Playlist: Pre-Orals Edition

Clearly, among the more important things I can do the night before my two day pre-oral exam begins is make a playlist for the 2 or 3 hours before 10 AM I'll be up. So I've spent the last few minutes putting together some of my favorite music into my Pre-Orals Playlist. There'll be more later (i.e., the list itself, which is, I think, in its final form) -- but for now, here's the music I plan to get me through the morning...

1. Sweet Home Alabama, Lynyrd Skynyrd
2. Aliens Exist, Blink-182
3. Will It Ever Stop Raining, Saw Doctors
4. Head Over Heels, ABBA
5. Invisible Sun, Sting and Aswad (from X-Files Soundtrack)
6. Landed, Ben Folds
7. Accidentally in Love, Counting Crows
8. Mr. Spock, Nerf Herder
9. Pleasant Valley Sunday, Monkees
10. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Elton John
11. My Life, Billy Joel
12. Mamma Mia, ABBA
13. David Duchovny, Bree Sharp
14. N17, Saw Doctors
15. One Week, Barenaked Ladies
16. Boys of Summer, The Ataris
17. Dress Up In You, Belle and Sebastian
18. Dr. Who On Holiday, Dean Gray (a mix of Dr. Who and Green Day!)
19. Kate, Ben Folds Five
20. This Side, Nickel Creek

A weird mix of music, I know. I'll only explain two parts of it. First, a shout out to my Renaissance-studying friend who got me into Dean Gray's stuff -- it's awesome. And I guess at that point I should also thank my 18th centuryist friend who got me into Doctor Who (which will probably be watched at my lunch break...).

Secondly, "This Side", by Nickel Creek. Theatre Sis bought the second Nickel Creek CD for my birthday, right before I left for France my junior year of college. The lyrics are perfect for anyone facing big changes and/or events -- and/or journeys. I feel like orals is, in some ways, all of this -- and so the final words of the song work perfectly:

Your first dawn blinded you, left you cursing the day:
entrance is crucial, and its not without pain
there's no path to follow once you're here
you climb up the slide and then you slide down the stairs.

It's foreign on this side, but it feels like I'm home again.
There's no place to hide -- but I don't think I'm scared.

And the funny thing is -- past the "gotta read one more homily" thing, and the compulsive organization of my books -- I'm pretty sure I'm not. I'm just...ready.

Read More...

Summary only...

T minus 2 days and counting...

So, in other news today -- my pre-oral will be two days long. Friday and Saturday, one question each day. So that should be fun. Plenty of stress time in between. Though I have to say my adviser knows me well: part of her decision in making it two days long was so that I'd sleep instead of working on the questions for a full 24 hours.

I'm feeling fairly psyched after two wonderful, productive meetings, with my second major list adviser and one of my minor list advisers. I am also adding Beowulf back into my exam, which seems like the right move. I was going to miss him! Also, I think it will be a productive space to try to think about temporality and the problems that arise when a sort of hybrid temporal space is inhabited by a character in the text (Beowulf is many things, but I don't think a firm argument can be made that he's fully Christian -- and the time of the text at least is a nominally Christian time, or at least a time aware of Christianity. I think).

And I acknowledge, that's entirely a half thought. Maybe the other half will come after some refreshing sleep.

Clare Lees' talk was amazing -- it's funny, but she actually has the status of being the first Anglo-Saxonist *other* than my undergraduate adviser that I heard speak. My sophomore year of college, she gave a talk on Heaney's introduction to his Beowulf. Five years later, I'm glad to say that Lees still gives some of the most provocative and interesting papers I've heard. I always come out of her lectures with endless amounts of energy.

And the webcomic of yesterday...a perennial favorite in my NC family household. I still remember when Theater Sis introduced me to it. The words "and life was never the same" come to mind...so, get ready to look SOOO good! and enjoy Homestarrunner's Teen Girl Squad.

Read More...

Summary only...

T Minus 3 Days and Counting

So this post requires a little bit of background as to where I found this particular webcomic. Which is more like an animated short (or series thereof) but whatever.

When I was back at WFU, I spent a lot of my time studying French. This had precisely one goal, which functions in roughly the same as my subspecialty in Old Provencal -- study abroad in France.

The last thing I needed in my already crazy schedule, of course, was to be studying the grammar of a living language (who wants a spoken language with all the languages not currently in use to be learned?). So I often spent long hours studying for my French exams -- but only the night before, when I would catch up on weeks (!) worth of grammar homework.

Luckily, I had a friend who was as big a procrastinator as I -- and she first introduced this to me on a cold winter's night around 4 in the morning. In my state of exhaustion, it was pretty impressively funny. So it's a good memory. Which translates to -- "Sorry this one's a bit lame..."

Weebl and Bob.

___

In other news, Clare Lees is giving a talk at Columbia tomorrow evening. In spite of my massive amount of orals reading to complete (and the two meetings I have tomorrow!) before the pre-orals on Friday -- it's a safe bet where I'm spending my afternoon.

Read More...

Summary only...

Stuff of Nightmares

Well, more specifically, stuff of my nightmares. When I was ... oh, I don't know, some age before I had the capacity to remember tiny details like the entire plot of a movie ... I watched this movie. I proceeded to forget everything about it. Except that there was an evil prince (somebody's brother -- I think the little girl in the movie) who lived in a bubble and turned people into walking boards, and a small unicorn into a toy.

Since a high school friend with a similarly disturbing memory had told me (nearly ten years ago now!!) that my memories were from a show called Unico, I've been trying to figure out what on earth this story was. I had good reason to be trying -- I've been having vague nightmares of a figure that looks not unlike this weirdo for as long as I can remember (though I can't remember when the last one was, to be fair). And now, finally, I have the name: Unico and the Island of Magic. I had my wires a bit crossed, which I suppose was to be expected. First of all, the evil prince in a bubble turns out to be Lord Kuruku, a former puppet who was disposed by his former owners, thrown into the sea, washed up at the "End of the World", and was then turned into a living puppet by the sun. He was, apparently, a bit bitter about being thrown away by humans.

So he turns them into "Living Puppets", who look like this:



There was a brother, who turned evil and did magic. His name was Toby, and he did look bizarre (though I'd conflated him with Lord Kuruku to get the "evil prince in a bubble" thing):



In the picture above you can also see that the board people did, in fact, go and make a wall. I thought they did. I just didn't know how.

Anyway, so finally, I've found the movie that built my nightmares. If you want to get a tad bit freaked out, follow this link to youtube, where the movie's posted -- this is the part near the end, where the little girl and Unico get magicked into toys, too.

And Unico? Well -- turns out he's not as scary as his movie, though the sheer adorability might be a little disturbing, not to mention the weird proto-Pokemon vibe (is Pokemon still big with kids?). It is, in fact, the funniest things that grab the imagination of little children. And it's even stranger to think of the things that still -- twenty four years later -- just won't let you go.

Read More...

Summary only...

Clearly, I'm still in training

One sure sign my studying for orals should be stepped up. Only 52% correct! Still, given that I focus rather early, not a bad showing.

Thanks to the one and only Geoffrey Chaucer for his addition to the procrastidrivium. Be sure to check out the post, too -- best rendition of the seven liberal arts ever.

Ye are 52% proficient in medievale trivia.

 

A fayre shewing. Ye are ful of much wisdam. Sans doute, ye rede a good deal of bokes concernynge the middel ages. Peraventure ye haue much oothir knowlech of straunge thinges as wel.

The Gret Quizz of Medievale Trivia
Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Read More...

Summary only...