BlogFerret

So here’s my status as an MA degree candidate. My Master’s Thesis proposal was approved last week. I have two quarters to write it, with three thesis hours per quarter devoted to research and writing. Those are two of the four courses I need to complete my course requirements.

I will also be teaching English 101 this quarter. I am terrified, but I suppose it’s like meeting a big dog: I will show no fear. My main issue is trying to break down into lessons something I have done almost unconsciously for the past 10 years, perhaps longer.  I can write a simple essay very easily, as long as I have a topic. (My problem has always been coming up with a topic and an argument I’m happy with.) Now I have to decide what exactly students need to learn in bits in order to successfully combine the knowledge and be capable of writing a Freshman level essay.

I’m probably doomed.

So it’s almost time for me to stop reading for pleasure altogether. Okay, it’s almost time for me to say I’m not reading for pleasure anymore and then do so anyway, probably ruining my eyes in the process. I wanted to put in a few words for Philip Pullman and the “His Dark Materials” trilogy.

This is good stuff. Pullman has created a pretty neat universe here that goes beyond both fantasy and “Steampunk.” Of course, I believe technically these novels would be in the “young adult” category, but there are some very dark themes present here. The kinds of themes that I would hope my kids weren’t understanding even though I’d know they were. There are also really interesting presentations of demonology and the “Fall of Man,” which I’m a total sucker for. I’m in the middle of the final book, and it’s just kickass. I think kickass is a literary term. At any rate, the series is complex without bogging one down, and Pullman’s craftsmanship outstrips the Harry Potter novels easily. Oh, the blasphemies I will commit in the name of literature!

Pullman is also the author of some Victorian-style mystery novels: The Ruby in the Smoke, Shadow in the North, and The Tiger in the Well. I haven’t read them yet, but Pullman is an excellent writer, so I have high hopes. I also saw The Ruby in the Smoke on LPB’s Masterpiece Theatre with Billie Piper as the lead, and after I got over seeing “Rose” (late of Doctor Who, for anyone who doesn’t know) as an “unconventional” Victorian girl, it was pretty good entertainment.  Of course, you have to really like Victorian and Early 20th Century mysteries, which I do.  Probably more than is healthy.

I have more news, but I think it should go in a separate post. I’m thinking of getting a new boardgame, and there is, of course, my Master’s Degree to think of!

But I don’t. I’ve been thinking about posting for some time now, but I haven’t. All I think about is school and my Nintendo DS, lately. I wonder if I get the DS browser if I could post to Wordpress with it? I bet even if I could I still wouldn’t have anything to say.
Yes, I am very inane today. I made salmon teryaki tonight and it was delicious. People don’t know what they’re missing when seafood goes on sale and I’m cooking.

I have been watching ST:TNG season 1. I loved the way they handled drug addiction and society’s response to it. Episode 23, Symbiosis, involves a wealthy, sort of “yuppy” society whose only support is gained from providing another planet’s society with “medicine” to combat the “plague.” It turns out that the “plague” once really existed in the people of Planet #2, but now it doesn’t and the people remain physically and psychologically dependent on it. Picard won’t violate the Prime Directive by keeping the shipment of the drug the Enterprise becomes involved with from reaching Society #2, but he informs that society that its dependence on the pharmaceutical is no longer survival-based. He ALSO refuses to violate the Prime Directive when he won’t help to repair the vessels responsible for shipping the drug. Both Society #1 and Society #2 are going to lose a great deal, in various ways. Dr. Crusher is upset because she could have eased the withdrawal of Society #2, and all Picard did was take away their cars and force them to make their own choices. Some of People #2 will remain addicted, obviously. Others, it is assumed, will realize that they won’t die from lack of the drug and stop using it. Ah, Star Trek, you teach us such valuable lessons about ourselves.

I am sort of manic, and yet, I am enjoying myself. Is it a form of recreation to deprive oneself of sleep, or is that just my disease? Is oneself a word, really? If it isn’t, spell check doesn’t catch it.