31 May, 2008 | 6 Comments

I’m going to Budapest in little more than a week! The purpose of my trip is to have some dental work done. I need to have relatively minor (yet very expensive) dental surgery. I can’t afford to do it in London, so I am going to do it in Budapest. This may seem strange, but a lot of Western Europeans go to Budapest for dental work, primarily Germans and Austrians and now, increasingly, the British too.

I’ve decided to combine all of this with a little holiday. I desperately need a holiday — preferably two whole weeks away, if I can afford it. I am flying to Budapest, staying there for four days and then I am taking the train back to London. The question is, what to see and do along the way back to London? I know I want to go to Prague for a few days. I had my heart set on Austria, but the UEFA tournament (football/soccer) is being held there throughout June, so I don’t think it’s a good idea to go. Do you think this assumption is right?

This is all rather last minute, so I don’t have much time to plan. Any advice/tips/suggestions on which route I should take back to London would be greatly appreciated. I will probably buy a rail pass. I’ve traveled almost everywhere in Western Europe (though not Scandinavia or Portugal, but I probably can’t do those on this trip). My goal is not necessarily to see anything new, just to feel invigorated. A mix of big cities and small-town quaintness would be good. I just like wandering around mostly. I’d also love any tips re: Budapest. I went there once before on a day-trip from Vienna, but remember virtually nothing. I may be in pain while in Budapest, but I still hope to see some sights.

29 May, 2008 | 1 Comment

..and other literary news presented here in this little round-up. I’ll save my own tragedy for last, thank you.

Formerly respectable literary writer Sebastian Faulks has penned the new James Bond novel, which is getting way too much media attention around here. The villain, who has a “Baltic accent,” is introduced like this: “To cut a long story short, he hated England because he felt it had laughed at him, and he decided to devote his life to destroying it.” I can’t wait to read the rest of this!

Much has been made of Hanif Kureishi’s “attack” on university writing programs (MAs in the UK, mostly MFAs in the US). If you actually read what he said, it’s not an attack, but that didn’t stop many literary bloggers from gleefully running with this story to suit their own purposes. Kureishi called creative writing programs “the new mental hospitals,” saying that, “When you switch on the television and a student has gone mad with a machine gun on a campus in America, it’s always a writing student.” Since when has sanity been a pre-requisite for being a writer? That bit of headline-grabbing hyperbole aside, Kureishi’s argument, as I read it, is that university creative writing programs may set up false expectations in students who think they are going to get published or get a teaching career out of their degree and that these students are bound to be disappointed. I agree with him completely on this point and it’s something money-hungry universities need to address. But I don’t think Kureishi was saying that creative writing has no place in academia, given that he teaches in a program himself. You cannot literally teach someone how to write fiction or poetry, but that’s not what writing programs aim to do. I should know — unlike many of those pontificating on the subject in the blogosphere, I have an MFA.

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27 May, 2008 | 3 Comments

Well, somehow I missed commemorating my 1,000th post, so here’s post number 1,010. I was planning a big celebration with clowns and balloons and cake, but 1,010 just doesn’t have the same ring.

Tonight I took a walk around the ‘hood. I went into Marks & Spencer’s food shop. I was craving fruit. I think that’s a bad sign. My body must be starved of vital nutrients. We get free fruit where I live, but just apples, pears and bananas. I prefer more posh fruit — mango, melon, berries and the like. So I bought a cup of “tropical fruit sticks,” which includes fresh pineapple, mango and “orange melon.” Come again? Orange melon? What’s wrong with the word cantaloupe? I hope this is just some weird British thing and not Marks & Spencer trying to dumb down their produce, because I feel insulted. (Not really.)

Tonight while I was out walking, I stopped to gaze at myself in the window of a darkened apartment. Yes, I did. I wanted to see what my hair looked like. I’m sure it gave the appearance that I was peeping into someone’s window, but I didn’t care…until I turned around and a professor from my department was walking down the street and staring at me. My school is light years away from here, so I have no idea why he was in this neighborhood. He didn’t even acknowledge me, he just kept walking. I’m sure that now he thinks I’m a perv who stares in people’s windows. Lovely.

Then I had two different men approach me and ask if they could talk to me. I said no and ignored them and one of them followed me around for a bit. I am a magnet for any kind of psycho. [If you only knew.]

So you see, it was an eventful walk. Before I even left home, one of the residents where I live nearly broke my finger, which is now throbbing in pain. Perhaps I should have just stayed home, but the night air felt good. And I needed fruit.

24 May, 2008 | 8 Comments

I spent two days in Paris this week. Ahhhhh, it was lovely. I keep my Paris trips short because I spend too much money while I’m there. I don’t shop, but all those pots of tea in cafés must add up because by the time I get home I’m shocked at how much I’ve spent. Still, it’s worth every centime.

I’ve noticed over the past six months or so that it’s become very important for me to get away when I can. Sometimes I feel an urgent sense that I must flee, at least for a few days. I live in a hall of residence and also work here. It’s an intense environment and I need regular breaks from it. I also work from home mostly and live in a very small room. For the sake of my sanity, I have to get out of here periodically. A couple people have asked me why I keep going back to Paris and don’t venture to another place. In these days of Ryannair and EasyJet, I could fly to almost anywhere in Europe for the same price as the Eurostar ticket to Paris. I guess part of it is laziness. Going to Paris from London is easy. I can walk to the train station and in 2.5 hours I’m in Paris. That’s pretty amazing.

But more important than convenience is what Paris gives me in just a couple days. When I go away for a short break, I crave the sense of being transported to another world. I want to shrug off my normal life and forget about everything. Paris offers me this and more. It tantalizes my senses — senses that, in my ordinary daily life, are dormant. Everything is heightened for me in Paris — the visual beauty, the tastes and smells and sounds. There are lovely cafés everywhere and boutiques and flower stalls, rather than dull and ordinary Costa Coffee and Boots and Tesco on every corner. Blah. Don’t get me wrong — I much prefer living in London. For me, London is more livable. Paris is a dream world that I prefer to experience as a tourist who dips in and out. In Paris I spend my days literally walking for hours and hours, sitting in gardens, going to cafés. Tuning out in this way totally recharges me. I almost always make progress on my novel as well (this time I had another major breakthrough!). The other day a writer friend told me, “Paris is your muse.” I think that’s true.

ranunculuses everywhere!

As for the details of my trip this week, here goes…

I did so much walking that after two days I was in pain by the time I left, but it was a good kind of pain. I wasn’t wearing the right shoes. When I do a lot of walking, I normally wear my athletic shoes, but when I’m in Paris I’m more conscious of my appearance, so I wore black flats instead. This resulted in my calf muscles and feet hurting a lot. You see, putting beauty before comfort is just wrong on every level and violates all my feminist principles.

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22 May, 2008 | 1 Comment

more soon! once i’ve recovered…

19 May, 2008 | 6 Comments

There are a couple articles in the NYT about Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the deep-rooted misogyny it has revealed in American society. Unless Obama turns out to be an ax murderer, I guess Hill’s campaign is over. One of the NYT articles asks:

“If many of Mrs. Clinton’s legions of female supporters believe she was undone even in part by gender discrimination, how eagerly will they embrace Senator Barack Obama, the man who beat her?”

I certainly won’t be embracing him. I am going to write in Hillary Clinton’s name on my ballot. My choice has already been made. This will be a protest vote against all those sexists in the Democratic party and the so-called “progressives” of American society who have acted in a disgraceful way throughout this entire campaign. It is also a protest against many of Obama’s supporters. During this campaign, I have been literally shunned by Obama supporters who I thought were friends. I’ve also witnessed [young white male] Obama supporters saying vile sexist things about Hillary in my presence with no qualms whatsoever, as if they are entitled to say such things because this is war and Hillary the bitch must be crushed, lest someone without a penis move into the Oval Office. I’m not too keen on Obama himself, either. The whole Obama camp leaves much to be desired and they’re all quite delusional if they think they can win this election without the support of Hillary’s voters who’ve they’ve pissed on and offended throughout this campaign. Perhaps their smug behavior is about to come back and bite them in the ass. Though I won’t be following the campaign closely, given that I’ve already made up my mind about who I am voting for, it will still be interesting to watch how this plays out.

I’ve already had Democrats warn me that if I don’t vote for Obama, I am essentially voting for McCain. First of all, I am not a Democrat and as such, I have no loyalty to the Democrats. I am no longer registered as a Democrat. Why? There are many reasons, but it’s mostly because of their spinelessness. They stand for nothing. They elected as their Senate Majority Leader a man who is “pro-life” and against gay marriage. If that doesn’t sum up the Democrats, nothing does.

Of course I am not a Republican and I would not vote Republican, but if McCain wins because me and other Hillary voters desert the Democrats, so be it. Obama and his supporters have no one to blame but themselves.

Link:

Devil in a Pantsuit or the Demonization of Hillary Clinton 

17 May, 2008 | 3 Comments

Thanks for your comments and emails regarding my PhD upgrading! I appreciate everyone’s support. I got everything submitted yesterday. I won’t know until the beginning of June whether I passed or not, but I will try not to think about it too much.

I think it’ll take me a few days to get back on track with my work. I feel as if there’s a big hole in my life suddenly. This upgrading deadline has been looming over me for months and it’s weird to have it behind me now. I’m not quite sure what to do with myself! This doesn’t mean I don’t have tons of work to do. I have even more work ahead of me than I realized. As part of the upgrade, I had to make detailed outlines of my dissertation and also submit a timeline for completion. Seeing it all written down was a wake-up call. I was aiming to finish in September 2009, but now I think December 2009 is more realistic. I have so much work to do it’s overwhelming. What’s worse is that I’ve wasted a lot of time, which is making me kick myself, but all I can do now is move forward, slowly but surely…

13 May, 2008 | 5 Comments

You probably won’t hear from me again until this weekend. I have the deadline for my PhD upgrade on Friday and I still have massive amounts of work to do. If I stay up until 3:00 a.m. each night, I might just make it.

Right about now I’m starting to wonder if it was smart to choose Fight Club as one of the novels I’m examining for the academic part of my dissertation. I could have chosen Jane Austen or something. What is wrong with me?

Fight Club has lines like this:

“It’s easy to cry when you realize that everyone you love will reject you or die. On a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone will drop to zero.”

or this:

“Everything you can ever accomplish will end up as trash. Anything you’re ever proud of will be thrown away.”

I also get to write about the fear of castration and all sorts of fun things. This is such a strange subject matter for a feminist like me to be writing about. On the bright side, I’m hoping to be the only person in the history of my university to submit a dissertation with the sentence “F–k Martha Stewart” in it. Fingers crossed.

11 May, 2008 | Comments are off

To my dear maman and all the mothers out there…Happy Mother’s Day!

Mother’s Day in Britain was back in March, so I’m proud of myself for remembering this.

This YouTube video on Mother’s Day is hysterical, though I fear you may have to be American to fully appreciate it…

9 May, 2008 | 1 Comment

An update to my previous rant…

Today I met with my supervisor, a well-respected novelist. She read three of my chapters this week and she said, regarding my concerns raised in the previous post:

1) I worry too much.

2) I am writing a novel that is highly publishable.

That’s a good way to end the week, at least.

I am stressed right now because I have to upgrade soon. When you register for a PhD, you are technically an MPhil student. You have to upgrade to full PhD status, usually at the end of your first year. I took a leave of absence at the end of my first year, so I am upgrading now at the end of my second year. At my school, this is a formal affair — I must submit completed chapters, a bibliography, an outline of my dissertation, etc. I must go through a mini-viva and then participate in a conference where I have to give a reading of my work and take questions from the audience.

I am quite nervous about this (duh — as if I wouldn’t be!). My materials must be submitted one week from today and I am frantically racing to get things done. I’m not used to having deadlines like this. It’s a shock to the system, actually. Normally I just email my supervisor when I want a meeting, which is all very laid back. This is major stress now. I’m not in the habit of doing academic writing, either. I have been working on my novel all year but now I must submit academic work for the upgrade in addition to the novel. Academic writing is hard, dammit. Fiction writing is harder, of course, but academic writing uses a different part of the brain. Fiction writers just get to make sh*t up. Now you want me to use citations?

As a result of all this cruel stress, I have not been sleeping well. I have the hugest bags under my eyes to prove it. Plus I’ve had headaches every day. Part of this is thanks to the change in the weather – it’s suddenly quite warm and summery and because of that, the students in the hall where I live have gone berserk and make so much noise outside at night that I can’t sleep. Still, if this little upgrade can impact me like this, imagine what I’ll be like when I actually have to submit my PhD. I may need around-the-clock psychiatric care.

7 May, 2008 | 5 Comments

<start of rant>

Today at a meeting of PhD students, the head of the English department invited us all to submit our CVs so we can be considered for teaching work for the autumn term. Oh, except those of us doing PhDs in creative writing need not apply. Apparently, the students refuse to be taught by anyone who hasn’t already published a novel. After the meeting, I asked him if I should at least submit my CV, you know, just in case something opens up. He said not to bother.

This is the major downside of doing a PhD in the UK, at least in a subject like English. There aren’t many (if any) opportunities to teach, which kinda sucks if you want to have a career as a university lecturer. I mean, what am I paying these people for? I thought it was to train me for my career. Newsflash: PhD students, particularly int’l ones like me, are not just cash machines. If you’re a student in the UK right now, you should know that there’s a good chance your university lecturers haven’t been trained to teach at all. See, that’s the flip side of this idiotic system.

In other news, we also learned today that our department has a very high rate of placing their PhDs in teaching positions. Their high rate of success is…drumroll…50%.

Basically, if I want a teaching career in creative writing (and I’ll have to teach creative writing — given that I’ve specialized, no one will consider me to teach straight English, apparently) then I need to publish my novel. It needs to be published by a reputable publisher and get reviewed well. If I can’t manage to pull this off in the next couple years, I won’t have a career. Then what will I do for a living? I really have no idea. It’s not as if I didn’t know this already. I did. But the stark reality is just hitting me. It’s difficult enough writing a book but now I have to live each day with the knowledge that my whole future is depending on it.

</end of rant>

5 May, 2008 | 5 Comments

I went to a conference recently called Narratives in Transition: Literary and Cultural Change since 1989. I only went because I needed to fill my quota of conferences and seminars for the year, but it turned out to be a fantastic experience. Not only was it super informative, but it felt good to get out of the house and mingle with actual humans. Now that I have become a full-time writer, I am essentially a recluse, which is a bit sad. Note to self: Attend more conferences. Did I mention there were lots of cute thirtysomething English professors there? By “English professor” I don’t mean “professor who is English” but rather “professor who teaches English,” even though they were all English anyway.

During one of the many coffee breaks (where I ate too much shortbread), one of these gents taught me how to pronounce Toibin, as in Colm Toibin, the Irish writer. The answer is: Toe-bean. Ahhh, one of life’s mysteries solved. [There was still, however, much disagreement over how to pronounce Coetzee. I'm getting tired of this debate. I suggest someone get Coetzee's phone number and call him. He'd either answer the phone (doubtful) or even better, his voicemail would pick up: "Hello, this is J.M. ---. I'm not home right now, please leave a message." Problem solved.]

Anyway, on to the substance of the conference. There was a lot of discussion regarding narratives of trauma. I am particularly interested in this, since the narrator of my novel has suffered a trauma and it’s difficult to portray this in a way that is not self-pitying. While the conference was primarily academic in that it was aimed at scholars, not practitioners of creative writing like me, I got many good ideas and insights into my own work.

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2 May, 2008 | 2 Comments

Is Obama giving Hillary Clinton the finger? You can see the offending moment here. CBS News offers a longer and clearer video, but you have to watch a commercial first. On the CBS video, you can also see Obama doing another gesture — pretending to wipe dirt off his shoulders (the dirt being Hillary Clinton’s negative comments). According to The Atlantic’s blogger, this action is a reference to a Jay-Z song (a song which is filled with the n-word). I’m not hip enough to comment on this aspect of it.

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1 May, 2008 | 6 Comments

Someone please explain the appeal of Ian McEwan to me. Please. I beg you.

I just finished reading Enduring Love. I have never read a McEwan novel before, but I did see the film adaptation of Atonement (which I found to be problematic on many levels). I attended a conference recently during which someone gave a paper on McEwan and his name kept coming up in the ‘q and a’ discussion of other panels. Mainly, people where amused that McEwan’s name seems to be synonymous with “contemporary literary fiction” these days. Everyone was wondering how this happened, not so much as a comment on the quality of his work, but just marveling at his ascendancy to such a supreme place in the public’s literary consciousness.

After the conference, I was in a bookshop and decided to browse through a few of his novels. Enduring Love caught my eye because it has a first-person narrator. My novel is told in the first-person and I’m always on the lookout for good first-person novels. I hesitated, since I had seen the film version of Enduring Love and didn’t like it, but I decided I needed to read something by McEwan so I gave it a go.

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