Day 222: Reading and Procrastination

I know you are all busy, and that you have lives and families and things to do. I know you may have intended to get it done and then it just got caught in the many, many other things to get done. The list-writers probably still have it on their list. They probably transfer it over every day with the intention of working on it. But ultimately it all gets down to the same thing: nobody has written the application for my PhD thesis yet despite me asking about it months ago. It appears I may have to actually do this all by myself. And I have reached the catalyst that may get it going—the rumour that our office will be moving to a remote(r) location, somewhere where I can't walk to work, and somewhere that may mean I have to get a car and drive in amongst the insane that frequent roads in this city. I need to do my PhD and get a job in the university in the city as a lecturer and get a jacket with patches on the elbows and speak literature all day long. Of course I assume this series of events are inevetable. Inevitable if I can just get the application done!

List_Addict               Irene

Could anyone at least assist with a (useful) suggestion? I'll narrow it down for you. It needs to be about literature. That means it can't be about cures for cancer, the financial effect of internet shopping and idiot politicians on the Australia deficit, or, Jodie Picoult. (I am so mean. I haven't even read a Jodie Picoult. But everyone needs a Jodie Picoult to 'Jodie Picoult' with.) It has to be something I can live with for the three to five years that a part-time doctoral thesis will take. It will be like doing something you really love for a job—I will probably kill that something in the process. (I'm talking about an author, a genre or a theorist. Not someone I know and currently love. And I am talking their work, not their person. There will be no burying of bodies in upright graves so satellites don't discern strange newly-dug six-foot long holes in my immediate vicinity.) My original thoughts were along this trajectory: Fatherlessness and Violence in Fight Club, Dexter and Great Expectations. Those are the little elements that need to be in it. Some sort of link between one thing and another that can be argued through theory and which shows in the texts. A range of texts, which can include visual texts (they're a whole lot of fun in their own right). And usually a classic thrown in. The hesitation with going with that option, although I do think it would be interesting, are that Fight Club is too 'done', Great Expectations doesn't have the right level of violence. I could probably do Crime and Punishment but I have read it too many times already. The other things that interest me are identity formation and celebrity, especially the link between those. That was what my honours thesis was about, so I would consider something similar—although I do love difference. To help you work it out I am planning to immerse myself in the whole Palahniuk oeuvre. Even though I don't want to because then they will be all read. And because reading eleven books or so is going to speed things up, I am sure. But he'll be there no matter what. I'm watching now for your replys.


The (Just Didn't Work) Outfit
Top: Op-shopped
Jacket: Op-shopped
Skirt: Op-shopped
Shoes: Irregular Choice 'Spat Attack'


Photographer de Jour: V——


Who wore it better?

Making friends today with:

Comments

  1. I wish you the best of luck in finding your thesis that will make the process somewhat easier for you. I loved this post. Kudos to you - in a world where we only post what works or what makes us look good....you post pictures of the outfit that didn't work!!! I was your neighbor at the Weekend Blog Hop.
    Have a great Saturday!
    Joanne

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  2. I know nothing about literature or Ph.Ds, but I recommend that rather than trying to link things you ask yourself what great question, what extraordinary mystery, do you want solved, and what does literature have to say about it?

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  3. I have been pondering the comment by jviola79 above. I have come to the conclusion that it is intended as a compliment, I just don't understand what she means by saying your outfit doesn't work. Doesn't work for what? Freezing temperatures perhaps?

    ReplyDelete

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