Wrapping up

Exams went pretty well. I’m still waiting on one final grade, but overall I did really well this year. I was really interested in my courses this year and it’s reflected in my grades.

I’m getting married in less than two months now. The big day is June 12. Things are pretty stressful with planning and errands and such. I have the week off this week to take care of a bunch of little things before I start my summer job next week.

For last five years, I’ve worked summers at a property management company that manages office buildings and industrial parks, mostly. I spend most of my time picking up garbage, painting and sweeping. It’s pretty boring, but it leaves me with a lot of time for private reflection.

My fiancée and I are really excited about our honeymoon to Greece in June, but it’s kind of being overshadowed by all of the intricacies of planning a wedding.

Bye for now.

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March Madness

Things have been pretty crazy lately, as I’m sure they are for most students. I’m getting married on June 12, so things are starting to heat up a little. There are so many little things to take care of — like who is going to set up the centerpieces at the reception hall? As if I have to worry about that now!

We’re having our honeymoon in Greece. My fiancée and I are really into history and we took a course together on classical Greek history at the U of M a couple of years ago. She’s taken a few other classics courses and I’m familiar with Greek history, since it influenced the Renaissance quite a bit. Needless to say, we’re very excited, but planning a two week trip of a lifetime is also a bit stressful, considering all the other things we have to worry about.

I’m also working on projects for my honours seminars. I’m doing an extended online project on the collected works of Chaucer that I blogged about a little while ago. It will be an introduction to editorial practices in the early modern period, using that book from our library as a case study. Well, it’s interesting to me, at least.

I’m also working on an essay on Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, which is a famous play about a professor who sells his soul to the devil. It explored the limits of human knowledge and raises interesting questions about free will.

At the Manitoban, we’re also working very hard on our annual joke issue, which will come out March 31. We didn’t win our referendum this year to get $1 more per term from undergrad students, which is disappointing, but we’re determined to continue to put out a good product. I won’t tell you what the concept is for the joke issue, but we’re putting a lot of effort into it and I think we’ll have a great result. In the meantime, we’re working on just putting out our regular issues. We’re also currently in the process of hiring an editor in chief for next year. It’s a tough job, but pretty rewarding I’m sure.

Last, but definitely not least, I have to decide where I’m going for grad school. I have attractive offers from a few places, so it’s just a matter of determining which school is the best fit for me and which city is the best fit for my new wife and me. Currently in the running are University of Alberta, University of Manitoba and the University of Western Ontario.

Well, back to work — I’m falling behind. But as an undergrad, if you’re not behind, you’re not doing it right.

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Dysart 51

I got to take a look at that 1602 printing of Chaucer (Dysart 51). It might surprise some people to see how readable such old texts can be. I found myself just flipping through it and reading it, forgetting about the research I was supposed to be doing. The editor has included a nice preface outlining changes to the text he’s made since his last edition. He also includes a nice table of contents, a biography of Chaucer and a handy glossary of words that Chaucer uses. The glossary would have been helpful even in 1602, since Chaucer had been dead for 200 years by that point, and the English language had changed a lot during the intervening period.

The whole package seems a lot like an academic edition you would find today, with this glossary, table of contents and supplementary texts by other authors which provide insight into Chaucer. As you can read for yourself in the editor’s preface, the editor is also very concerned with accuracy regarding Chaucer’s texts. Since early printed texts were based upon handwritten manuscripts, the possibility of error and variation is great. Even the order of the tales in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales is disputed. Editors back then, as they are today, were interested in being as true to the original author’s intention as possible.

This is just another example of how history never really goes away — it’s always reflected in our own culture.

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Archives open house

On Wednesday I went to the open house in the Dafoe Library archives. I’m taking a class studying books in the archives, so I’m there all the time, but today was an open house displaying some of the items from our library collection for everyone to see.

There were also some presenters giving little talks on some of the items. One presentation was on our first edition printing of the King James Bible, printed in 1611. It’s kind of a big deal, since a few years ago a fourth-year English student (like me) found it in the archives and discovered that it was a first edition. Another presentation was on an illuminated law degree from Padua made in the late 17th century. It’s very beautiful and was probably very expensive.

All in all it was really interesting. Most students probably don’t think much about these old books kicking around in our library, but some people spend their lives researching this stuff. In out library we have a pretty eclectic collection. We have printings of some of Newton’s works, some medieval manuscripts, a printing of Shakespeare’s first folio and one of the only versions of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, an Italian renaissance text, that doesn’t have the naughty bits edited out.

Most students also don’t probably know that they can access many of these texts themselves. You simply go to the archives office (3rd floor Dafoe by the Icelandic reading room), and ask for the text you want.

I’m planning on doing a paper on a 1602 printing of Chaucer’s works, so I’ll hopefully post some pictures and info about that in the near future.

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Saturdays are no longer sacred

I’m feeling much better from my recent illness, but it’s still not quite gone. I have a nagging cough that just won’t go away, and I’m a little mucousy for my liking. I’m almost at week six of not feeling good.

Anyway, it’s December 19th as I’m writing this, and my last exam is tonight. I don’t really have much to complain about, since I only had two exams and they were exactly one week apart. Besides, English exams are no big deal anyway. However, if you’re near a calendar, look at what day it is — it’s Saturday.  My other exam was exactly a week ago, meaning, yes, you got it, it was also on a Saturday night.

This seems like an abomination to me. It’s odd enough that the U of M seems to have a mystical incantation to determine random exam times and places, but among those times are Saturday nights?

I understand that U of M has a lot of students and a lot of classes that need time during the exam period, so Saturday night must have been a last resort, but I don’t think anyone wants to be there. I know that profs like to party just as hard as students do.

In other news, grad school applications are due soon and it’s probably the most confusing time of my life. It’s always a good idea to get advice from professors, but when you talk to three professors and get five opinions, it can get a little disorienting. I’m getting married in June and we still have no idea what city we’re going to be in and where we’re going to live when we get there. But that’s life, I suppose, and how boring would it be without a little uncertainty?

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Finishing Strong

Maintaining good grades under normal conditions is hard enough. Late November and early December is the time to finish strong.  There are essays due, with conflicting deadlines, of course, exams and the task of merely keeping up with regular reading.

I’ve been sick for the last three weeks, making a strong finish that much harder. It started out as a common cold, which left me congested and exhausted. I figured my productivity was going to go down the tubes — and I was right. I was dopey and tired and reading and writing became monumental feats of concentration. I figured I’d be out for a few days, and then I’d have to work double time to catch up.

A week later, I had a constant, heavy chest cough. At my worst, I was coughing at an average of twice per minute, meaning that over a 24 hour period I coughed 2880 times. This kind of calculation is the kind of thing I had to occupy myself with in the middle of the night. I also had puss coming out my eyes, impairing my vision considerably. With no sleep and impaired vision, reading was essentially impossible. Bed-ridden, I had to miss over a week of class at the most crucial time of the year.

I went to the doctor, and guessing that it was a respiratory infection, she gave me antibiotics to combat the affliction. These worked very slowly but eventually the antibiotics were gone I was feeling about 80% better. A much lauded return to school was in order.

Fast forward a week later and my lymph nodes are swollen so that I can’t even swallow. I’m lightly coughing and my mucous is still a disturbingly dark colour. I’m on more antibiotics and I’m waiting on the test results for strep throat. Looks like I’ll be working triple time.

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The Wonders of Technology

Well I’ve finally entered the realm of laptop owners. I always used to see people bring them into class and bang away on their keyboards all class, never sure if they were taking notes, checking out Facebook or doing both. I never understood it. And now…I still don’t.

Getting a laptop has many benefits for me. I can work on Manitoban articles and do my editing wherever I go and all my documents stay formatted the way I want them — no more of this remembering to email things to myself in order to work on them at school. My fiancée has just moved out of her mom’s house and into my sister’s condo. In an instant, she went from being five minutes away from me to half an hour away. So for a back and forth trip, that’s 50 minutes of added driving. To make up for this time deficit, I can now bring my laptop over to the condo and work on my essays there while my ladyfriend does laundry or makes her lunch for the next day or whatever. Of course, the most important benefit of all is that I can watch movies in my bed. I’m sure the novelty will wear off, but it hasn’t quite yet, especially with this nasty cold I’m fighting.

With all of these benefits, none of them apply to the classroom. I’ve never felt the need to have a computer in class. First of all, it’s awkward, since many of the “desks” where I have my classes are rigid and are typically smaller than a piece of paper. I have a hard enough time just juggling my books, let alone a laptop. Also, note taking doesn’t seem to be that much more efficient. Point form is a godsend, and if I’m writing down the most important things, then I have no trouble keeping up.  Sure, I can type more, faster, but that would only entail noting more than I have to. Maybe it’s just an English student thing.

I suppose everyone has their preferences, and I always thought that if I had a laptop, that would become my preference in class. I figured it would be one of those things where you only get it if you’re in on it. Not so.

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Time

It’s amazing how we fall into routines. We wake up in the morning and go on autopilot. My body seems to know what day of the week it is and what I’m supposed to do that day before my mind is even awake. That’s the way it is for me, at least.  I never notice how directed my life is until something disrupts it.

I usually don’t even look at the hour hand on the clock anymore. I wake up when I’m supposed to and I know that when the minute hand reaches 30, I’m out the door. Then when the minute hand reaches 30 again, I’m supposed to be in class in University College. This continues throughout the day. I don’t even really know when my classes start or end anymore. I just know the sequence of classes and their relation to the amount of times the minute hand has reached 30 since I woke up.

This is evidence by what happened to me the other day. I made a doctor’s appointment for 2:30 one day. No problem, right? Then on that day I realized that my last class ends at 2:20 and there’s no way that I would have made it. Rather than change the appointment at very short notice, I decided to let my prof know that I’d have to leave a little bit early that day to make it. She was totally fine with it, and I thought my problem was solved. Then I realized that her class wasn’t even the one that went until 2:20. Hers went until 1:20, meaning I had another class after hers that I had completely forgotten about.

I didn’t have time to notify the appropriate prof, so in the end, I had to leave that class early in order to make it. I had to send an embarrassing email repealing my need to leave early from the one prof, and skip out on class on the other.

This is what happens when I don’t know what time it is.

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Senioritis

Every year a disease affects millions of students, and has for years. This disease has reached pandemic status, and there is no known cure. I’m of course referring to “senior-itis.”

Senioritis, medically speaking, is a serious funk that students in the last year of their program get into. The disease is usually caused by a constant looking to the future while they attempt to remain focused on their last year of classes. This usually comes in the form of either apprehension about finding a career after years of scholastic diligence, or with impatience for your prospects on the horizon, although really this is not impatience at all, but rather the feeling that you’d rather preserve this state of unlimited potential in the face of impending convocation. But alas! Time marches on, and you’re not sure if you’d rather speed up or slow down time and of course, the only natural response is lethargy.

Here are some of the symptoms of senioritis:

1) Lack of focus

During a lecture, you space out and start thinking about what you’ll be doing at this time next year. You miss something the prof says, and you think to yourself “Well maybe if I just lock in right now, I can figure out what’s going on.” Then you start thinking about how your grad school applications are going, and you miss something else. Then you think that what you’ll be doing at this time next year depends solely on how you perform in your classes right now and you miss something else. Then the prof starts wrapping up and you look down only to find that you’ve already packed up your stuff. Or did you take your stuff out to begin with?

2) Procrastination

I was going to write about procrastination here, but I think I’ll save it for later on in this blog.

4) Forgetting which numbers come after which.

d) General lack of care for personal appearance/hygiene

This is pretty self-explanatory. Sweatpants are your idea of dressing up, and your shirt is usually described as “from yesterday.”

So there you have it — senioritis. You or someone you know may have it. The only cure is perseverance. What’s that? I said I’d talk about procrastination? I’ll do that in the next blog . . .  I guess.

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Selling yourself

This week has been a pretty busy week. While battling a cold, I’ve been trying to keep up with my reading, writing papers, writing and editing articles for the Culture section of The Manitoban, organizing a creative writing contest for the paper, and applying for a major scholarship which requires six reference letters, a personal essay and curriculum vitae. On top of all that, I’m also trying to plan my wedding!

Of all these things, to me the most difficult right now is writing the personal essay. Whether I get the scholarship or not, just applying for it has been a positive experience. It has really forced me to reflect on who I am, what I have done and what I plan to do, all within 900 words. Summarizing your life, your personality and all of your aspirations in a page and a half is an incredible feat.

Writing a personal essay, or even a resume, is a delicate balancing act. You have to try not to oversell yourself, because it usually ends up being clichéd and transparent. Intelligent employers and selection committees will see right through that and respond with cynicism. You also cannot undersell yourself, since your selection for an interview depends upon the selectors being at least somewhat impressed.

I’ve been struggling with this essay for a while. A friend of mine gave me this advice. He said “Pretend as if you’re writing about someone else — but the someone else is the you that never screwed up.” I’m still not sure if I agree with this advice or not. What makes me look stronger, to display my strengths as prominently as I can, or to admit to my faults and explain how I can overcome them? It seems like both are a gamble, since I risk casting myself as either a saint or a deeply flawed individual. I found an article that’s been somewhat helpful: http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/best-colleges/2009/08/19/stop-selling-yourself-short-when-applying-for-college.html

I think I’m going to be frank and honest in my essay, at the risk of casting myself in a negative light.

Either way, I have six great people providing me with references. Each has been influential in my life, and I have no doubt that they’ll make up for whatever my essay lacks in the “Ben’s such a great guy” department.

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