The Film Noir Experience

So, my school books have been trickling in, slowly, as I've bought them from the internet. One of the classes I'm taking is a Corpus Linguistics class (I'm learning Perl!) For the class, there was one absolutely optional books. Two books who are optional if you've worked with UNIX or Perl before (I bought them) and one required book. Guess which order I've received them in? Yup, that's right. In the exact opposite order in which they would have been useful.

Today, I signed in to see the status of my books that I've not received, so I'd know when to expect them. Apparently, I Didn't even order that last one. The one that was required. The one I should already be three chapters into. Thankfully, I have friends and know how to look sad and pathetic and have been able to keep up with the reading. Further good news, thanks to the internet, I can expect said book in 4-7 days. Hooray!

Posted by Kate at 09:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I am finished with the coursework for this semester (I don't know if any of it was any good, but I'm done with it and that's what matters!) My second semester as a PhD student is done and dusted. Earlier today, I was feeling a little like a Rock Star. I'd finished everything. I'd printed the last of it out and was all ready to go hand it in. I'd showered and my hair was up in a twist with pencils sticking out of it. I put on some makeup. Really, a rock star. Or, at least as close to a Rock Star as a PhD student can get.

So, I pack everything up and head to campus, I go to submit the last of my final papers and as I'm reaching to put them into my Professor's mailbox I have this feeling I've done something terribly, terribly wrong. I stop. I think about it. I look over everything again and it hits me. I'm about it hand something in that doesn't have my name on it anywhere. A title. A date. No name. Great. So, I have to run back down to the library and hop on a computer so that I can print out a new title page so that the work can correctly be identified as mine. That pretty much killed the Rock Star vibe.

In celebration of being done, I'm going to a Lab Party tonight. It should be pretty fun.

But, the best news of all: Now that I'm done with the semester, I can reacquaint myself with Booklist '09. I started The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber in January. I have no good excuse for why I am just now getting back to it. Maybe all that Sookie Stackhouse nonsense I read? Or, maybe it was trying to keep up with the reading in three seminars and two labs? I don't know. What I do know is that it is really cleverly written in the first person and my bookmark indicates I only got about 31 pages into it. I think I'm just going to start over. I'm very excited about it.

Also, Happy Mercury Retrograde!

Posted by Kate at 03:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This lovely tree diagramming a sentence that means "Elizabeth read a lot in Welsh." is brought you by these lovely people. I won't tell you the embarrassing story that involves someone telling me about the site, I'll just sum it up in the sentence: I just did a lot of stupid things all in the same PDF file.

Posted by Kate at 09:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)