see? told ya so....

oh, the tail-end of the semester. a mixed bag of feelings and emotions...and feeling like you're on the verge of an emotional breakdown.  finding new and creative ways to procrastinate. all my in class presentations are done. one out of 2 papers are done. the other has a snazzy title (OUTspoken: A Thematic Literary Analysis of Murakami Ryu's Piercing and Kirino Natsuo's Out) 

have i mentioned how much i *love* coming up with snazzy titles???

anywho...it's got a title and i've even outlined it. and that's as far as i've gotten. it was originally due this weekend, but R-sensei pushed it back to the 23rd. great. just what a motivation-ally-impaired person needs, a teacher induced procrastinational tool

back-to-school BLAHS ???

with only a week now under my belt, this second year of grad school has me feeling totally, well, BLAH. not sure if it's because i'm having a hard time getting back into the groove of things, or because i feel so physically/mentally lethargic or what. i'm even having a harder than usual time of feeding myself! case in point-- it's approx. noon-thirty as i type this and i finally got around to making my fav. snack (toast with marmite, smoked cheddar and a fried egg). while it's packed full of vitamins and protein and stuff, it's the only thing i've eaten today. i'm going to take some grapes and leftover (yes! leftover!!! shocking, i know) spaghetti to class tonight, but should probably eat something else in there. somewhere.

i feel like i can't get anything done. okay, so maybe i did finish my 150-ish pages of early-late tang dynasty poetry/prose but now i can't be bothered to start the readings for my thursday class. i'm too comfortable at home, but if i were to go anywhere, i'd have to lug everything i needed for the rest of the day along with.and my anthology of chinese literature pre-1911 book is wicked heavy! UGH.

i just feel so >meh< about everything. nothing motivates me. nothing excites me. this does not bode well for the semester....

leading the way???

this week, i am one of 3 (in total) students helping lead/facilitate discussion in class. no big sweat, right? i like to talk, right? i have decent insights, sometimes, right?

this shouldn't be a huge deal.

but, of course, i over-think things. the book itself is incredibly dense. it's of the academic caliber that the graduate level *should* be at. and i absolutely loved reading it. helps that i got to sign up for the week i want to facilitate. but there's SOOOOoooo much i want to get into. that i want to be able to fully digest and explore and am excited about!!!

did i mention the power point???? in all fairness, it isn't required, but to date, only 3 of my classmates who've lead discussion have not used it. and everyone's p.p. (power point, you potty minds!!!) is way beyond what my menial skills can throw together. custom backgrounds, fancy charts, video clips....sigh. what's an old-fashioned, academic supposed to do????

oh, and did i mention that, 99% of those "facilitating" were really just summarizing the readings? which is fine. it helps a lot to have things re-visited, especially for 'staying power' purposes. but now i feel compelled to give one of those fancy-pants, techno-riffic presentations instead of a thoughtful discussion with a few sllides with various quotes and images.

:::::::sigh::::::::::

open-ended letter to my professor....

dr. x,

understand that i mean no disrespect. you are terribly unmotivating, uninteresting and, in my personal opinion, not qualified to teach our class. perhaps my expectations are high. i mean, it;s not your fault that our previous professor was an incredibly bright, challenging, caring, harvard-educated man who drove us to succeed and inspired us to excel. it's not your fault that i assumed you would be on par with him. it's not your fault that i feel the field in which you specialize is a load of crock.

perhaps, if maybe this week's readings (which you want to have us prepared for wednesday's class) had been posted early enough that i could print them out and therefore underline/highlight them instead of it now being early sunday afternoon and--having no access to a printer-- i will have to rely on reading them on the internet and my paltry attempt at note-taking.

will this continue to be a regular thing? i hope not, because i rely on the IT room on campus to print things. 1) it's much cheaper than the library/ kinko's/ random copy centers per page. 2) it's convienient to print them out on wednesday/thursday before i go to my actual class so i can read them during--oh say my two hour round-trip commute. i can't **DO** that on my laptop because the city isn't wired with free wireless. and i don't have the money to go to cafes everyday to access the internet. and my apartment is out of the question because lord knows there are too many distractions!!!!!

so for the love of pete (whomever he may be) FUCKING POST THE READINGS ON TIME!!!!

then, you may just gain an ounce of respect from me.

sincerely,
embittered grad student

stupidest assignment EVER

i am sure i have mentioned in the past just how obnoxious my language homework can be. especially since 90% of the time we get assigned for *written homework* what was supposed to be in class, oral exercises. this makes for lots of "creative" made-up questions/answers. nothing like inventing a series of answers from imaginary classmates.

for this round of homework, however, i think i was given an exercise that exemplifies/embodies just how STUPID this is. not only because um...hello, it's supposed to be an oral exercise---writing it out won't help me learn to speak the damn language--- but also because well, you'll see:

(from the textbook): ask three classmates if they are willing to do the following once they get married. add your own question. after the interview, tell the class who you want to marry and why.

okay- here comes the reasons:
1. my class is only 3 people. so i only have two classmates.
2. an interview implies you are actually asking your classmates and having them respond.
3. i am already married.
4. my classmates (all TWO of them) are both straight women, one's in a relationship.
5. i am making up their answers, so i am misrepresenting them.
6. in theory, i was supposed to physically write out each question and the response, so i'd be writing each of the 8 questions TWICE- the exact same way. (waste of time)

of the 3 other exercises i have completed in the past hour, 2 of them were supposedly "aloud" exercises using the dialog cd...but now have become written. i'm so glad i get to practice writing over and over and over....it's not like i wanted to learn to actually SPEAK the language. nah.

i wrote a paper

i think it is rather brilliant. when i figure out how to post it BEHIND a link (so you can chose to read it if you want) and how to make sure someone doesn't plagiarize it before wednesday, i will put it up here.

any one know what's its called/ how to make a "link" to hide part of your post????

ack! laziness onset already???

i don't WANT to be lazy and "take it easy", but here i am, with 3 readings left to do and no desire to start them. they may be incredibly interesting (the first 2 weren't) but what has me the most hung up on right now is i don't have a "hard"(a.k.a. physical) copy of them--2 are adobe pdf files and the other copy/pasted from the internet into open office.

i have no home printer right now, so that rules that out, and considering class is once a week (wednesday nights) and the professor doesn't post the readings before class, i can't print them out easily while on campus. ::sigh:: part of me is even torn that i *HAVE* to print them out- i hate the waste of paper! sure it makes underlining and highlighting easier but what would make my world, would be the ability to go into the documents, highlight/circle/star/underline the important parts, and then go print off the final product.

i have tried having both adobe open and open office so i can type parts i find relevant and quotes (which is what we have to prepare for class: find the main points of each reading and back it up with quotes that support or even disprove the points--to be used to help facilitate in class discussion). that way, i could cut/paste the quotes from the adobe INTO my prep-work and would find summarizing/paraphrasing less taxing--i'm so hung up on the not-being-able-to-move/remove-anything-from-adobe right now. yes, a faulty quirk, i know.

why am i having such a tough time making myself just DO THE READINGS already? why is digital medium for reading texts so obnoxious? and why am i having such difficulty finding relevance this week compared to last week?????

ACK!!!!!!!

any helpful hints, post-grads???

oh the places you will go

i accomplished so frakin' much today and feel like a ROCKSTAR. there is seriously nothing more satisfactory than getting work done and feeling like you may actually understand what you are doing. 2 of my 4 supplementary readings: read. responses: written, but informally. i'm waiting to hear back from the prof if they need to be formalized. verb chat for studying-common present positive, common past positive, common present negative, past common negative, imperative and formal tenses: DONE.

and i even had time to do the dishes and make a casserole.

i am a goddess!!!!!!

so much for that "high"...

after class last night, i actually felt semi-remotely confident that i would be able to struggle and keep up with the more advanced language students. i even felt fairly assured that the homework would be a relative breeze. HA!

i have now been working on a SINGLE worksheet of what is supposed to be review for over 2.5 hours. there are no instructions, just "follow the pattern"- patterns we briefly went over in class. but now, in the real world i am staring at the fucking sheet of paper confused as all get out as to what EXACTLY i am supposed to do!!!

i know i should just walk away, take a break, *breathe**breathe**BREATHE* but i feel so defeated just giving up on it, because i know i won't understand it any later on. and it's due thursday! THIS thursday. i hate feeling so incompetent...and even though i know the teacher knows i'm "behind", i don't know how to get the help i need!

supposedly there are language tutors on campus but campus is an hour/ hour and a half transit ride away....and where do i go? (see yesterdays entry about lack of campus info available)

F%&*!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!