shiny happy people
Monday, 1 August 2005 08:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
freckles_and_doubtBad weekend o'gloom. More headache, less work, considerably more happy couples being affectionate in my immediate vicinity (especially at H*'s party) than I can actually take in my currently long-term single and frustrated state. Also less LJ, which means the entire grump-fest may simply be withdrawal symptoms. Either IAfrica or LJ were on Go Slow strike from Friday night, precluding the actual loading of a page in anything other than geological time, and then we had a power cut almost all-day Sunday, thus putting the kibosh on my noble plans to finish the Tolkien paper*. Bleah. This means I shall have to give the Tolkien paper to the adoring crowds** in the dept. this afternoon from the familiar position of some notes, and winging it.
However, today is looking up. Ursula Vernon has put up her "Irrational Fears" webcomic, and I shall be sustained through a day of unspecified academia by the notion of a small, blue ahuizotl sitting on a rock in a river and singing "Stairway To Heaven." Simple pleasures, simple pleasures.
* I could have gone up to campus and finished it there, I suppose, but that would have entailed actual activity and initiative, neither of which I possess when tea supplies are interrupted by the need to break out gas stoves and things.
** probably three people. Tolkien and fan culture not fashionable in the Department of Africanised Political Correctness.
However, today is looking up. Ursula Vernon has put up her "Irrational Fears" webcomic, and I shall be sustained through a day of unspecified academia by the notion of a small, blue ahuizotl sitting on a rock in a river and singing "Stairway To Heaven." Simple pleasures, simple pleasures.
* I could have gone up to campus and finished it there, I suppose, but that would have entailed actual activity and initiative, neither of which I possess when tea supplies are interrupted by the need to break out gas stoves and things.
** probably three people. Tolkien and fan culture not fashionable in the Department of Africanised Political Correctness.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
On the second page of "Monsters Under the Bed"
Date: Monday, 1 August 2005 09:22 am (UTC)Heehee!
Beats lying in bed with the pox, I guess.
Hello!
no subject
Date: Monday, 1 August 2005 11:58 am (UTC)Tell 'em the whole thing is essentially an exploration of the dynamic struggles for discursive validity between a network of feminized indigenous social forms and the masculinized modernist-colonial project represented by Saruman. Claim that Gandalf is clearly modeled on the soldier-philosophers of Timbuktu and Ancient Kush. Speculate that his battle with the Balrog and subsequent resurrection is a far-sighted thematic nod towards the African Renaissance. Back all this up with library stubs showing that Thabo Mbeki read Farmer Giles of Ham obsessively while in exile. Finally, hand out cookies.
Good luck!
no subject
Date: Monday, 1 August 2005 01:48 pm (UTC)Actually, that made sense, in a horrible sort of way. You could switch from history and take up literary waffling any time you like, you know. You'd probably get more funding than I do.
I did spend a happy five minutes re-defining Frodo's tragic quest as the canny trans-generic ploy of invoking the so-called woman's film, or weepie (stoically enduring female dies of cancer, etc) in direct counter to the essentially male action buddy war flick thing. Which makes Frodo so a girl, but hey. *retains pervy hobbit-fancying anyway*
no subject
Date: Monday, 1 August 2005 03:25 pm (UTC)Maybe too far on that last one. But either way, you have nothing to fear about perving basically female characters. Bi is the new gay, and this can only bode well for your progression up the academic ladder.