There were a few times that I didn’t have anything to say, or forgot to post until way late into the night, but you know, these things happen sometimes. I feel accomplished. Each word I type gives me a sense of glee to know that I actually finished something that I started. And I met all sorts of wonderful new people! I hope you all who started hanging around here will continue to do so. I’ll keep reading all of your lovely blogs because I thought they were so good.

Tomorrow is the big Conference day, and when it’s over, I’ll tell you all about what a mess it was putting it together, but for now, I’ve really got to get on this paper that I’m presenting for it tomorrow. I’ve been pouring over this poem for hours on end, and I’m making headway, but it’s fairly slow going. Things are, however, beginning to fall into place mentally, though; I’ve just got to start getting those ideas out of my head, off of my book and notebook, and into a word processor. After that? No sweat. 5-7 pages should just fall right out. I mean, I’ve done more prep work for this paper than I’ve done in a long time.

Also, I’ll post the paper here after a few months if I can’t get any takers for publication. The title is “Counting the Stars: A New Critical approach to Sir Philip Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella Sonnet 5.” If you’re interested, I can send it to you when I finish it, just comment and ask me.

Congratulations everyone for a job well done!

P.S. As a bonus, here’s the poem itself:

It is most true, that eyes are formed to serve
The, inward light; and that the heavenly part
Ought to be king, from whose rules who do swerve,
Rebels to Nature, strive for their own smart.
It is most true, what we call Cupid’s dart,
An image is, which for ourselves we carve;
And, fools, adore in temple of our heart,
Till that good god make Church and churchmen starve.
True, that true beauty virtue is indeed,
Whereof this beauty can be but a shade,
Which elements with mortal mixture breed;
True, that on earth we are but pilgrims made,
And should in soul up to our country move;
True; and yet true, that I must Stella love.

Enjoy!

The text in question is Sir Philip Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella Sonnet #5, and I’ll be presenting a new critical analysis of those 14 lines of poetry. Have a look:

Here’s the text, with some of my annotations. Yes, it’s just the little part, not anything around it.

Next is my trusty Moleskine notebook.

And finally, you can see the two together, to get an idea of what I do with textual analysis.

That’s pretty much it! Go check out my Flickr page to see those pictures and some extra explanation about them.

One more day! Whew! It’s been long, but I’m glad I’ve made it thus far!

Anyway, today in Literary Criticism, a group presented to us on feminist criticism. They brought home-baked cookies with which to win us over. They were so good, I used my crappy phone camera to take a picture so you all could be jealous of the wonderful cookies that we had today.

So, compliments of the feminist criticism group, I give to you these cookies (excuse the quality of the image. The camera in my phone really does suck. A lot.)

They were some fine cookies, especially since they followed the mantra from one of my favorite childhood stories, If you Give a Mouse a Cookie…, and they had some milk for us to wash down the cookies.

I think I laughed harder at one of those lines today than I have ever laughed before at anything. Here it is: “You won’t need to furtively put socks into your trunks anymore!”

Whenever I have other spam messages that go something like “Tennis racquet Onion Child Bee Horse Mosquito Liquid,” the bit of diction in the former subject was a breath of fresh air.

What are your favorite spam message subject lines?

This is one of few poems that I didn’t finish in the same sitting in which I started it. At the time, I didn’t know how it would end. Everything was up in the air, transitioning, and I had no idea where I nor anything else would land.

The ending came several months later when I realized that everything was going to work out, and I’d be OK. Here it is:

“Faces in the Crowd”

I try to hide my sorrow, my confusion,
But all I find, all around is frustration.
The music’s faded, subtle persuasion
That maybe, just maybe, there’s culmination.

The days have grown long;
The feeling faded with the song;
Bells banging loudly, I can’t shake the gong.
Falling from whom I thought I belong.

I thought wrong; things went fast.
What did I think? Why should it last?
My betrothed I loved, now in my past.
Trudging my way forward, trumpets do blast

Revily for new morning
The sun on a new day shining
The light, chances blinding
Onward I go, toward goals unyielding.

For every day I’m thankful.
Of days past I’m mindful.
Those…were wonderful;
These…are painful,

But the world moves ever onward.
And me? I’ll keep facing forward,
Not looking forever backward
At loves and thoughts gone skyward.

Between now and December 7, I must:

1. Have a paper written (before the 29th)
2. Design a program for the conference on Saturday
3. Finish a book and write a critical summary
4. Have journals for Brit Lit finished (actually due on the 7th)
5. Have journals for Lit Crit finished (Due on the 7th)
6. Finish another book and write a critical summary
7. Have another paper written
8. Have another paper written
9. Turn in an abstract for a conference next semester
10. Buy Christmas presents
11. Save the cheerleader, save the world
12. 2038475 things that Rachelskirts will force me to do
13. Sleep*

As you can see, I’ll be a little busy. But, there are only a few days left in NaBloPoMo this month, and I haven’t missed any days yet. Woo Hoo!

I hope you all are doing equally well with it. Best of luck as we finish up the last few days!

(* – Optional)

Needless to say, I was pretty excited when I heard that Beowulf was being made into a movie, so I jumped on the chance to go see it with Kristen on Thanksgiving night. We caught the 10:40PM show, and settled into the nearly empty theater for the ride.

The movie started, and after about 5 minutes, they had successfully skipped over about 200 lines of the poem, and to be altruistic about it, I’m guessing they were trying the tried-and-true en media res. Well, because of that, later on in the movie, they decided to stop portraying the poem and started portraying whatever story Robert Zemeckis wanted to.

I wanted to leave after about a half hour, but after paying $14.00 (FOURTEEN!!), I wasn’t about to walk out without seeing that thing through to the bitter end. Now, I’m really too easy on movies most of the time, but this train wreck isn’t safe from anything.

After 7 minutes of Austin Powers-esque convenient placement of people and objects to cover the gratuitous nakedness of an animated Ray Winstone as Beowulf, and a series of Jason and the Argonauts -esque monster moments, I just had to laugh.

If you care anything about what I think about it, don’t go see it. If you don’t, or if you’re just that into wasting your money, then go for it. I mean, masochists are people too, I guess.

My friend, Phony Bone, got cold, so we built a fire for him.

Here he is, just saying hi, being warm by the fire.

Oooh. Toasty!

I’ll talk more tomorrow about today’s events.

But, I’m thankful that I didn’t have a wreck or anything on the way here.

In the mean time, I’m going to try to keep this headache to a minimum. So, enjoy yet another video!

In this one, we’re watching a budding stand up comedian. Give him your props!

Oye. I don’t think I’m even that bad.