It ain't over yet, dammit

I'm up unsually early today, probably because my sleeping habits have switched to end-of-semester mode. Take last weekend, for example, I woke up up at 2 AM and wrote -- get this -- one friggin paragraph, only then to catch an amazing film Six degrees of Separation with with Will Smith. Needless to say, I was pretty grumpy the following day, having acomplished nothing. In an effort to avoid speaking of the last two papers waiting to type itself out (at some point, the profs gave us an extension!), I am lining up all the films I want to see, like the new david lynch Inland Empire; Amodovar's Volver; Guest's For your Consideration; The brother's quay doing The Piano tuner of Earthquakes. what an amazing title.

as for books: i want to read The line of Beauty , haruki murakami, and the unberable lightnes of being. Ooh must get the new Chabon, too. I think my vacation is going to devoted to fiction. Absolutely no theory, maybe Agamben if it is short, but that's it.

okay, i have 2 hours before work. fun fun fun

current state minus the stack of papers

You have got to love Kettle Chips, that's for sure.

office hours

I woke this morning daydreaming about cancelling office hours today, since I don't get many customers-- one at most -- and this is the day before an exam. Whatever -- there was no miracle that would enable me to send a regretful mass email to the class. But so the wishful fantasy lasted until I received an email from a student asking for assistance. I show up half an hour early so as to do some prep work -- ugh, I was somewhat scattered, let me tell you -- and one student popped in and then two and finally ten students showed up in the graduate reading room (aka "my office"). I explained some concepts, but not a whole lot. I asked the group what they all thought or planned to say about certain passages and whatnot. Honestly they did most of the work, bouncing off ideas left and right; it was a nice collaborative effort, though I felt like at times I couldn't really provide enough guidance and thus felt a little inadequate; but that's okay, I guess, since I couldn't really give ready-made answers just so they can regurgitate them. As class came to a close, two students came up to submit their exams and thanked me. I smiled and nodded, of course. Happy. I only hope that some clarity came out of these maniacal crunch periods. I speculate about their lives, no doubt, particularly because most of the students are graduating this year. Remember many late studying for those dreadful in-class passage ID exams? or when you just wanted to graduate and break free? Ugh, okay so I'm grading this weekend -- the fun never stops.

schizo

Um, so I am utterly and completely insane to keep changing my paper topic two weeks before it is due, right? okay, maybe not completely different but still a major modification. ugh. It takes me so long to think things through. arg.

out of nowhere

Long absence, I know. So yesterday I was shopping for shoes at Nordstrom and this clerk asks, "Aren't you my TA?" Stunned, I said, "Oh, um, that's right." Gah... Gahh. I think I stood for minute totally dumbfounded and obligated to say, "so... how's it going? Are you graduating this year?" and the topic conversation immediately switches to grades. Seriously, the student wanted his 1 extra point to raise his C+ exam. So I suggest an appointment with the professor would help, as well as the rewrite of an assignment and so forth, etc. It was the oddest feeling to be talking about grades in a non-academic environment. And then I got the most alarming revelation of all -- the student lives two blocks away from me!!! So whatever, like I wasn't going to ask him to get my shoe size and watch me try on a bunch of stuff. That was just too much for me. Too much.

Moving along, I have three weeks of my dreaded classes -- okay, the derrida class isn't half as bad compared to two early modern classes. So I was suppose to be reading lots Colonial literature research-related stuff and by chance I picked up Agamben's State of Exception and it is unbelivably good. Sigh. I really want to finish it instead of all the crappy-must-read.