Musings on Music

As I’m trying to finish my rough draft for my thesis (so close!!!), I have turned to Pandora Radio to keep my spirits up.  My iTunes library is having *issues* and I like the different things Pandora comes up with that I don’t have on my computer (currently).

While I’m writing, I prefer to have instrumental music on rather than something with lyrics, because then I’m tempted to just sing along with the music, and my writing either goes absolutely nowhere, or tends to have random song-words inputted.  Now, I’m not a huge fan of traditional ‘classical’ music, meaning I like it well enough, but for whatever reason, I actually prefer film scores, particularly those from either period pieces or fantasy films.

So I pop a few of my favs (e.g. John Williams!) into Pandora, and out pops some other soundtracks and a bit o’ jazz, which is nice.  But I also get some “new age” choral-type music.

Now, “new age” is Pandora’s phrase, not mine, and I’m mentioning it because it’s what sparked this post.  As I’m listening to this “new age” music, I am reminded of the monastical recordings I used to listen to in high school when I did homework, which I find slightly ironic, considering the usual implications of “new age”, i.e. pagan, polytheistic, Wiccan, etc.  Even more simply than that, this music’s title has “new” in the title.  What’s so new about monastical music?

This is of course not to say that new age music and monastical music are exactly alike; there are rather distinct differences.  However, they are close enough, in my mind at least, to raise so eyebrows/smirks.

And now I must return to my thesis!

Bye, Bye, NaBloPoMo. Hello, Life!

I had decided that if I could get through one week of blogging every single day, then I was going to officially declare myself part of NaBloPoMo (i.e. National Blog Posting Month), except, as you probably can tell, that failed miserably.  But it’s ok, because it’s encouraged me to return to this blog and post even though I am so sporadic, and barely have the time or inclination to write for school.

So, to recap my life that derailed my NaBloPoMo aspirations:

This past weekend was homecoming.  I went to the homecoming formal on Thursday with my roomie and el boyo.  I’ve gone with el boyo every single year, but this is the first year roomie has come.  Except roomie made us promise that we wouldn’t be all “couple-y” all night, which I took to mean that the occasional dance together was fine, but that we couldn’t be all lovey-dovey for the entire night.  However, I soon found out that she meant that we weren’t allowed to be couple-y for any part of the entire night.  Um, no.  Not happening.  I don’t do ‘modern’ dancing, aka dancing by myself, just swaying to the music.  I like dancing with a partner, as does el boyo.  And we happen to have a lot of fun swing dancing.  So no, I will not not be ‘couple-y’ with my boyfriend if it means I can’t dance with him at all during our senior year homecoming formal.  Screw you.  And yes, I do understand that it isn’t much fun to be a 3rd wheel, but you had other people there to hang out with, and it’s just not fair to put such limits on us.

Anyway.  That was Thursday.  On Friday, we had an awesome bonfire–first one in the school’s recent history (or full history, I’m not sure).  We even burned the other team’s mascot.  And promptly lost the game the next day.  Which I did not go to, because I had to work on my thesis.  Even though I ended up actually playing games on my computer all afternoon, only starting to edit my thesis about an hour before my keepers were due back.  And then we went out to dinner, and I don’t even really remember the rest of the night.  Oh yea, we watched some West Wing, and did some homework on a Saturday night because…

… Sunday was tech!  Roomie and I are both dressing for the current play that opens on Thursday, I believe.  Dressing means we’re in charge of costumes and getting actors in and out of the right costumes at the right time, in a timely fashion.  And since there are only 2 changes, and 8 cast members total, it’s a fairly easy gig.  Which is why, despite the fact that we were technically at tech from noon to midnight, I was able to work for 5 straight hours on editing my thesis.

Which was actually rather awesome for me, since I was able to email my professor a 38-page document, with only one hiccup, and no notes-to-self or outline pieces in sight!  And I have a plan to smooth out that hiccup (which is just a section that has been waiting to be written for oh, 3 months now) and rewrite my introduction and write a conclusion and have a full draft done by the end of the week, which is amazing!  Except, that means I actually have to figure out what everything that I’ve been writing about actually means.  Why it’s important.  Why anyone should care to read this ridiculous thing.  And at the moment, I don’t even care to read the whole thing, so it ain’t boding well…

So there you have it.  Life as I know it.  Oh, and regular class and my two jobs.  And rehearsals and performances for the aforementioned play all through the next 2 weeks.  And then Thanksgiving.  And then a week of classes.  And then exams.  And then the second-to-last semester of my college career is finished.  Uhoh….

Oh, and did I mention that a friend of mine landed a job at Random House for post-grad?  Lucky bastard…  Not that I’m jealous or anything…

In Which I Compose in Latin

… or rather, I should be…

This post is going to be rather short tonight (and not just because I actually just typed that as ‘this short is going to be rather post tonight’) because I have quite the task in front of me.

I have to compose a few lines in Latin.  And not just any Latin, but Senecan Latin.  For those of you unfamiliar with Neronian literature, composing Senecan Latin is something like a German student composing in Shakespearian English.  Except the word order is more like word salad, and it’s not in iambic pentameter.

So wish me luck, fair bloggy friends, for I fear I shall not survive this lethal assignation.

Update: A mere 2 hours later (give or take…), I have translated the approximate ideas of my (currently 40-page) thesis into 5 lines of Senecan-lite Latin!  Huzzah!

In Which I Consider My Future

Oh a whim this evening, I took a look at my university’s job listing website.  I’ve never found it all that useful in the past, as there aren’t very many postings near my hometown for use in the summers when looking for jobs/internships.  However, now that I pretty much have the opportunity to do anything I want, anywhere I want, I don’t mind looking at job offerings all around the country.

Except…  Most of the offerings are either for business school students or teach-English-abroad type jobs.  Granted, our business school is one of the top in the country, and granted, most post-grad jobs that are offered this early in the year are business-type jobs, but I had still hoped for a bit more variety.  Alas, it was not to be.

But all is not lost.  I was encouraged that there was a spread of locations for the jobs being offered.  Granted, there were very few outside of my university’s state, DC, and NYC, but there were some.  And I’m hoping that come spring, when hopefully the job postings will increase, there will be even more around the country.

And I think I might want to live somewhere that my family doesn’t.  Somewhere along the east coast would be ideal, but I wouldn’t say no to so California sun!

It is scary to consider where I might be a year from now, but also thrilling, but terrifying, but awesome, but AHHH!

Time to stop thinking about this gigantic thing that I can do nothing about before I really work myself into a tizzy!

NaBloPoMo Day 2

It’s almost the end of November 2, and I just realized I haven’t posted anything yet here, despite my plans to post once everyday.  I don’t have time for a lenthy post since I need to get to sleep soon as I have class in the morning, but here’s a sneak peak of the topics I’m planning on covering in the next few days/weeks:

• controversial art and it’s role in academia
• a little thesis blogging
• poetry for children
• maybe a bit more thesis blogging
• place of “I” in academic writing
• of course, I almost forgot: thesis blogging!
• Review of Windows 7 and my adventures in installing a new hard drive

Fun times!

 

Happy November!

It’s November 1, meaning it’s the start of both NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month, where people attempt to write 50,000 words of a novel in one month) and NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month, where bloggers attempt to post at least once everyday).  I’m definitely not doing the former – I’m having enough issues with my thesis as it is, thankyouverymuch – but I am flirting with the idea of doing NaBloPoMo, which is part of the reason I’m posting this, to give myself a boost.

The other reason I’m posting this is that I have something to post about.

I’m thinking it’s kind of a cool idea to make a huge goal for oneself for just one month, rather than New Year’s resolutions for the whole year that no one keeps.

I’ve actually been thinking a good deal recently about setting personal goals, and how to keep them when you have no one to answer to but yourself, or even if you do have someone else to answer to, you don’t care if you fail.  I guess it never works the same for any two people, but how do you figure out what works for you?  How do you develop some sort of system that works for yourself?  Particularly when you know that it’s simply a goal for you to set up a system, yet because you don’t have a system, you have no way or motivation or self responsibility to set one up?  If that makes sense….

I know this is more… existential, if you will, than most of my posts.  But I’ve been thinking, so I thought I’d post and see if teh interwebs had any thoughts…

Curse You, Thesis!

Well, first of all, I cracked 30 pages on my thesis last week!  Yey me!  But this week I need to crack 40–at the very least!–and I totally had a plan for that, I swear!  But, as always, I got sidetracked by a million and one other things, and so have not written a single word thus far.  Well, actually I did a touch of research last night and took a few notes, but that doesn’t count.

However, I did not come here to vent about my writing woes, but rather about how writing takes me away from other things, like looking into what the H-E-double hockey sticks I’m going to do after I graduate in, oh, 6 months, give or take a few weeks.

So today, my daily blog reading started me on a very dangerous path, which of course I followed.  I can’t even remember what the original post was, but I’ve followed the path for about 2 hours now, and it’s giving me all of these crazy ideas about things I should be doing right now, as in right this instance, to build up some sort of a portfolio of something for post-grad, even though I’m not sure where I will be or what I’ll be doing then.

Basically, the path is certain ways to make a living online, though not through scams, of course, but rather legitimate ways of having a career that is based online.  Which sounds rather ideal to li’l ol’ introverted me who never wants to live in a big city, yet appears to have interests in careers that are almost solely based in big cities (*cough* publishing *cough*).

Now, I’m most likely not going to actually do any of the specific careers that these articles/blogs/forums/videos that I have discovered suggest, but they are giving me some interesting ideas for other options I might want to consider.  And I want to consider them, I really do!

But, I need to do my thesis!

But, isn’t my future more important than my thesis?

But I won’t have a future if I don’t finish my thesis, causing me to not graduate…

But my mother is encouraging me to take a semester off anyway

But who takes a semester off when they only have one semester of college left?

But what does this all have to do with following career paths?

AHHHH

Me, myself, and I are very good debaters.  It’s rather dangerous and time-consuming.

So, in short, I know I need to write my thesis, and I should just sit down, write 5 pages tonight, and 5 tomorrow, and be done with the 10 pages for this week, and then I can concentrate on these other fun paths.

Except.

I have another 10 pages I need to do for next week.

And then I have to start editing this monstrosity in earnest.

ooo, maybe I’ll watch The Importance of Being Earnest!

No!  Curse you, fabulous movies!

I am going to write my thesis tonight.

After I follow this path a little further…

Adventures in Thesis Writing

Last week, during a regular meeting with my thesis advisor, he told me that even though there are about two months left in the semester, I only have until the end of October to finish writing my thesis.  He needs a month to revise it after that, so that it can be done by finals week in December, since he’s heading out on sabbatical the instant the semester ends.

My response?  Oh joy.

So, I have been stressing myself to death trying to work on this stupid-yet-cool-yet-annoying thesis.  And it’s still coming very very slowly.

I think this has definitely helped me realize that grad school is not right for me.  If I can’t even write a 50-or-so page thesis, how can I even think about writing one that is a few hundred pages?

I just keep telling myself that it will be wonderful next semester when I am totally finished with it (except for the minor part where I have to present it at the student research symposium in the spring!).  The bad news is that there is only one class that I am kinda interested in taking next semester; the selection is the worst I’ve seen in all my four years here!  And it’s the one semester where I don’t have to worry about taking anything for my major; I can take fun classes!  But none of them are fun!  Arg!  And yes, part of the problem is that I’m not sure I know how to take “fun” classes – the one “fun” class I’m planning on taking is a junior/senior seminar in English – and I’m not an English major, or even minor!

The upside to all this is that I have honed my procrastination skills: my inbox is empty for the first time in months, as is my Google Reader.  My work for other classes has also been finished earlier than the night before!

And on that note, that literary/editing class project I mentioned a while ago?  Where we get to start our own literary magazine?  Well, it’s been started!  We  present you Gambol!  We would love, love, love any submissions!  We do plan on continuing this after the semester is over, so it is a legit magazine, not just a short-term school project!  Also, any advice/suggestions for the site are welcome, as it is still in the development stage!

As you might be able to tell, I have been spending far too much time working on Gambol and not enough on my thesis, since the former is so much more fun than the latter!

In Which I Stray

Recently, I have been increasingly frustrated with academia.  For the longest time, I have sworn up and down that I was going to stay in academia for as long as possible, wanting to go to grad school for a million different topics, not to mention law school and business school if ever the opportunity arose.  I wanted to be a lifelong learner in as many topics as humanly possible.  I wanted to be The Librarian.

This semester, however, I started writing my thesis, have slightly fallen out of love with it, and have grown increasingly annoyed with certain classes that I loved just last semester.  I have started itching to graduate, wondering if my decision not to graduate a semester early was really the right choice.

And tonight I realized why: I have strayed.

I started college expecting to be an English major.  Well, either that or a Classics major.  Somewhere along the way, however, I found a new advisor, created my own thesis, and have wandered down the path of the social sciences.  Which is nice.  But not good enough for me.

My thesis advisor is a rhetoric and communications professor and has naturally therefore pushed me – gently! – towards that area, and, being the type of person that does not like to disappoint, I went, willingly.

And for a while, I loved it!  Here were all the ideas about technology and the internet that I had always wanted to discuss!  Here were people who were passionate about communication and the internet!  These were the people I had sought for so long!

However, the honeymoon is over.  I’m done.  Communications is far too wishy-washy for me.  There are so many different, often conflicting theories that can all be right and wrong at the same time.  Nothing is concrete.  And everyone seems to want to just talk about their personal experiences, which is all well and good for a time, but there comes a point, for me at least, where I would like to actually discuss something a bit more concrete.  While I admit there is a place in academia and learning in general for personal stories, I don’t think the focus should be on them.  And my professor certainly isn’t helping in that regard.

But anyway!  Tonight…

Tonight, on a whim, I went to a lecture being given by a professor from another school, in another state.  This woman is an English professor specializing in children’s literature, and is a strong feminist, a fact which influences her work greatly.  She has recently published a book about women’s narratives, which was the main topic tonight.  There was also a Q&A session after, which covered a plethora of topics.

And I realized that I loved this.  I love talking about literature and how it affects our lives!  I love the humanities!  Take me back!  Why oh why did I stray?!

So it’s a little too late to switch over to being an English major, but at least now I know that I will not be taking a single class in the social sciences next semester.  And if I hint that I will stray again, I will rely on you, my dear, dear friends, to ensure that that does. not. happen!  For the sake of my happiness (and yours, if you don’t like hearing me complain!), this is all I ask of you.

I have been revitalized, but I realize that it is merely momentary.  I am still stuck in a social sciences class and shall have to make the best of it for another 2 months and change.

Blargh.