I can't play with this site as much as I'd like, so I've moved.... Come see me at inpossibility.blogspot.com.

Date:	2005-09-26 22:28
Subject:
Security:	Public
Mood:	tired

The schedule for the spring semester was posted today. I've already decided one of the classes I'm going to take...it was an easy decision: Contemporary Women Writers. I can't decide on another class...maybe Shakespeare & his contemporaries, maybe the History of Children's Lit, maybe Post-Colonial Lit. Although, I really don't know much about Post-Colonial Literature. I need to wait to see the course description before I decide on that one. I'm leaning towards the Shakespeare class (I do like Shakes), but I also really like Children's Lit. It might come down to the day the class is offered. It makes it easier for me to schedule my work travel if I have my classes 2 nights in a row. Women Writers is on Monday, Shakespeare is on Tuesday, and Children's Lit is on Wednesday. (Oohhh....if I had class on Monday & Tuesday, that would mean my Wednesday night was free so I could watch Lost and wouldn't have to worry about remembering to record it....)

Classes are okay. Literary Scholarship is kind of tedious...so much critical theory! We're discussing Structuralist Criticism tomorrow night. It includes a discussion of Semiotics, which I have not yet managed to grasp, even though I had it in one, maybe two of my Communication classes. Next week we discuss Deconstruction, which just makes my eyeballs spin. Then on to Marxism...never managed to quite grasp that one, either, and I had it in at least three different classes. And then, the next week, Feminist Criticism, which I get to present over. That's the one I feel most comfortable with...I hope to wow them all with my brilliance. I certainly haven't wowed them yet in that class....

Romantics is, again, okay. We have Percy Shelley for one more week, then on to Mary Shelley. I'm hoping she won't read Frankenstein to us the same way she's read everything else to us. Our first paper is due next week, so I spent a large chunk of my weekend working on that. My paper, is on how recent critics have treated Mary Shelley. I have to do a biographical presentation over Mrs. Shelley in a couple weeks, and I'm finding her fascinating. Her life reads a bit like a novel. And she wrote Frankenstein when she was 19. NINETEEN! That's just amazing....

There is some excitement for this week.... Maya Angelou is speaking at Texas State Wednesday night. I'm going to be able to get out of class early to go see her. I'll have to write a 2-3 page paper about it, but it's worth it. I'd rather listen to Maya Angelou read to me than listen to my professor read to me. (Not that Nancy reads badly...she actually reads fairly well. I just hadn't expected to be read to in a graduate level class.....) Anyways....Maya Angelou. Wednesday.

Then home to watch Lost. (I'm so addicted to that show!)

Date:	2005-09-14 22:26
Subject:	Done with Byron
Security:	Public
Mood:	tired

Tonight was our last discussion of Byron. I was not sad to say good-bye. We now move on to Percy Shelley for two weeks, then Mary Shelley for two weeks, and we'll spend the rest of the semester on Keats.

I'm enjoying this class so far, but I'm getting a little frustrated with it. With the exception of the first night, we have spent the majority of every class session being read to by the professor. And there's been group work almost every session. Tonight we managed to get some discussion going long enough that we ran out of time for the group work. I have to say, I expected more out of a graduate class. I really like the professor...I think she's funny. In a way, she reminds me of Betty Scroggin. (Some of you Concordians will remember her.) She mutters a lot, although in English, not German like Dr. Scroggin. I just wish she would lecture more and read aloud less.

Date:	2005-09-09 17:15
Subject:	Manfred the Miniseries
Security:	Public
Mood:	silly

Class Wednesday night was...fun. We're still on Byron, who I'm kind of tired of, but we had fun with his "dramatic poem" Manfred. It's kind of a play, but it was never meant to have been performed. We had to get into groups and develop it as a play, movie, or TV show. I was in a group with two creative writers with rather quirky senses of humor. We decided to create a PBS style miniseries. After we developed our series, we decided to cast it. With a very eclectic group of people, most of whom are fairly well known. Imagine a miniseries with this group of people: Joseph Fiennes (from Shakespeare in Love), Gwyneth Paltrow, Robin Williams, Gene Hackman, John Travlota, Steve Buscemi, and Destiny's Child.

I'm in Denver as I write this. Yesterday I learned that I should not leave in the evenings. It makes for a very long evening. My flight left Austin at 6:50, I had a layover in Dallas, and arrived in Denver around 9:45. Then I had to get my luggage and take a shuttle to the rental car company. I was on my way to the hotel by 10:45. The exit ramp I needed to take from the highway was closed, so I had to go out of my way and circle back around. I got to where I needed to be, was supposed to turn left, but that road was closed, so I had to go right. Somehow (it's really a miracle) I managed to finally get to the hotel around 11:45. (Mountain Time, so it felt like 12:45 to me.) Fortunately, I didn't have to be at the high school I was visiting until 9:40, so I could sort of sleep in.

Here's the fun part: when I got to the rental car company, all they had left was trucks, so I'm driving a truck. A Dodge Dakota 4x4 double cab. (I own a Neon, a small, compact Neon.) This truck is a monster.

I've named it Grendel.

Date:	2005-09-05 13:47
Subject:	Holobaugh vs. Hemingway, Round One
Security:	Public
Mood:	irritated

I’ve been arguing with my Literary Scholarship reading this weekend. Yesterday I argued with the New Criticism approach to literary theory. (I think it provides an incomplete picture. A book or a poem is not an isolated thing…an analysis that only looks at the text itself doesn’t capture the whose scope of the writing. It’s important to analyze the writing, but there’s more to a book or a poem than just the writing itself. Writing is a response to life, to society, to the world around us. It doesn’t stand alone.)

I began my argument with Hemingway yesterday, and continued it today. Our short story for this week is “A Natural History of the Dead.” It’s more essay than fiction, and it’s grotesque. I can see Hemingway’s talent…he accomplished what he set out to do: “to give calculated and what seems to me necessary shock,” “to make the person reading feel it has happened to them.” (as Susan F. Beegel quotes in her critical essay “That Always Absent Something Else”.) The story/essay does shock and offend the senses.

Here’s my gripe with Hemingway today, and with writers like him: He looks at the world and sees this dirty, ugly, dark place, and he says: “Reader, look at this dark, ugly world that we live in. Isn’t it dark? Isn’t it ugly? Now wallow in this darkness and ugliness.”

And that’s it. That’s all he says. That’s all he says. And when that’s the picture you’re shown, yes, it is a dark, ugly world. But everything in me screams: “THAT’S NOT ALL THERE IS!” Sometimes it requires looking long and hard, and it means pulling back the dark layers, but if you look for it, you’ll find beauty, light, and hope in the world. Sometimes you don’t even have to look that hard—beauty and light is right there in front of you if you have the eyes to see it. Madeleine L’Engle refers to life with “all its tragedies and ambiguities and sudden, startling joys,” (I love that phrase!) and she also writes, “We will all grow old, and sooner or later, we will die, like the trees in the orchard. But we have been promised that this is not the end. We have been promised life.” (From Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art.) That’s the kind of writing I’m drawn to—writing and art that promises life, that finds beauty even in darkness. That’s the kind of writing I want to produce.

Date:	2005-08-31 22:48
Subject:	Theory, Byron, and Lane Closures
Security:	Public
Mood:	contemplative

I've now experienced a full week of classes. I don't feel smarter anymore....

But I also don't feel any dumber, so that's good.

I think I'm going to like my Tuesday night Literary Scholarship class. We'll be reading a lot of Hemingway's short stories, and while I'm not currently fond of Hemingway, I'm going to try to like him. Or at least tolerate him. I'm also going to make a very concentrated effort to understand Marxist and Deconstructionist Theory. I haven't gotten along very well with either of those approaches in the past, but I'm going to try to at least grasp the basic concepts. Sometime before late October we have to give a presentation over one of the critical approaches we're studying. I emailed my list of preferences today: Feminist as my first choice, Reader-Response or Structuralist as my backups. My logic (such as it is...there's never much logic in anything I do) is that I feel most comfortable with the Feminist Critique...the other two are simply early enough in the semester to get it over with before things get crazy, but late enough that I'm not one of the first presenters. I like the professor...I did have to correct her pronunciation of my name a couple times, but at this point in my life, I'm used to that. I like the other students, too. Three of them are in my Romantics class, and we had a moment of commiserating over our Byron readings.

Tonight was the Romantics. We were assigned numerous shorter poems by Byron, as well as Cantos 3 & 4 of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. I was a little surprised that most of the evening was spent with Nancy, as the professor has asked to be called, reading large quantities of Childe Harold aloud. She paused frequently to make comments, and there were a few discussions, but most of it was just her reading. Next week we discuss Manfred and the week after that we discuss the first eight cantos of Don Juan. Then we get to move on to Percy Shelley. I'm looking forward to that; Byron is getting a bit tedious. His shorter poetry is beautiful, and there are some beautiful passages in his longer poetry, but I quickly get over-saturated.

I'm becoming more accustomed to the drive. Getting there has been no problem...I can leave work at 5:15 and be in San Marcos shortly after 6, which gives me time to decompress before class starts at 6:30. Getting home is proving to be the problem. Class ends at 9:15, and after 8 there are several places along the highway where lanes are closed. Tonight it took a little over an hour to get home. Last night we got out of class early and it only took 40 minutes. I wonder...is I-35 ever not being worked on? Fortunately I'm more of a night person, so getting home at 10:30 doesn't bother me. It's only a problem the next morning when I need to wake up in time for work. Mornings just aren't my thing.

Date:	2005-08-26 18:42
Subject:	Back to School
Security:	Public
Mood:	pleased

I've been staring at the computer screen for...well, for a while, trying to come up with something clever or entertaining to say about starting to school, but nothing is coming to me, so I'll just be to the point:

I started grad school this week. I'm working towards an MA in Literature at Texas State University in San Marcos. If all goes well, I should finish by December 2007. Maybe May 2007 if I take two classes next summer. What I'll do then is, at this time, beyond my imagination, but I'm absolutely certain that it'll be fascinating.

This will be the chronicle of my experiences...a place where I can talk about my classes and be unabashedly geeky. (Everyone needs a place where they can "geek-out" about their passions.)

So...first impressions:

I think this is going to be fun. Driving home after class Wednesday night, I got positively giddy thinking, "These people speak my language! How great is this?!"

My Wednesday class is Studies in the Romantic Movement: Byron, Keats, & the Shelleys. (A friend of mine says it sounds like a band.) I'm also taking a class on Tuesday, Literary Scholarship, which is my methods/how-to-research class. We'll meet for the first time this coming Tuesday.

In the meantime...I feel smarter already!