Remember me?

Hey, all! Sorry for the really long delay. I feel as if my life is much less interesting now that I'm not an international student. Being back in America certainly has its pluses and minuses. Just for fun, I will list some.

Pros
-certain people; both those on the ground and more easily accessible by phone
-materialistic pleasures: being reunited with my stuff, getting new stuff (I have furniture!)
-being able to understand most accents
-soy products are cheaper
-there is more space

Cons
-no heated towelracks. :(
-lack of daily sense of adventure (despite my efforts to tell myself that life is always an adventure, it goes down better when every day presents its own special quasi-traveling challenge)
-not being a two-hour train ride from London
-certain people -- with whom it's harder to keep in touch because of the sense that, practically speaking, I'm probably not going to live in the same area with them again.
-I don't get to make jokes that are predicated on my being an international student -- like making fun of other people for also being foreign.

Pros (again, because there weren't that many of them)
-not having to defend America every few minutes

Cons
-feeling a little less excited about America now that I'm actually living here again. Although the recent elections helped.

Pros
-knowing I'm going to be in the same place for the next few years

Cons
-ditto.

So... it about evens out. And I like IU and the people and the town and the program and stuff. I think this is going to be good. With any luck.

Getting ready to leave

Hi all... I handed in my dissertation on Tuesday, and now I'm packing and getting ready to leave... The news reports have made my packing plans a little more complicated -- I probably won't be able to take on any carry-ons, and I definitely won't be able to carry on any liquids or gells. But I also still have the old-fashioned problem of just getting everything into my suitcases... and mailing what doesn't.

Whee.

Alanna collage

Here's another desktop.... I've loved Tamora Pierce's Alanna books since I was a kid, so I thought I'd do a collage of some of their covers. These images are probably even more under copyright thanthe ones I usually use, but they're just so pretty...

Casanova

I found this movie surprisingly entertaining and surprisingly good. Not that it reminded me of any Shakespeare plays or anything. Not at all.

The penultimate in Bronte studies

I finished my next-to-final draft (which I suddenly realized today I could call "penultimate," thereby removing unecessary words -- which I was doing a LOT of in my revisions -- and using a really cool word I don't get to use very often) of my dissertation today! Go me!

Now I'm going to take a week or so to unwind, fix the footnotes, and prepare for some Bloomington things before making final revisions and handing it in. But at the moment, it's feeling pretty good. If the footnotes were fixed and someone appeared and told me I had to hand it in right now, I would hand it over with a light heart.

Just because

My blog, like my life, has been entirely too text-based lately. So here are some pictures from travels earlier in the spring/summer.

Rome:



Peak District:

Criticism

Theoretical, not practical; I'm talking about art critics here, broadly defined.

Having just finished a decent draft of the introduction and conclusion of my dissertation dealing with George Henry Lewes as a critic of Charlotte Bronte, I mosied over to the New York Times website for a bit of brain-clearing. I encountered this article by A. O. Scott. He talks about the major disjunct between what critics think of a movie and what the public thinks of it, which he measures by box office returns. He wonders out loud -- or in print -- what critics are "for" if the public so flagrantly disregards their opinion.

I think he's missing out on a crucial point: there's a difference between thinking something is good and enjoying it. Perhaps he does not feel that distinction; maybe that's why he's a critic. But for me, at least, I can think a movie is good but not necessarily want to see it. Likewise, I can think a movie is bad, but extremely fun and entertaining. Some of it has to do with the nature of leisure, I think. You could say I'm a critic for a living, a litarary critic. (Well, I don't, strictly speaking, make a living on it yet, but next year I'll get a stipend, which is close!) There are books I think are good, books I think are criticially interesting, and books I read for fun. These overlap, but not necessarily. Moreover, because I criticize art as my job, when I go to a movie, I want to be entertained. That has various specific meanings for me. For one thing, I actually like movies that are somewhat formulaic. I like to be familiar with the story arc; this is why I like three-volume novels, screwball comedies, and many Hollywood blockbusters. But my paying money to see a movie doesn't necessarily mean I think a movie is good -- and doesn't necessarily mean I disagree with Scott. It just means I want to see the movie.