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The Weekend of the Paper Er...Holidailies. Yeah. I'm trying. Like Beth, I feel the need to state for posterity: Saddam Hussein was captured alive today. I had my doubts that he actually was alive, but our military proved my doubts false. I also feel the need to state for the record that I give none of this credit to Bush. All he did was send in the troops (who continue to die on a near-daily basis). Members of the military planned and executed the operation, and my love and respect for our men and women in uniform has been well-documented here before. What does this mean for the world? Right now, I don't think it changes a damn thing. We'll see if I'm proved right or wrong in the coming months. Greg is in DC this week as alumni of the law school that employs him are being sworn into the Supreme Court Bar. This is a very cool thing (as a former clerk, Greg is already a member of the S.C. bar) and as his spouse, I was invited to the proceedings. However as next Friday is December the nineteenth (otherwise known as the absolute final date on which I can hand in my paper), I am home writing about how conduct book literature evolved into the novel of manners, as shown by Jane Austen's Emma. I was unbelievably stressed out about this paper up until last Wednesday, when my professor told me to stop looking for people who agreed with me because this is a fairly new area of scholarship and I was on a one-way trip to Insanityland. He told me instead to talk about what is being written about and the hole I see in that and why I see that hole. Okay, I started to breathe easier. Then I started to read Mary Wollstonecraft's Thoughts on the Education of Daughters and a couple of other conduct books and a biography of Jane Austen and some criticism by Nancy Armstrong and suddenly everything opened wide. Now it's 2:45 PM on Sunday and I have just over six full pages out of fifteen (minimum; twenty maximum) and out of those six, at least three need major expanding, and I have an outline for the rest and sources I haven't even tapped yet. The best part? I don't hate writing this paper. I don't know if I'm having fun exactly, but there's something amazing about realizing that you not only have thought, but that you actually have original thought. Pages of it. Not only do I feel that way, but I emailed my professor last night (after four and a half pages) to tell him what I was writing about and what I had planned for the rest and he said, and I quote, All this sounds great; the makings of a great paper. This is not a man who minces words, so that made me feel terrific. Mind you, he hasn't seen my actual writing yet - but I'm pretty confident in my writing, and I think I'm doing a fine job. And this is before Greg has read it for me and before I punch up the vocabulary. I think my thesis may even be on the first page from the beginning this time - it's usually somewhere on page five or so, which Greg points out to me in his first going-over, and I then have to sheepishly move it up. I'm not panicked. It's a wonderful thing. I have a long way to go, but I'm breaking up the writing with...well, breaks, and watching some TV (last night's Miss Match and last week's 24) and reading a little and cross-stitching a little. Yesterday I also went out in the morning, first to the library to get six more books (which brings the total in my living room to well over twenty) and a few Christmas gifts and a formal dress from a consignment shop that I may or may not wear in the show choir alumni concert (it's beautiful and looks great on, but it's black and I wanted a color this year - but it was $34, and as I have thrown away more than that on stupider things and will definitely wear this dress someday, I bought it just in case I can't find anything else). Then last night I went out again, to the grocery store this time, because we were expecting snow and I didn't have any fun food. I unsuccessfully lit a fire yesterday and didn't try again today. I had an appletini before I went to bed last night. Oh, and some cookies. I've gone to sleep at normal hours and woken up after eight hours and generally felt good all weekend, and tomorrow night I'm seeing the extended edition of The Two Towers on the big screen and Tuesday and Wednesday I will finish my paper, which, if I didn't mention, I am not panicked about. Not any longer. Oh, and the snow? It came, a little. But now the rain is here to wash it away, so it will not keep me from the movie tomorrow night and I will not have to shovel and therefore am free to write at leisure, including this entry, which I submit to you now. |
