Is all this drilling necessary?
I had something to say, but lost it.

Some irrelevant observations:
1) The internet is not a place for existential crises.
2) Sometimes it’s nice to listen to music I don’t recognise.

Last year, a lecturer asked if I knew what the word ‘collage’ meant. Although English is my first language, it was understandable that he supposed otherwise, seeing as I don’t have a British or American accent. However, it was quite unfair of him to suppose that English Lit. students who speak English as a second language have an inchoate grasp of its vocabulary.

The incident was repeated year and half a week later (the last entry I wrote on this topic allows me temporal specificity). I asked him an unrelated question during a seminar and, in the universal manner of lecturers segueing to a different topic when they don’t like the question they’ve been asked, he gradually moved on to address the entire class on a different matter. He mentioned juxtaposition, tried to simplify the concept to that of a collage, asking me intermittently, “Do you know what that is?”

I’m not an overly sensitive person. If I say he was looking directly at me while asking the question, he was. If you don’t believe me, believe one of my friends who, recounting the incident to someone in another class, insisted, “He was looking directly at her! And he wouldn’t stop asking her the question!” He found it hilarious.

On one hand, I found it funny, since I don’t think the lecturer knows who I am; I don’t think he was intentionally picking on me. On the other hand, it was still sort of insulting. English isn’t the mother tongue of some of my friends in the Department, but I would never translate that into a paucity of vocabulary on their part.

1) I used to be a quick reader, one who clocked 100-120 pages an hour.
These days, it can take me up to 6 hours to read 200 pages.

2) You were supposed to get a proper blog entry today, one about things. You were not supposed to get an entry ruminating on the absence of ‘things’. However, what started out as a personal post quickly became the groundwork for an essay. So, thanks for checking in. Have a nice day.

Modernity is relevant to everyone. We should all have an investment in the present, yet I often feel like I’m one step behind time. It’s the feeling that every thought I experience ought to have occurred yesterday. Postcenium, the actor regards the paulopast scene. Perhaps we can really only make sense of things in retrospect.

My Romantic London essay is consuming my thoughts, and I don’t even have a title for it yet. I’m used to focusing on one topic in relation to one text; however, I was recently reminded that I’d have to analyse at least two texts per exam question, so what was originally supposed to be an essay on Book VII of Wordsworth’s Prelude seems to have segued into one on Wordsworth, Hazlitt and Lamb. I’m not sure if I’m taking too much on - three authors, and a number of texts by each.

Why am I writing an essay on something my tutor specialises in? I really shouldn’t, since he’ll be able to spot nonsense a mile away. (Well, not like he wouldn’t usually, but more so in this case. There’s something embarrassing about presenting an expert with hackneyed views.) I considered changing topics, but realised that the most practical thing to do would be to write about what I’m interested in, even if it results in the worst essay in the history of the world (this is not hyperbole).

I was sitting in the balcony section of the Palace Theatre on Thursday evening, trying to concentrate on Monty Python’s Spamalot. I love the sense of immediacy and the anticipation of spontaneity that live performances (music, theatre etc.) afford, so I should’ve been entertained. I wasn’t. Even so, I would usually never leave a performance; I always feel obligated to see a whole show through before being able to objectively denounce it. I’ve sat through the worst movies known to mankind, and Spamalot wasn’t even bad - I just couldn’t concentrate. For the very first time in my life, I walked out of a show. Why? So I could return home, back to ruminating over my essay.

It had been freezing on the way to the theatre, yet I left Cambridge Circus feeling warm, revived. Instead of taking the bus home, I walked (as I would’ve done, weather permittting). I’ve had an affinity towards exploring London as long as I’ve lived here, which contributes to my love for the London in Literature course. I stopped to browse at Foyles, leaving with a copy of Peter Ackroyd’s London: The Biography tucked under my arm. I rued the partially-squandered Spamalot ticket without actually experiencing any regret. (I do, in retrospect, but I’d make the same decision if I had to do it all over again.) Only work matters; everything else is peripheral.

N.B. I may put on a brave front, but I’ll really be upset when told that I’ve written the worst essay in the world (again, not hyperbole).

I don’t often give very much thought to my own name, because doing so would mean being faced with the paradox of familiarity (I can’t imagine being called anything else) and discomfort (it’s in a language I don’t understand). I don’t believe that a name wholly defines a person (nominal stereotypes exist, but aren’t dominant in the assessment of a person’s character). I believe the study of proper names to be purposeless…yet I indulge in it, all the same.

My favourite character from Greek mythology has always been Cassandra. I don’t know why I have a favourite, but I do.

Some of the most undomestic-looking people I know wear the crispest shirts. I know of a corporate fellow who has the habit of getting his dry-cleaned.

How many 1) men, 2) women do you think iron their own shirts?

It’s funny how easily permutations of words come to hand when they’re about something you really want to say.

Perhaps I’m in the minority that’s never happy with anything they’ve written, unless [see above].

(I’m supposed to be reading Wilde at the moment. It’s good; I’m just not in the mood.)

Today, one of my friends asked about dates for Victorians seminars. I suggested she look at the notice board just outside the room we were in.

When I got home, I realised I didn’t have the dates.

So I wrote her an e-mail asking for the dates, detailing my stupidity. After signing off (but not sending said e-mail), I realised I did have the dates. I discarded the e-mail…only to find I’d taken down seminar dates for another option, not Victorians.

It’s one of those days. Oh, yes.