Sub Rosa

Ok, so it is ten past midnight on a brand new day. I have been trying to knock up a PP about 'Creatures of the Night.' I have narrowed it down to monsters, vampires and ghosts, trying to analyse the tropes and reflect the morals/values of the late (and deeply Victorian) gothic society.

I have been doubled up like a pocket ruler, in bed and in discomfort - my latest bout of cramps making itself known. All of us Truro refugees have been gloriously under prepared - consequently we are all feeling the heat. We have 2 PPs and 2 assignments that need handing in. Oh, and we need peer review forms....and new assignment covers....and we have to electronically submit the latter by converting it to a pdf. All before the thirteenth too. I can't find any of my memory sticks, the printer doesn't want to recognise the software and I haven't read Roland Barthes' 'Mythologies' for tomorrow yet.

That, my friends, is what the two hour train journey is for.

I have added Edgar Allan Poe's 'Ligeia', Bronte's 'Wuthering Heights' and Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's 'Carmilla' to the mix. I have to find possibly 4 more books/poems as minor texts. Maybe parts of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's 'Christabel', Polidori's Vampire tale, Lord Byron's 'Darkness/A Fragment' and any of the A J Day stories, that got the ball rolling for Byron, Shelley et al.


Right now, I am knackered. Nighty Night.

Well, I did it today - only gone and got myself 75%!!

Woo Hoo!! Safely in the firsts and my highest mark yet!!

* does happy dance *

Update::: Got V2 and R2 back - 68% each. Two points from a first, but very safe 2:1.

* continues happy dance *

Basically, I am reading the same 319 words and suddenly my vocabulary has dissolved into infinity.  I feel like I am literally smacking rocks together. A form of "I can't 'brain' today, I have the 'dumb'". Trying to get across how I could have loused the PP up less, is depressing.  I did well, but needed a stronger angle on what I needed to say.  Very valid points - if I had slightly longer time to reconsider, I might have gone back to it and done exactly what had been suggested.  Instead, I got so sick looking at it, I decided it was now or never.

Plus ::: We have been told that we have 12 days to get 2 essay drafts done (Victorians/Romantic module) as the date for final draft hand-ins is 5/1/15.Mine are on Charles Dickens/Hard Times and Mrs Gaskell/North and South; and a study on the works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge.  I read Hard Times during the summer - I haven't even breathed on North and South yet.  I have to read them through Marxist theory eyes as well.  I have had to email our Film/New Tech lecturer to push our deadlines closer to the end of January - I know that there are some of us that can't jam this all in i.e. 2 rewrites and a PP on Tim Burton (which includes a 2,000 word seminar paper) all during the Christmas break. I think even if I just took Christmas Day off, I would be pushing it.

O_O

20:28
My problem is that I over-think things.  I have written and emailed the reflective commentary. I vow to do better in the actually dissertation but I have come to a conclusion.  I have proved time and again that I am worthy of a first, but I run out of stamina pretty quickly.  Because of the time constraints and the amount of work, I really don't think that I can strive for so high for so long.  I think I will aim to do my best and not go loopy in the process.  Studying full-time eats into any life that you have and I want to still have my marbles in a jar when I get to collect the scroll, not burn out en route.

I am a little sad at this thought, but I need to be practical too.  A few people are hitting a wall as we speak and one has dropped out already, due to commitments. 

Right now, I am on the trail of pithy quotes, mostly from Wide Sargasso Sea, The Bloody Chamber and Oranges are Not the Only Fruit.   I have only today to do this in as I am out to dinner tomorrow and don't know when I will be back.  So other than LJ, I have shut down all other distractions - even Classic FM has been silenced.

Tired - had eventually 5 hours sleep.  So, a few difficulties functioning :-/

23:13
Have finished PP but I am a bit concerned that this is going to end up as 'Death by PowerPoint.' Over 20 slides, but the talk is 20 minutes, plus a lot of it are bullet points.  The whole point of this is to crystalise it as THE grand planner, not bore them rigid.  Part of me is a bit resentful - why should *I* go first in anycase?

*mumble, grumble, crumble*

Now I have finished all rough drafts, I am going back over the marked copies and am editing it to produce the final work.  Right now, I have revisited the Sense of Place essays (of which SP1 was only a tester - hence the posting of To The Shore the other day); basically1984 and A Passage to India (the former was about changing the tiniest of errors; the latter is just a little addition and a certain amount of restructuring).  I think the bulk of it is done, just rehash a bit - I think most of my concentration will be centered towards the |Transaction Writing/Creative Writing and the running commentaries.

19:40
I have also managed to write up my observation re my Post Colonial PP back in October and my vocational piece about Mary Bryant and James Boswell. Six essays to go before I tackle my Transactional/Creative Writing portfolio.  Getting this sorted faster than I expected. I think a couple might go over into a first, but will be very happy with some hitting the upper second :-)

I have just taken a look round my office - it is an absolute tip, but I daren't clear it.  In the confusion of it all, I don't want to throw something critical away :-/