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Corinna's going a-Maying
Tuesday, 3 May 2005 09:16 pmHeigh-ho, another month. Where the hell is this year going? The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow, that's what. *becomes sententious*.
I should have achieved a lot more than I have by this stage in the year. Then again, the lack of book-updating progress is not strictly my fault: my editor is having Family Crises and still hasn't responded to the queries I sent him with three and a half chapters two months ago. I'm all hanging in the air, like, and tending to back and fill and whiffle around without committing myself to any changes. Which is clearly a lack of moral fibre on my part, but at least there's an outside circumstance at which I can point an extenuating finger. On the upside, the Tolkien/fan culture paper seems to have gone down well, with various audience members commenting approvingly on its fluency, depth and plethora of Good Points, which is useful, as I was caffeine-deprived and felt more than somewhat incoherent. I certain scored more questions than anyone else :>.
I don't understand students. This must be that terrible Fiend of the Generation Gap, straddling the way and looming larger with each passing year. The Decline and Fall of this morning's class went as follows:
1. Six students present out of a possible 16-20, neither unexpected nor inexplicable. (There was a public holiday yesterday, so perhaps there's a faint shadow of an excuse).
2. First 20 minutes of tut, me dragging the reluctant deadweight willy-nilly through the wilds of Angela Carter, which I admit is pretty wild - this is her polemical feminist response to the Marquis de Sade, and says some interesting and relevant things about the essentially reductionist nature of sexual symbology - false universalising, myth as consolatory nonsense, supine women, yadda yadda. Yawns and general lack of evidence of sentience from students. I develop a sneaking conviction that most of them haven't done the reading. (Watch this space for the Ruthless Rhyme).
3. Relate above theoretical canter to vampire symbolism. More yawns. Vampires apparently so passé.
4. Move discussion into realm of bondage/domination/sexual role-play, and the whole class wakes up; last 20 mins of tut are animated discussion involving every class member and going five minutes over time.
Until this morning it had not been my sense, generally speaking, that the Yoof of Today are madly into BDSM. (Mostly, I suspect, because the equipment isn't made by Nike, and they pine and die away from brand-names). Still, I suppose that anyone capable of signing up for a third-year course in the cultural history of the erotic must have a reasonable degree of alternative somewhere in their make-up. But I would still have thought that vampires were more likely to grab their attention than the quite tricky and layered concepts of role-swapping which actually got them going. So to speak.
A pestilential mosquito woke me at 5.30 this morning, and I couldn't get back to sleep. Since bedtime was close on midnight, owing to convivial and overfed evening with Jo&Stv, Jo&Phlp, Evil Landlord and a raclette, am incredibly short on sleep. 'night...
I should have achieved a lot more than I have by this stage in the year. Then again, the lack of book-updating progress is not strictly my fault: my editor is having Family Crises and still hasn't responded to the queries I sent him with three and a half chapters two months ago. I'm all hanging in the air, like, and tending to back and fill and whiffle around without committing myself to any changes. Which is clearly a lack of moral fibre on my part, but at least there's an outside circumstance at which I can point an extenuating finger. On the upside, the Tolkien/fan culture paper seems to have gone down well, with various audience members commenting approvingly on its fluency, depth and plethora of Good Points, which is useful, as I was caffeine-deprived and felt more than somewhat incoherent. I certain scored more questions than anyone else :>.
I don't understand students. This must be that terrible Fiend of the Generation Gap, straddling the way and looming larger with each passing year. The Decline and Fall of this morning's class went as follows:
1. Six students present out of a possible 16-20, neither unexpected nor inexplicable. (There was a public holiday yesterday, so perhaps there's a faint shadow of an excuse).
2. First 20 minutes of tut, me dragging the reluctant deadweight willy-nilly through the wilds of Angela Carter, which I admit is pretty wild - this is her polemical feminist response to the Marquis de Sade, and says some interesting and relevant things about the essentially reductionist nature of sexual symbology - false universalising, myth as consolatory nonsense, supine women, yadda yadda. Yawns and general lack of evidence of sentience from students. I develop a sneaking conviction that most of them haven't done the reading. (Watch this space for the Ruthless Rhyme).
3. Relate above theoretical canter to vampire symbolism. More yawns. Vampires apparently so passé.
4. Move discussion into realm of bondage/domination/sexual role-play, and the whole class wakes up; last 20 mins of tut are animated discussion involving every class member and going five minutes over time.
Until this morning it had not been my sense, generally speaking, that the Yoof of Today are madly into BDSM. (Mostly, I suspect, because the equipment isn't made by Nike, and they pine and die away from brand-names). Still, I suppose that anyone capable of signing up for a third-year course in the cultural history of the erotic must have a reasonable degree of alternative somewhere in their make-up. But I would still have thought that vampires were more likely to grab their attention than the quite tricky and layered concepts of role-swapping which actually got them going. So to speak.
A pestilential mosquito woke me at 5.30 this morning, and I couldn't get back to sleep. Since bedtime was close on midnight, owing to convivial and overfed evening with Jo&Stv, Jo&Phlp, Evil Landlord and a raclette, am incredibly short on sleep. 'night...
