Hmm.

You know what, I think Poe might have waited for eight damn years to write "William Wilson". That way it would fall under the aegis of the Victorian paper, and I would be justified in writing excitedly about it in my Doubles essay. I'm sure he thinks it's very funny to mess with my academic plans from beyond the grave.

The annoying thing is, I like my Doubles idea. I like it a lot. I want to put in stuff about Shakespeare and Greek tragedy, social themes, the Male Gaze, coincidence and fate, the uncanny (obviously), Freud's essay on the three caskets. I want not to be hampered by Victorian paper restrictions as to what I can write about. I want to go around for weeks going "DOUBLES!" at everything I read. Basically, I want to write my second dissertation on it. It has a dissertationy feel to it. (And I don't have any better ideas, either.)

The problem being that I've already told my Victorian supervisor I'm writing an essay on it for her paper, and it's due tomorrow at five. Also, quite a lot of the texts I'd like to use are squarely mid-Victorian, and if they go in the dissertation they can't go in the Victorian paper. However, maybe it'd be possible to drop the Victorian focus and do more later stuff instead. (The Portrait of Dorian Gray! And I bet Sinclair and Bowen are full of doubles.)

Dammit. I'm going to e-mail both my supervisors and be Troublesome.

ETA: Victorian supervisor is on board with this. \o/

Realization

Even though the Adam and Joe podcasts are, in general, awesome, the part I find by far the funniest is the in-between-clips bit where someone goes "this is XFM, and it's in LONDON, LONDON, LONDON!!" in a silly voice. I actually just like silly voices.

On the balance

- All seven of the sets at the comedy night yesterday were male. However,

- three out of the four candidates for college president are female.

So I think we are doing okay. It should be mentioned that I myself am doing neither of these worthy activities, because I am a) scared and b) lazy. I'm glad I went last night, though; it cheered me up. Sam was the most consistently good of the six student sets - there was one first-year who was clearly talented as well, but a little too depressing - which was nice as it means I don't have to disown him. Stand-up comedy is such a weird genre; it's so contrived it's amazing it works at all, and yet surprisingly often it does. One thing I've learned is that if I am ever forced at gunpoint to do stand-up, I will not conclude my set with "well, I'm running out of jokes", which two people actually did.

Had an intermittently inspiring lecture about Victorian detective fiction today, and came out with an odd but powerful desire to buy "V for Vendetta", which I did. SEE HANS I DO LIKE IT.

Think I will go for a run (second day in a row omg!), while listening to Poe. And I have to decide if I have time to go to a panto reunion down the pub. Well, apparently I have time to blog, so.

mildly troubled

We (vets, Iona, Reece, me; Vicky is in London at a bar mitzvah) went to the party in the Wilflete flat yesterday and found that it was full of people we had never quite gotten to know, and so, antisocially, we got hold of Ben and played "The Worst Thing". This is a game Reece and Iona made up, in which we take it in turns to describe the worst thing that could happen to a given one of our friends. Even though this is basically an awful game, it somehow has an affectionate tone to it; it requires sympathy. "Ella is in an underground bunker during a nuclear war," I said. "When the war is over, she emerges, and she's the only person left alive." Iona said, "Tom has to go on Big Brother and is on the cover of HEAT every week. It's in his contract that he has to marry Jade Goody. And he's forever known as 'Big Brother Tom'." Interestingly, when we switched to describing our own worst things, they were very different from the worst things other people had come up with for us, much less specific. (Tom was one of the few with a very specific fear of his own: later said he would be okay with marrying Jade Goody if he got a lot of money out of it and didn't have to spend much time with her; the worst thing would be something happening to his viola.)

If it turns out that goat's cheese, like tuna, can be harmful when consumed in very large quantities, I'm probably one of the few people in the world who's in trouble.

I am extremely tempted to chuck it all in (by which I mean "get the degree first", obviously) and try for the one-year trainee position at the Oxford Union Library (not a wholly random caprice; it's advertised in the Careers Service listings). Advantages: it's one of the few areas I actually have experience in; it would be peaceful enough for me to do M.Phil thinking at the same time; it's very unlikely to burn me out; it might be fun; the salary is okay (about twice my student loan). Disadvantages: it isn't the start of a career path I really want; I would be all alone in Oxford and not necessarily in a position to make a lot of new friends; Oxford might suck.

Nngh. Ngh? I really don't know. Today I woke up worried sick about what to do with my stuff after next term. (I suppose I'll give as much as I can spare to Oxfam and have my family help transport the rest in suitcases when they come up for the graduation. Yes, it will be fine.)

where is: my coffee

Today, I am...the woman who COULD NOT WAKE UP. At least not enough to do anything properly. I'm reading Daniel Deronda and enjoying it massively (and apparently I will have to try to see the miniseries, as it seems to be awesomely cast), but I keep falling asleep, which is impeding my progress.

At any rate, a pictorial journey through the term so far, with highlights like the Bop Where Everyone Wore a TV, the Best Formal, and the Clare Bar Chalkboard Message that Tells You It's Definitely Lent Term ("drink the pain away"), can be found here: http://cambridge.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2091010&l=16a40&id=36904377

*slaps self around repeatedly* wake UP.

bullet points

...or, as my Uncanny book puts it, "why bullet points? who is being shot? by whom?"

- iTunes shuffle just started to play Maroon 5, "Tangled" (yes yes the shame). OMG FIRST YEAR. Everyone had a) Maroon 5's only CD and b) the first OC soundtrack, and we would play them to each other in our little rooms.

- Vicky wants to make a film version of the morality play "Everyman", starring all our friends, once we're done with our exams. I think this may be awesome.

- Watched "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang" with Becky last night, while eating honey and oatmeal biscuits. Then we sat around for a couple of hours talking volubly about the Relation Between Art and Life. Sam showed up after his table football match with Girton and was the sleepiest boy in the world. "If I weren't leaning against something," he said, leaning against my wardrobe, "I would fall over."

- Sam, we learned, has been asked by the tutorial office to be in a photo shoot for the new college prospectus. Because they're illustrating the college nurse section and they need a photo of someone capable of "looking ill".

- Things I need to do today include a) going to the UL to think about my Victorian essay, b) buying Reece's birthday present with Alex, c) getting stuff from Boots and wine for the multiple birthday formal tonight, d) going to my GP to confirm that I still have tendonitis, e) handing in said confirmation to the exam authorities, f) doing more work on the Victorian essay, g) going to formal. Also calling my family, to whom I have not spoken for ages. That will probably happen somewhere between f) and g).

- I wish I didn't look forward to "Becoming Jane", the so-called biopic of Jane Austen starring Anne Hathaway, but I am not made of stone. Still, the whole project seemed more awesome when I believed, as I quite seriously did at first, that it was about a modern young American woman (Hathaway) who is transported through time and space to 1800s England, where she finds that she has...BECOME JANE AUSTEN.

You would see that film. Yes, you would.

Someone keeps taking erotic literature out of the "Erotic Literature" section in Borders, and putting it in the "Literary Criticism" section. I believe this is either a) an attempt to shock browsing English students or b) someone wanting to stand in the stacks reading erotic literature, yet appear as though they are reading Harold Bloom (which I'm convinced would be worse for you, anyway). Either way, it's kind of sweet.

Bought a book-length study on the uncanny for fifteen quid, partly because it looks awesome and will probably be useful, partly because I still haven't spent enough on books this year to get the full book grant. Am now going to burrow and read. It's cold outside, there's no kind of atmosphere, etc.

I've now got my Victorian supervisions arranged for Friday mornings, which means my weekend will coincide with the actual weekend for possibly the first time ever. And the Vanity Fair seminar was great, everyone contributing interesting things and a nice, non-show-offy feel to it, which usually takes much longer to develop. It may well be a good term after all.

Walked home from my Victorian seminar at half-past five, after the sun had set, and it was pitch dark; no one seems to have thought to light the Sidgwick site. The University Library was like a lantern, light streaming from the barred windows. For almost the first time it's cold enough to see your breath, and I've reluctantly turned on the radiator in my room.

I was the only person in the seminar besides the lecturer who talked - I think my college makes us used to class participation - and that of course made me feel like a jerk, but I seem to have made an ally anyway, a girl who asked me when the (other, this one compulsory) seminar was tomorrow and then talked after class about how difficult it is to feel as though you're doing anything even vaguely original with the Victorian paper. I said I would have to cultivate an interest in mesmerism; she said she'd try Calvinism.

There are interesting things to say, though, I think, though having just four big essays rather than seven smaller ones means I can't just snatch randomly at any idea that occurs to me. The lecturer mentioned the relation between hair colour and character traits in descriptions of women in Victorian fiction (and I guess more interesting than the "flimsy blonde, rational brunette" setup - which is reversed, anyway, with Becky and Amelia in "Vanity Fair", Becky being blonde and Amelia having light-brown hair - is the fact that women seem to occur in contrasting pairs so often: Becky and Amelia, Dorothea and Rosamund in "Middlemarch", Lucy and Ginevra in "Villette", Mary and Margaret, I suppose, in "Mary Barton". More thinking on this later), which was fortuitous because I'd just been thinking today about how revealing girls' attitudes to their hair are. But my laundry's probably getting soggy so I must go out in the cold and fetch it.

(AND. Caroline and Shirley in "Shirley", obviously. It's interesting how there's no contrast for Jane in "Jane Eyre"; I don't think Adele counts, and there are two Rivers sisters so that doesn't work. Helen is a potential contrast but, interestingly, she dies early on. I wonder if it has something to do with Jane being so self-actualized (horrible word, but I'm in a hurry and can think of nothing better) that she is in a way complete in herself. I remember in the tragedy paper we talked about how the sister of the heroine in Greek tragedy was often a kind of 'alternative', showing how the heroine could've acted but didn't. This is of interest to no one but me at this point, but I'm totally going to write an essay about this.)

LAUNDRY

(I CAN QUOTE VIRGINIA WOOLF, THAT THING ABOUT "CHLOE LIKED OLIVIA", ALTHOUGH IT IS OUT OF PERIOD)

LAUNDRY.

wednesdaylicious

During the "any questions?" part of the DOS meeting, James asked for general advice about the Lent term. Our DOS was quiet for a moment and then said that people generally start to look very pale quite early on, and are sinking fast by week five. "But by week six, they've usually attained clarity and are standing in the light."

It's funny how the course attracts religious imagery, especially the Catholic kind. Supervisions are like catechisms, or sometimes like confession (followed by absolution if you're lucky). Exams are the refining fire, I suppose. The analogy breaks down at graduation, unless you think of the real world as heaven, which I'm not quite prepared to. Of course we're all drama queens and therefore find the idea of being practically encouraged to stress out about work exciting. We stood around in Old Court afterwards discussing it. "Look at us, we're well hard," said Ian. "Hanging outside the chapel."

What I Am Going to Eat Next: raspberries.

How Mary Barton is Going: slightly better than expected. I'm mostly glad I don't have to work as as dressmaker's apprentice for two years for no money in order to be allowed to work for a very small amount of money afterwards. "It just seems like a bad deal," Vicky said. "But it's RESPECTABLE," said Iona, more au fait with the Victorian frame of mind.

What The Weather is Like: sunny. Go, Britain!

I have the world's biggest cup of hot chocolate. The cup is the pink one I'm using for everything - noodles, breakfast cereal, tea - which makes me feel self-sufficient and like a person of few, but vital possessions (I'm not). The hot chocolate is Green and Black's. The chocolate has settled a little, so as I drink it it gets increasingly dark and rich.

And now it's all drunk. ("What's so unpleasant about being drunk?" "Ask a glass of water.")

It's been a nice week, though I'm having difficulty wrapping my mind around term actually starting, which technically I think it did today - but our DOS meeting is tomorrow, and lectures start Thursday, and we Victorianistas don't have our first seminar for another week. Tomorrow is also an informal Engling dinner (as opposed to the formal ones with all the supervisors, which generally end with Will breaking world records for drunk), with just the third-years and some new grad students, and I hope it will be an evening of affectionate light banter rather than (which is perhaps more likely) twitchiness over dissertations and grad-school applications. I'll be making affectionate light banter, even if into thin air. Then Saturday is the "twentieth century" bop, for which I'm being Edwardian: silk camisole, Vicky's lace skirt, pink and black corset. Also, though wearing feather boas for bops is very overdone, it might actually be historically accurate; Elizabeth Robins wore one to play Hedda Gabler. Hmm.

I don't know why, but I wake up almost every night around four - three last night, but then I'd gone to bed a little earlier than usual. It doesn't particularly bother me because I fall asleep again almost right away, but it gives me a little glimpse of that most jarring time of the night. (In Sarah Kane's play "4:48 Psychosis" the main character wakes up every night at 4:48, but that seems too close to morning to be really worrying.) Tonight I woke up sharply after a nightmare about being at a New Year's party, discovering a girl lying in a snowdrift outside, and having to think how to save her. I dropped off again after a little Thackeray (my eyes were so sleep-dry that I had to close one to focus on the text), and had another dream about failing a job interview. Then when I got up in the morning and checked my email, I found that I'd gotten the alumni phone campaign job! I am assuming this means I will NOT find a girl in a snowdrift?

This is becoming Too Long because I am Avoiding Work. The next book up now I've finished Vanity Fair is Mary Barton, by Elizabeth Gaskell, which is going to be an orgy of industrialism and labour relations, all set in Manchester of all places. I will be lucky if there's any love story whatever to enliven it.

Off, off -

In which I return to Cambridge.

So. Arrived in town having, on the plane, sat next to two women who were obviously heading for a party weekend in London and were drinking heavily and expensively in anticipation. Unpacked at top speed and went to Vicky's to have dinner with her, Alex and Soleil, then we all went to Ta Bouche for drinks (turns out one of the bartenders makes excellent mojitos, the other one makes very mediocre ones), then I went home in the pouring rain and said good night to Tom and Louisa, who were watching a film and mocked my bedraggled appearance mildly. At least they offered me breakfast cereal in the morning, as I have not been shopping yet.

I am now sleepy. And my hair is still wet. It's one-thirty in Norway; I'm going to bed.

Get out of my subconscious, Bjorn.

I feel like I'm coming down with something - even repeated singing along to 'Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered' isn't perking me up - which would be annoying considering I'm going to Cambridge tomorrow and have been in the bloom of health so far this vacation. Being ill in Cambridge sucks; my room is either too cold (when I've had the window open at some point in the past week) or eye-dryingly warm (when I turn on the heater, which is directly behind the head of my bed), and getting food requires a major active effort. Still, I'm looking forward to going; a change of air and a few Innocent smoothies will do wonders.

I do wonder, tangentially, why bed technology hasn't progressed further; beds are amazing, but frankly they're still suboptimal. I want one with head- and footrests that tilt up and down (I know Hans has a hospital-issue one, but why aren't all of them like that?), and I should be able to set its temperature without having to resort to barbarisms like adding or subtracting blankets. Possibly there should be a massage feature.

Dream in the early hours of the morning: I am on a school trip that never seems to get out of the airport. We have been given an assignment to write a poem about Björn Borg, and I'm taking it quite seriously. The poem I finally write is very good, but our teacher doesn't ask us to hand them in; instead we have to pick one (mine doesn't get picked) and do it as a song and dance. The musical performance turns out great too, but it's still a bitter disappointment.

OKAY, STOP PRESS.

Through an interview with Jan Erik Vold in Dagens Næringsliv (what, I only read it on Saturdays), I have discovered this piece of information: there is a typewriter called the Erika.



It was first produced by Seidel & Naumann, in 1937. I have no reason to believe I was named after it, but I sort of wish I was.

In which the weblog is launched amidst explanations.

So I'm moving the operation from LJ to here, because fundamentally I'm one of those people who compulsively acquires fresh notebooks (which is something else I've done today - a five-subject one with crisp plastic dividers and decent line spacing, oh joy) at the start of a new school term to savour the sense of a new start and infinite possibility. The old Tinsel of Futility is staying up, being as it is a record of the past three years and I might suddenly conceive a hatred of Blogger and have NO WAY OF COMMUNICATING IN MONOLOGUE FORM except going on msn and talking to people who are away. But at the moment I value novelty more than continuity, and I think the new-notebook feeling will make me write more. And thus I become a member of the blogosphere (as I see it, Livejournal is well outside the blogosphere). I find this mildly uncomfortable but clearly I have only myself to blame.

Am going to Kine Henny's musical thingy at Ni Muser and must do something Victorian theatre-related before that rather than just sitting here reading Alice in Wonderland, which is also work, but much less imperative. (As on LJ, I imagine all my posts will end with exhortations to myself to do some work.)