It's Procrastination, So True...

So, I have finally, finally finished what seemed like it would be an endless succession of classes as an undergrad. My last week was kind of a strange one, especially psychologically; a constant justificatory bargain with some scholastic devil: Okay, seriously, what do I really have to go to? My last philosophy class is cancelled, so if I go to Dante on Tuesday, what difference is it really going to make if I don't show up on Thursday? (Yes, I did skip my last Dante class and yes, I do feel like a worse person for doing it. I did have my reasons, but they mostly involved me acting like a spoiled child/senior in her last week of school, so there.) But now? All over. Four years stressing over the chaotic balancing act of assignments, attendence records, papers, exams, and professorial approval(/disapproval), and after all that: no harm, no foul. Now all that's left is to hurl reams of paper with words on them at my professors until someone eventually hurls back another piece of paper that says I'm graduating. So close I can smell the ink on it already.

And no, I'm not walking in my graduation.
I've gotten mixed reactions to this statement from friends, family, and teachers. My mother, the only person whose opinion would really sway me on this one, is happy with my not walking as long as I'm happy with it (I am). She didn't walk in her college graduation, and I've been unsuccessfully trying to persuade her out of this whole walking thing for every graduation since kindergarten. Really, I can't overemphasize how little these things mean to me personally and how mind-shriekingly tedious they are to sit through. About half the people who hear I'm not walking reply with "Ohmigod why not?!" (to which I respond with the points laid out above). Some of my friends just shake their heads sadly and say, "Lucky." Some (along with several family and academic figures) try to persuade me to walk anyway: "It'll be fun and it's your day and you should be proud you've done so much!" And yes, I am proud. And I know that the people that mean the most to me certainly know what I have done and how hard I've worked to get here, and they are beyond proud of me. Most of the people in the PMAC don't know me or what I've done, and couldn't give less of a flying kazoo, because there are 5000 bajillion people to graduate in my college and all they want is a.) to see their whoever walk across the stage for 7.5 seconds and b.) to get the hell out of there. Not exactly the most appreciative of audiences.
Went on a bit of a rant there, but I've been inundated with this type of question lately, and I feel quite strongly about it. N.B.: I am not knocking anyone who decides to walk in his/her graduation. I am so proud of all of my friends who are graduating and I hope they all know that, and if I could stand to drown in LSU pomp and circumstance for one minute longer than I had to, I would be right there with them.

Anyway, all of this is just my way of continuing to be excited about exiting undergrad, along with (of course) putting off actually putting together my final philosophy paper and poetry portfolio.

Speaking of which, it is slightly harder than I anticipated to find literary journals/magazines to which I can submit right this second; all too many have either just closed their submissions or have gone on hiatus or aren't reading until fall or somethingsomething. So although I was going to post here a list of the journals to which I was thinking about sending poems... I'm not. Probably going to end up sending my stuff to Diagram, and though I love their journal, I would also love to have some backup options. I know I've mentioned all this, but have to start collecting those rejection slips sooner rather than later (I'm going to make a collage; pretty excited about it). Mayhaps I'll wade through all the fliers and slips I collected at AWP and see if any of them are still reading. Hm.

In any case, this procrastination attempt is going far better than attempting an outline on my philosophy paper/essay (two pagers of notes+quotes and counting!) so better go deal with that.

There's a very certain feeling that goes along with being able to mark freedom as a specific date on the calender. It's pretty great.

More Procrastination via BritLit Villains

It's a struggle to bring myself to start my final essay/project for BritLit, even though my professor basically told me that no matter what I turn in, I'm getting an A in the class. Despite this and her insistence that I needn't stress over this at all, I've fixated on the idea of each character being written in an imitation of the style of their original work. This is possibly a mistake. I can probably pull off some old-school alliteration for Grendel, but am I really going to take it upon myself to imitate Shakespeare? And Milton, in all the glory of his squirrley syntax in twenty line sentences?

Yeah, I guess so.

Basic outline (major paraphrasing):

[Grendel, Iago, Mephistopheles, and Satan are iin Heaven, with yellow VISITOR passes looped around their necks]

Grendel: RAR! GORE AND VIOLENCE THROUGH THE FRONT DOOR FTW!

Satan: Maybe that's not the best way to do things.

Iago: Yeah, I remember somebody who tried to straight-up bring an army to bear on his Almighty creator, and if I recall correctly that didn't work out so well. Should have gone my route with some servile subterfuge.

Meph: Hush your mouth, Iago.

Satan: You were just following the path I laid out when I successfully employed deception to bring about a little thing known as, I don't know, The Fall of Mankind.

Meph: Laid out so successfully that millennia later I could use the same lure of knowledge and flattery to damn Faustus, a son of Adam who by all rights should have learned from his parents' Fall. (Sucker.)

Satan: Thank you, my good fiend. And we, already bent as demons, had to worm our way into the domain of our victims, we did not have the luxury of being cozily ensconced in their nest, as you were.

Iago: Yeah, I set myself up pretty sweet on the inside, didn't I? And I probably earned a pretty good place in your little kingdom of sinners along the way, huh? But you have to hand it to me-- I set up my lies completely from scratch, unfounded--- I had no demonic side-show tricks or magic fruit to follow through with--and that "valiant" Moor still killed himself and his little lady while his domain went to pot around him.

Satan: You indeed have a deep spot in my legions. A traitor's place is always guaranteed.

Grendel: YEAH, BETRAYAL IS PRETTY INTENSE. CAIN THE FIRST KIN-SLAYER WAS MY GREATGREATGREATGREAT GRANDDADDY SO I'M A MONSTER. ALSO FROM HELL I WATCHED HROTHGAR'S CLAN TURN ON EACH OTHER AND HIS SUPER-FANCY GOLD HALL BURNED UP. I WAS LIKE HAHAHA.

Satan: And surely we can agree on the effectiveness of the "divide and conquer" strategy? Simple Eve was won when Adam's guiding "manly grace" was elsewhere distracted.

Meph: Faustus as well was taken in solitude, no matter how scholarly; he himself had walled off his well-intentioned friends

Iago: I convinced Othello to abhor and discard his nearest and dearest (excluding, of course, yours truly) by implying my poisons in opportune moments when, just the two of us, the reason of others would not stand in my way.

Grendel: I SURE DO LIKE TO MUNCH ON A HEAP OF THANES BUT IT WAS BEST WHEN THEY SCATTERED AND HID IN THEIR OUTHOUSES AND I KNEW I WAS RULING THE ROOST

Satan: Pitiful humans just can't keep their wits about them, can they?

St. Peter: Well, I think you've sufficiently demonstrated to the junior hosts the nature(s) of the threat they face. Off you go back to hell then!

[Scene]

Well, that was helpful. Time to go actually write the thing, I suppose.

Two more days and I'm free.

Marginalia on Procrastination

Wrote two poems today (kind of. mostly.), and I am absurdly proud of myself for this. I guess I'll take what I can get, inch by inch.

While celebrating this, I am trying desperately not to think about the looming monstrosity of my Chaucer paper, which is due in less than a week now and on which I have barely started. (By "trying not to think about" I of course mean "procrastinating by blogging about" Funny, that.) Well, I reread the tales I'm critiquing (Miller's Tale, Reeve's Tale) and wrote some comments in the margins, but I doubt that noting things like "Oh, snap!" and "stealing babies!!!" in the margins is really going to help me come time to actually hammer out this thing. But who knows. Also, turns out the sources I spent hours picking out are probably going to be little to no help at all, but I lugged six hardcover books home from the library and damned if I'm not going to cite the things. I give not a fig for fastidious scholarship (obviously)!

Positively Anti-Motivated

The final project/essay in my British Literature class is to write a "quadrilogue" -- that is, a conversation between four voices about a certain theme and how it's treated in the different works we've discussed. These voices can be characters from the works, or authors, or modern intellectuals/critics. Since the latter two option are hella boring, I'm thinking--

Grendel (Beowulf), Mephistopheles (Dr. Faustus), Iago (Othello), and Satan (Paradise Lost) discussing... oh, I dunno... the nature of the threat to the community?

Picking four main villains (quoteunquote) seems a little obvious, I know, but it just seems like it would be so much fun. You know, for a paper at least. Considering how anti-excited I am for my other final papers (and oh, they are legion), this is pretty positive. Would Meph acknowledge this version of Satan as his over(under?)lord? Would Iago and Satan be involved in snarky one-upmanship? (Hint: Yes.)

Anyway, just typing out this thought bubble to avoid reading some John Donne and critical essays on Chaucer. Procrastination is the name of the game this evening, and, I suspect, for the remaining two weeks of the semester. Pip pip!