week; where I can get good jobs on the sole basis of my bilinguisme and then spend most of my year speaking, writing and reading English. Or where the life of the surface seems to stretch and expand in the few minutes spent herded with strangers in a metro wagon, and then goes back to its fast-paced normality as you step on the weather-beaten sidewalk. When you can be anywhere inside the metro lanes within half an hour, the fifteen minutes of commute always feels longer than it is.
I know it’ll be dark, and cold, and probably snowy when I get back home, but I’ll have gained heat with drinks and friends by then. A random Irish pub on Bishop is my destination tonight, and I do plan on drinking like one. The train now opens its doors in front of me, and I step in the blue car with happy expectations for my evening.
11.16.09
Intently writing letters
I didn’t think I’d dread the dreaded letter of intent so much. My first application is due in 4 weeks and I find myself unable to start working on them.
I went through the grant applications quite easily, through the writes and the rewrites, and I started rather early on them. But for the applications, I feel sullen and a bit uninterested. I’m sick of writing about the topic. I procrastinate.
Like right now!
