Word Cloud Project

I thought an apple was appropriate...

Here is the project I spent months on, concisely summarized by a word cloud that took a minute to make.

Masters Defense Done

I kept 3 other people in a small room talking about my ideas for nearly an hour. That was nice. It was nice affirmation of the work I had done.

We talked about the process, where the project had been and where it is going. We also brought up holes in the argument, but that doesn't worry me. For the scope of my project, things had to be left out. The trick was I could address those concerns in discussion.

Now I have to write the paper for Indian Children's lit.

Blergh.

I'm gonna take a break for drinks and appetizers at Houlihan's first.

Masters Defense...dun, dun dun! And the Paper I did not write.

So I'm trying to prepare to defend my masters project today.

One thing I may have a hard time with is Paradise Lost. It's a long and complicated text, and I can't keep all the angels and demons/devils straight, especially because I don't think Philip Pullman created exact parallels in His Dark Materials. I don't think Paradise Lost is that relevant to my project persay, but Dr. Smith is a hardcore Milton fan. Also, a lot of our attitudes about the Fall of Adam and Eve come from the widely read Paradise Lost as much as they do from the bible, so actually it is relevant. Since there is no time to read Paradise Lost for a third time in my life, I am sparknoting this morning, but I must say, Sparknotes offers some biased evaluation on the text, though they make attempts to be fair.

I'm also worried that no one will ask me about rhetorical theory in my defense since it's not relevant to the lit and tech writing people on my committee. I'm fairly sure they will ask me what I would do with the project in the future. I think I'll talk about its potential for book length development, but emphasize that while a full book focusing on the rhetoric of His Dark Materials is possible and would be interesting, my focus would be on developing the theory and using more example texts to illustrate the potential of the theory. That way I can draw in more Burke and what I did with Abby's paper last spring.

I'm nervous.

I also still need to write the paper that was due yesterday but that I had the wrong date for. I'm a putz, and grad school is melting my brain, but I think I have mulled through the topic enough to crank out a paper. It's funny how after completing my masters project a 15 page, well-supported paper seems like nothing.

I'm going to talk about the Indian nationalist movement to unify India through mapping the Mother Goddess over the nation of India and how that made India into a specifically Hindi nation, creating oppression for Muslim Indians and others.

Then I'm going to talk about how The Smile of Vanuvati traces the Mother Goddess back through history in the form of the parallels of land and an iconic doll in order to connect the Mother Goddess to a more open history of India, which is more inclusive of Muslims and other historically present groups.

The Smile of Vanuvati is set in the state of Gujarat, which has seen intense violence between Hindi and Muslin groups even in recent years, so the book is a timely response to the tensions there.

Okay, back to defense mode. I need to shower and get dressed.

Count-down to Graduation

So a couple of my friends have started posting facebook statuses of their final to-do lists before we graduate. I decided to jump on board, but my list was too long for a facebook status, so here it is.

1. Grade correspondence portfolios for 417
2. 15-20 page paper for 710
3. 2000-2500 word paper for 759
4. Masters defense
5. Presentation for 759
6. Research log for 759
7. 2 feasibility reports for 759
8. Grade 18 final reports & presentations for 417
9. Final test for 710
10. Grade all revisions for 417

I also have a couple readings left for 710, but they're small, so I'm not counting them. Blergh. How will I get all of this done in 2 weeks? Also, why do I still procrastinate so much 25 years into life?

Project? What Project?

I wanted to work on my project today, but there just wasn't time. I was very productive today though.

1. I graded/responded to proposals for my students final projects.

2. I read all the web design articles for tech comm and wrote my response.

3. I attended the SAGE meeting.

4. I workshopped Emily's statement of teaching philosophy for a scholarship application.

5. I helped Angel come up with reasons why a certain professor should get the service award from SAGE.

Now I'm going to bed. I will wake up at the crack of dawn to finally finish my project...at least, that's the plan. I think I am feeling a little dejected because my friend, nicknamed Cheever, explained to me that gamers make poor friends. They invite you to a quest and then take all the diamonds. Online gaming might be a no-go, except with Lindsey because she will be nice.

Reading Instead of Writing

So I keep just starting at my writing project. I set aside all homework on Thursday so that I could just finish my project and stop worrying about it. Come Friday, I had revised 7 pages and 1 new one, and I still had a lot of work today.

I need to turn this project back into a conversation I enjoy having and make it less of a nightmare where I can't find the words I want and don't know where to start. So I'm doing some quick research about Pullman's work so that I can get into some more conversation. I'm also going to reread Naomi's articles. Hopefully this works and by this evening I will be writing new material at a regular pace.

I am so ready for summer and novel writing.

Project, Project, Project

Annotated bibliography is done--I could probably write that paper tomorrow (not time-wise, but my brain is ready for it), and maybe I will write it this weekend so that it is done.

Project proposal for Technical Communications...not started :/
Scary!

Reading for Wednesday--1/2 done for Indian children's lit; not started for tech comm. Oh well.

Currently, I'm working on my project because I couldn't sleep for thinking about it. In looking at the 7 most recent pages, I wonder if Naomi actually read them. She put 1 comment on the first page, and then didn't comment again until the 5th, where she proceeded to comment plenty until the end. That means 4 pretty much uncommented pages. Oh well. I can do this!

Finally Working on My Master's Project

...well not really. Clearly, I am blogging. I have been reading a great article "Paradise Lost and Found: Obedience, Disobedience, and Storytelling in C. S. Lewis and Philip Pullman" by Dr. Naomi Wood, and as I was reading I got to thinking about the similarities between Monsters Inc. and the harpies in the land of the dead in The Amber Spyglass.

VS


The monsters initially feed upon the fear of children, scaring them to produce their power. Harpies, on the other hand, feed on the worst of people in Pullman's series. Yet by the end of both stories, both creatures who harm humanity end up feeding/using the opposite from humans only to find it more nourishing/powerful. The monsters find laugher more suitable. The harpies find the truth in great stories more nourishing than the misery they had previously fed upon.

Just thought I'd share because I thought it was interesting.

Back to writing my paper. :(