I thought you said you were never going to let that happen again?
I know, I know. It's just that I say "yes" to everything and bank on at least half of them never eventuating. And most of the time, it works out. But occasionally, I end up with too much to do.
What have you committed to?
Oh, just lots of stuff. Good stuff. Stuff I want to do. The thing that's thrown me a bit is getting my abstract accepted into the Blogosphere collection. I wasn't really expecting that. And now I have to write a 3000 word paper.
Well, that'd be a good thing to do.
Yes it would, but there's no guarantee that the final paper will be accepted. And the feedback I received from the abstract pointed out that my theoretical framework was unclear.
Oh.
And the reason it's unclear because I have no theoretical framework.
Oh.
Yes, exactly. So I feaked out initially and thought "Oh my God I'm going to have to become an instant expert in Visual Rhetoric" on top of everything else I've committed to doing.
But you don't feel like that so much now?
Well, I've spoken to a few people who have calmed me down - Sensei and Jill who basically said just present your own voice, there's not much point trying to force yourself into something that you're not, especially in such a short period of time.
Good advice.
Such good advice...
I guess it means that your paper might not be accepted though.
American Splendor is a great film that I saw during the film festival about the life of comic book writer Harvey Pekar. I think it's getting a mainstream release in Melbourne and it's well worth seeing, even if you have no interest in comics. It has a very clever approach to dealing with the fictionalising of real people, who are still alive- it actually includes them in it alongside the actors. This works surprisingly well for something that sounds like a it would be dreadful. It is particularly effective with Judah Friedlander's portrayal of Toby Radloff. At first it seems as if Judah must be presenting an exaggeration or a caricature of Toby, so mannered and bizarre is his speech, but then, just as you think it's completely unbelievable they cut to the real Toby, in conversation with the actor and the similarities are amazing.
I was looking at the website yesterday which is good and then discovered that not only does Harvey Pekar have a blog but so does his wife, Joyce and their adopted daughter Danielle.
Done My tax (a depressing affair) Got my hair cut (looking more like Grumpy Girl than ever) Finished depressing story and sent it to HQ short story comp (many thanks to Kathryn for reading numerous drafts) Finished reading bookclub book; Ragtime. Interview with Natalie for Sleepy Brain Another interview for Sleepybrain, with La Spin.
Doing Preparing for presentation day at work. Started new depressing story. weight training classes at lunchtime, twice a week with the ultimate aim, as I keep telling Thieu, of having a neck so large that I can't buy regular sized shirts, but have to have them especially made for me. Appreciating the lighter mornings, lighter evenings and the jasmine. I even saw a tree with some new leaves today and I stopped and applauded it.
To Do Write up the interviews, which will be easy for the Natalie one as it was conducted via email, but will be difficult for the La Spin one as it was conducted in a noisy bar, and is currently on tape. Change the banner image of this site, in time for spring.
cnwb has a recent post about cynicism among the younger generation towards the internet and first-wave cyber theories:
Nerd persecution aside, it seems that people who jumped onboard the internet in the late 1990s or later, and particularly younger people who've grown up with the 'net, missed out on a lot of this early 90s utopianism, and consequently see it in a similar way we'd now view someone enraptured with the invention of the telephone. The time between the wide-eyed utopianism and the current ubiquity of the internet has been so short, it's a bit like experiencing 'future shock'.
One student sitting behind me during the lecture even commented "Why do we have to study this shit? The internet's here, get used to it".
American Elf's baby was finally born over the weekend. It was due on August 5th and I've been checking everyday to see if it had arrived. I can't believe he still managed to find the time to post a comic to his site.
It's been strange reading a comic written in "real time"- I think I am used to comics dealing with speeded up time. Each day when I checked to see if the baby had been born I kept thinking "boy, he's really drawing out this storyline" and had to keep reminding myself that he actually didn't have all that much say...
