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rfmcdonaldThings have been exceptionally busy. For instance, this past Wednesday I attended English 269, the Contemporary Literature class I'll be TAing for. It was a very good class, as one of my fellow students (well, a PhD student) did an excellent delivery of the first part of a two-part lecture on Assia Djebar's Fantasia. I've hardly enough time to read my own readings, but this is an excellent book exploring Algeria's colonial history and current state of cultural limbo. For example, page 184, first paragraph:
It's interesting to notice how that echoes my much weaker experiences here in Upper Canada. The language spoken here, the landscape around Kingston, the wealth of the city--all is closer to what I've seen defined as "Canada" in the news media than anything I saw on Prince Edward Island.
I've got plenty of impending obligations. For instance, Thursday, I'll be presenting the Atwood chapter of my Honours thesis at a colloquium of works in progress. That should be an experience; I hope that it will be a relatively good one.
Elsewhere, I'll have to write nearly sixty pages by the end of the month. (Two essays between fifteen and twenty pages each for two different courses, one essay between five and seven pages and four essays of one to two pages for the other course, sundry other tasks.) To say nothing of correcting 46 student essays within two weeks of Monday. All this will be, needless to say, a challenge. I'm increasingly confident that I'll be able to meet it. For whatever that's worth.
In the social realm, my life has constricted somewhat as a consequence of my increasing business, but not as much as I might fear. It's nice to find myself on terms of social equality (in terms of time spent, and ability demonstrated) with other people, and I believe I'm making the most of it.
That's all for now.
I write and speak French outside: the words I use convey no flesh-and-blood reality. I learn the names of birds I've never seen, trees I shall take ten years or more to identify, lists of flowers and plants that I shall never smell until I travel north of the Mediterranean. In this respect, all vocabulary expresses what is missing in my life, exoticism without mystery, causing a kind of visual humiliation that it is not seemly to admit to . . . Setting and episodes in children's books are nothing but theoretical concepts; in the French family the mother comes to fetch her daughter or son from school; in the French street, the parents walk quite naturally side by side . . . So, the world of the school is expunged from the daily life of my native city, as it is from the life of my family. The latter is refused any referential rôle.
It's interesting to notice how that echoes my much weaker experiences here in Upper Canada. The language spoken here, the landscape around Kingston, the wealth of the city--all is closer to what I've seen defined as "Canada" in the news media than anything I saw on Prince Edward Island.
I've got plenty of impending obligations. For instance, Thursday, I'll be presenting the Atwood chapter of my Honours thesis at a colloquium of works in progress. That should be an experience; I hope that it will be a relatively good one.
Elsewhere, I'll have to write nearly sixty pages by the end of the month. (Two essays between fifteen and twenty pages each for two different courses, one essay between five and seven pages and four essays of one to two pages for the other course, sundry other tasks.) To say nothing of correcting 46 student essays within two weeks of Monday. All this will be, needless to say, a challenge. I'm increasingly confident that I'll be able to meet it. For whatever that's worth.
In the social realm, my life has constricted somewhat as a consequence of my increasing business, but not as much as I might fear. It's nice to find myself on terms of social equality (in terms of time spent, and ability demonstrated) with other people, and I believe I'm making the most of it.
That's all for now.
