Author: Teel

Last night was the last class meeting of my summer school course. We basically just had to turn in our papers, fill out the teacher evaluation, and that was it. I feel confident that the paper I turned in will earn me the grade I need in this class. (I did some quick math, and even not getting any points for Jane Austen, as long as I get 25 out of 30 points on the paper, I get an A in the class, and even if I get as low as 15 points on the paper, I still get a B in the class, which is sufficient to raise my ASU GPA to get into the Fall Semester automatically.) Based on this teacher’s scoring in the past, I should easily get sufficient points, possibly even an A on the paper.

The person who helped me a little with editing it wouldn’t give me as much credit for my finished work, since I basically didn’t change the wording of the first paragraph like she thought was so vital, but I expect I’ll do okay.

Oh yeah. Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park. I still haven’t finished reading that yet. I’m almost halfway, actually. No way I could get through the whole thing before Tuesday morning at 9AM (yes, three days ago). Actually, I spoke to the teacher, and I have most of today to post my response to the book and my responses to other people’s responses. The Mansfield Park response was originally supposed to be two two-point responses, one on each half of the book, but because the class ran behind, it is now supposed to be one double-length response worth 4 points. SO what I’m thinking is that if I can get through the last 10-15 pages in the first half of the book (the teacher actually gave a cutoff point for the original assignment) and write a normal-sized response to that, and then appropriate attendance responses, I can get two points and have even more lee-way on my paper’s grade.

Did you follow that? Do you care?

I guess what that really means is that even though the class is over,I still have several hours of work left to do, and I still won’t be doing everything I was supposed to do for the class. Just so you know, I do plan on finishing this damned book, even though I can’t go back after today and get the other two points for it. Not just because of my sense of personal responsibility to complete the tasks I start, even after the reason for doing them has gone, but also because I keep hearing how important and fulfilling it is to read stuff like Austen, and I’m hoping maybe she’s just been building up to something. If I get to the end of this book and it’s just as sleep inducing as the beginning of the book, I don’t know how that will affect my perception of literature in general and Ausen in particular, but I expect it will make me question people who rave about Mansfield Park.

So, for the last reading assignment for class, I’m supposed to read Jane Austin’s Mansfield Park and respond to it by this morning at 9AM. I’ve had the book for a while, and started reading it on Sunday, thinking that between Sunday afternoon, Monday at work, Monday afternoon, and Tuesday at work (I start work every day at 5AM this week), I should be able to read the nearly 400 pages & respond. Wrong.

Let me give a little background before I say the next bit: I am not the sort of person who usually falls asleep reading books. In fact, I can only think of one book, before I started this summer course, that I fell asleep reading, and that was Interview with the Vampire, the first 30 pages of which managed to put me to sleep two nights in a row. Since that time, I have had no trouble maintaining interest in a book to stay awake, even at night when I should be sleeping. This is not to say that when book reading interfered with normal sleeping I didn’t get tired; I was just able to recognise this and set the book down consciously before falling asleep.

As I said, I started reading Mansfield Park on Sunday. Right after sleeping some 13 hours, and not having gone to bed any extra late. I felt awake and alive and if not for the assignment, would have gone out and trimmed the tree that blocks my driveway and mowed the yards and poisoned them and maybe even washed the dishes. I definitely had to start laundry, so I did that, and then I set down with Mansfield Park. Except Mansfield Park is the work of a devil. I don’t mean to imply that Jane Austin is any important sort of devil, such as satan or beelzebub, but more like some minor devil of sleep inducement. I would estimate that for every page or two of Mansfield Park that I read, I sleep half an hour. On Sunday, and this is only because I kept setting alarms to go off every half hour, I managed to read about 6 pages in three hours before giving up and reading some material for the paper I’m working on for class. I would estimate that i have had an extra 6 or 8 hours of sleep in the last few days (another hour and a half this afternoon, plus I almost fell asleep at my desk at work twice today trying to read it) just getting through about 35 pages. It’s ridiculous.

I can’t be THAT sleep deprived, can I?

So, everyone else around me (and by everyone, I mean women) seems to love Jane Austin’s writing, and everyone in my class (that is, 14 women, 3 men) seemed to really enjoy it. They even mentioned, while talking about the storylines in the book, something that I can tie into the paper I’m working on about Jonathan Swift (this is the only encouraging thing about trying to get the reading done right away, right now). They started class by talking a lot about the differences in the movie version, and that was fine, and then we had an interlude where a couple of people gave their oral presentations, which was fine, and then we started in on analysis of the book, and I swear, just hearing people reading quotes and excerpts from the book, I was on the verge of falling asleep in class. Which I have never in my life done, and hope I never do.

I think I’ve found a profound tool to help me if ever insomnia strikes again; Mansfield parkk, the work of a devil, puts me right to sleep. Not in 100 pages, not in 20 pages. In one page. I can read any one page of this book and pass out. It’s amazing. Too bad it doesn’t work for everyone, or I’d market it somehow.

I’ve never really been to a graveyard in any significant way. I’ve seen them in movies, I’ve passed by them in cars, I’ve read about them and how they effect other people. I watch shows about the people that fill them, and have even considered that trade. I have some weird friends who like to perform rituals or dance naked in them. Yet I really don’t seem to have the sort of understanding or impression of them that other people do. I’m not sure I even know anyone buried in a cemetary or graveyard. I’m not sure I know anyone with a grave. I don’t remember ever seeing a real coffin in person.

Everyone I’ve known who I’m aware of dying has been cremated. I’ve seen a few different shapes and configurations for boxes and canisters containing human remains, and I’m aware of several relatives whose ashes have been planted under rosebushes my mother used to grow, but I never knew which bushes, so they weren’t like gravestones or any more special one than the other. (I’ve been trying to write this at work over the last 4 hours, but we have been too busy and I have lost my train of thought. I will try to conclude anyway.)

Really, I’m not sure whether I’m really missing out on something or not, because I get the feeling that at the most I’m missing out on physically localizing a sense of grief, and perhaps a sense of obligation that I must keep returning to that localization to pay respects to the lifeless remains that represent the memory of the life which is what deserved the respect. This is just one among many ideas or concepts or generally accepted ideas that I do not seem to share with the world around me through the circumstance of my life. I do not know yet if it will be a detriment to me, but I do not know how a lack of understanding could help me.

I remember when I first heard about AIBO, years ago, before they were made available for sale (and sold out within hours), I read everything I could find out about them and decided that what I’d really like is a 3rd or 4th generation AIBO. Well, after the 2nd generation AIBO was released, the evolutionary tree branched off in two directions, into cuter and futuristic strains. The futuristic strain is the one I want. That’s the 3rd generation AIBO I was talking about. More about being a robot pet than being a robot pet. If I really wanted a pet simulating robot, I’d get the Nicoro. I want a robotic companion.

I don’t know if there is something inherent in the death of my mother that people don’t want to see, or if it was the quibbling with her last week, but readership has dropped down to its former ridiculously low levels, as expected. Just not enough positive or interesting posts, perhaps. Not enough info about how my chores are falling behind because I’m behind on my homework because my mother just died. Too many posts filled with other people’s song lyrics and no explanations.

I don’t have long to post right now because I actually have about 85 pages to read and a response to write before an hour ago, plus between work and class this afternoon I have to come up with 10 minutes on Jonathan Swift. Then class, then sleep. Mansfield park this weekend, plus I need to write a paper or two before next Thursday, and they have to be good. I’ve been maintaining an A so far in class, and now it’s up to my presentation tonight and my paper next week to see whether I actually end up with an A. The way the class is graded, I could actually, theoretically get as low as a D if I were to get 100% of everything else right and not do these two assignements. So, I won’t let that happen.

Oh, and somewhere in there (this weekend) I need to go grocery shopping, do the dishes, laundry again, memorial service saturday afternoon, mow the yards and poison the perimiter of my house… how much can be put off until the next weekend, after class is over? Probably enough.