I am sure. It’s sunny, it’s pretty, but that gale is monstrous. I can’t even hear kids outside playing and that’s something. Australia is going to go bye byes in the wind!
I got my paper on Yeats’s ‘The Second Coming’ back yesterday. I knew I would either do absolutely brilliantly, or bomb dismally on this one. Hallelujah, I got the best mark I have ever got so far! A nice big fat High Distinction. This was the first paper that I have become absolutely excited whilst doing research on (and I did a LOT of research … way more than first year level). Academic obsession … now I get it 🙂 And it has lead to a love affair with Yeats. I now have a book of his collected poems awaiting some leisure time (yeah, RIGHT!).
My paper looked further into the symbolism of the poem than just Yeats’s book ‘A Vision’. I looked into the symbolism he used, and how it relates to Theosophical and Rosicrucian thought/symbolism, and it’s all there. But I did NOT find any study on it anywhere. How odd. I could do a damn dissertation on it. Yeats was way more than the eccentric weirdo fighting spirits whilst dressed in a suit of armour.
Now, I have a take home exam to prepare for. It is basically two small essays, but we only get the essay questions a week before they are due. I am just thanking GOD that it is not a traditional exam. I am NO good at exams. Not English Literature ones anyway. And I also have a web-design blueprint assignment due yesterday (literally) which I have an extension on, and am, obviously, procrastinating over. I want to have that handed in Monday so I can swat madly for this ‘exam’. I don’t care about marks for the web design unit–so long as I pass. But I do care mightily about getting the best marks possible for English.
I needed that extension because I have been sick all week. I thought it was a one day ‘toilet’ thing early in the week, felt icky for the rest of the week, and it started up again yesterday. A bit worried … it could only be a bug of some sort, but it’s the third time in as many months, so the mind starts on it’s ‘uhoh, the cancer might be back’ track. Toast, tea and lots of water for me. Whilst I burn the entire The Doors discography to cds, and a 9 cd set of minimalist piano music (Philip Glass, Yann Tiersen et al).
Ah! I’m currently reading ‘The Hundred-Foot Journey‘ by Richard Morais. (The Slap is temporarily on hold). It’s a proof copy I got through the shop as it hasn’t been released in Australia yet (slated for December this year). Australia … we drag our heals on so many things *sigh*. I’m thoroughly enjoying it. It is a first person narrative about a young Indian man who starts a restaurant in the alps in France. Being the Indiaphile I am I had to read it. It’s a great read, a fun read– except for one thing. The narrator’s voice is very erudite and readable. The other Indian characters’ voices are bloody awful. Sorry Mr Morais. Morais leaves out prepositions in their speech and makes them sound like native idiots, they don’t sound Indian … I tried reading their words in an Indian accent and still it did not work. He should have left out the attempt at ‘accent’ altogether, because, for me at least, it does not work and pulls me out of the story. It irritates me. Apart from that, thoroughly enjoyable, and hunger-making 🙂