June 29, 2007
I wish it were a rhododendron
I write you from the weekend, which for me starts today (Friday) and, for most of us, lasts until Monday eve. And this has been my first day off since I started work, and I’ve spent it reading, and finishing a story I’m really pleased with. Having the kind of day I learned to have last winter when I wrote from nine to five, and what a treasure. I still think that now, even if these days only come along once in a blue moon. And this weekend is positively bursting with friends, which is glorious. We’re booked up every day, and even doubled booked some, and forces have conspired to make me happier and more assured than I’ve been in absolutely ages. The good times indeed. I’ve got a cup of tea beside me now.
May 31, 2007
Think of England
Pickle Me This is on vaca. We’ll be all summer holidaying the next week or so, fun to be had including learning to drive on the wrong side of the road, weekend in a North Yorkshire village, Bronwyn’s wedding, touring the moors, trekking over to Lancashire, family reunion, seaside fun, Cumbria, and maybe we’ll even see the Wordsworth squirrel? Time will tell.
April 17, 2007
Have you heard the news?
My feelings for the Hip Hop Wordsworth Squirrel have moved from abject pity to resigned amusement, but now I am totally in love. I love the Hip Hop Wordsworth Squirrel, and I love his beats. Come our trip to England in June, we’re totally going to Cumbria. I truly am rap’s MVP, though if I were publishing this on the Lake District’s website I’d have to call it “rap” as per their style guide, apparently.
April 13, 2007
Hip-hop Wordsworth Squirrel
See, I told you they’d hate the hip-hop Wordsworth squirrel. Of course they do. The most unremarkable thing in the world is that they hate the hip-hop Wordsworth squirrel, and so I can’t imagine why someone has to write a blog entry to that effect. Or, I suppose, why I have to write another blog entry to keep you up to date on who’s predicably hating the hip-hop Wordsworth squirrel today.
The hip-hop Wordsworth squirrel is breaking my heart.
April 12, 2007
Spring
Here is an image of spring– last spring, of course, because this spring is crap.
The number of undergraduate essays I have left to mark is in the single digits. Soon Pickle Me This, and my entire life, will return to regular service.
April 4, 2007
As it is
3 undergradate essays marked, 72 to go. I expect to spend the next two weeks delirious and snacking. In Pickle Me This update news, I’ve elected to return in May to my summer job from last year, because I decided I would have a better summer working and monied than one spent idle and poor. And I’ll surely have lots of chance to be idle and poor once summer’s over. The only bad thing about this is that I am turning 28 this summer, and getting really old to have a “summer job”. This is, however, the last summer job I’ll ever have. Which is something I’ve said so many times before. Oh adulthood, how you continue to elude me…
March 17, 2007
On the other hand…
Considering my just-below post, I will consider accusations of hysteria and melodrama. And history will inevitably tell a story so different from what we consider the state of literature to be today.
It reminds me of when today I read “Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown” by Virginia Woolf, or any of her attacks on Wells/Bennett/Galsworthy. I almost feel sorry for them, with her scathing critiques. Because what is this triumverate really, compared to the Great Virginia Woolf? An unfair pitting, so it seems to modern eyes.
But then back then she was all David, and they were decidedly Goliath.
So the moral of that story is that you never really know.
January 4, 2007
For the time being
Life for the next three months is going to be like it never will be again. I’m in the final semester of my Creative Writing MA, and all my academic work is done. My job for the next while is to fill empty days with reading and writing, and I’m not sure I’ll be lucky enough to have such freedom again. Though I’ve paid for such freedom, but still, that only makes it a priority. I am enormously grateful for this privilege.
December 13, 2006
Results
I just finished my marking and printed out my own essay! And so the toiling is over. Which is not to say that I get to reenter the world as yet, as I’ve been neglecting my creative project for the last five days, and have a mess of short stories to write over the holiday. It just means my seclusion becomes less intensive and much more pleasant. I am now reading Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, which I chose because I never saw a review for it short of raving. And it is an amazing novel so far, but so brutal. I can’t read too much at once.
December 6, 2006
Mochi
Mmm. One of the benefits of where I live is international delicacies on demand. Yesterday I had a hankering for mochi, which was one of my favourite treats when I lived in Japan. And so I just picked some up on my way home yesterday, and am snacking my way through the toil. I’ve been displaying strange side effects from an overdose of undergrad papers however: I’ve been preoccupied with Petula Clark all the live long day.
