Ravings of the Partially Sane

Seth Green - October - Auckland Armageddon!!!!!!!!


Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmyessssssssssssssssssssssss

So, I want to get to writing more uni & media related things on my blog. The upshot of this is that a wider range of people may be reading it, so I don't really want all my personal stuff sitting there for all to see. So I am creating a friends group of all the people who currently follow my personal stories, and making all the personal entries only visible to them. So, if you read this, and suddenly most of the entries have disappeared, then you can't have added me as a friend. I highly recommend it :p

PS Changing all these entries from one friend group to another is seriously laborious -  anyone know if there is a quick way?

As an item on my 101 List, I wanted to see a live production of each of Shakespeare's plays. So, I wanted to keep a record of the plays that I've seen, so I can tick them off. I'm having a little difficulty with some of the years of productions I've seen, and in a couple of cases, remembering whether I've seen the productions, or just heard & read a lot about them. However, I am only putting down ones I'm sure I've seen, and only where I have seen full productions, as opposed to readings or extracts. Films don't count. The Reduced Shakespeare Company doesn't count. I'm including shows I've acted in, because I figure you end up seeing the great majority of a show you work on.

It's not a bad list, but further to go than I'd realised!

So, I haven't completed it yet, but here is my 101 list as it stands. These are 101 things I want to do before I die, so it gives me the scope to put some fairly large-scale things on there, but some are pretty small too...

( The List )
Will try to tick them off here if and when achieved. So here we go!

So, the word is in - I'm not going to be able to do the tricky dicky Masters-in-the-second-semester that I was thinking of. So, the plan is, get my PhD proposal in, and get going on that just as soon as I can. In terms of funding, I will look at a student allowance, and I will be doing some more teaching I hope, and I do still have the store, although if I want to do the PhD fulltime I'll have to back out a little from there. Plus my darling has said she will try to help me find any other options I might have in terms of other funding. It won't necessarily be easy, in fact I very much doubt it will be easy at all, but I have every confidence that we will get there.

She gives me that confidence.

So it's been a long time since I've written. Life has been completely insane!!!

Finished my own essay, marked the last essay for the paper I was tutoring, followed by their exam. Very interesting experience... definitely keen to do some more tutoring next semester if they'll have me.

Done some cleaning around the house - got a couple of rooms which had been sliding downhill for ages done, the place is starting to look better :-)

The store was broken into about a week or so ago - luckily not too much was taken, but the door is proving quite costly to repair. It shouldn't be too costly for us - either the landlord will pay, or the insurance company, but it's still plenty drama...

What else has happened? Things are still fantastic with my baby - we're doing date night once per week, making sure that we have good time together, which is just wonderful. She's a little stressed with work stuff, but lets face it, we basically take turns at that :-p

Still not sure exactly what I'm doing next at uni. I've found one vague possibility which would allow me to get a Doctoral Scholarship at the start of next year, but it would require me writing a year-long thesis in the next semester, and getting an A for it. I'm still waiting to hear back whether that's going to be allowed or not. Failing that, I will just apply for my PhD and try to do it without funding - that much more difficult, but still, I'll be doing my PhD.

Anyway - that's about me - I'll write more about my PhD proposal soon :D

I found it - just too late for it to be of use. I was describing it in my last tutorial, and suddenly a phrase I was using rang a bell

The Cult of Amateurism - Andrew Keen.


GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhh


But on the plus side, I got applause at the end of each tut, and had several students individually thank me, including one who said he never ever goes to tuts, but came to every one of mine. I may have found something I'm good at. Here's hoping the uni thinks so, and gives me more work next semester, and that maybe it might build into some guest lecturing! I'd love that!

Don't you hate it when you can't find some information online, even though you know it's there.

I remember a book being published in the last 12-18 months, on the premise that the internet was lowering the quality of artistic endeavour in the world. The theory was that the democratisation of art - the ability of anyone anywhere to easily have the tools to create music, or film, or fiction, or art, and to publish it online was leading to a mass decline in the overall quality, and the suggestion that the truly great was being lost amidst the wash.

But I can't find hide nor hair of this book, the author, or any reference to it. And I wanted to mention it in my tutorial.

GAHHHHHHHH

I heard this this morning, and it just rang so so true, every line more true than the last.


She's got a way about her
I don't know what it is
But I know that I can't live without her
She's got a way of pleasin'
I don't know why it is
But there doesn't have to be a reason anywhere

She's got a smile that heals me
I don't know what it is
But I have to laugh when she reveals me
She's got a way of talkin'
I don't know why it is
But it lifts me up when we are walkin' anywhere

She comes to me when I'm feelin' down
Inspires me without a sound
She touches me and I get turned around
She's got a way of showin'
How I make her feel
And I find the strength to keep on goin'
She's got a light around her
And ev'rywhere she goes a million
Dreams of love surround her ev'rewhere

She comes to me when I'm feelin' down
Inspires me without a sound
She touches me, I get turned around oh oh oh

She's got a smile that heals me
I don't know why it is
But I have to laugh when she reveals me
She's got a way about her
I don't know what it is
But I know that I can't live without her any way.

Finally got some details out of the university regarding PhD scholarships - and have found out that there is absolutely no way that I can get one mid-year. They're offered, but only 3 to the entire Arts faculty, and they expect you to have all As or A+s, they basically allow for 1 A-. So far, I have mainly A-s.

So now I have to make a big decision. Do I go into my PhD and try to do the first 6 months without funding, which will mean working a LOT, whilst trying to start a brilliant PhD, or do I let it go for 6 months, risk losing my impetus & my drive, but actually have 6 months of being able to live, getting the business square, getting my life in order, and maybe even being able to put some money aside so that I can support my pretty lady as she deserves.

On the upside, before I'd worked that all out, I was sitting down with my lecturer this morning in my last paper, and he let it slip that he can't really see me getting any less than an A in it. Considering so far I've done no marked work, that's a bold assessment, but at least it means he's got that set in his mind, so that should count in my favour come marking times. Except for the weight of expectations. Damn those expectations, damn them all to hell!

Now I have to watch a bunch of texts (read movies/tv), so that I can glean any aspects of human/animal relations that might be important from them. King Kong, Black Sheep, Cane Toads, and maybe a Mad Max film to get some feeling of aspects of the feral in a post-apocalyptic vision. Also, I want to watch Hyena & Prophecy Girl from S1 Buffy - both use interesting animal metaphors that i want to refer to...

Had my first student complaining about the mark I gave her.

Does that make me a real academic now?

It's been an odd week.

Car blew up last weekend, still waiting to hear back from the garage, but I've said the last rites already. It is over, finito, done. The good news, I have a new car already. My uncle had been holding onto my grandfather's car for the last few years, basically just keeping it in his garage, keeping it warranted, and giving it a run every couple of months. He was getting sick of it, so has offered it to me, for FREE. Well, not technically for free, my aunt insisted on putting a caveat on it that she get free tech support from me forever. Which she has always gotten anyway. So I can cope.

I am now the proud over of a 1996 Rover 827 Sterling, the nicest car I have even owned and quite possibly will ever own. Leather interior, automatic everything. Its quite flash!

Bday was Monday, and that was much fun, but between that and the car having blown up, I had gotten myself a little behind in life, so the rest of the week was spent trying to catch up with the world. Work. Uni. Washing. All that fun stuff.

Uni keeps trucking on, I'm still seriously behind where I wanted to be on my PhD proposal, but the work I'm doing for my course is starting to get on track, and if I keep it up, I could actually produce something quite interesting.

Off to the league in the rain this afternoon, then to my great lady's comedy gig tonight. Work tomorrow will be fun...

So it was my bday today. 29.

In general, most of the day was like any other - work at one job, work at the other job. But it was made amazing by my girl, who came to breakfast with the parents this morning, dinner with the parents tonight, and generally did all she could to make this the best birthday ever. And it truly was. She had prepared a surprise for me this morning, which was just amazing, and generally pampered me all day.

Plus, my laptop FINALLY arrived.

Yay for bdays!

I was asked what I thought was the most romantic song I knew a few days ago, which caused me obvious coniptions and serious internal debate. My solution follows:

I've felt you coming girl, as you drew near
I knew you'd find me, cause I longed you here
Are you my destiny? Is this how you'll appear?
Wrapped in a coat with tears in your eyes?
Well take that coat babe, and throw it on the floor
Are you the one that I've been waiting for?

As you've been moving surely toward me
My soul has comforted and assured me
That in time my heart it will reward me
And that all will be revealed
So I've sat and I've watched an ice-age thaw
Are you the one that I've been waiting for?

Out of sorrow entire worlds have been built
Out of longing great wonders have been willed
They're only little tears, darling, let them spill
And lay your head upon my shoulder
Outside my window the world has gone to war
Are you the one that I've been waiting for?

O we will know, won't we?
The stars will explode in the sky
O but they don't, do they?
Stars have their moment and then they die

There's a man who spoke wonders though I've never met him
He said, "He who seeks finds and who knocks will be let in"
I think of you in motion and just how close you are getting
And how every little thing anticipates you
All down my veins my heart-strings call
Are you the one that I've been waiting for?

I'm going to a departmental lecture tomorrow on the simultaneous orgasm.

I love my course!

So I'm at work. It's mornings like this that I'd rather not be here. The mall as a whole is pretty dead - everyone must be waking up late this morning. And whilst I have a metric shitload of work to do, it's all the boring admin stuff, or things I have been forced to finally pull out of the "too hard" basket. And I don't like that basket at all. Maybe I'll feel more like it after a coffee...

In exciting and fun news, a rejuvenated "Ultimate Death Ray" (my pub quiz team), came storming back to form to win the quiz again last night. I'm putting it down to us having females on our team - it freaked out the competition, who are used to seeing a slightly pathetic group of geeky males, who struggle equally with Dancing with the Stars questions, and pretty much the entire Sports round. Go the XXs!

I have a bunch of ideas for that uni assignment in my head, but they are refusing to take form. Phill is providing me with some excellent guidance on this, but I think I've actually dragged it too far away from his area of expertise for him to be of much help. I'm still hoping that he and I can work on something for publication, even if it is outside of the bounds of this particular assignment. It would be an excellent start to my publishing career, and I would just love working with him.

My PhD proposal has gone absolutely nowhere. Nowhere at all. Haven't written a word. The next meeting I could be presented at is in May, but that's just looking like a pipedream at the moment. I think me and my great lady might have to go back to the original plan of working together a bunch if I'm going to have any hope of getting the work done that I need to. My other problem is that I am also falling behind in a lot of the shows that I watch, and whilst I can't define them as "course readings", they are actually pretty crucial to the work I'm doing. So I need to do a bunch of writing, a bunch of reading, and a bunch of sitting on the couch watching TV.

Possibly I should spend less time on Facebook and rambling at whoever is unfortunate enough to still be reading this. But it's unlikely to happen.

So, the paper I have to write on human/animal is perhaps starting to take a little more form.

I'm choosing to focus on what I am suggesting is humans' fear of the "return of the animal" - that people have spent millennia subjugating the world around them, especially the animal kingdom, and that there is now an innate fear within people that the animal will return. I will be interpolating this into immigrants' desire to introduce familiar species into their new world, and bend the local flora and fauna to their view of a civilised world. The effects of these introduced, and sometimes invasive species will be investigated, along with a modern backlash against their eradication.

The notion of the feral, the untamed will play a large role in investigating this fear of the return of the animal, and to back this up I will be looking at specific moments in popular culture which deal with "the animal fighting back". Giant/wild animal films seem to provide some keys to this, with films such as Black Sheep, Anaconda, Jaws and King Kong all presenting us with animals that are uncontrollable, sending immense fear through those people they encounter, before being eventually destroyed by the will, fortitude and cunning of mankind.

A new idea is also now circulating in my head, that this could also be tied in to the cult of the vampire/zombie/werewolf, which all present us with an anthropomorphic human form that has, to a greater or lesser degree, been taken over by "the animal".

So, there's some ideas, still pretty sketchy, but it's starting to take some form. Now I just have to completely re-write the 500wd abstract I had, and turn it into a 1000wd abstract by Friday. And before anyone asks, yes, 1000wds isn't really an abstract at all, more of a detailed plan, but that's what they're calling it.

Was listening to the Twilight Singers' version of this earlier - just wonderful.

We live on a mountain
Right at the top
There's a beautiful view
From the top of the mountain
Every morning I walk towards the edge
And throw little things off
Like:
Car parts, bottles and cutlery
Or whatever I find lying around

It's become a habit
A way
To start the day

I go through all this
Before you wake up
So I can feel happier
To be safe up here with you

It's early morning
No one is awake
I'm back at my cliff
Still throwing things off
I listen to the sounds they make
On their way down
I follow with my eyes 'til they crash
Imagine what my body would sound like
Slamming against those rocks

When it lands
Will my eyes
Be closed or open?

I go through all this
Before you wake up
So I can feel happier
To be safe up here with you

So I'm here for my office hour again, and once again it's deathly quiet, so I get to try to wrap my head around some work.

Have emailed my cousin about the paper I have to write for the course I'm sitting - I seem to be leaning towards "Introduced Species" as a basis for looking at human/animal, and although I am feeling a little bit like I am leaving my department far behind, I'm getting some interesting ideas on it, so it will be fascinating to see how it pans out.

Basic concept:
Introduced and invasive species have been studied for the last 50 years or so, looking at the impact they have had on native/indigenous flora and fauna. I'm interested in looking at why migrants chose to bring animals, whether it was purely functional, or whether it also provided them with a feeling of mastery over a new locale that presented a feral aspect, an aspect of the dark unknown.

How, you may ask, does this tie into Film, Television, & Media Studies? Answer: no fucking idea. If anyone has any suggestions of texts (film, television etc) to draw on, either on animals with immigration, or on feral animals, or anything that might possibly be related, that would be of great assistance. At the moment, all I can think of is The Piano, and I don't remember any animals in that at all - all it gives is a feeling of the level of foreboding that the native New Zealand bush and landscape immediately presented to immigrants.

I may well write more later, either brainstorming on this, or on the PhD proposal, which seems a larger & scarier prospect by the day. This is the next 3 years of my life that I have to condense into roughly 20 pages and then, at least to some extent, actually stick to. The surface is so far over my head that I can't even see it any more, as I slowly sink into the inky blackness...

This post comes to you from the excitement of my own office at uni. Altogether now... ooooooh ahhhhhh.

Anyway, very briefly, there are some things that I am going to start talking about on my blog that, whilst I have no problem with people knowing about, I'd prefer not to be around in the general internet ether, and as such, I will be starting to do the odd Friends-only post. In other words, if you are a friend of mine, its time to add me, or to make an account and add me!

Some large uni-based posts will be coming soon, although possibly not over the weekend, as I have a wedding to attend on Saturday, and wedding after-do plus work on Sunday. The life of the socially upwardly-mobile... actually, I would have no idea what that's like. I barely know what it is to not be socially retarded.