Tuesday, March 02, 2004
Bragging? Me? Never!
The affair of the Forbidden Blog has blown itself out, and become a civilised, private dialogue through e-mail. No other family members have been involved, and I am deeply grateful and pleased to know that it is possible to have adult conversation with my extended family members, without everyone else having a say.
Today was a decent day. I turned in a short story and failed a quiz in Creative Writing, since I didn't have a chance to read the stories before class (I'd just picked them up). But Czech Lit was an uplifting class period.
Last Friday I turned in a paper, entitled "Devils Take Thee: Repetition in War with the Newts", with thirty minutes to spare before the deadline. I was ill and tired and had opted to wait till the very last minute to start writing (the "very last minute" being nine o'clock Friday morning).
Today I got that paper back. My professor added a háček over my last name, making it Křenek instead of Krenek (and also making my own name nearly impossible for me to pronounce). The grade is a 99.5 (I suspect the -.5 is just to spite me). The commentary is typed up as a page of footnotes and reads:
1. Good thesis. You might want to end it with something pointing out why the repetition itself is significant.
2. That's a good interpretation of that passage.
3. Hah! That's even better. Very provocative.
4. Excellent thought. I've always seen the child/devil characterization of the newts as sort of grotesque -- and evil children sort of thing, sort of along the lines of Rosemary's Baby. But I like your interpretation better.
5. Excellent again. The child analogy reinforces newts' similarity to humans.
6. This is wonderful. You should be teaching this book, not me.
This is a wonderful paper, and I really don't have anything to add. Your thesis is sound, organization perfect, and writing superb. Thou art a true scholar. I guess you don't have anything to rewrite.
I love essays, really I do. Writing them, anyway. Too bad there're not really such things as job opportunities in lit crit.
| 7:48 PM |
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