felis_ultharus | (no subject)

Academia

Well, today's the day -- the nastier of my two exams. I've prepared about as well as I can, and my brain is brimming over with dates and facts.

Now I just have to hope to get lucky with the questions, which we don't know in advance -- there's a certain random factor here that really makes me feel like my academic career is being bet on a poker game. These are the only exams at the Master's level, and I forgot what it's like to be at the caprice of an exam-drafter.

Of course, with most exams, you've been in class, know the professor, and only have a few books to cover. I have about 40 or 50 authors to cover, only about 15 of which I'll need on the test. I've only read about 30 or so -- hopefully I've chosen well.

They say no one fails the comprehensives, but I know a guy who did.

On the other hand, I had the first class of my final course on Wednesday. Looks like it's going to be a vacation. There's almost no reading, no in-class presentation, and the final essay is a mere 10 pages -- that may as well be a grocery list, or an essay in haiku.

News of the Weird

The more I learn about reality television, the happier I am that I don't have a TV. Survivor has gone racially segregated? Pitting race against race? Normally I don't care enough about TV to be offended by anything on it, but Social Darwinism in prime time is really creepy.

Meanwhile, the Catholic Church is clearly worried about competition in the "mindnumbingly stupid" department from ultra-conservative North American Protestants who fill those Illiterate-Parents-Against-Harry-Potter type groups. Garbiele Amorth -- the Vatican's Chief Exorcist (!) -- has declared that "Behind Harry Potter hides the signature of the king of the darkness, the devil."

Amorth founded the International Association of Exorcists, and says that The Exorcist is his favourite film. Someone should really write Father Amorth into some very bad HP slash fanfic, translate it into Latin, and send it to him.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The only Hemingway I know was "A Clean Well-lighted Place" -- a very short story. I liked that, but I understand that most of his stuff isn't similar.

I'm frustrated with the snobbery in my program. No matter what the critical approach, those people think they're either a) the last guardians of civilization, or b) the only ones who understand that civilization has to be dismantled.

"Hills Like White Elephants" was horribly frustrating. Apparently it is about a man and a woman have a beer or two at a train station in Spain while he's trying to convince her that if she has an abortion, everything will be all right. I say apparently because if it weren't for the "discussion questions" right after the story in the 'lit collection'-style book it was in, I never would have worked this out. All the guy kept saying to her, "They'll just let a little air in," which makes no sense to me at all. By the end of the story I was going, "Let the air into what? Her skull? PLEASE PLEASE tell me he's getting her a lobotomy, so that this thing will END already!"

I like things that are open-ended and subject to speculation and all that, but anything starts to get stupid if you take it too far.