Back of the Line, Lady!

Guess who's thirty. Actually, don't.

The summer class went well. Sometimes I felt a little outnumbered, a sort of lunatics are taking over the asylum thing, but overall I liked the practice, and think my writing is better than ever. I'm enrolled in the P.E. class that will give me the unit I need to officially graduate, and now I have about a week to decide how many programs I'm going to apply to for Fall 2010. I'm still very confused. I don't know if I want to apply to Master's programs or Ph.D. programs, or both. I'm back in that uncomfortable position of starting over, moving to the back of the line, you know. I'm always fighting the voice in my head that warns me I might be accepted and then be the dumbest person in the room. That might sound as pathetic as it is, but I do have to worry a little, a consequence of departing from CSUDH where I've often been the smartest student in the room. Maybe that is what this college business has really been about. If I have a Ph.D., maybe I'll be able to say, hey! I'm kind of smart...or something.

So I'll be researching and applying to the usual: USC, UCLA, UCR, UCI, Claremont...maybe less, maybe more. I have to proof my submittals to death. I'm so terrible when it comes to the details. I'm going to update/redo my statement of purpose. I think I have a bit more confidence now. I have to be more Shakti-like, able to destroy and give birth to worlds, and less pick me! Pick me! Pick me! It's challenging.

I'm also going to write a paper about the 80's British band The Smiths, and the solo work of its frontman, Morrissey. When I went to London in May, I had to study maps of the Underground in order to know how to get around. What I discovered was that I knew a ton of the names of the underground stations. I had never been serious about a map on London before the trip; the familiarity was due to listening to The Smiths and Morrissey, and the several references to these locations that are in their albums. I realized that I already had a relationship with these places, simply because I was a loyal fan of the music. So I'd like to write a paper -- a kind of "thought experiment" in which I discuss the implications of place in popular music, or maybe what it means to have expectations of a place, based on a mental landscape arranged according to a composite sketch implied in lyrics. I'm also curious about the limitations of fan loyalty. Did I let myself create my own experiences in London? Or was I overly influenced by sentiment created through lines like, "Here is London, giddy London; is it home of the free or what?," "And if a double-decker bus crashes into us, to die by your side, such a heavenly way to die," "Piccadilly palare was just silly slang, between me and the boys in my gang." It is going to take some research, but I think by the time I'm through I might have something kind of interesting and novel to shop around.

I also need to work more on my ideas about Benito Cereno and Moby-Dick. I've got to be more persistent, or I'll be one of those terrible ABD professors, demanding that students turn papers in on time, but too chicken to self-impose a deadline.

And it's still summer! More surfing! More beer! More happy hours!