The tattooing went well last night, though it looks like I will have one more session in about three weeks to finish details. But as promised, I will post some photos of it (nearly done) when I get a chance this afternoon. But now I am off to teach my last class of the semester! Yay!

Heading off in about an hour to get the new tattoo finished. There will be pictures later.

My prospectus is slowly wending its way through my committee and the reports from my chair are encouraging. I may not have to do any serious rewriting (knock on wood). Still waiting on my last member, but I'm feeling pretty good so far. I'm continuing to shape up journal submissions, and cv's, letters, abstracts, and all of that market prep stuff ( Read more... )

The dissertation prospectus has now been distributed to the rest of my committee after having finally passed muster with my chair. Hopefully there will not be a lot of rewriting after this. But of course that's what I said about the first few drafts ( Read more... )

I've got a number of things to work on over the next week. I need to determine how to squeeze what was supposed to be today's lecture on the context of The Tempest into Wednesday's class on the actual meat of the play. I've got to finish the third draft of my prospectus (which my chair promises is nearly there) and I also have something else in ( Read more... )

I went to campus today, fully expecting to teach my class. And just as I was about to take roll and get things started, the power went out. After some scurrying around in the gloom to and from the English department office it was concluded that no one knew what happened and that we should give it a few minutes before letting our students go. So we ( Read more... )

I was going to include this in a breakdown of movies I've seen recently but decided I really had more to say about than that. A while ago, from what I felt was a strange sense of duty to the horror genre, I watched Human Centipede: First Sequence. My interest was the kind of prurient curiosity that got the this piece of ridiculous crap recognition ( Read more... )

I apparently missed the memo that today is World Book Day (I've been buried under a cave in of research materials, but what else is new?)

Here's a World Book Day meme, courtesy of fjm.

The book I am reading: Multiple: Floating Dragon by Peter Straub, Burning Your Boats: The Collected Stories of Angela Carter by Angela Carter, Shirley by Charlotte ( Read more... )

Why Egypt 2011 is not Iran 1979. I've heard a number of mainstream media commentators invoking the specter of the Iranian revolution, and I think that's generally inaccurate. This article points out why.

Vladimir Nabokov: Neglected Lepidopterist. This article is not for tendertalons

Cancun's underwater sculpture park. I can't wait to see photos in a few ( Read more... )

I created most of the syllabus for the class I'm currently teaching in the Fall of 2009 for the Practice Teaching Literature course. When I put it together I selected Joyce Carol Oates's story "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been,", Don Moser's "The Pied Piper of Tucson," and the lyrics from Bob Dylan's "Its All Over Now Baby Blue." Moser's ( Read more... )