After a weekend during which I valiantly struggled to accomplish things, while my body staged giant protests (I went to be Friday night and slept for seventeen hours), everything is packed and ready to go for a big day tomorrow. 10:30-12 is the EGSA grad student panel presentation, where I'm getting to do a practice run of my Flannery O'Connor paper looking at Wise Blood together with the Ministry song "Jesus Built My Hotrod" (which samples dialogue from the film). At noon, I professor I admire is speaking, and then in my class at 3 I'm presenting on Selah Saterstrom's The Pink Institution. Once those are done, I can cross more things off of my list.
Sort of. The O'Connor paper is a dry run for the Flannery O'Connor Society Panel at SAMLA, the primary reason I wrote the paper, which is the first weekend in November. I wrote the abstract as a bit of a lark--as SAMLA's theme this year is poetry, it looked like the O'Connor Society was having trouble getting proposals (I assume, as they extended their deadline). Since seeing the movie and realizing where the "Listen--get this: No one with a good car needs to be justified" bits from the Ministry song came from, I've toyed with writing up something about the juxtaposition of the two. Who knew they'd actually say yes? And that I'd have to come up with a coherent argument in only eight pages? (As time goes on, the small scope of a conference paper seems more and more difficult.)
But, I've written something now--thank goodness for my discovery of the "technological sublime," as well as the weird phenomenon that a lot of punk musicians seem to have a thing for the novel. I'll be glad to give it a go-through in front of other people and see just how many of them just stare at me as though I'm high.
And then in class, I picked a rather experimental/metatextual/nothing's been written about it novel to present on. I'm not too terribly worried about it, as I've come up with some things to say. I turned in a response paper about it, too, which means I've written the required number of response papers for the class. And, as this is my last required course, it means it's the last such short assigned paper I'll do for school. Weirdness. I mean, I'm auditing a course next semester, but I won't have to do response papers if I'm auditing. It's a nice, small milestone to recognize.
In the midst of all of this to-do-list-crossing off, however, I got news that an article I wrote on Maria Montero's The Messenger was accepted for publication pending revisions. Revisions are due in three weeks. One of the requests from the readers was more secondary sources, which means read read read! Happily, the wonderful professor (who is speaking tomorrow) already responded to my email with suggestions for reading. I haven't actually looked at the drafts they sent back--after my talks tomorrow, I'll look at them. I have to be on campus Wednesday for reading group and a student meeting, so I'll officially start tackling the revision then.
I'm still feeling occasional anxiety attacks, but between the days of sleep this weekend and the drumming I did today, it currently feels under control.
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