Applications and books

[tarigwaemir]

Lowell House on the Feast of Ste. Carina and Companions

Dear self, if you push things off to the last minute in this fashion again for the actual grad school apps, I will probably snap and do something rash. -_- Although in my defense, I didn't precisely slack off; I spent my entire weekend more or less reading papers and thinking about the wretched NSF proposed research essay. But it took me forever to settle on a topic and even longer to figure out how to write about it, and I kept falling asleep at night while in the middle of writing it. Nonetheless, I spent all day at lab today writing it up and going through revisions with my post-doc, and now that I've gotten final comments from my advisor, I'm finished! Hurrah! (Well, I'm going to go through one last proofreading session early tomorrow morning before I send the application off, but after that I'll be done. Done, done, done.)

Anyway, I suppose my procrastination did have a serendipitous side because we had a lecture on homeotic genes yesterday, which proved to be immensely useful. And I guess it was worth holding out for this topic instead of going with the ones I considered and rejected before because it draws on nearly all of the advanced biology courses I've taken (miRNA from Molecular Mechanisms of Gene Regulation, feed-forward loops from Systems Biology, and Hox genes from Developmental Biology) as well as the research I've been doing in lab (buffering!).

In the meantime, the careful regularity of my daily routine this semester has been completely upset. I knew it was too good to last. I fell asleep in my morning lectures both yesterday and today. Managed through strength of will (and an aptly timed nap during lunch) to not fall asleep during my biology class. (It helped that I was frantically taking notes on anything that would be useful for the proposed research essay. Besides, Hox genes really are interesting, especially from an evolutionary point of view.) I feel like the past three days have been chopped up into stretches of awakeness interrupted by three-hour naps at random intervals. Maybe that's why I felt like I was going mad. -_-

In happier news, on Sunday, the Harvard Bookstore held a sale for all Frequent Buyer cardholders. 20% off on all books, including used and remainders. I was ecstatic and spent almost $40. My haul:

• The Complete Novels of Guy de Maupassant - Used, priced at $3 before the discount. I've only read Maupassant's short stories before, so I consider it a worthy investment.
  
• The Red Queen, by Margaret Drabble - Remainder. That novel based on the memoirs of Prince Sado's wife. Not sure how I feel about a Western author writing about my culture, particularly one that has had such little exposure to it before (as Drabble admits in her introduction), but after waffling on it for months, I decided to give the book a try. Actually I should probably first read the memoir in question that inspired the novel...self, make a visit to Yenching when there's more free time.
  
• Color, by Victoria Finlay - New. I raved about this book all summer to whoever would listen. (See here.) There will probably be more raving about it once I get around to updating my reading blog. (Actually, I've been following sub_divided's advice and jotting down notes as I go, so I should be caught up soon. I just need to finish writing up my thoughts on all the L.M. Montgomery I read in June.)
  
• I Capture the Castle, by Dodie Smith - New. Finally got around to acquiring it after hearing it mentioned repeatedly by various people on the friends list. Actually I started reading it yesterday when I was feeling particularly morose. I think I've been too dazed to really process how I feel about the book but the act of reading it has been enormously comforting.
  
• Selected Prose of T.S. Eliot - Remainder. I have enormous respect for Eliot's poetry and enjoyed reading it for literature class, but I must confess that my enjoyment of poetry in general is mostly analytical (i.e. I don't really know how to read verse for pleasure). What really made me fall in love with Eliot as a writer was his essay on criticism, "Tradition and the Individual Talent". *_* Anyway, now I have a proper copy of the essay for myself in this volume, and hopefully I'll have a chance to read the other prose works as well.

I've been finding it hard to concentrate lately. I keep getting caught up in these thought loops, fixated around a memory or a daydream or an anxiety, and then my mind will neurotically dwell on it until I begin to feel trapped and unable to focus on anything else. Anyway, when I gave into temptation and opened I Capture the Castle for a brief while yesterday, I realized that one of the reasons why reading fiction helps me cope with stress is that it disrupts these thought loops and pulls me out of myself for a while. Such is the power of narrative: it propels you forward.

Yours &c.

Post-script: moderntime is keeping track of her daily expenditures, and other people seem to be following her lead. I wonder if I should do the same; I need to be on a tight budget for the next two months if I'm to make up for the rash spending spree on Sunday. (But oh, there is nothing more satisfying than the impulse buying of books. I couldn't keep the smile off my face on the walk back from the bookstore.)

Comments

[twelve.livejournal.com]

Congrats on finishing! *hugs* (Now if only I could apply the same concentration to my college apps...)

[troisroyaumes]

Thanks~! Oh, and good luck with your college apps! I remember those weren't much fun at all either. ;_;

[ramble-corner.livejournal.com]

re: I capture the castle

*hearts* for cassie .....

The kind of open-ended ending leaves a lot to imagine, right?

[troisroyaumes]

I haven't finished the book yet, but yes, Cassandra is such a wonderful narrator. *_* I heart her immensely too.

[ramble-corner.livejournal.com]

woops
hope I didn't spoil it for you *look above
i think i was ambigous enough...

and since the first time , i only saw the name of the book and pretty much ignore everything else on your post, then let me add

congratulations on finishing your apps ^__^

[zoesque.livejournal.com]

Oooh T.S. Eliot! *hugs her own massive collected works tome* Myself, I like Eliot for pleasure rather than analysis, but it depends on the poet. I could analyze Keats (well, all the Romantics, really) and cummings and Rilke until the sun exploded, but for poets like Eliot and Sylvia Plath, I have some sort of intense mental block that stoppers all analysis. Which is going to make my life interesting when I write a six page paper on Plath's "Ariel" wherein I attempt to describe 'what works' and why. XP

*takes notes on the other books* :D

[troisroyaumes]

Hee, I tend to find a lot of poetry difficult to understand so it's usually after I analyze a poem that the emotional impact really hits me. I think it's probably tied up with why I'm bad at writing poetry myself. I do think Eliot's poetry is brilliant though, and I always envy people who seem to intuitively feel his poetry (instead of finally getting to it after chipping it to pieces like me). XD Good luck with the Plath paper! I've only read a few of her poems, but I can see why they'd be difficult to analyze; it's hard to pin down in hard, cold words what the impact of a poem is.

[schwimmerin.livejournal.com]

You worked a lot harder on the NSF than I did. I feel guilty.

[troisroyaumes]

?? I didn't work harder at all; I started much later than you on two of the essays after all. Besides, I'll bet you did a better job. >_<

[schwimmerin.livejournal.com]

I'll bet that's not true! But let's not fight about it because it's silly ^_^

[rem-chan.livejournal.com]

Congrats on finishing one part of your applications! I'm still revising the statement for the Canadian national scholarships.

I like modernist poetry and art, but for some reason, I can't get into the prose or music.

[troisroyaumes]

Thanks! ^_^ Good luck with your scholarship apps!

[moderntime.livejournal.com]

XD I started off my accounting with a mad spending spree. It'll make you feel better when you can see how good you've been! And I agree...there are few things as satisfying as impulse buying of books.

[troisroyaumes]

I'm thinking of starting this week! ^_^ Let's hope that it prevents me from more impulse purchases. XD

[angrybabble.livejournal.com]

y halo thar, I am back with MOAR RANDOM COMMENTS!!!! (I guess I should, like, friend you sometime, but I'm notoriously lazy about doing that sort of thing.)

Anyhow, I haven't read "I Capture the Castle" (although I've heard of it before); what's it about? Your mention of Dodie Smith mostly brought to mind one of my favorite books: 101 Dalmations. No, for realz!! She wrote that too! Have you read it? It's kind of got beautiful prose and is liek way better than the Disney movie (although it does lack the Cruella DeVille song which I think we can all agree is genius). The comparison between television and the tranquil viewing of a chuch's nativity is somehow genius to me (and I'm not even religious! but that is how I kind of felt as a kid too, looking at the nativity and letting my imagination go...). Anyhow if you haven't read it, do so.

If you like YA lit I am like a recommendation MACHINE, btw. XD Just ask and my years of nerdy immaturity experience shall be bestowed unto you!

okay, that is enough of this random comment for today. >_> *sneaks away*

[troisroyaumes]

Hello! (And no worries, random comments are always welcome here! XD)

I Capture the Castle is written in the form of journal entries by the narrator, Cassandra Mortmain, who aspires to be an author. She and her sister live with their father in a house attached to a castle in rural England; they're very poor because their father (who used to be a famous avant-garde novelist) has been suffering from writer's block for the past ten years and hasn't made any money since. The story is about the two Americans that blow into their lives (I'm sure you can predict the love entanglements that result), but I think the best part of the book is that same beautiful prose.

I knew Dodie Smith wrote 101 Dalmatians but I haven't read it yet. ^_^ I'm definitely putting it on my reading list though. And I'd love to hear any more recommendations you have! I'm a huge YA lit fan as well (particularly fantasy, since I love DWJ and Garth Nix). XD