December 10, 2006
Bring on the Carols
It’s been a wonderful weekend, as our houseguests turned out to be brilliant fun, and Christmas plans are well underway. Saffrina and Stu went to university together, and she rolled into town Thursday night with her fantastic boyfriend Ivan, en route to England after two and a half years in New Zealand. They are coming to Canada next, they’ve decided, and they’re touring the country now to choose a city. I think we sold Toronto well, though the city sort of sold itself. We had a lovely time together, out for dinner in Little Italy, and cooking dinner at our place the other two nights. They kept themselves busy in the day while Stuart worked and I did my work at home. Yesterday I’d already scheduled a day off the toil, and so we all partook in fun (and Curtis came too). Sleeping late, and then out for lunch in Chinatown. Saff and Ivan set off for the afternoon, and we came home to buy our Christmas tree and start the Christmas baking. All of us decorated the tree together later, and I baked a pie for Stuart’s potluck at work, made a tray of nanaimo bars, and a big batch of dough for Christmas cookies which all of us made together. Dinner was started at this point, and our house was completely chaos, but the carols were going on, and we were deep into glasses of wine and Baileys. Leaves stuck in the table and we all sat down for supper, and it was a splendid splendid night that went on well into morning. Our houseguests left this morning and we were so sad to see them go.
December 10, 2006
Pickle Me This Kudos
Congratulations to my friend Jennie, who received her Masters on Thursday, adding yet another item to her long list of distinguished attributes (which also include the fine man on her left).
December 7, 2006
A Wonderful Story
“The Third and Final Continent” by Jhumpa Lahiri is the best short story I’ve ever read, and has been endorsed by the likes of Rebecca Rosenblum and my husband Stuart. And I’ve just found a copy of it online. For some absolute reading pleasure, I direct you here. And you absolutely won’t be sorry.
December 7, 2006
The Remains of the Day
I just finished reading The Remains of the Day, which in its subtlety just snuck up on me and stole the ground. I’ve lately been thinking about negative capability, and I think this book answered so many questions. A most powerful whisper, and I’m not quite myself as a result of having overheard it.
December 7, 2006
Footnotes
If my academic career were to continue beyond next Friday, I would require some sort of rehabilitation program for my addiction to footnotes. I suspect this is a common graduate student affliction, but it feels personal to me. I wonder how we ever got along without them. Moreover, I wish I could scatter them throughout my conversations. Not my fiction so much; I think that’s not clever anymore. But yes, if I could find a way to talk with footnotes. I think it would cut down on the number of times I change topic within a single sentence.
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.
December 6, 2006
Difficult
From this article, via Maud Newton.
Marilynne Robinson says “Expect [writing] to be difficult. If you don’t encounter difficulty you’re probably not doing it well enough.”
December 5, 2006
Oh my
Take 75 undergraduate essays to be marked (though 33 are done!), one essay to write (though is 5 arguments in), a creative deadline for this Friday which has been severly not paid attention to, a multitude of Christmas things (not to mention the day I have devoted soley to Christmas baking). Please add two houseguests, who are apparently arriving Thursday, and who I’ve never met before. Oh my.
December 5, 2006
Anticipation
Claire Messud, whose recent book I so enjoyed is profiled in The Globe today.
There continues to be fun at the Guardian Books Blog.
33 papers are marked and 3 paragraphs on my essay are done (I’m writing one per day), and I am absolutely exhausted but so anticipating all the reading I plan to do over Christmas. Coming up, Heartburn by Nora Ephron, Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl, This is My Country, What’s Yours? by Noah Richler, Jane Eyre (I am Bronteing it up this year, on occasion of my trip to the moors in June), and of course The Sea Lady. Among others, I imagine. But at the moment it’s all quite far away.
