After a morning bleeding into an afternoon of tweaking SoPs , writing samples and running through the happy memories as I recounted every science grade from my graduate level courses, I have cast my application off into the internet ether - .docs are uploaded, forms filled, app fees paid. This has happily coincided with a tutoring free Monday, so I am checking out for the PM, just chilling and hoping that all works out. I put a reasonable amount of effort into the exercise - probably a hundred+ hours all told - so I feel reasonably good. (This is me kicking my tendency to doubt in the proverbial nads). April 15 is theoretically the latest date, but hopefully I will be going in for an interview at some point and getting some more concrete funding details in the near future. So yay - one obstacle overcome. Here's to several more, the bulk of which will be dense texts related to *instantiations* of cultural narrative.
Beck and I killed the Sunday successfully. It was cold and rainy and my joints were uh-achin', so I passed on Sunday afternoon bad weather Ultimate for a day spent lounging and watching football. Fun times watching Green Bay walk all over the Raiders and then watching the Patriots deliver a guarantee-contradiction with extreme prejudice. (Yep, we chose to be ex-Pat Pats fans rather than watching the local Cardinals get their brains drummed in). A successfully lazy Sunday - I broke it up by learning a couple of Joan Jett songs on the guitar ("Bad Reputation," aka the theme song to Freaks and Geeks, and her parody of Weird Al's "I Love Rocky Road"). And we tried to watch Cars but were once again thwarted by sleepy Beck. It's all good. Here's a visual account of the day:
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Yeah! Picotiral evidence that I am not the only one whose face Wrigley attempts to remove with her tongue. I stand exonerated.
And lest we forget - a solid Saturday evening as well this weekend. Beck and I met up with DC at the "Art House" down in the ultra-schwanky Scottsdale Pavilion Mall. Big, good meal, including (mac & cheese)^2, crazy goblet-delivered beer and other exciting foods (read: cheeseburger for nyet). We also got our cool filmster / literati on by watching the new Coen Bros. film No Country for Old Men, based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy of the same name. Review pending, but I on the surface found it to be a tight display of story-telling - it's something of an old, bad guys shoot 'em up style movie, but the pacing kept me involved til the end. I should definitely read the novel at some point.
Which additionally reminds me - I finished Atonement, and with the exception of a thoroughly see-through and awkward plot device, 'twas fairly decent. I didn't like framing device, especially since once that factoid became evident, the novel became terribly predictable. (Beck is currently angry with me for being able to see what is coming in stories. My bad). I think i can count myself in the "not a Ian McEwan fan" category - his surprise endings are not really that surprising, and I recoil at his "look ma, I researched" approach to fiction writing. Not to say it's bad - I think I ultimately aim to find a way to comment and review without resorting to value-judgments - just to say that I fail to be intrigued by it, and his style grates on me enough to make me seek other writing. I mean, I feel that two novels is a fair shot, yah? Anyhoo, I can now see the movie with immunity, and since the book moved me not at all, I can now spend the remainder of my earth-walking years questioning my emotional competence. (In my defense, this may have been due to a lack of romantic-establishment of McEwan's part, but, er, whatever).
The next project is Franzen's The Corrections, mainly so the Dan and I can converse. Otherwise, I have a heavy stack of philo reading to do, and I should probably try to conquer some of that one the way in the door to ASU so I can seem somewhat knowledgeable. We'll see.
In the meantime - here's to a Heroes-free Monday, and on to finding ways to fill my time outside of writing about pomo lit.
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