This icon fits sort of horribly well.

[searchsoleil]

MY LIFE IS A MESS.

Thing 1: I got to college and on my second day of classes my brand new laptop died. I suppose this was partially my fault. I fell asleep with it on my lap, awoke to it in a pile of dirty clothes beside my bed, and then found later that day that the laptop's battery socket was so loose it couldn't recognize my adapter when I plugged it in. But this is not what I told the lovely people at HP when I sent it in, so they had me send it to them, where they will fix it for free (because I am still under warranty, because I'd only had the laptop for two weeks).

So, what this amounts to is me having an extended nervous breakdown as I keep reaching for a laptop that is not there, and needing to do work and not having a laptop to do it on, and etc etc etc. loweryourwand has been very gracious and has let me use her laptop, but I don't like the fact that I'm basically on it all the time, yet it is hers and she has regular need of it.

Thing 2: I have this insane schedule that I think I'm going to have to prune even though, by God, I don't want to, because all of my classes are awesome (except Astronomy, which sucks, but it is a requirement, so I am stuck with it regardless of my personal opinions). Probably what will go is the complit class (Big Brother: The Poetics of Power). Already gone is Gender and Sexuality in Ancient Greece. What will be left is:

1) Enchanted Imagination, which is an English seminar that focuses on the continuity of Romantic/Victorian fantasy into our modern equivalent (hahaha, watch me die happy).
2) Astronomy, which I hate, and its lab, which will suck even worse, hoorah! I will valiantly struggle through.
3) Victorian Poetry with the professor who taught Romantic Poetry last semester, and who I have a GIGANTIC ACADEMIC CRUSH on. Talk Tennyson to me, baby!
4) Literary Criticism, which is a requirement for English majors, and is taught by my current adviser, who is a dear, although he is currently frustrating me rather a lot with his fluid office hours which make it impossible for me to talk about my current schedule.

The issue comes from having so many English classes which emphasize survey and participation. Basically, all of my classes want me to read a ton and also write about it or present on it. And I am slow and lazy and do not know how to deal with the workload I'm looking at with Big Brother still on my plate. HOWEVER, I really feel like I'm limiting myself overmuch by focusing so closely on English, and on a specific kind of English at that.

And to complicate my feelings, I can't tell how much of this academic angst is being unnecessarily inflamed by my general panic over my laptop and if things will seem any more manageable when I am not a nervous wreck 24/7. This is why I'd really like to talk to my adviser, and why I am so very frustrated that he cannot seem to keep his hours straight. I am in desperate need of advising! >:(

Thing 3: In other news, I'm going to NYCC and I am very excited! I am also sort of panicking that it's going to take a whole weekend that I will need for the crazy amount of work that I'm doing, but I am trying to focus on the positive, which is Torchwood previews and free stuff.

Comments

[splintercat.livejournal.com]

well, la di da, i'm elizabeth and i spend all my days analyzing everything like it's literature. but maybe i analyze literature too much? you know what would be good for me? taking a new class... something different... a class where i... analyze literature!

but you're right, it's a crime that you haven't read 1984. here's what we'll do. we'll watch all the movies on that syllabus. then those of us who apparently didn't go to high school a.k.a. those of us who haven't read 1984 will read that, and then we'll read brave new world (same thing as 1984, except more believable and therefore scarier, also more sex) and some other selections from his syllabus/my experience with literature with authoritarian themes (feel free to contribute as well) and we'll have our own little class! we won't have the benefit of PUsher's brilliance, but hey. i might have been able to connect that first line to The Waste Land on my own.

actually, watching the movies is probably worth doing. god, he had a good list of movies.

[search-soleil.livejournal.com]

Are you really going to tell me you don't spend a significant amount of time analyzing literature yourself? It is the core activity of the humanities. Even Gender and Sexuality in Ancient Greece was going to be mostly analyzing literature (in a historical context, you know). The fact that I don't like languages or the hard sciences kind of limits me enough already, God forbid I want to branch out in theme if not in practice. *stubborn pout*

I like your idea of watching the films. If I do end up dropping the class, they'll probably all end up on my netflix.