in Life's name and for Life's sake

Can't tell if I am prematurely freaking out about the amount of work I have to do in the next six weeks, or if I really ought to be terrified of the MA essay, two seminar papers, short paper, and final exam I have to write between now and my birthday. Probably a little terror is healthy at this point.

It's good because I've given myself some time to relax, both over spring break and over this past week. I went to the midnight showing of The Hunger Games last night with a group of awesome friends, and it was so nice to chill and to talk about books with people who are not going to ask where your argument situates you within the critical tradition. (Though because we were near the front of the line for our 12:07 showing, and the earlier showing's lines were all inside, we actually got asked fairly intelligent questions by a Good Morning America camerawoman and I may have gone off on a bit of a spiel about dystopian fiction and the politics of visibility in an age where mass media /advertising is predominantly visual...and may also have mentioned the relevance of Jeremy Bentham's panopticon to the construction of the Hunger Games arena. Though that was in a different conversation.)

The film was also really good. I can't tell yet if it was good as a film in its own right (though I suspect it is), but it is without a doubt one of the best book-to-movie adaptations I've ever seen. I suspect part of this has to do with the fact that my attachment to the book is more to do with concept than execution -- I have some stylistic issues with Suzanne Collins' writing -- but the things that irked me (ex. the way she handled point of view, big info-dump at the beginning of the first novel, occasionally clunky exposition in general) are things that movies can actually do better than print. Or if not better than at least easier. 

My younger sister and her friend are going to be in town on their spring break and staying with me for the next four days -- their flight lands at 5:30am tomorrow! -- so although they can get along without me, I miss my sister and might not get to see her again until August so I want to spend as much time with her as I can, certainly to the detriment of my homework. And then right after she leaves, alexandria_skye is going to be in town and we are going to celebrate our mutual geekery with a night out at The Way Station! (For non-NY geeks, that's the steampunk bar with the TARDIS.) So I'm looking forward to all of this but also wary of how quickly my work will pile up and attempt to eat me. 

Speaking of which, I should probably get back to that whole "reading old books" thing, since it's plausible that I can make my way through more of Clarissa and also some early modern scientific writing before I go to sleep.

I know I haven't updated in a while, but that's because I've been wonderfully busy. What with writing novels, writing papers, reading books, etc. it's been a busy month.

I spent the weekend at my roommate's house. She lives in Mountain View, CA, which is maybe an hour drive south of Berkeley, right near Stanford. While there, I did almost nothing productive, but I did watch maybe six movies and write a lot and go ice skating for the first time ever.

The novel is going rather well in terms of both wordcount and content. My main character just met the man she's going to fall in love with, although she doesn't know that yet! The Write-a-Thon is this Saturday, so I'll be busy at work trying to get everything together for that.

My second and final short story of the semester is due tomorrow, and this project is much less ambitious. The first story was 20 pages; this one is 7, and it wasn't written from scratch.  It's actually a rewrite of something from sophomore year. Nonetheless, I feel like I've put enough energy into it that it reads well. It's below the cut, if you'd like to read it (see, it's even short enough to fit in an LJ entry). 


I'll be coming home for Thanksgiving, but I expect my weekend to be quite busy.  Though I'm not sure, at the moment I think that Friday might be my freest day but I can't promise anything.  Call me and we'll figure things out because I do want to see all of you.