Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Things I'm In the Process of Forgiving Myself for As It's The End of the Semester

  1. My messy house.
  2. The fact that, for the first time all semester, I am woefully behind on laundry (and I blame this on the fact that I actually started using my "reassigned time" to do work after the midterm, which, laundry-wise, was a mistake).
  3. That instead of grading last night I talked on the phone and drank wine.
  4. The fact that I don't have it in me to discipline my cat for waking me up every morning pre-5AM when he hears the first birdies. Yes, I know it's his instinct and not his fault, but if I were less accommodating maybe he wouldn't be so spoiled and I would get to sleep until 7 AM uninterrupted.
  5. Deciding to take a nap (see 4) and perhaps do a load of laundry (see 2) before I teach that class this evening, even though I should do work during that time.
  6. Being irrationally irritated by the attentiveness of my Not-Boyfriend The Chemist, for the more I blow him off the more attentive he becomes. I told him we were better as friends, I'm blowing him off, what more do I have to do?
  7. For not really caring about the work that my students are doing at the moment.
  8. For being most excited about teaching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind not because it's fun to teach (though it is) but because we're watching it in class over two class meetings.
  9. For the fact that I'm about to go and eat McDonalds for lunch. I crave it, though I'm not sure why.
  10. For the fact that I've been erratic about the gym while at the same time indulging in things like McDonalds.

2 comments:

negativecapability said...

The 4:30 kitty belly-rub is a long-standing tradition in my household.

And I am going to have McDonald's for lunch, too. Every month or so I just break down and follow the beckoning force that it exerts on campus.

Dr. Crazy said...

Oh, I love the filet-o-fish. Ain't nothin' wrong with a little filet-o-fish :)

As for Eternal Sunshine, I teach it paired with Alexander Pope's poem "Eloisa to Abelard" from which it takes its title. These two texts close off the course, and the point, I suppose, is that sometimes "appreciating" literature or "getting" it is at least in part about getting the references. Basically, it's a way to end the course with a film, which they usually enjoy (even though I kind of ruin their enjoyment in some ways by making them see how dark the film is), and to show them that that film which seems so "current" has a very real connection to an 18th century poem, which is conneced to letters from the 11th century, etc.

In the course, we also read novels, plays, other poems, short stories, and the texts are all loosely linked to thinking about memory and love and identity, etc., so the film works as a nice conclusion.