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[Aug. 13th, 2009|06:23 pm] |
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Today was significantly better, but I'm extremely hungry. |
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| (no subject) |
[Aug. 12th, 2009|06:15 pm] |
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Teaching makes me hate myself. |
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| Home for a little |
[May. 20th, 2009|10:45 pm] |
Liking Queen a lot recently. Not using many personal pronouns because of only reading in Spanish these days.
Today I became claustrophobic here. My mother is an intense(ly controlling, sometimes) woman. Time for a night bike ride to de-stress. |
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| Blast from the past |
[Apr. 15th, 2009|09:55 pm] |
I just found my old old old blog, which is in Japanese. It's a real hoot for you nihongo types out there.
Tonight, get food and study Spanish.
EDIT: http://catrobot.blogspot.com is the blog. |
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| Two Purposes |
[Apr. 15th, 2009|02:03 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | coffee | ] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | library | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | xerox machine spasms | ] |
Here is a name that is also a disco beat (say it ten times in a row):
"Bunsen Catsin"
Have fun! |
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| Reading "Ulysses" |
[Apr. 14th, 2009|04:34 pm] |
Ulysses has a reputation for being the hardest of hard books: an incomprehensible mess. This semester, I'm in a seminar on all of Joyce's work, and for the past 12 weeks we've been giving Ulysses a page-by-page analysis. I have heard before that "close-reading" is the only way to really "get" the text, and I'd like to oppose that notion.
Chapter 15, the "Circe" episode, is the longest chapter (120 pages) and arguably the most referentially dense (I'm not going to argue that point positively or negatively). At 2:10 today, our class was supposed to have read the first 2200 lines of "Circe," and everyone has been balking and floundering since last Friday, when the assignment was given. Nobody quite knew how to make it through "Circe," get all of the references, and still have the time to figure out what the fuck is going on, plot-wise.
I feel perfectly fine with my preparedness for today's class. The first 2200 lines of "Circe" are pretty damn clear to me. This is not because I have a preternatural understanding of modernist bullshit (see earlier entries), but because some friends and I read the thing aloud. The efficacy of this technique is astounding: I know exactly what's going on; I feel comfy with the meta-structure (many Ulysses chapters consist of texts within texts); I even understand some of the jokes. Powering through the chapter without hesitation somehow results in better comprehension and insight than obsessive close-reading.
Maybe it's simple: having fun with a text should always be the highest priority. Ulysses is a gas when read aloud. I'm going to keep having fun. Fuck close-reading until it's time to write a paper.
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| WHYYYYYY |
[Feb. 13th, 2009|11:38 pm] |
Why can't I stop listening to "Live Your Life" (Rihanna/TI single)? Is it the O-Zone reference? I demand an explanation. I can't stop rocking this track at mass volume. Luckily my downstairs neighbors are all into it too, otherwise I'd be fucked.
Everybody visit me!!!!! I want to show you some love before I become a high school Spanish teacher, then law school and inevitably end up in some BIGLAW firm in Madrid pushing paper for a living.
I love you fuckers. You hear me? If you're reading this, I'm sending you infinite love. Fuck Stephen Dedalus' worries about the visible; the vaguely tangible is what I'm all about.
Whoa, "Tadpole Army" comes right after "T.I." Isn't that weird? Insane. |
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| Where I'm At Right Now |
[Feb. 13th, 2009|03:38 am] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Misfits "I Turned Into a Martian" | ] |
It's probably obvious from the last couple posts, or maybe not. We'll see.
This summer, I move to Houston for teacher training, and from there I move somewhere in the deep south. Imagine a triangle with Memphis, Little Rock, and Jackson: I'll be somewhere inside the triangle. Swamp country. Come on down and visit! I'll fix you some cornbread, catfish, and pie.
Admittedly, I'm scared shitless of moving to the south, but if that's where I'm needed, that's where I'll go.
College is just about done. After February is over, I won't really have any work to speak of (except a huge test on English literature). I have very mixed and conflicting feelings about the end of college.
Right now I'm in a James Joyce seminar and it's fucking great. Our class project is to write an introduction to Ulysses that any of you can borrow if you want to read it. However, the Bloomsday guide and Gifford annotations are more credible and scholarly. Meh. Either way, Ulysses is quite a ride. Right now I'm up again working through a paper on Portrait, which is kind of shitty, but whatever. It'll get done and I'll feel good about it.
Blah blah blah stress and shit. Whatever. I'm feeling fine. I'd like to take a hot shower and drink some wine on the porch.
Gotta quit smoking again. My senior paper is in.
Love,
Mike
P.S. There's news from my soul that I haven't distilled into anything coherent enough to put in a livejournal post. It involves another. That's all.
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| Er, scratch that... |
[Jan. 20th, 2009|03:48 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Gund | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  freaking out | ] |
News has just rolled in. TFA just invited me to teach middle-school Spanish in central Mississippi.
Hooooly shit.
Also, sorry I've been so self centered: we should all be celebrating Obama day.
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| Waitlisted Again |
[Jan. 20th, 2009|02:47 pm] |
I don't want to say anything negative about the TFA program, but I really was expecting a final answer (in either direction) today. |
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| Life Plans |
[Jan. 8th, 2009|12:49 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Shrimp Hut | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Mission of Burma | ] |
Here's what I'm doing next year, in order of preference:
1) Teach for America
2) New York City Teaching Fellows
3) Philadelphia Teaching Fellows
4) AEON English School (in Japan)
5) Joining the military
6) Moving home to work
7) CIEE abroad programs
That's mostly for my sake. After doing one of the above, I'll figure out something else.
-Mike
P.S. Forgive my anti-modernism rant. It's not actually all that bad at all: my dad gave me Eliot's collected poems and "To the Lighthouse" for x-mas and it's blowing me away. |
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| Yee-Haw |
[Dec. 18th, 2008|04:49 am] |
This has been the semester of all-night writing. Here we go again.
James Joyce is impossible to write about. |
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| Fuck Modernism and Understatement |
[Dec. 15th, 2008|02:07 am] |
Everything means something. People will inevitably connect to one another because humans are all linked to a big pipe full of emotions.
Post-modernism might not be the answer, because nobody really knows what it is.
Returning to romanticism probably isn't the answer, because wigs look silly and there is no such thing as an ideal form. A form is no more than an extension of what's inside (read Charles Olson's "Projective Verse 1950"); idealizing a form will inevitably lead to some level of meaninglessness in the content.
Maybe I believe in Personism, but not exactly O'Hara's personism, because I don't usually write or think with only one other person in mind.
Anyway, to sum it up: Ezra Pound was a cock, but he wrote some good poems. Le Corbusier and Gropius can go fuck themselves in my hypothetical brownstone.
To avoid accusations of modernist name-dropping, I gave you the Wikipedia pages. I'm through with school (but there's still a week left).
Subtlety isn't useful. If you want to say something, fucking say it.
See you on the other side, birds.
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| Got a piece of time |
[Nov. 15th, 2008|03:28 pm] |
Today was pretty sweet. I woke up at 7:45, ate a hearty meal, and took my Japanese comprehensive senior exam. The oral portion of the exam was fun. It basically consisted of hanging out with my Japanese professor and talking about the different aspects of camping and college life. He told me that my grammar is strong, but that there are tens of thousands of people in this country with my Japanese ability, and that I need to live abroad there for awhile before studying Japanese any further or getting a job in a Japan-related field.
The King Khan and BBQ Show are my favorite band right now. I managed to book them at Kenyon and they tore it apart.
I find out about Teach for America on Monday. This is a weird time in my life. Hopefully things will get less hectic. |
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| Back on Track (Momentarily) |
[Sep. 27th, 2008|01:03 am] |
I've been wishing that my Naperville friends could come to Kenyon recently. This place is a strange circus.
Tonight I wrote a paper until midnight, then sword-fought one of my roommates with cardboard tubes. A frat guy called me a "bitch," and I told him to get a job. We reconciled just now.
My JET application still needs to happen. A whole bunch of radio crap still needs to happen. However, I made it past the first round of applications for Teach for America, which is really exciting. I've never had a serious, intense job interview before. Any tips, dudes? I think that this is the job I really want, coming out of college.
It sucks that I got this sinus infection, because I really wanted to play in the ruggles match tomorrow.
BTW, my life backup plan is to work on or own a small farm or vineyard. I work 6 hrs/week on an organic farm, and I wish it was 40 hours per week. Provided I start teaching this coming year, I'd like to do farm work over the summers. Maybe I could even help start some kind of summer farm co-op for the school at which I work. I can only imagine that farming with kids would be funnest possible endeavor. Garvey: if I'm placed in Chicago, expect a kitchen garden and start brainstorming now. I'm addicted.
Model Airplane Club: want to come here? |
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| OH man. |
[Sep. 17th, 2008|02:37 am] |
Things are going way fast. Sometimes I feel like I'm on top of my shit. Much of the time, I don't.
Anyway, much love, and keep doing what you are doing. I am completely sure that it is the right thing to do. The Dao will lead you to where you're supposed to be.
Mike |
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