Sustained Criticism

Two more exams – I failed the first one in New York –, then I see Up, drink wine and write. And I will read LJ, O'Brian and Mrs Dalloway again. Two days, done in 24 hours. I have to buy ink for my pens and take tea, to keep my fingers from going white and useless.

In an attempt to cheer up before a dreadful two-hour seminar, I went to one of my favourite bookshops. I read crime fiction at Easter, when we're at the cottage and when my brain is so mushy I need a film in writing. Usually, crime fiction means Patricia Cornwell, or P.D. James. The bookshop had no new titles of either. And so I am stuck. What do I read, then? Fiction I can do, I know most of the authors, and if there's a new name, I research. But with crime fiction I don't know where to start. Any recommendations?

One essay down, and the other as close to done as it is ever going to get (it has structural issues – I ought to deal, but know I will pass, regardless). I have acquired a case of essay-postpartum depression, which probably explains my urge to strangle half the world, and throw scalding coffee in the eyes of the other. Just you wait, world, on Monday I will let my hair down, find a pair of delicately towering heels and twirl in the sun. Until then I will work on not killing someone.

What have I been up to lately? Not much, really. Attending weird, random parties with random people. Wrecking a dress, with the help of a dog and coffee. And angsting about my terrible choice of profession. No, to be exact (a virtue I don't think I'll ever brag to possess), angsting about the fact that in a few years I will have a useless education, no interesting work and endless debts. And I didn't even particularly enjoy it.

I'm struggling with making sense. Don't we all, someone ought to chorus here, and chorus away, by all means. No one ever makes sense. Language and literature feels more like a hobby. Fun, but totally useless. Humanistic studies are a product of the postmodern world's absolute decadence; it doesn't pertain to society, does not change it or make the tiniest dent in the flow of things. It, and by extension I, make no difference. And I don't think I am all right with that. Maybe I'll just write a scathing essay, detailing the short-comings of UiO, end with a delicate note of fuck you, and go study medicine in Poland.

At least the family would be over the moon. Not only is Alex a philologist, she's studying medicine. The family's pet professions, all rolled up into one grand little girl. At least I would get to cut people open. And reroute the blood stream, remove tumors, limbs, re-attach things.

We read Stein's Lifting Belly, excerpted, for class. In bed, half-delirious with a triple double espresso (three double espressos, in one cup), it made very little sense. Chalked it up to it all being a very complicated modernist mess, and went to sleep. Didn't read any better at eight. But if you read it out loud, it is beautiful. There's a conversation, two people, emotions, ideas, images. Everything fleeting, staying resolutely those final millimetres from your grasp. She plays with words, uses them so many times they completely lose sense. Like I loved doing when I was younger, and like I occasionally do when I get a hang-up on something. The last was 'å spasere' (Norwegian). It translates roughly as to stroll. If you ever read Stein, closet yourself somewhere, and read aloud to yourself. Preferably a few times, the experience changes each time.

I don't think I care for reading it as resolutely 'lesbian'. It celebrates pleasure, imagination, beauty. Leave sexual statements out of it. Yes, I know she wrote as a lesbian, and that I shouldn't dismiss it.

E.M. Forster's Maurice is a sweet enough story, but not something I'd re-read for the pleasure of it. It's decently written, decently characterised, not quite scathing, not quite stinging. Though it is interesting to read as part of LGBT history, which is precisely what I was doing. It's not supposed to be his masterpiece, but I can't say I will make it a priority to read his other works. I'm spoilt with Nabokov.

Why in the heavens are all the book blogs I find about YA fiction? I hate YA, and have since I was ten. Or was it eight? I will not read the damn books, and I will not deign to read semi-intelligent reviews about them. What happened to fiction? Classics? Critique? The worst is that they get review copies. Review copies, free books. No charge. You're supposed to grow out of YA, and move on to serious fiction. Or did I get it all wrong?

The A-rrogant convened for the first time today. We will convene regularly, with one goal in mind: A's in Eng Lit, and possibly some other assorted courses. Today's backdrop was the first lecture in English Literature. The lecturer was a tremendous disappoinment, in everything but encouraging her students to use a thesaurus. I hope, hope, hope that she improves. But I've been through it before, and have last year's powerpoints somewhere. And have read the literature, but must re-read most. Because, I frankly don't remember shit. Oh, and I found Pinter at Akademika. So now I have no excuse, I must read Pinter. Theatre de l'absurd, oh joy.

I'm taking on the new semester. Bought a frightening stack of books, payed an absurd amount (a pair of Patrizia Pepe's, blah) for them and dragged them home. 11 books, 3 overpriced booklets. And can you believe Stephen Fry has seven iPhones? I suppose it is like my shoes.

"Give an account of the Industrial Revolution in Britain; then discuss whether industrialisation was beneficial or detrimental to British nineteenth-century society." Is one of five topis for the qualifying essay in Eng1505, English Civilisation. I get to write about the Industrial Revolution. My revolution number to, second only to the French. And I get to do research, frolic in literature about the revolution and what it did to people.

The phrasing is pathetic "benefitial or detrimental to society", it was change, you can't judge change as good or bad. It simply is, and brings about upheaval. No, I'll slander his phrasing and go on to discuss what changed, how and what it meant for the affected. Or I could choose the other task, the one about the implications of the Glorious Revolution for the system of government in Britiain.

I was right, this is just like SK. I'm back in essay-writing business. And I got an A on Am. Lit. See, feminist propaganda does work. When the audience is a lesbian queer theory scholar.

There was never a better invention than student advisors, hired to help lost students figure out what on earth they're doing. They get paid to make sense of my degree. Yes, I went to see a student advisor. And she said that I could just do a double major, in English Language and Literature. Meaning that I get Russian and literature, as well as only a halfway useless degree. If the language part turns out to be horrid, I just get rid of it altogether.

My reaction to the grammar and linguistics courses is also entirely normal: they are legendarily hellish, apparently.

And I get to write a bachelor essay/thesis, provided that the faculty makes it available by then. I am almost delirious with happiness.

I've been up and about since eight this morning. I have accomplished this:
Walked the dog; removed computer from said dog's mouth; loaded started the dishwasher; had breakfast, lunch and second lunch; read two chapters in the semi-awful sequel to Shadow of the Wind; and not written a productive word.

More Grammar must be done, and Am. Lit had to be handed in Yesterday a few weeks ago. The draft is a mess, and the disposition non-functional. All I end up doing is countering the points I intend to argue.

The study programme is heinous. There is no freedom for the next year and a half, approximately. There is grammar, grammar, more grammar and a bit of fonetics. When I finish Am. Lit. I am done with the literature courses for my BA. I intend to deal with as follows: complain, tear at my hair, be a sarcastic dimwit about it, and take additional courses that might – gasp! – interest me. Or worse, be somewhat relevant to my MA.

I just love that a BA in literature gets me nowhere, yet a BA in languages will certainly cause death by boredom. Norwegian schooling prevails all the way to university. And there is a master course on Woolf and narrative theory. Perhaps it is time I realise the education I want does not exist?

I've just realised that I am part of a great female plot. Meeting someone wearing the same top you are, you give each other the once over. It does, thankfully, not happen very often. If you find the other wears the top well, or in a way you hadn't thought of, you smile; "I like your style", or "I must wear it like that sometime".

With the exception of a much too high dosage of semantics, grammar and general lingvistics, University is fun. I have too much coffee, talk too much, read pittifully little. And I buy too many shoes. Breath-taking Oxfords, from Patrizia Pepe's autumn/winter line. And the pair of C'N'C sandals I coveted so this summer, at 70% off. Yum!

We had four hours of grammar as an introductory lecture yesterday. It was challenging, and fun. Four hours of grammar was fun. I think I'm finally where I belong. Though it seems only a handful of us are going on to do a Master. I also have the best lectureplan in the world. I start no earlier than 10:15, and have Fridays off. Life will be good. Now all I need is a job.

Wedding tomorrow :]

My hair is in love with the Wella Lifetex series, thank god. Using the mask as a conditioner is the best idea my hair-dresser har ever come up with. Not only is my hair managable, it looks and feels healthy. So, I am almost back in love with my hair. The only thing missing is a flash of new colour, and forty-somthing foils going into the works.

I'm also desparingly hooked on The Wire.

I've decided: I shall get a master in English. While both law and psychology is infinitely tempting, I don't think I can bare not fiddling with languages. And I will do Russian on the side. And I will shanghai my Russian-speaking relatives into talking with me. And I will make sure there is no trace of Norwegian in my English. And I will read so much silly things my head is full of it. And I will buy that critic I spoke of earlier, and worship him with zest (yes, zest, the word is appalling, but it works).

I desperately want to do my master at Oxford, and so there is only one thing to do: excel at everything I do the next three years. Perhaps I'll land myself in our thoroughly arrogant Ministry of Foreign Affairs when I'm done studying. Or do a master in law. The prospect of bantering for a living is infinitely appealing, though I would only work as a barrister. And that is a bit limiting, considering that it is most likely what all law-students want.

Anyone asking what I'll do when I have finished deserves nothing less than my best Snape-interpretation. No less, I tell you. I might call them something nasty/nifty in Russian, for good measure. I also suspect Russian grammar and cases is hellish.

There is still a degree of separation anxiety from upper secondary, but I'm improving. The prescriped dosage of fiction and people is helping.

(Mot evigheten, og forbi! Høres enda fetere ut på norsk enn engelsk. Lenge leve Buzz!)