Tonight, over the course of about six-and-a-half hours -- from around 2PM to 9PMish, taking breaks every once in a while -- I wrote my paper on Midnight's Children for my Asian/Middle Eastern lit course, the "special topics" course of my graduate education. It was supposed to be from 7-10 pages long. I topped mine out at about 9.75, and added the Works Cited page, which made it a full 10.
Again, for those of you who have not read Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children, I recommend you do so if you are so inclined. It's a fantastic novel. Good vs. Evil, heroes and villains with superpowers, Indian X-Men, bloody wars, the book has it all. It's a great first leap into magical realism.
This is another reason why I'm in graduate school, folks -- because I can bang out papers like that not only on a weekday, but in less than seven hours. And people said I'd never amount to anything.
It is 1AM. I slept until noon today, though I didn't realize it because the wall clock in the spare room where I keep the air mattress had stopped in the night. I went to bed last night shortly after midnight, making it not only an early night for me but somehow giving me nearly twelve hours of sleep in the process -- something I've not been able to achieve in months. I do not know how or why I slept that long, as that one night of sleep is roughly equivalent to what I get during any normal work week. I average about four hours of sleep per night on Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday, sometimes considerably less. Tonight, I would imagine, I'll get roughly three before I must get back up and go to school in the morning to teach my classes.
But. That one paper is done, and it was the longest of the papers I need to write around this time of the year. There will be others, of course; that one I just mentioned I will be revising/expanding another 8-10 pages or so for my final paper in that course, and I still have two decent-sized papers and four response papers to write in my Graduate Studies in Fiction class, the first one of those being due a week from tomorrow. I'm nowhere near out of the woods yet, but at least I've bought myself a few days worth of well-deserved and much-needed breathing space.
During one of my breaks this evening while writing the paper, I donned my wifeblesser (thank you, Ned Flanders)and pajama pants to go put gas in the car. I felt decidedly and proudly white trash as I did so, a new feeling for me. Generally speaking, I never leave the house without a real shirt on, and most definitely never leave the house in sweatpants of any sort, let alone flannel pajama pants. Tonight, though, it felt almost freeing to do so. Besides, I knew it would be a five-minute trip, and I'd neglected to put gas in the car on the way home from class last week. I'm either too tired or I always forget, and as I don't generally leave the house on the weekend unless I absolutely have to, it was either go out to get gas this evening or do it at 6:30AM on the way in to school -- something I certainly did not want to deal with again.
I got an email from my dad this afternoon, who had read the blog and thought about the problems the car has with holding coolant, and suggested that the thermostat may be the problem -- as if it's going wonky, it'll throw coolant out the overflow valve (or, I would assume, suck all of it into the engine where it would burn off, as well). It would also explain why sometimes it'll keep coolant for a long time and then other times it will run it dry -- sometimes it's working fine and other times it's not. I never thought of this before, and he's right -- it makes a lot of sense. After all, it's an old car. Replacement thermostats and their seals for my Monte Carlo are between $5 and $15 or so for the most part on Amazon -- it basically looks like a little metal plug with a gasket and coil attached to it, so if that's the problem it's not a big deal, and I can get the part and get it fixed easily. If it's the computer thing that controls the thermostat, however, well...who knows. I'll carry the radiator stop-leak in my car just in case it starts gushing or something, but again, I still have to drive the damned car on a daily basis, thermostat problems or otherwise. On the plus side, even on tonight's short trip, it purred like a kitten and ran quite well -- but then again, it always likes to have a full tank of gas. A tank of gas that cost me $30.
I also paid the remaining bills today during one of my other short breaks while writing the paper. With that and the gas in the car taken care of, I now have no new expenses that should pop up before I get paid again on Friday, and aside from food, only rent and the cable bill that will pop up before the end of the month. This means I can slowly, slowly start building up my bank account again. My parents offered to send me money, and I told them I'd gladly take it, but also told them that they need to realize I won't be able to pay it back. Believe me, I will very gladly take any money they send me and put it to good use feeding myself and the cats.
There's a lot I got accomplished this weekend for sure, but next weekend it will be more, and worse. I must start reading Crime and Punishment for class next week, which is probably the thickest and longest book I will read this semester. I don't know how big the Dover Thrift Edition paper copy is, but I downloaded a PDF of it, and the PDF is over 800 pages. We're covering it over the course of two weeks of class, but with a paper due in that class as well as other stuff I must take care of for my other classes -- including reading yet another book which I'm sure will be thick as well -- Crime and Punishment may be the only novel in my lit courses this semester that I not only won't finish, but probably won't even get halfway through. Who knows, you be the judge -- what was the last 800-page novel you finished, regardless of how much of a "classic" it was supposed to be, or how "good" you were told it was?
Regardless, the paper I have to write for that class is supposed to be something like a 4-6 page analytical essay that does not require sources (at least not according to the syllabus, anyhow). I wanted this paper to be an expansion of my "Moll Flanders is an insufferable bitch, and here's why" response paper I wrote earlier in the semester, but I'm not sure that's going to be possible -- my professor basically told me he'd allow me to do that if I wanted to, but it would end up requiring several sources and a complete overhaul of that first paper. I'm not sure I have time for that, and the novels in that class have left me so disinterested after reading them (ahem, Madame Bovary, Evelina, Persuasion...) that I'm not even sure of any angles I can possibly take on paper topics for any of them. Couple that with a lack of sleep and an abundance of other stuff I need to do, and it looks like I may end up needing to bite the bullet, throw some ideas together from scratch, and write a paper next weekend that I have absolutely no interest in when it comes to the subject matter involved.
Hm, sounds shockingly similar to my undergrad years. I couldn't tell you how many good, but disconnected papers I wrote about Chaucer, lesser-known (read: more boring) Shakespearean plays, or T.S. Eliot I wrote during those years. Inspired, well-written, thought-provoking papers with absolutely no interest in the subject matter behind them. When it comes to writing, I am a student of the now, the era of the Chucks (both Klosterman and Palahniuk), the era of the T.C. Boyles and David Sedarises who occupy what I classify as ultra-modern good writing. Four novels in a row about 17th, 18th, and 19th-century women who start poor and unhappy and end up rich, married, and happy (or, in Madame Bovary's case, dead of suicide due to woe-is-me impulses) don't interest me one fucking bit. I can't connect or relate to any of it. I suppose that's the rub when it comes to graduate-level literature classes, though. Oh, how I wish they'd let me plot out a graduate-level ultra-modern lit course:
Reading list:
Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto by Chuck Klosterman
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
Ah yes, the life of a poor graduate student; isn't it glamorous, folks?
In other news, I keep neglecting to mention "Fall Break." I've brought it up here in passing, I'm sure, but it's next weekend. Fall Break is something the university does every year to make up for the two days of Thanksgiving week that classes are in session -- instead of giving students the whole Thanksgiving week off (side note: I'm taking it off anyway), they give them Wed/Thurs/Fri off that week and make up the other two days in the middle of October around midterms, calling it "Fall Break." Up until this point, it was always on a Thursday and Friday, but for us in the English Department that didn't help much, as we always have Fridays off, so one of our esteemed English professors who is on the decision board for these sorts of things brought up and passed the motion that from this point forward, Fall Break will be held on Monday/Tuesday -- ensuring that the English Department, at least, has a five-day weekend of Friday-Saturday-Sunday-Monday-Tuesday. This doesn't affect me much, of course, as I always have Monday off anyhow, and all I do on Tuesday is teach and then hop in the car to come back home. My "Fall Break" this year simply means I'll save a day's worth of gas and miles on the car, and five hours of my time (7AM to noon-ish) that I would normally be on campus next Tuesday. On the plus side, I will get to sleep in.
On that note, it's after 3AM. I get up at 5 in order to drink coffee and get ready for the day. I'm tired, sure, but don't know that I'll get to sleep again. If not, oh well -- I can do that when I get home from teaching around 12:30 or so.
Stories by T.C. Boyle
Still Life with Woodpecker and Skinny Legs and All, both by Tom Robbins
By the way, those are all links to Amazon if you want to know more about the books. The Best American series releases a ton of different books in genres (poetry, essays, science writing, etc) every year, and every one of them is well worth a look.
Anyway.
This weekend, as mentioned before, I finished grading my students' papers, and was able to calculate their midterm grades. The vast majority of them are doing exceedingly well in my class, though a few in each section are struggling -- this is to be expected in any composition course, even a Science/Engineering one. I posted the midterm grades yesterday afternoon when I woke up, and by now most of the students have probably seen them. I've already had one student drop this semester due to not turning in the first paper, and after midterms (and my lecture in the morning) there will probably be at least a few more. In any comp class, the semester is easiest before the midterm week -- after that, everything ramps up. Papers and assignments come due more frequently and are worth more points, quizzes get harder, absences begin piling up, etc. I already have several students who I know will either drop the course soon or who will fail for absences. I love teaching my students, but I am fair; they have to abide by my rules on the syllabus just as much as I have to abide by them, as well as any department regulations I have to follow as well.
What else did I do this weekend? I didn't vacuum, even though I need to. The house is a mess. Probably won't be able to do it until the end of the month, though, not with the workload I have. I did, however, clean out the freezer and toss out anything old and/or anything I'd never eat (like fish that the former girlfriend left behind), and at the bottom of the pile I found an entire pan of frozen rigatoni, cooked, covered in foil, and frozen many, many many months ago. I tossed it in the oven at 425 for three hours, and now I have meals for the rest of the week.
Not to be outdone, I also made a huge pot of experimental chicken noodle soup, this time with macaroni instead of egg noodles, more chicken (using the last of the chicken I had), a bag each of frozen peas, corn, and onions, half a frozen brick of spinach, four cubes of chicken bouillon, an envelope of noodle soup mix, and a can of mixed vegetables from the pantry. And it's fantastic. This may be the way I make soup from this point forward, as about $5 worth of ingredients (minus the chicken, of course) made a pot of soup large enough to feed me probably twenty times. After this week, whatever's left of it will be put in a big Ziploc bag in the freezer.
I've tried to cut back sharply on my food budget, purchasing only the essentials for daily life. Half the time now this doesn't even include sandwich materials, as lunch meat and cheese are expensive (not to mention I barely eat them anymore anyhow). I've noticed I'm spending more money on food for me and the cats than probably anything else outside my rent and bills, including gasoline. For a single guy, that's just unacceptable. Ideally, outside of daily-requirement things like cigarettes, coffee, and vitamins, I shouldn't be shopping for food on a weekly basis, and I've been trying desperately to cut the the amount of cash I spend on food in half. I need to not only to save money, but because I am on a rather strict budget, and because there are still big purchases (like a good vacuum and lawnmower) I have to save up for eventually. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, of course; I will receive the other half of my loan money in the beginning of January, I do get paid continuously every two weeks between now and the end of May, and I'm bound to receive some money from some relatives for Christmas/my birthday -- but for the next two months things are going to be pretty tight, and I need to invent some ways to keep myself fed.
Because of that, I'm going to invest in those big multi-meal dishes like pastas and soups, and chili. Oooh, chili. I haven't made my own chili in almost seven years, since before the former girlfriend and I got together. It will be exciting to make again. If I do these things, I can at least feed myself inventively and cheaply, stay full and warm, and not have to eat like a rabbit (remember, carrots, celery, etc). I really need to hit up the discount grocery store up here in Newton again soon to stock up on canned goods and sauces for 39 cents each.
Still Life with Woodpecker and Skinny Legs and All, both by Tom Robbins
Assholes Finish First by Tucker Max (because, come on, we all need a little more Tucker Max in our lives)
The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2011
The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2011
Anyway.
This weekend, as mentioned before, I finished grading my students' papers, and was able to calculate their midterm grades. The vast majority of them are doing exceedingly well in my class, though a few in each section are struggling -- this is to be expected in any composition course, even a Science/Engineering one. I posted the midterm grades yesterday afternoon when I woke up, and by now most of the students have probably seen them. I've already had one student drop this semester due to not turning in the first paper, and after midterms (and my lecture in the morning) there will probably be at least a few more. In any comp class, the semester is easiest before the midterm week -- after that, everything ramps up. Papers and assignments come due more frequently and are worth more points, quizzes get harder, absences begin piling up, etc. I already have several students who I know will either drop the course soon or who will fail for absences. I love teaching my students, but I am fair; they have to abide by my rules on the syllabus just as much as I have to abide by them, as well as any department regulations I have to follow as well.
What else did I do this weekend? I didn't vacuum, even though I need to. The house is a mess. Probably won't be able to do it until the end of the month, though, not with the workload I have. I did, however, clean out the freezer and toss out anything old and/or anything I'd never eat (like fish that the former girlfriend left behind), and at the bottom of the pile I found an entire pan of frozen rigatoni, cooked, covered in foil, and frozen many, many many months ago. I tossed it in the oven at 425 for three hours, and now I have meals for the rest of the week.
Not to be outdone, I also made a huge pot of experimental chicken noodle soup, this time with macaroni instead of egg noodles, more chicken (using the last of the chicken I had), a bag each of frozen peas, corn, and onions, half a frozen brick of spinach, four cubes of chicken bouillon, an envelope of noodle soup mix, and a can of mixed vegetables from the pantry. And it's fantastic. This may be the way I make soup from this point forward, as about $5 worth of ingredients (minus the chicken, of course) made a pot of soup large enough to feed me probably twenty times. After this week, whatever's left of it will be put in a big Ziploc bag in the freezer.
I've tried to cut back sharply on my food budget, purchasing only the essentials for daily life. Half the time now this doesn't even include sandwich materials, as lunch meat and cheese are expensive (not to mention I barely eat them anymore anyhow). I've noticed I'm spending more money on food for me and the cats than probably anything else outside my rent and bills, including gasoline. For a single guy, that's just unacceptable. Ideally, outside of daily-requirement things like cigarettes, coffee, and vitamins, I shouldn't be shopping for food on a weekly basis, and I've been trying desperately to cut the the amount of cash I spend on food in half. I need to not only to save money, but because I am on a rather strict budget, and because there are still big purchases (like a good vacuum and lawnmower) I have to save up for eventually. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, of course; I will receive the other half of my loan money in the beginning of January, I do get paid continuously every two weeks between now and the end of May, and I'm bound to receive some money from some relatives for Christmas/my birthday -- but for the next two months things are going to be pretty tight, and I need to invent some ways to keep myself fed.
Because of that, I'm going to invest in those big multi-meal dishes like pastas and soups, and chili. Oooh, chili. I haven't made my own chili in almost seven years, since before the former girlfriend and I got together. It will be exciting to make again. If I do these things, I can at least feed myself inventively and cheaply, stay full and warm, and not have to eat like a rabbit (remember, carrots, celery, etc). I really need to hit up the discount grocery store up here in Newton again soon to stock up on canned goods and sauces for 39 cents each.
Ah yes, the life of a poor graduate student; isn't it glamorous, folks?
In other news, I keep neglecting to mention "Fall Break." I've brought it up here in passing, I'm sure, but it's next weekend. Fall Break is something the university does every year to make up for the two days of Thanksgiving week that classes are in session -- instead of giving students the whole Thanksgiving week off (side note: I'm taking it off anyway), they give them Wed/Thurs/Fri off that week and make up the other two days in the middle of October around midterms, calling it "Fall Break." Up until this point, it was always on a Thursday and Friday, but for us in the English Department that didn't help much, as we always have Fridays off, so one of our esteemed English professors who is on the decision board for these sorts of things brought up and passed the motion that from this point forward, Fall Break will be held on Monday/Tuesday -- ensuring that the English Department, at least, has a five-day weekend of Friday-Saturday-Sunday-Monday-Tuesday. This doesn't affect me much, of course, as I always have Monday off anyhow, and all I do on Tuesday is teach and then hop in the car to come back home. My "Fall Break" this year simply means I'll save a day's worth of gas and miles on the car, and five hours of my time (7AM to noon-ish) that I would normally be on campus next Tuesday. On the plus side, I will get to sleep in.
On that note, it's after 3AM. I get up at 5 in order to drink coffee and get ready for the day. I'm tired, sure, but don't know that I'll get to sleep again. If not, oh well -- I can do that when I get home from teaching around 12:30 or so.
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