This time 'round, I've spared you all from endless complaints regarding my term papers, and posted them on Facebook instead. Now, since there's nothing else of note to post, here's a "greatest hits" compilation (with Person substituted for my actual name). My theory is that compiling all this information in one place will provide keen insight into the working process. First, the background. The post-colonial paper was on how the video game Mass Effect allows players to work out colonial ideologies in safe environments. The art and persuasion course paper was on how David Antin's talk poems can be better viewed as tours rather than maps, following Certeau's spatial theories. For the record, Mass Effect is a video game in which the player saves the galaxy from a machine race invasion, and makes several choices regarding the genocide of other species while s/he's at it. And Antin is a poet who's thing is that he shows up, gives an hour long talk, records it, writes down the result, removes all the spacing, captials, and margins, and calls both the book and the talk poetry. The former was due July 23, the latter Aug 4. I am happy both are done. First, the Antin stuff:
Person realized his original presentation was in 11 size font, which means he has a ten page paper instead of eight. Which also means that in order to "build on without expanding," I'm going to have to cut about half of it, and still glue on a new argument that fits with the remains. Oh, the terrible conundrums of a grad student.
July 24 at 4:40pm.
Person is reading David Antin's latest book of talk poetry and noticed that Antin was using an apostrophe, and immediately became disgusted that the poet was selling out. And that's when he realized he was entirely too involved.
July 30 at 1:18pm.
Person : God help him if I find a semi-colon.
July 30 at 1:18pm.
Person wrote 1800 words today. On his blog. The paper, sadly, did not go nearly as well.
July 31 at 6:29pm.
Person:"now in this sense every subjectivity is social to the extent that it is localized consciousness but to become a self it has to survive the collision or union with other things and endure." Antin tells us this is poetry. I choose to believe him.
August 1 at 10:10am.
Person feels like it's time for a status check. At the moment, I'm 2000 words and 6 pages into my Eng 760 paper, and calling it a night. Anyone else want to weigh in on how their efforts are going?
August 1 at 8:41pm.
Person is done, bitches. Aug 2 at 9:32 pm.
What an ending. Crap, I'm articulate. And the Postcolonial Paper (which, frankly, is more entertaining):
Person is trying to work on his paper, but the asari matriarch won't friggin' die
July 11 at 3:11am.
Person is having the most research-productive day EVER.
July 14 at 7:46pm.
Person:First, I stumbled onto this gem, by Douglas: "Video games do not threaten film's status so much as they threaten religion, because they perform the same existentially soothing task as religion. They proffer a world of meaning in which we not only have a task to perform, but a world made with us in mind." Which redefines my area of study as an act of worship. And my folks say I never go to church.
July 14th at 7:49pm.
Person: Second, in"Colonialism and the emergence of science fiction," Rieder describes the "lost race" trope, in which a secret treasure map leads a white European stand-in to a lost civilization in the middle of a colonized people, and identifies the trope as a staple of colonial literature. And since that's basically "Mass Effect" 's entire plot, that makes my postcolonial paper on video games a lot easier.
July 14th at 7:53pm.
Person: Can you imagine how my life would have been wasted if I went into mathematics instead of English? Granted, I'd probably be enthusiastically posting about the amazing awesomeness of invariant polynomial algebras, but think of the loss to the Humanities.
July 14th at 7:56pm.
Person just found a paper entitled 'Nintendo and New World Travel Writing.' Or to phrase it differently, post-colonial score.
July 16 at 8:31pm.
Person just made his 200th Xbox achievement in the pursuit of his Mass Effect paper. Yet somehow, it doesn't feel an achievement at all...
July 17 at 11:34pm.
Person is finishing Mass Effect tongiht, come hell or high water. And he's goingt to be transcribing the efforts in half hour intervals. So... enjoy. First up: goin' to Ilos.
July 19 at 1:07am.
Person: Post 2. Went through all the crew's final conversations. And the romance subplot. Kaidan'svall man, ladies. Also: a guy that can make things move with his mind should have a better pick-up line than 'you make me feel... human."
July 19 at 1:42 am.
Person: Lost in Ilos. I was wandering around for ten minutes before realizing that what I thought wasa button for the door was actually a button for the elevators.
July 19 at 2:15am.
Person: I spent another 20 minutes wandering around before I remembered I had toreturn to the first level after unlocking the bay door. In the process, I discovered I could push my fellow teammates off the elevator ledges. This provided some amusement.
July 19 at 2:41am.
Person: A half hour mapping out Vigil's dialogue options. Still on Ilos.
July 19 at 3:10am.
Person: Still mapping out Vigil's dialogue. Mouthy little VI. Still on Ilos.
Julyv19 at 3:41am.
Person: *six pages of transcription* DAMN IT VIGIL, SHUT THE HELL UP!
July 19 at 4:10am.
Person:Now we're cooking. In the citadel, first saren battle. Gotta love an end boss that uses a hover platform.
July 19 at 5:12am.
Person: And THAT is how you save a galaxy from an impeding Reaper invasion. It's 5:35. Do you know where your next dictatorship in the name of humanity is?
July 19 at 5:35am.
Other: You. Are. Crazy.
July 19 at 12:47pm.
Person: I spent an hour writing down all of the conversational options of a machine inside a disc inside a game system. So... I don't think I can dispute that.
July 19 at 2:23pm.
Person made an outline for his essay. That's enough for today, right?
July 19 at 3:32pm.
Person was thinking about pulling a quotation from "The Empire Writes Back" for the paper, but the book feels a little 'undergraduatey.' A question to the masses: What do you think?
July 19 at 5:50pm.
Person: One alternative is that I'm intellectual snob. Of course, that could hold regardless of the answer.
July 19 at 5:53pm.
Person just learned to snap his fingers... I don't think I've ever put this much effort into procrastinating on a paper.
July 20 at 9:26pm.
Person probably can't get away with including his eight paged appendix in his page count.
July 21 at 8:28pm.
Person IZ DUN.
July 22 at 2:08am.
...And there we are. So much for insight, huh? I think the most interesting thing here, to put myself under the microscope, is how my expressive style changes depending on the medium: Facebook, or the blog. If anyone who's powered through this whole thing sees a difference too, feel free to comment.
Later Days.
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