e_clare

( old news )

In more recent news, I made it to Connecticut safe and sound, losing my way relatively few times and successfully navigating my way out of New York City and back onto the interstate. Fun moments on the drive included:

• Politics in southern Ohio: spotting two giant pro-Strickland yard signs, and zero pro-Blackwell-for-Governor signs.
• "Hi, Dad? I know you said that I would just reconnect with I-95, but I don't think I'm supposed to be going back into Pennsylvania..."
• Singing along to the iPod really, really loudly -- not something one can really do on public transportation.
• Gas prices steadily rose as I moved East...until I hit New Jersey, where I found gas inexplicably 10 cents cheaper than in Maryland.
• Subsisting only on coffee for all of Monday -- this gave me the strength and force of will to drive like a maniac through New York and southern Connecticut.
• "Dad? I shouldn't be in the Bronx, right?"

Today I managed to unpack almost everything seeing as I don't have any desk drawers, the stuff I generally file in the junk drawer is proving difficult to place), and finish a book. I can mooch internet access from the neighbors, I still have two more books, and I should really be getting to bed.

I PASSED MY THESIS DEFENSE, HUZZAH!

It was all worth it. I'ma have a drink now and work on my finals. YAY!

My thesis committee members: the stickler, the add-er of material, and the cheerleader.

( fortunately, only one of them is around )

*breathes deep and types*

I am going to have the most productive month of my entire college career. Because I have no choice. Better late than never, eh?

If you need me, I'll be in the library, typing until my fingers fall off. If you see me online -- on a webpage that is not my e-mail, RefWorks, or a job listing -- kindly pry me away from the computer and kick me in the ass. Thank you.

so... if one were writing an abstract for a talk about one's thesis...one might have some questions.

1) does "1-page limit" mean "we really want your abstract to take up the whole page"? there's no suggested word count anywhere; the sample abstract is half the page, including 4 lines of title

2) how detailed can an abstract be? should one drop in one or two key quotes? (is that allowed?) how much detail should i give?

3) title? what title?

4) do any of one's friends want to read said abstract and comment on its (in)comprehensibility? any one?

somehow, one did not forsee this abstract/senior symposium business being such a big deal. perhaps the advisor's efforts to get the advisee to apy attention earlier in the month would have gone better had said advisor been on campus longer than 3 days.

One might have also spent the bonus hour before Thursday night shift started trolling LJ for thesis-topic icons instead of working on said abstract. Icon-hunting was easier.

My major accomplishment this week was organizing all of my thesis notes into a big-ass binder. I have yet to do anything productive with said organized notes...but that's okay. My time will come.

The main task at the moment is writing an article for the Mt. Holyoke News about The Skriker, which goes up next week. I may not be working on the play (...technically speaking, I did act as a substitute stage manager at a J-Term rehearsal), but I'll do my best to get people to come see it. It's one of the more obviously design-heavy shows we've done -- "spectacle" doesn't happen often on the Rooke Theatre stage, not even when we do musicals. Skriker is going to look incredible, no doubt about it.

Interesting use of the collective "we" there. You'd think I could extricate myself from the theater department, but no. In many ways, I'm more connected there than I am with either my major or minor departments. I feel oddly possessive of this show, for all that I didn't intend to work on it. This proves to be problematic when trying to write a compelling article about it: is there a better way to entice people to come see it than simply saying "it has pretty masks and my roommate gives a kick-ass performance of the title role"?

Maybe I'm too close to it to actually write about it. Maybe I'm cowed by the pressure to make this piece really good, since it's likely one of my last for the News...which makes it one of the most important in my portfolio, as it'll be the most recent piece of non-thesis writing I do. Maybe I need to stop overthinking it and just write the damn thing, so I can move on to thinking about my thesis.

Or, That's Why I Meant To Be Writing All Along.

First e-mail from my advisor today in almost a month.

Paraphrasing: "Hi! I'm back for three days before running away to be a writer again. Send me what pages you've got ASAP, and we'll set up a meeting before Wednesday. Ta!"

Oops. I guess now would be a good time to finally type up those notes I made at work?

June 3 - July 15, 2006. Royal Court Theater, London. Starring Rufus Sewell as "a young man caught between political and cultural upheavals in Czechoslovakia and Britain in the 1950s and 1960s,"* and directed by Trevor Nunn (the man who brought the world Cats, among other things).

The play "spans the recent history of Czechoslovakia between the Prague Spring and the Velvet Revolution - but from the double perspective [thesis topic!] of Prague, where a rock 'n' roll band came to symbolise resistance to the regime, and the British left, represented by a Communist philosopher at Cambridge."**

WOOOO! I'm more pumped to find a way to get me to England in June than I am to find a job. Heh.

ETA: Now with links and a human-sized picture. This is what happens when banannagoats calls halfway through composing my post. Happy birthday, wifey!

Even though I'm starting this project far too late at night (it's okay! it's not due 'til Thursday!), I am so, so excited:

I get to start my thesis outline.

(YAAAAAAAYYY!)

See, I had to memorialize this moment. Because I suspect I won't stay this excited and happy about it for much longer.

But right now, this is beautiful: the more I think about it, the more connections I find. (And the greater a nightmare it will be to organize, but this is why we have advisers, yeah?)

Now I just need to actually actually do it.

I made it through! I made it through the week!

The first week of November is the one that'll really kick my ass, but I have a wee break until then. *whew*

Tuesday, I had a six-hour shift to work the Howard Zinn event, co-sponsored by the local bookstore and several local social justice groups. Chapin was as packed as I've ever seen it; I heard they were turning people away because there simply weren't seats. Howard and Anthony were both wicked nice, and obviously excited to be here. Since Voices is about the People's Voices, it wasn't a straight-up book reading; instead, 18 performers (including my housemate, Biz, hi!) read excerpts of the documents and speeches. The social justice groups and union organizers wanted to give the event a local slant, so in addition to talking about Shays' Rebellion (which happened in Northampton), there were pieces from a Holyoke mill worker, Frances Perkins, a Northampton peace activist, and a Belchertown military mother (the last two were present to perform their own letters -- very cool).

Howard is obviously getting on in years, and it seemed like his energy flagged near the end of the 90-minute presentation, but he was gracious and chatty with everyone during the book-signing that followed. I didn't have a book, or get a picture taken (like one lucky Becky P. did two years ago), but it was still a thrill to have met him.

I'm off to snuggle up with Oscar in the library, and likely take a nap. It's thrilling how my thesis reading has become my pleasure reading, no?