thesis blues

Something like 12 days till hand-in, and motivation levels across the class are at an all time low. I am happy that at least I have got my 3 chapters done before I crashed, but speaking with people it seems like many haven't made it that far. So I am very grateful to Bernadette for keeping me motivated up until this point.

It's Hard Slog from here, I think, which is going to be tough. The truth is that I have never been that good at sustained hard work, not beyond the intensity of a 3U major work, anyway, and doing that was nothing like this. I do feel emotionally involved... but there's a degree to which it doesn't matter how you do in HSC art, as long as you like it. If you do badly in Honours, liking what you're doing isn't going to be most of the difference, the quality of your work is.

*sigh*

I want to do so much when I'm done, at least now I don't just sit around doing nothing for ages, even when I do give myself a day off, I try to do a lot with it so it feels useful or therapeutic in some way.

Somebody is sitting out the front of our house in their car playing that Greenday song I have been hearing a lot, with the lyrics "wake me up, when tomorrow ends...". I really like that song.

Job interview went really well. I didn't get it in the end, they went for someone with more industry experience, but I was second on their list, and the people I was ahead of had industry experience too. So I guess that bodes well for future job applications. I am going round to Alice's place on Saturday, if I think of it I might ask her dad for any relevant advice.

So, what's happening apart from that..? Extended drama that I wish would cut out with Carli, and apart from that nothing. Mum got her cast off yesterday, which is really good news, but it will take a few months of physio till she's fully mobile again. Arts revue is finally finished, and it went off, which is really really good. Apart from the Dave/Neal dramas, it all really came through into a good show.

I wrote my acknowledgements page the other day... so lame, I don't even have a title to my thesis yet! So much fiddly stuff to do once I have finished the intro and conclusion, too... ah well. Shower, then thesis. Hot water and midnight are your friend!

~se fin

huzzah!

*dances*

For two reasons... thesisaurus is under control and finally tamed, with just the intro and conclusion left to write and quite a few edits and reworkings already under my belt...

And, far more importantly, I got my cat empire ticket today! For the Friday night concert in November, so so excited about that.

There's a little kitten-pie asleep oh-so-cutely on my lap right now, squashed in between my and the desk and twitching his ears when I type and accidentally disturb him... keeping me all toasty warm, too. I got compliments on my legs today, oddly, nice if unexpected!

See, thesis work leaves the brain in fragments. It's impossible to concentrate on anything else, which is why shitty tv holds such appeal for me right now. I was lying awake until at least 3am this morning thinking and thinking and thinking, which is very exhausting, but at least the early starts aren't getting any harder. I think at the moment my diurnal rhythms (sounds like a band, hey) are screwed up, but as long as I can have the occasional afternoon nap there are fewer ill-effects than otherwise.

oooo, and excellent quote to go under the title of my 3rd chapter, so it goes:

Chapter Three: "Peter L. sits kicking at the texts./ He is cross with them..."

"Do not forget that a poem, although it is composed of the language of information, is not used in the language-game of giving information"
- Ludwig Wittgenstein, Zettel

So I am feeling happy about that, and there are going to be quote scattered throughout the thesis because they provide good anchoring points for a lot of the ideas I talk about.

~yay!

cruising

Listening to some old music lists which haven't seen the light of day for a while... it's good. Music always does that thing where you listen to it and remember some moment at which you were previously listening to the same song, and something happens... all the feelings and memories come back.

I know this isn't special, everyone has it... it's really cool is all. Like smells bringing back memories. Oldest sense and all that.

So. I am grappling with Delueze and Guattari, fun as that always is I swear the guys have a crack addiction or something sometimes. I mean, I love a lot of the things they say, but really - "All we talk about are multiplicities, lines, strata and segmentarities, lines of flight and intensities, machinic assemblages and their various types, bodies without organs and their construction and selection, the plane of consistency, and in each case the units of measure... Not only do these constitute a quantification of writing, but they define writing as always the measure of something else."

See, I get the last sentence, or I think I do, but I have no idea what all the other stuff is about. Weird-ass.

Pic of me and Jade, for the hell of it:

So, Jimi Hendrix and 'All Along the Watchtower' it is, right now =]
In fact, let's be boring and type this playlist:
1. Lauryn Hill - Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You
2. Ella Fitzgerald (except it's so not her) - You Give Me Fever
3. Christina Aguilera - Beautiful
4. Wheatus - Teenage Dirtbag (makes me think of Mena Suvari)
5. The Killers - Mr Brightside
6. The Pixies (hah!) - Where is My Mind?
7. Simon & Garfunkel - Sounds of Silence
8. Beck - Loser
9. Jimi Hendrix - All Along the Watchtower
10. The Donnas - Take Me to the Backseat
11. Goo Goo Dolls - Iris
12. Aimee Mann - One
13. Dido - Thank You
14. Eminem - The Real Slim Shady
15. Josh Abrams - Addicted to Bass
16. Radiohead - Paranoid Android
17. Janis Ian - Seventeen
18. The Eels - Novacaine (for the soul)

Now, that has gone and wasted a good 5 minutes, writing that down. My work here is done!