the bright lights of academia are fading. i find it harder and harder to motivate myself - why for instance, should i spend hours attempting to process the word mush (and magic i suppose) of Ulysses when i hate high modernism? people are always talking about their research "interests" and whatnot, succinct strings of nouns (feminism, the victorian novel, crime fiction whatever) but i'm beginning to wonder how important all of this is actually. as people have half-jokingly asked me in the past, who cares?!

sometimes i sit in class and find the discussions as an exercise in ego-stroking, a competition in rhetoric. i'll be carrying a glass of white wine in hand and have to explain to professors what i'm working on, and make the academic small talk that is paramount in this world. i have a feeling that what i'm interested in IS somehow important, not only to literary scholars, but to any reader or person who has yet to read, but i don't know how to describe this to my peers and supervisors. and in that gap of in-articulation, there goes my faith that maybe this work will lead to somewhere.

i tell people that i am leaning towards pursuing other work and leave behind literature after this year. some are surprised, and assume that Oxford has made a bad impression on me, (or that i'm not cut out for this work). i don't think that's it though. it's just the gradual realisation that i need to develop in other ways. i would love to start work next year and learn to deal with people, strict deadlines, and contribute somehow to a world outside of myself. my mind is weak and i don't have a thick enough skin, so maybe working will toughen me up!

however i shall try to make the most out of this masters program - it might be the last year i get to wallow in books! but no more stressing over grades. seriously i need to grow out of that!