| Blah |
[09 Dec 2008|12:57pm] |
I swear I'll do it next year when I'm not in school. Oh my god, I'm graduating.
Goals for the year that I am graduated:
Read all the stuff I wanted to but didn't get to because I spent the last 4 years as an English major.
Also read all the stuff I was assigned and didn't actually read. Like um... Ulysses. Finnegans Wake. And Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Oh my gosh, I didn't finish reading anything for that class. Nada. Oops.
Oh yeah and Robinson Crusoe. Ugh.
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Comments: Do you write in purple?.
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| NaNoFail |
[17 Nov 2008|09:56pm] |
NaNo is a complete fail this year. What with the protests going on around me, the fact that both of my homes are on fire (although spared), the fact that James Joyce is absolutely kicking my ass, and my thesis I can't do it. Oh yeah, and then there was Bob...
So I have to rub the sleep from my eyes and go back to writing this stupid paper. Oh my gosh, this class was suuuch a bad idea to take. The worst. Well, at least the seminar version.
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Comments: Do you write in purple?.
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| Randomly |
[26 Oct 2008|09:08pm] |
I have to figure out what I'm going to write & how I'm going to write it. My master plan is to actually write Misadventures but it's such a pain. Why is it a pain? Because I probably have to be more invested in that story than in Dinah's story.
However, right now I have to catch up on reading. Ugh, Ulysses sucks, the end.
Also have to finish rereading The Faerie Queene but that will take awhile. Also have to finish the Erotic World of Faery and that allegory book my advisor wants me to read.
I enjoy writing out what I have to do so I remember.
Is there Astro homework? Ack!
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Comments: Do you write in purple?.
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| Oops |
[18 Oct 2008|09:16pm] |
I forgot I had this thing. I don't know if I'll be able to write at all this year because of the honors thesis.
But seriously, I checked out 7 books from YRL on Thursday. SEVEN! And I'm so excited, it makes me such a nerd, but I can't help it. The Erotic World of Faery? Oh my goddess, I almost died when I saw the title, it's so extremely perfect I could cry.
Maybe I should just make my honors thesis my nanowrimo. That would be awesome!!! YES! I will do that! It's the perfect way to actually write it. Then I could be done at the end of November and Professor Gallagher will love me and I can spend all winter just making it perfection.
Although I know I won't, it's a nice theory. How many words is 50ish pages, anyway?
One page is approximately 380 words (there was a paragraph break in there, otherwise it might be more). I rounded that to 400 so 50 pages is 20,000 words. Do-able (obviously, I don't have a choice). Which puts me 30,000 short of the NaNo, and technically a thesis isn't a novel, so that may be cheating. But dammit, it's a good enough motivation as any to write it. I have to be excused the few thousand words because I have an extensive amount of research to do (and seriously, I have to drown myself in Spenser & Shakespeare).
Let me make an attempt to explain my senior thesis (which I find is the best way to understand exactly what I am writing). First, my inspiration was Milton's "Il Penseroso" and "L'Allegro" which both characterize nature. I was curious as to why the certain characters of nature in the poems were described as male or female. And thus I began wondering why we make the earth female, the sun male, the moon female, on and on and on until we genderize everything that isn't naturally gendered. And what does it mean when those things are designated to be either male or female. Does it have consequences on what we deem is female or male?
Brief sidetracking, my LGBT Lit professor explained that the other professor who teaches LGBT lit (look it up if you don't know what LGBT means) puts two pears on the podium and by the end of the lecture, each student subconsciously designates one pear female and the second as male and pairs them together. Hence we genderize everything (and also pair them together but that isn't as important for my argument).
Anyway, I decided to look at how gender is constructed in Spenser's The Faerie Queene and Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Okay I began with Spenser but Gallagher suggested adding a Shakespeare text and I love MSND and figured the whole faerie thing would go together. However, I moved from why this is female and this is male to the way gender is treated in nature and how that constructs concepts of femininity and masculinity.
A second sidenote, I am a Women's Studies minor, so I have (an unnecessary amount of) extensive theory behind most of my feminist talk. I'm with the French & the third wavers that gender is constructed hence this thesis. Otherwise, if it wasn't constructed, well then we're just naturally projecting ourselves into nature.
Okay back to my thesis. Where was I? It gets complicated, I make up the word rapable (rape-able, the tendency toward being raped [also noting there are two definitions to rape, both what we think of as rape, and the less known definition that merely means abduction]), I talk about Liz, Titania, Gloriana, the mother of Triamond, Diamond, and Priamond, and a whole bunch of other crap to basically argue that what is presented in nature in both the poem and the play is the idea that the ideal female is submissive to the male and characterized by lack. We all know that this is what was the basic concept behind medieval (hell, to 1950's) though, but I'm saying that the poem and the play contributes to this concept, and maybe even creates it. These ideas don't come from nowhere, we are fed them from birth and these HUGE (literally in the case of FQ & figuratively otherwise) works come to define for us what is femininity and masculinity.
That was a lot of talk. There are a lot of powerful women in both FQ & MSND, but they are all tamed, or described as "wrong." Actually, anything that is not 100% male (and by that I mean aggressive and dominant both socially and sexually) is deemed unnatural (and yes, there are concepts/characters that fit between male and female).
Okay that wore me out. Naptime!
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Comments: Do you write in purple?.
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[26 Jan 2008|11:20pm] |
I'm torn. I want to write something of substance, in which I'd have to write Diana's story (because I can't write as if it's Natalia, despite how much that name would make more sense). Adventures of a Misadventurer has the potential, I know how I want it to end and I know what I want to happen. I'm not entirely sure I can actually write it though. Right now it's more a series of short stories and I'm not sure that works well for people. The House on Mango Street is like that and I loved it but I know it came under criticism for using that form (Which for the life of me I cannot name).
Now Dinah (I apparently have a thing for D names) I can write. Diana I would love to write, I have the story in my head and I had actually had a good amount written before the computer crash of '05. The problem with Dinah? The fact is it's a science fiction story, it's a vampire story and how overdone is that?
More than that if I had to choose between Diana and Dinah, I know for a fact that it'd be Diana that'd make Mr. Meloche proud and he out of everybody is who I want to show my writing to. Because he was the one person who believed in me. Which is a silly statement to make considering the only he ever said was send me the first thing you publish.
I don't know what I'm going to do with my life. Wouldn't I like to work for publishing? Hell yeah. Do I think I will? No. I'm thinking about grad school and I'm thinking about teaching. There's so much to think about and I'm running out of time!
Sheesh.
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Comments: Do you write in purple?.
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[14 Nov 2007|08:55pm] |
I'm ridiculously far behind but thankfully, having finished The Price of Salt for my LGBT Lit class yesterday, I have the rest of tonight and tomorrow until class starts to write!
Problem is, will I actually sit down and just write?
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Comments: Do you write in purple?.
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[03 Nov 2007|12:01am] |
This is completely random but I was watching Spike TV and they did this experiment on whether boobs float or not. Fake ones will not but real ones will.
So thank you First Mover for easing my fears of drowning.
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Comments: Do you write in purple?.
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[02 Nov 2007|11:47pm] |
I figured I may as well use this to record my NaNoWriMo experience. I don't know how well I'll do for my first year, particularly since currently I am extremely distracted watching reruns of America's Next Top Model. Why do I watch it? I really don't know. I love the pictures, mostly.
That being said, my background fucking died. I'm pretty sure I deleted it from one of my photobuckets but dammit, I have like 6. I'd count, but that would take forever.
What was my point? I don't remember, I started this November 1st and now it's the 2nd. Long story short, if I'm going to write Misadventures then I need to start it and so I'll need this thing to figure everything out.
I have edited this to say that the story is now Dinah's story. Because Natalia sucked.
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Comments: Do you write in purple?.
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| Love and Turtles |
[02 Jul 2007|01:54am] |
The first person I ever fell in love with was Adam. We were in daycare together and he was adorable. Almost three feet, dark hair, mole in the center of his neck. I came to see him and to just sit in his presence.
Then one day he told me my construction paper turtle was wrong because I drew eyelashes on it. I wanted it to be a girl turtle. I didn't like him after that.
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Comments: Do you write in purple?.
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[19 Jul 2006|10:02pm] |
As I sat here today completely without a thing to do and nobody to do nothing with, I realized how lonely I am.
And it sucks.
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Comments: Do you write in purple?.
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[04 Jun 2006|08:25pm] |
I would just like to explain that I am the coolest person ever.
The end.
p.s. I would also like to say that if I could kick everybody that made me feel bad in the face there would be a lot of people walking around with converse prints on their cheeks. Because i'd have to kick everybody that is prettier/smarter/more successful/better than me. I blame you-know-who. And the other you-know-who.
Dammit. I hate how their existence makes me feel like less of a person.
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Comments: Do you write in purple?.
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[29 May 2006|11:37pm] |
| [ |
mood |
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 crappy |
] |
….
I am the most jealous person in the world period the end.
I make myself miserable.
That was such awesome alliteration.
Damn ex-girlfriends, damn Ellie, damn Christian. Why Christian? Because I can blame him for everything.
Only not really.
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Comments: Do you write in purple?.
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| Chicano lectures |
[01 Feb 2006|07:47pm] |
I was in my chicano studies class when I thought of this. OSA says that the first generation (the immigrants) are the ones who sacrifice. They sacrifice having a real place in society and being seen as equals to the white folks in order that their children can be more.
Which is how I came to understand why my mom stays at a job where anybody else could get paid more. Because she needs a job so that my brother and I could be more. She will belittle herself so that Eric and I can rise above and be American.
Which is sad, yes, especially when you take into account how much we take this for granted. And especially that both Eric and I have lost touch with our initial heritage.
My first language was Spanish and then came English. But English is now the language that I am most comfortable speaking. My Spanish is broken (for a native speaker) and it makes me ashamed. Speaking to my grandmother is difficult, even my aunts and uncles. I was embarrassed when I spoke to mi Tia Vicky and I had no idea how to say what I wanted to say. It's sad. But it's a sacrifice on our parts.
Brown Woman
Who is she who cowers,
the one who lowers her head?
Yes sir, yes sir.
Take the check divided by 2.
Hide her in a corner office
Windowless, heatless, airless.
Dangle the carrot of gold
You could be more!
Wait, not you.
You fit here, only here, you can't move.
Well, unless you want to move down.
Fold your hands, do your work
Accept your position.
Be brown.
Take your check, divided by 2,
Take it to the bank.
Little miss debts to pay.
Now the check, divided by 4,
take it home.
Peeling paint, dying flowers.
Step over the mousetrap in the corner,
throw the mail on the couch
(fabric frayed of yellow, green, brown).
Down the hall of smiling faces,
Mama, Papa, Abuelita, Abuelo,
Tia, Tio, Comadre, Compadre.
Take it to HER room.
Flickering eyes, breathing soft,
Dreaming of playtime begun.
Fold the blanket,
Take the check, divided by 4,
place it next to HER cheek.
It's all for HER.
Ask for nothing, just whisper:
"Be more. Don't be brown."
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Comments: Do you write in purple?.
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