Well, this is it, I suppose. Pretty much just have to shut down and pack up the computer. It didn't take too long to pack. I'm not leaving with too much more than what I came here with.

Note to self: don't go out drinking the night before moving again, no matter how good of an idea it seems. And if I do, stay away from red wine. It was good seeing Matt one last time anyway. We had dinner at Mackenzie's, a sports bar near his place. I had the chicken fingers.

I walked home up Keele Street. It was pouring rain and I played a game of duck and cover between the bus stop shelters. I must have looked suspicious. After awhile I stopped minding the rain and just walked. Near my place a couple were having an argument, the woman screaming at the man as he walked away.

I've really missed my girlfriend.

I'm starting a new journal tomorrow once I'm back in Ottawa. I'll post the address here.

I got a text from Andrea this morning. While I was lazily snoozing in bed she climbed the CN Tower steps in 34:34. That's my girl. Take THAT, global warming.

I wrote ten pages of the Coupland paper yesterday at Pratt and returned an armload of library books. Hopefully I'll get another ten or so done today so that I can wrap it up tomorrow. I'm putting a fair bit of information into it but I have to manage the flow a bit better. It's not like another paper in that it's more like a story than a series of arguments. Plot developments, not points.

Last night I watched Speed 2: Cruise Control for the first time. What an astoundingly ridiculous piece of crap film. It was painful to sit through. I kept yelling at the TV to be less stupid. Sandra Bullock is just one of those actresses that steps on my last nerve.

Up early today and ready to work. I have a lot of it to do over the next week, so I need to take advantage of the time that I have, especially since I'm seeing the Eels play on Friday night. My film reading is done and I'm downloading Far From Heaven.

Classes were fine yesterday. I really enjoy Tragedy once the discussion gets going. Quayson's an excellent prof. I can tell he's an excellent prof because I respect him even though my marks aren't as high as they could be. THAT'S the sign of being taught by someone worthwhile. And being taught, actually sat down and instructed, at this level, is rarer a thing than I had hoped for at this level. Learning from someone else is what keeps me interested in school.

I had a long lunch with Amanda after Avant-Garde. She's a great person to talk with. In Biography there were two pigeons sitting on the windowsill of the room throughout the entire class, trying to avoid the wind. I walked home from Keele Station, watched the Daily Show, talked with Andrea for a bit (whom I'm still in love with a year after I first said it out loud) and got to bed at a reasonable hour.

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.

Last night I read Dictee by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha for Avant-Garde and talked to Jaime for a bit online. She just broke up with her boyfriend. They'd been together for seven years and had been living together. Now she wants to see the world.

Andrea went to Ottawa for Kristin Anne's birthday party because she's a powerhouse. She called me at 2:30 in the morning for directions. Today she was in town for an MTV Hills special, and we chilled at Coffee Time while she told me stories from last night's festivities. Afterwards we met up with Joy (the Scorpio) and had lunch at Burgundy's. I've known Joy for about eight years online and I hadn't met her until today. That's definitely a personal record.

My earphones crapped out so I stopped by Future Shop for new ones. Ren messaged me and said he's picked up tickets to see Buck 65 at the end of April. I checked out some library books and walked home from Keele Station. Now I'm wondering what I'm going to write about tomorrow morning. I suppose the night is still young.

My time with Andrea over the last few days served as a little break, of sorts, reminding me that I am capable of more than research and classes. These days I'm worrying a lot about how well I perform at school. School has never felt more like work and when I get that feeling I want to quit because I no longer find it fulfilling. I'm pretty hard on myself. Three more weeks of classes to go. I need to get this work done and over with and push it out of my life for awhile.

Time with Andrea feels like life. Our anniversary is coming up and I've never been more sure of anyone's love for me. That may sound as though I have a million insecurities, which I more than likely do, but it's true and I say it with a full heart. And it's good to have faith in a sure thing. I've always wanted to be with someone I can count on, and I can count on her.

She also has the tendency to make my life exciting. I have experiences I probably wouldn't have had if I hadn't known her. Like yesterday, for instance. Andrea loves and watches MTV, so she got tickets to see The Raveonettes on MTV Live. I hate MTV but hey, cool band, so we went, and it was awesome. It made me feel a bit younger. In fact, just walking around with her, checking out places in Toronto I haven't yet seen, made me feel the way I used to feel about the city. I've forced Toronto into becoming repetitive for the good of my degree, forgetting about how magical a place it can be. I like it here. If the circumstances were right, I wouldn't mind living here for a longer period of time. Being with Andrea is definitely a right circumstance.

We had breakfast at the hotel and went to see Breakfast at Tiffany's at the Bloor Cinema before having dinner at the James Joyce Irish Pub. The next day we ate at Tortilla Flats and did the MTV thing. Movies watched: Paris je t'aime, Dogma, Tommy Boy, a dash of 24 Hour Party People. Great conversations. Great silences. Great food. Great sex. Great real life.

Yesterday was a busy day, as I had to deliver the two presentations on Hejinian and Coupland, both of which involved the use of my laptop and speakers, which I had to drag around all day. I'm glad to have them done, I'm just hoping I did an all right job on them.

I'm taking today off to spend time with Andrea. We're currently lying in bed at a Holiday Inn on Lombard Street. She's asleep and looks peaceful and beautiful. We had dinner at C'est What and walked around in the rain.

It's been a long day and I can't sleep.

Two presentations to do tomorrow. As usual, I've left the bulk of the writing until the last minute. But I feel as though I did more research on Hejinian than was needed, so I just need to put it into a format that flows nicely. I'm thinking about seven pages. The Coupland presentation won't take me long to do up since the biography presentations have been quite informal (mostly talking rather than reading from paper).

Thankfully, Andrea is coming into town tomorrow for a couple of days. It will be a nice break from things. We're staying in a hotel tomorrow night. In an actual bed. I'm excited.

I spent a few hours in Robarts researching yesterday, then came home and vegged out in front of the computer. I wanted to get to bed a bit early but something in my brain goes nuts at around midnight and I can't pull myself away from looking up information online. As hard as it is for me to remember things I learn, I can't stop filling my head with new stuff, mostly trivia that I'm curious about. Decades from now folks are going to find me dead in front of my computer looking up the names of the guys in Salmonblaster.

I'm back in Bloggerland. London was a lot of fun. I arrived on Monday and met Brenda and Belle (in matching pink coats) at the bus terminal. We drove to Cora's to meet Andrea as she was getting off work. After a brief stop at Rogers where I scooped up Season Six of the Simpsons and a copy of Mary Poppins, we went to Andrea's grandparents' place in the boonies and hung out for a bit. Their cat did not like Belle and spent the entirety of the visit under an endtable growling. Afterwards we went back into town and back to Andrea's place. We exchanged Valentine's day gifts - along with a giant heart full of chocolates and a love gorilla, Andrea got me a framed collection of movie stills from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Fountain and The Princess and the Warrior. It's such a unique gift. She knows me so well. We had burritos for dinner and watched Vacancy, a half but not wholly decent thriller with Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale. Then Brenda and Andrea started me on my new addiction to Big Brother, which I'm praying has subsided now that I no longer have cable in the house.

The next day Andrea and I watched Superbad (mostly very funny; I laughed a lot) and went to a diner that she worships where I ordered a peanut butter milkshake off the menu that made my life. We went to feed some ducks and geese that were chilling out by the river with some breads ends that Andrea scored from work. Later on we went out and Andrea introduced me to some of her friends, most of whom I'd seen at one point or another immortalized in Facebook mirror shots. After mowing down on a giant cookie Kristin Anne had baked over a game of Kings, we resumed the game at Jen's apartment before walking to GT's for some British night or other. Andrea and I were quite sauced when all was said and done and ended up taking a cab home from Jen's at around 3.

The next day we lounged around watching Across the Universe (quite brilliant in parts despite a painfully thin plot) and went out to pick up groceries. I bought a copy of Last Days that was on sale for cheap. After dinner we watched Mary Poppins until Andrea got tired about halfway through and went to bed, and I followed after the DVD stopped working shortly afterwards. The next day I watched the rest of the flick on her laptop while she finished her shift at work. We looked at some pictures and went back to feed the birds again. The trip ended with dinner at a Thai restaurant (eating fried wonton noodles stuffed with cream cheese is equivalent to seeing the face of God). Brenda and Andrea dropped me off at the terminal and I was back in Toronto shortly after 10.

Now it's back to the grindstone. I have a presentation to do on Tuesday, plus a short paper and an essay proposal to write. It will be a relief to get through it.

Everything about Andrea fills me entirely with light. She makes me happy.

Sure slept in late today. Andrea and I talked for a bit on the phone last night. We can't help but talk about our plans for the near future. These last few days I've almost forgotten that I still have over two months of school to go, and that I'll be the busiest I've ever been writing what will amount to over a hundred pages of additional material to be graded. But this is the cherished beginning of reading week. It's a time for disillusion.

Yesterday I watched Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End because I didn't have time to finish up the trilogy last week. The sequence of Jack Sparrow in Davy Jones' Locker is one of the weirdest, most oddly inventive sequences in blockbuster history. One gets the sense that Gore Verbinski was getting kind of numb to the swashbuckling and wanted to return to his film school roots armed with millions of dollars in resources. The result is pretty mind-twisting.

Tired. Coffee.

Last night Andrea and I talked on the phone and I found out that there are twelve weeks left until May begins, which means that my stay in Toronto is essentially two-thirds of the way complete. Not that I'm counting.

I found out that the Ontario Arts Council will not be giving me any money to fund any art shows this summer. I was disappointed but also a bit relieved to hear it. As much work as I put into that grant application, I don't feel as committed to the project as I used to. Time away from Ottawa is changing some of my attitudes. Maybe things will snap back into place when I return. In any event I'm trying very hard to learn to be honest with myself about what I want in all facets of life. There are still three months of experience and consideration to be had before my time here is up.

Of course, big life events such as discovering I won't be funded drive me to do things like put resumes together, so I revived my account at monster.ca. I'm going to throw myself full force into a job hunt once school is over with and I won't stop until I grab something that pays well. God knows I'll have spent enough time in school.

I watched Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, which wasn't as murky or complicated as I remember. Davy Jones is a great character and I still go nuts for the ending. The first time I saw the movie I used a pass I'd won from the staff Oscar competition at 3-Way Street. It was one of the few times I've sat in the very back of a theatre.

The new chair is a vast improvement. I wish I could spend the day sleeping in it. To work...

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.

I spent a portion of yesterday reading Native Son by Richard Wright, which is one of the most amazing books I've read in quite awhile. I want to look it up on the Internet to see what other people have thought about it, but I'm only halfway through (it's a long one - 430 pages) and I don't want the ending spoiled. I'm almost glad I'm going to have two copies because I can now give one away as a present and say "this is some fucked up, awesome shit." To put it vaguely and eloquently.

The building's fire alarms went off at around 9 AM and wouldn't stop for another half hour in various parts of the building. It's probably not a good thing that I chose sleep over staying alive. My decision was mostly based on the fact that the building's alarms have gone off before, for whatever reason, and there's never been a problem. One time I looked out the window to check for flames eating away at the side of the structure and stayed put because there were none. Maybe I'm just expecting a firefighter to rescue me if the building ever did go up. They'd probably get to me in time. No sense putting clothes on.

I watched Jurassic Park yesterday, plus a documentary on how it was made. I certainly loved that film when I was a teenager. I read both of the novels. Some of the screenplay is kind of over the top in the second half (Crichton co-wrote it), but it's a great effects film.

Andrea called me first thing in the morning yesterday just to say hi. It was a great way to wake up.

Andrea's flight was delayed, but she eventually made her weary way back to Canada and onto a shuttle to London. We spent about 15 minutes together. Totally worth it.

I spent a few hours in the library yesterday reading Renato Poggioli's The Theory of the Avant-Garde, which is a fascinating read and feels contemporary even though it's 45 years old. He quotes a great line from Umberto Saba in his section on Agonism and Futurism (the destruction of the past and the sacrifice of the present for the betterment of the future): "The twentieth century seems to have one desire only, to get to the twenty-first as soon as possible." I have my response done. Hell, here it is:

English critic and poet Matthew Arnold observed in the latter half of the 19th century that his society sat between epochs with regard to approaching social, political and cultural utopia. In Jung’s terms, modernists operated in a state of “transition” that welcomed an oncoming epoch, preparing the way ideologically for future generations (Poggioli 74).

What does this say about the period of the postmodern? Given the way it attacks modernist precepts, can it be seen as what Poggioli describes as a term of “decadence” – that is, an end in itself (or art for art’s sake) rather than one with a more futurist outlook? This would eliminate the idea that postmodernism is an avant-garde movement, given that agonism, or the sacrifice of the present for the birth of new social, political and cultural futures, is an avant-garde strain that opposes the cultural Zeitgeist. The implications of the Zeitgeist defined as one conditioned by an entirety of self-awareness should be considered, along with what this says of the current avant-garde.

Perhaps the current avant-garde is wholly reliant on technology for its administration. Poggioli calls creation and experimentation “an impossible synthesis” (137). Is this true, or are methods of experimentation via technological advancements elements of a creative approach punching holes in postmodernism by revealing how little mass culture actually understands of itself? Consider record companies currently scrambling for ways in which they can continue to profit from music distribution. Perhaps this is the result of an avant-garde aesthetic calling for an end to historical precedent.

I received Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith and Souvenir of Canada (woo!) in the mail yesterday along with a Chinua Achebe novel I need for my Tragedy class. Today it's all about Susanna Moodie and Catherine Parr Traill before I meet up with Ren for dinner and There Will Be Blood. I'm expecting blood.

Andrea arrives back in Canada today, and I'll get to see her briefly when I meet her at the airport and escort her to a shuttle that's taking her home to London. She sent me a Facebook message indicating that she's been setting off alarms at airports, so all that hinges on what security decides to do with her. Regardless, I can't wait to see her.

Yesterday I went to campus and had my best intentions cut in half by the U of T bookstore, which is still out of a book I need, and by forgetting a voided cheque for my OSAP installment. I did manage to read Shakespeare's Coriolanus and Aristotle's Poetics before heading home. As if an entire play and a book of philosophy weren't enough for one class, I still have to read a critical essay and Aeschylus's Prometheus Bound and write a response paper. Today I'm focusing on the Avant-Garde material. I'm starting to realize how lucky I am to have five free days to work on assignments.

I walked home from Keele Station and made some vegetarian chili for dinner before breaking into season three of The X-Files. After writing up some bibliographic annotations for Shakespeare and Aristotle, I watched Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, which unlike my recent reviewing of Episode I was NOT such a pleasing experience. The movie was worse than I remember. It doesn't feel as organic as the first film because it's so entirely digitized. You can practically see the actors moving around on the sound stage, talking to themselves. I don't care that the film is overly political. The romantic scenes are painful to sit through due to the lacklustre dialogue, and Anakin and Padme's relationship feels completely forced. More politics, please.

Happy New Year. Some notes on Europe (pictures and videos are on my Facebook profile):

I love Andrea. A lot. I missed her immeasurably. Being with her again felt so terrific and so comfortable, like the hand and arm I was holding though the streets of foreign cities were appendages I'd had reattached.

The trip was stressful, which is to be expected if you're traveling pretty constantly with a group of people set on doing different things. And aside for a couple of days spent with Nick before he and his girlfriend went their own way, I traveled with 5-6 women over the course of the trip. Now, I love women and have endless respect for them. But such a long period of time without a little testosterone to draw from externally can drive a guy nuts. There were a few moments when I wished that Andrea and I were completely alone. But hey, I'm sure most of the others felt the same way. These things have to be put into perspective.

I will never look at Canadian streets and drivers the same way again. Streets are completely chaotic over there, especially in Amsterdam - if you aren't dodging cars, you're throwing yourself out of the way of trams and the thousands of bicycles and scooters as they fight for spaces much narrower than what we're used to. I can't figure out why anyone would subject themselves to motorized traveling there.

You can still feel the war in Berlin. I only spent a few days there, so I can't relate to Andrea's ability to overcome the culture shock, but there's still a violence hanging in the air. Graffiti graces many available surfaces and every square inch of public transit windows. The entire city smells like meat. Firecrackers periodically explode in the street bringing to mind the ghosts of old gunshots. Buildings still sit unrestored after bombing and firearm attacks, and memorials for victims of fascism sprawl for blocks. That said, there is a lot of beauty in the city's architecture and sculpture. We climbed to the top of the Berliner Dom, saw fish (and octopi) at the Aqua Dom, toured Checkpoint Charlie and of course went nuts in the streets on New Year's Eve. The Filmmuseum was incredible and featured an amazing exhibit on Dietrich that I'd been looking forward to seeing for months - her costumes, letter, home movies, pictures, props, film clips... unbelievable stuff. I was unable to comprehend the mechanics of drinking cheap liquor as freely and out in the open as Berlin citizens do. You can drink beer on the subway after buying it at a McDonald's in the station. The streets looked like an apocalypse had occurred after dawn approached on New Year's Day.

I've never enjoyed an overnight stay more than I did at A Taste of Belgium, a bed and breakfast operated by a family in the north of Brussels, brief though it was. Comfort all the way and run by really nice people. We didn't have a whole lot of time to explore, but our night was interesting nonetheless as we searched out the statues of pissing mannequins, ate Thai food, drank beer and ate chocolate before attempting to find our way home after boarding the last tram of the night.

Amsterdam is everything they say it is. Lots of sex, lots of drugs, lots of stories. After checking in at the Bulldog hostel, we went on a walking tour that gave a history of the city's different ages. It fascinates me how closely intertwined religion and sexuality are in the city. Houses of women of faith are a few steps from a coffeeshop where you can get fucked up. Mostly nude women seduce people from windows a block away from a church erected to ease the consciences of sailors. It was getting cold, so we went back to the hostel to settle in before seeking out cannabis sold in the form of food. We found it at Coffeeshop de Tweede Kamer. Space Cakes for five euros. We scarfed them down, ate dinner at a pancake house, and went back to the Bulldog to trip off our asses. It was like watching a kaleidoscope of a bunch of Smurfs cartoons playing simultaneously. Animations bleeding into one another at an incredible rate. I'd never experience anything like it. We slept for half a day before we could get it together enough to check out. On our last day, we shopped a bit and went to the Andy Warhol multimedia exhibit at the Stedelijk museum. We didn't have much time, but I didn't want to pass up the opportunity of seeing his work firsthand. It was worth it.

Lots of seat-hopping on the Eurail over the course of the trip as we'd often sit in reserved seats by accident. I watched the sun set and rise again over the Belgian countryside.

I'd forgotten what flying was like. Being above the clouds on a grey day and realizing that it's actually sunny if you head high enough. Seeing the lights on the British Isles for the first time blew me away. They looked like orange spiderwebs separated by great gulfs of shadow, the moon casting momentary reflections off the silken material of the water. The nervousness of being airborne had utterly disappeared by the time I touched back down in Toronto.

I had a strange feeling getting back to the city. It felt more like home than it ever has. I felt as if I recognized the streets and no longer felt like an outsider. I don't feel as intimidated by things as I did before I left.

I also feel as if the entirety of last semester has been a dream. I'm sure the essay I have yet to finish will snap me back to reality very soon.

The snow is really coming down outside. Welcome to December. I picked up Christmas present number one today, for Andrea. My only concern is getting it overseas without damaging it.

The Opera gang and I rehearsed today. The evidence:



I think we're more or less ready for Monday. It should be pretty funny. Unfortunately, I won't really get to SEE it, because I'm in it.

After the rehearsal I caught Before the Devil Knows You're Dead at the Varsity. The flick starts out promising but lost me in its efforts around the halfway point before its unsatisfying conclusion. No one in the film is all that likable, which would be fine if they were at least vile in a compelling way, but they aren't. Besides that, it's really the kind of thriller that's been done before both structurally and thematically, without leaving even a hint of why it should exist in the first place. I've seen a couple of Lumet's Pacino movies, which I liked, but this one felt too dreary, too obvious and too driven by its form.

When I woke up this morning my air mattress had deflated, but I couldn't find any punctures. I tried re-inflating it but it wouldn't work, so I broke out my other air mattress and filled it. Then I figured out what I was doing wrong with the other mattress, so now I have the two mattress piled on top of each other. It's double the bed. I don't know why I didn't think of doing this before.

I ate dinner, watched Dogma and uploaded some pictures. Tomorrow I have to really get a crack at that design for my Touch of Evil presentation.

I'm still a bit mad about a situation Andrea was put in today. She's okay but she feels even farther away when I can't be there to look out for her when she needs it.

Bibliography went down in the PIMS (Pontifical Institute for Medieval Studies) library this morning. As usual, a bunch of material was passed around for examination. I asked Professor Robins about what he considers to be the Holy Grail of undiscovered material, and he said it was signature copies of Chaucer and Shakespeare texts. The most rare book he's ever gone in search of is a notebook belonging to Leonardo da Vinci, which he discovered is locked in a vault in a French bank four stories underground and has only ever been removed twice - once to be put on display as part of an exhibit, and once to make facsimile copies for research. Needless to say, he couldn't get at it, but it gives you an idea of how far research can take you depending on what you study.

After class I signed out a copy of Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage for an assignment along with a couple of DVD's from the Kelly library (the fourth library to which I now owe a return of material). I went around the campus and took some pictures. When I got home I watched Ingmar Bergman's Winter Light, a film about a pastor who loses his faith in God. It has this AMAZING scene in which Ingrid Thulin delivers this nearly 5-minute single-take monologue about loving a religious man in spite of her own atheism. Here's a still:


Great stuff. Bergman has to be my favorite filmmaker.

I also signed out Blade Runner, which I've never seen. I took a nap and then popped it in but the DVD was too damaged to play, so I watched episode five of The War instead. Tomorrow is the dress rehearsal for my Death in Venice presentation. Hopefully I'll be able to take some pictures and finally post some visual proof of my actual everyday life in Toronto (shots of me vegging out on the couch aside).

Holly was in a car accident, but she's okay. She is, however, a bit pissed that the Examiner reported it as damage done to the bridge on which she spun out. Can't say I blame her.

I woke up this morning to a package from Amazon sitting on the counter. In my sleepy daze I'd forgotten what I ordered, but it was a gift from Andrea: copies of Paris, je t'aime and Flight of the Conchords Season One. Incredibly generous of her, since I know she can't afford it, and sweet of her because they're a film and show we watched together. I love her.

I brought my camera to campus, but the battery is dead. I was still using the batteries that came with it, so I'll have to find a nice rechargeable or something stronger, especially before I leave for Europe. Class was interesting in that we sat around for most of it talking about the PhD program.

I realized something, sitting there, listening to everyone's questions and comments - I'm not in the headspace I was in while I was doing my undergrad. For those four years I was intent on seeing my education straight through to my doctorate and then going on to teach at the University level. Then I took a year off and forgot what school was like, always thinking that the passion I'd felt for it would return once I went back. I still enjoy school, but my passion to teach isn't what it used to be. Professor Robins gave this advice: do it because you love it. If you don't love it, don't do it, because you'll be spending years doing it.

The thing is, I'm not sure if I love it. I still enjoy going to school, learning, hitting the books. But I've fallen under the impression that I have to admit something crucial to myself - I don't want to play the game of academia. If I wanted to make a success at being a professor, I would have to leave myself completely open to travel anywhere, to start a frequency of publications, to make contacts on conferencing circuits... and I can't guarantee that I'll want to do any of that in five years. The only reason I want to remain in the academic system is to keep learning. And if I really want to do that, if it's really that important to me, I'll do it on my own time. I'm just someone who really craves structure, I suppose. I like being assigned work, completing it, and being told that I did a good job. I'm a total nerd that way. A browner, as the kids in elementary school used to say.

Plus, it keeps me out of the real world. It's not that bad having an organization throw a bunch of money at you to go away to school and study without worrying about work. I'd like to do my PhD eventually, but at my own leisure. I'll be 30 soon. I want more of a prolonged taste of a career than I've had thus far, to find a job that keeps me living pretty well, that will allow me to pay off my loans and save a bit while providing a structure that won't drive me nuts.

Work has always been something I've felt coming at me like a charging weapon out of the darkness. If I prepare myself enough for the blow, I might be able to grab it and use it to my advantage; if I don't, it will kill me. I want to work and enjoy my life. I'm not really a bohemian character in the least. Give me some convention and I'll defend its attacks on my soul in other ways.

After class I went to the walk-in clinic by my apartment to have my cough checked out, but I was told the doctor wasn't in. I filled out a form and went back at around 4, which is apparently when everyone else was told to come back, because I ended up waiting for a good hour. I hadn't seen a doctor in years. He was a nice guy, took my blood pressure, checked my ears and throat, listened to my back and chest with a stethoscope and told me I had acute bronchitis. He prescribed me azithromycin and told me to come back if it isn't gone in five days. Here's to hoping, because I'm forgetting what it's like to breathe normally.

I watched a lot of Seinfeld and Mission Hill, plus episode three of The War. Andrea signed on and between her drunkenness and my anxiety, bronchitis and WWII atrocity headspace we had a stupid exchange of words. Time to sleep in search of tomorrow.

I skipped yet another Opera class to finish my Oni presentation, which I did and sent out to the masses in hard copy form just before 4 PM. As of 6 PM tomorrow I won't have to worry about it... until I have to reference back to it for my essay.

Andrea and I talked online for a bit today, and she was in a rambunctious mood that made me cheery. I watched some Seinfeld and another episode of The War during which I fell asleep (not for lack of its continued excellence). I managed to polish off half of tomorrow's film class readings, which constitute the last batch of the semester.

I'm starting to tune back into the feeling of relief that comes from finishing work. Oh yeah. That's the stuff.