Saturday, June 6, 2009

what's this, i'm freeee, you say?! :)

i woke up as usual at 8:30 AM even after having fallen into bed five hours ago. it is the first morning in goodness knows how long (er, two solid months?) that i wake knowing there is not ONE OUNCE of reading, writing or studying that awaits my attention today. nor will there be for the next four months.

i am done with Cambridge academics!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (i survived!!!)

note, the number of exclamation marks cannot fully capture my happiness and relief. even though exams did not go ideally, at least the dissertation went well :). "Henry James's Metaphors of Fixedness and Mobility in The Ambassadors", a mind-blowingly fascinating topic, if i may say so myself.


so what now? :) it is 9 AM on a saturday morning and the possibilities are endless..!

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

oh no! but oh well

i completely misread the Tennyson poem for yesterday's paper. i totally made up some Christian allusion which isn't actually used! Pilate, not Pilot! yikes. so i wrote stuff on resurrection which i don't think Tennyson was even thinking of! sigh i hope they award marks for creativity...

Sunday, May 24, 2009

"i'm hopelessly flawed"

i really admire those people who have the courage to surrender themselves to their hearts: to doing and saying exactly what they want to.

i guess i'm not as brave as i thought i am. i have so much learning to do.

Sunday, May 10, 2009

two weeks 'til paper 6

and can i answer a single section B past paper question?
no!!!

how is this possible? i stare at the TWELVE past paper questions on Function of Criticism, and none of them seem do-able. (i've been doing readings, believe me) yes, i realize that answering Tripos questions often requires a bit of creativity, but how am i supposed to answer for instance,

"Are universities likely to be good or bad places for the functioning of criticism?"
or "What is the function of the adjective in the phrase "literary criticism"?"
or worse yet,

" 'The replacement of a hermeneutic by a semiotic model, of interpretation by decoding, would represent, in view of the baffling historical instability of textual meanings, a considerable progress. Much of the hesitation associated with "reading' could thus be dispelled.' Discuss."

what the WHAT?!?!

Sunday, April 26, 2009

easter (exam) term

four weeks. i really am running out of excuses to procrastinate. England has been doing its best to win me over and out of the library, showing off its unbelievably sunny weather, perfect blue skies, and summer flowers. it is very persuasive. between tea outside in the Pembroke gardens and thesis work, who in the right mind would pick thesis, huh, HUH?!

atarashii (新しい) daily schedule
9 am. good morning (おはいよう!), breakfast
10 am - 12 noon exam revision
12:30 ish. lunch
2:30-6 pm. errands, exam revision and thesis work
6:30/7 pm. dinner
9 pm. exam revision - 2 hrs
1 am sleep (お休み!)

the problem with college is that you get so sucked into the daily things that you forget about the big picture. sigh. but unfortunately i think i will have to focus on the small things (haha, that tiny thing cam calls the Tripos) for the next month or so, until 4:30 PM 2ND JUNE, 2009!!! (provided that my mini thesis is done)