rfmcdonald | The Day Past (Reply)

I talked to Dr. MacLaine. Yesterday (Tuesday) I had the great luck to recruit Dr. Satadal Dasgupta, head of the Sociology-Anthropology Department at UPEI, as my extra-departmental reader for my Honours thesis. (You need three readers: your faculty advisor, someone else from the English department, someone from outside the English department. I talked to Dr. Dasgupta because I felt that the core/periphery theory could use the attention of a social scientist.) Not only did Dr. Maclaine approve this choice, he was quite happy since they get along well, apparently on a first-name basis.

My class--British History--went well. I got my original essay proposal back--8 out of 10. Some things needing improvement, but fortunately my revised version--the one I posted here--took it into account. Which means, of course, that I really have to get cracking on writing all three essays. Oh, and grad school. (More below.)

I had set up a meeting with Dr. Jane Magrath for 2:30 PM. For those of you who don't know the faculty of the English Department, Dr. Magrath is a woman in her 30's who is one of the most intellectually formidable professors I've had the chance to get to know. I'd asked her some questions about the upcoming Atlantic Undergraduate English Conference--yes, a short version of a paper I'd prepared on Glassco and Memoirs of Montparnasse, the one edited down to fit into a class essay collection, would be the best version to submit--and then I'd asked her appraisal of my strengths and weaknesses. She's approves of my good writing style and my broad intellectual knowledge; she only has trouble with my presentation skills and my ability to think on my feet, which are a bit awkward but something which can be improved.

I went to the Honours English gathering at The Wave--the UPEI student bar--at 4 o'clock and had a great time. Turn-out was relatively low, but then the gathering was announced only over E-mail, with no posters or the like. I've also noticed that in E-mail lists, only a third or less of the membership actually responds--could this be the reason for low turnout? Irregardless, I'd a great time talking with some of my fellow students, eating bar food (onion rings for me, mainly) and drinking beer (Sleeman's golden brown, I think); it actually was painless. Quite fun, too, especially since it seemed to work out. I left The Wave at ~6:30 with Joel, a guy I knew from Creative Writing III, each of his drunk walking to the computer lab to type away until we actually became sober.

Dad asked me what I'd done, and, whether because I'm becoming more assertive or whether because I was still buzzed or both, I told him that I'd no intention of teling him anything about my activities, since he's never been supportive of them (though, to be fair, I also told him, he's never been as hateful as Mom). Hopefully he's thinking about that.

I was going to go bowling with the GLBT society--actually the Atlantic Veterinary College GLBT society, but then our schools and societies are linked--tonight. I'd eventually decided not too, if only because I was much too tired to go, plus I wanted to watch "Once More, With Feeling." Wonderful Buffy episode, that.

So, a good day.