To blog or pass out. So many options.

Anyone can write a good paper if they write it from the inside out. You start with a few arguments. They don't have to be related. Then you write a sentence or two that draws connections between the arguments. Connections are a lot easier to make than the average person might think, especially if you have an abstract imagination and sound convinced enough. Then you write an introductory paragraph stating that each section of arguments links together somehow. Then you write a conclusion saying, to an effect, "told you so." Voila. Instant A-.

They give Master's degrees to jokers like me. I'm assuming. We'll see how the marks pan out.

Titles of the main essays and projects I've written this year:

Balancing Acts: Comparing Storytelling Media Across Representations of Death in Venice

Memo-rizing Touch of Evil: The Execution and Effect of Orson Welles’ Intentions

Embodying Africadia: Representations of the Female Body in the Works of Oni the Haitian Sensation and Afua Cooper

Avant-Garde Webslinging: Electronic Literature and the User

Man Without a Past: Douglas Coupland in Canada

Re-visioning Convention: African American Representation and the World War II Film

An End, A Beginning, A Middle: Temporal Rupture in Morrison’s Beloved, Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, and Kelly’s Donnie Darko

I'm done University again. Think I'll pass out now.

I really need to buy new underwear. I mean really, it's getting ridiculous.

Last night I went to bed at around 2 with a page or so left to write in my essay, but my mind was racing, so I got up and just finished the damn thing: "Re-visioning Convention: African American Representation and the World War II Film." I still couldn't fall asleep until 5 or so, so I'm tired this morning. I had a pretty great idea for a new art project that I'd like to work on once I'm back in Ottawa. It would take some coordination, but I think it would be really neat.

It's going to be a bit of a long day, as I'm heading to campus to hand in the paper, having lunch with Amanda, and then meeting up with Ren to see Buck 65. Pretty much makes today a write-off for working on my last paper.

One more paper. Right now it sounds good. I'm sure I'll be driven nuts by the time it's done. Should make the few remaining updates on this site entertaining.

I'm in Vancouver. I'm very tired. That's what happens when you have to leave the house in the middle of the night to catch a bus to the airport to make a 7 AM flight. The hour and a half or so of sleep I did get was thanks to the two seats next to me being empty. I'm not usually one to stretch out on public transit, but I think I would have passed out on the people next to me had the seats been taken.

First impressions of Vancouver:

- It's very fucking green. Unbelievably, extraordinarily green. It's as though urban planners cleared just enough space in a forest for buildings and roads. What's left takes the form of giant elderly trees and millions of hedges cut into tidy, oblique shapes.
- Bus announcements of upcoming stops are preceded by a Windows error chime.
- The streets run up and down hills, the way that I remember Kamloops working. Riding up and down hills is an odd sensation and doubly odd once you realize why it's odd - the non-flatness of things feels off.
- There sure is a lot of water everywhere. It's kind of surrounded by water as the Fraser river cuts the lower part of the city in half before flowing out around Vancouver Island and west into the Pacific. I'll be seeing a lot more of the water as I'm heading out to UBC, Stanley Park, and the North Shore while I'm here.

The hostel is just south of the gayborhood here. Plenty of restaurants and shops around. I'm meeting Gisele Baxter in about two and a half hours so I'd better figure out where the hell I'm going. I actually got on a bus going in the wrong direction when I made the transfer from the airport bus, but it only carried me one stop before I realized what happened. Navigating is a piece of cake once you realize where you're not supposed to go.

More tomorrow.

I'm in between classes dropping my laptop back off at the apartment. I just delivered my Avant-Garde conference paper and it went okay, though I rambled a bit during the question period as per usual. That class is over with, Tragedy is done. Biography and Race and Cinema are soon to follow. I have to print out my bio paper and head back to campus. No rest for the weary.

Literally. No rest. I was up late working on the paper and had three hours of sleep total. And I couldn't have a coffee this morning because my stomach was still wonky from the pizza. I should plan meals like that better.

Onward ho.

I got most of my Tragedy readings out of the way yesterday (unprecedentedly) so that I could focus on the presentation and paper I'm writing this weekend. As excited as I was to get out of bed at 9:30, I ended up falling asleep on the couch around 2. I may as well accept the fact that I'm most awake after noon and I should adjust my work schedule accordingly until I actually have a job that requires me to get out of bed earlier.

Race and Cinema was fine. I'm moving to Ottawa in exactly one month.

This is my 200th post. Another landmark flies by (albeit a small one).

Andrea ended up crashing at my place last night after the Hills after-show, deciding to take an early morning bus instead of a late night bus that would have gotten her back to London in time for work. Hooray for rationalizations! It did mean, however, that I had to get up at 7 AM. I think back to the sleep schedule I had at the beginning of the semester, compare it to now and laugh when I remember that I thought I might be able to keep it up. Given the freedom I'm a night owl. There's no way around it.

Last night I read Without A Name by Yvonne Vera, a story about a woman traveling to Herare during the Rhodesian Bush War in Zimbabwe, for Tragedy class. It's beautifully written and incredibly sad. Today I'll do a little Coupland research and start looking up texts for my biography presentation.

I have Douglas Coupland's email address. It's surprisingly plain and straightforward. I googled it and it isn't posted anywhere on the Internet. I've been informed that he'd be interested in talking to me after Professor Sullivan pitched the PhD thesis angle. Now it's a matter of drafting a formal letter that I can send to him and his agent to hopefully set up a time and mode of interview.

No wonder I can't sleep.

My analysis on Knud Rasmussen is due at 6 PM today and I still have to watch the bloody film. It's a scene analysis, though, which typically writes quickly. I just have to make sure I put more of me in it. That's my new strategy for the semester. No more summaries. Me me me. You want my opinion, you've got it.

To work.

Damn it, I'm falling back into my old sleeping pattern. I need to discipline myself more. If I had a coffee machine, I wouldn't have a problem. I would get out of bed at 9, jolt my system awake with caffeine and then sail until the end of the day. That's how I got through all of those early 8 AM shifts at Chapters. If my room was attached to a Starbucks I'd be set. Clearly, what I need is a drug dependency.

I finished my Avant-Garde work yesterday. Today I'm working on my Tragedy homework and taking some time out to watch Nanook of the North. I also need to buy a new black print cartridge.

I find it suspicious that the earlier I go to bed, the more time my body decides it needs for sleep. 11 hours? Baffling.

I finished my Avant-Garde readings yesterday, so I'm doing pretty well on the workload. Perloff is an interesting read. Part of her thesis is that dissemination of "the image" in advertising and via media outlets has influenced trends in poetry, altering it greatly at the levels of form and syntax.

I might take it easy today. Tonight I'm checking out Panic at Funhaus with Ehch - good music, plus MOZFEST, a whole room apparently devoted to the Smiths and Morrissey. Should be cool. Yesterday I watched The Matrix Revolutions, which still has some of the most amazing special effects I've ever seen. The film gets trashed mercilessly but it looks incredible. I'm about a third of the way through X-Files Season Three and the episodes are getting quite good, even the ones that aren't part of the mytharc.

Andrea and I spent a couple of hours online last night trading music back and forth. I learned a thing or two about her.

My diary-keeping schedule is a bit bananas. I ended up going to sleep last night before midnight because I was so wiped from staying up until 5 AM the previous night. The last entry was written sometime yesterday afternoon, but backlogged to get me back on schedule, but then... whatever. Today I've got two entries in one.

I met with the Death in Venice folks yesterday, who I'm liking more and more, and we started putting our script together for the presentation. I've never "scripted" a presentation before. Nor have I ever donned costumes, wigs and moustaches to talk about Greek gods and psychology. Next weekend is our "dress rehearsal;" I'll have to bring my camera so that I can get across some idea of what we've been working at all semester.

Yesterday I received Visconti's film version of Death in Venice in the mail from Amazon, which I'm going to analyze for my paper. It was accompanied by a box set of Mission Hill episodes. I hadn't seen that show in a few years. I watched the first four episodes and it really took me back. I'd almost forgotten how wickedly funny it is. It's great to be able to keep parts of your life with you by having a movie or show at your disposal to call up memories.

I listened to SModcast and hit the sack early, as I said. This morning I woke up and headed to the Thomas Fisher Rare Book library, hellbent on finishing a bibliographical description assignment for tomorrow. I called up a 2nd edition copy of The Monk by Matthew Lewis dated from 1796 and spent four hours writing about its physical makeup. I found the process insanely interesting, even though I hate reading about it on my own time - it was different to actually have the book in front of me, trying to unlock its mysteries. The hands-on aspect to the assignment really appealed to me. After I finished, I logged on to a computer at Robarts and started typing up my research, when I read an email indicating that the assignment due date has been moved to NEXT Friday, so I'll be able to take a second look at the text before I finish it once and for all. Aces.

After the library I went over to the Varsity to meet Ren, and we chatted for a bit before seeing No Country For Old Men, the new Coen brothers movie. I may not be going to the movies as much as I'd like, but the last few films I've seen in Toronto have all been amazing, including this one. If you're a fan of Fargo, it will impress the hell out of you. I actually thought it was BETTER than Fargo. Javier Bardem plays the most chilling killer I've seen in a movie in years. And Josh Brolin is going to be a full-fledged movie star very, very soon. It's enjoyable as an action flick but also has a more subtle narrative level playing around with ideas of fate, expectations, war, border politics and issues of identity. I wanted to see it again right away after it was over to pay more attention to the subtext.

Now I'm home. My computer's chugging a little, so I'd better back up my files just in case it bites the dust. My next computer is going to be a Mac, as sacrilegious as that sounds.

It snowed today.

I was going to go to campus early today, but I slept in late. I don't know why I'm feeling so tired lately. I've never been much of a morning person but it doesn't make sense that I'd go to bed at 1 and sleep (or want to sleep) until 11 or 12. I'll put it down to a continued recovery from Nuit Blanche for now, but I think it has more to do with a lack of exercise and good food. I should change that.

After I got home I started in on my Touch of Evil readings. I still have two to go; they were really piled on this week, with about 10 chapters in total.

Tomorrow is going to be a rather lengthy day. I have two classes starting at 10 AM, and then the opera at 7:30. I'd better finish these readings and get my ass to bed.