So readers, no blog last week. I know you all must have been terribly, terribly heartbroken. But I do have a good excuse, I swear - my classes ended and my titles were due last Friday for my B and C Essays, so I was racing against time to get myself sorted before the communications embargo with my professors. By the way, I found out that the English Faculty is pretty much the only faculty that does this titles due weeks in advance thing. Why only me? On the other hand, I suppose it forces me to get my crap together during week 6 rather than week 9, so maybe it's a good thing in some ways.
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| Have I mentioned that the English Faculty building is hideous? ...Because it is. |
I also have to meet with my dissertation supervisor tomorrow, so I spent the last two days trying to scrape together 1500+ words of text to send to him so that we would have something to discuss. Not that I have time to work on my dissertation really in the next few weeks, but I should probably do reading for it over the holiday, so I have to have a little bit of an idea what I'm doing. Meanwhile I've been reading up on attribution studies for my B Essay. The book I've been absorbing most recently,
Attributing Authorship: An Introduction, is surprisingly interesting, yet also infuriating because a) it is pretty general, and b) once in a while the author waxes philosophical and goes off on a tangent about the inherent individuality of human beings, etc. It's full of fun facts though. For example, did you know that before the canon of the New Testament settled down, early bibles frequently contained the epistles of Barnabas and Clement? Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Barnabas, Clement. Just rolls right off the tongue, doesn't it? Also, when reading the chapter on the history of attribution studies, I learned that scholarly snarkiness goes back thousands of years:
"Great was the delight of the Alexandrians when they discovered that their rivals at the library of Pergamum had been duped into paying for an oration, fraudulently attributed to Demosthenes, which was already in their own collection under the name of the less distinguised Anaximenes of Lampsacus"
Sounds like nothing's changed in the world of academia, I am right? Speaking of the Library of Alexandria, I envision an episode of
Doctor Who in which the Doctor goes to ancient Egypt and is somehow responsible for burning down the library full of the sum of ancient knowledge. Although we already has a library episode in season 4, which turned out to be terrifying.
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| Do I really think the Vashta Nerada are hiding in the shadows of the Bodleian? No. Do I want to go in there at night and find out? Not really. |
Oh, and speaking of British media, I saw
Paul this weekend, because it was released in the UK and you Yanks haven't gotten it in theaters yet. Yeah, take that. Finally something gets released in the UK
first. Unfortunately, despite starring possibly my favorite British duo, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, it was only
mostly funny. And I hate to say this, because it was also written by said British duo, but the writing was pretty mediocre. Definitely none of the comic genius of
Shaun of the Dead and
Hot Fuzz - apparently my favorite British duo should be favorite British trio, because Edgar Wright (writer and director of
Shaun and
HF) was definitely the missing element here. And this despite having a dramatis personae made up of
Arrested Development and
SNL cast members. I know, tragic (although let's be real, Jason Bateman hasn't really been funny in anything since
Arrested Development ended). Also, Sigourney Weaver was totally under-utilized. On the up side, there were enough fan-pandering geek jokes to keep me pretty happy. I still prefer
Level E for my sci-fi alien fix, which I will continue to herald as
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy of anime until people catch on and realize it's awesomeness. Which also reminds me that I should reread
Hitchhiker's Guide. Sigh. So many books, so little time.
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| Not even the dialogue they wrote for themselves is that funny. Such a bummer. |
Well, speaking of books, it's time I get back to my reading (although no aliens are involved in attribution studies...unfortunately) - it's crunch time for the next few weeks so expect short posts. Also the heater in my room is broken (apparently the thing is like twenty years old and due for replacement anyway...just my luck) so I'm going to go huddle under my blanket and warm my fingers! Brrrr.
Later,
KQ
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| This guy is my favorite alien right now. Level E. Deal with it. |
