readingredhead | Entries tagged with surf

My life has improved greatly since my last post, and mostly for completely superficial reasons, such as:

--it has been sunny for the past two days
--I have sat and written in multiple cafes
--school begins on Thursday! and I get to see people again!
--Berkeley is beginning to feel alive again and reminding me why I'm in love

There are some non-superficial reasons for my life being better, such as the fact that Peggy Reynolds, who is officially the most awesome woman in the world (as if I didn't know this already) took time out of her vacation in Australia with her family to effectively re-write the salient portions of the letter of recommendation that wasn't submitted properly to the Marshall Scholarship application. As a result of this, I now basically have all my letters of rec and am feeling a lot better about this application. It's beginning to feel like a good thing that it's out of my hands, rather than a terrifying thing (though of course it's still terrifying).

Also, I had a realization the other day that, even if I don't make it back to London in the way I want to, I'm fundamentally not worried at all about making it back to Berkeley. I'm sure it's a dangerous belief to indulge in, because it's no more or less certain than my return to London, but nonetheless I've somehow stumbled upon a belief that if I want to spend a significant portion of my life as a Berkeley professor, well, that's probably what I'll do!

I'm also feeling lots better about my SURF presentation, which is tomorrow. As a culmination of my summer research I have to give a 15-minute presentation about what I've learned so far, and somehow I've managed to come up with a viable presentation that doesn't go too far over time and seems to elaborate the main argument I realized this summer. About a week ago, I didn't think that either of those things was even possible.

I'm typing this as I sit sipping iced coffee from Cafe Milano, looking out down Bancroft toward Telegraph and the heart of the Berkeley campus community, remembering why I love this school and the life I live here, and totally ready for my next year as a Berkeley student to begin -- because I'm also pretty sure that it won't be my last.

In case you tuned in late, here's the recap:

1) Marshall Scholarship application submitted sans one letter of recommendation that apparently got eaten by the online system and does not display as having been submitted despite the insistence of recommender that it was. Said letter will be resubmitted by recommender in nine days once she returns from holiday in Australia. There is nothing more to be done on this front.

2) Official presentation of thesis research thus far occurs in one week. Mock presentation for practice purposes occurs in one hour. Let's just say I need more than one hour to finish condensing the research that took a whole summer into a fifteen-minute presentation to people who don't have any background in my field.

3) Fulbright Scholarship application is almost complete, and will likely be submitted (ahead of time!) sometime this week.

4) Training for my tutoring job runs all day tomorrow through Friday. I intend to use this as an opportunity not to think about Jane Austen at all.

5) Classes start in a week and two days, and that isn't soon enough. I need for there to be people in Berkeley again and I need to see my old professors again because seeing Professor Langan, even just for an hour and a half, completely rejuvenated my interest in my thesis topic, and having my thesis class with Professor Picciotto will be indescribably amazing.

6) I am beginning to amass a playlist called "Yelling at my thesis." As the title suggests, most of it is vaguely angry music, except for the few tracks that are mellow and fatalistic. Today I discovered that it's very useful for helping thesis-writers get out of bed and get to work at 7am (and is even more effective when paired with tea).

7) The other day, my father introduced me to a quote that I think will sum up my response to this upcoming year:

"If you're going through hell, keep going." --Sir Winston Churchill

( I complain about analyzing Pride and Prejudice. Because otherwise I'd be talking to myself and they tell me that's not healthy. )

For a second, I misread a line in the facsimile of Clara Reeve's The Progress of Romance (published 1785) and thought that a character was complaining that something might tire her hearts. Immediately I wondered what a female Time Lord was doing in an eighteenth century treatise about the history of the genre of the romance and the novel. Then I realized it said "hearers." Dear Ms. Reeve: this particular "hearer" would be much less tired by your assertions if they involved more Time Lords.

Obviously this is a sign that a) I have watched too much Doctor Who, b) I should watch more Doctor Who, c) I have done too much work on this thesis, d) I should really do more work on this thesis, or e) all of the above.

All I really want out of life is for a real-life romance to coincide with an academic one. Preferably we discover Austen's lost letters together, a la A. S. Byatt's Possession. Or maybe a surviving draft of First Impressions, I'm not really picky. I just want something that makes me feel love as much as I think it, and think it as much as I feel it. And I want it sooner than I'm ever likely to get it.

(Perhaps the things the conduct books have to say about imaginative engagement, romance novels, and women's delicate sensibilities are truer than I give them credit for -- it is dangerous to read them and expect them to come true.)

Current Mood: restless

There is something about reading Austen that I can't describe. I hate it sometimes that I'm doing my senior thesis on Austen and that I can't increase my English geek cred by writing about some obscure someone-or-other that no one but me has ever heard of and therefore no one but me will ever even think themselves capable of understanding -- but then I sit down with nothing but me and Northanger Abbey and stop feeling like I need to write on something obscure. I will still get a little annoyed occasionally when people who know nothing of English as an academic discipline think they understand what I'm writing simply because they've seen a few BBC miniseries, or when professors or fellow students indulge in momentary condescension because I couldn't think of anything more creative to write about, but when this happens, I will take a few deep breaths and remind myself of two important facts.

1. I am having so much fun with this. I honestly love Austen, and not just because of that one guy Colin Firth plays in some movie. I fell in love with her way with words the first time I met them and this summer I get to immerse myself in them. AND GET PAID FOR IT.

2. What I'm thinking and writing about Austen will be creative and different and new. It'll make people see her in a whole new way (she says modestly). At the very least, it'll make me see her in a whole new way, and that way will be mine.

And did I mention I'm having fun with this? I don't even know what it is about Austen that makes me feel like this, and it's difficult to describe, because it's not terribly showy. Compared to many of my other favorite authors her prose and subject matter seem very quiet. But then someone will make a snarky comment and I'll burst out laughing and realize that maybe she's not so quiet after all. She's wily without being disingenuous, always ready for a good laugh, and behind that reserved facade there's both an observing wisewoman and a giggling teenager, working in tandem to write some of the most fantastic and understated prose I keep coming back to.

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in Life's name and for Life's sake

a work in progress

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Some facts about my life.

SURF woes

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Part of my soul, I seek thee, and thee claim

"The person...who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid."

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March 2013

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