I feel as if I should say something to my adoring public. Life has been a river that flows and it has pulled me this way and that over the last little rivulet of life. The latest thing to pull is about twenty hours of marking that I have to do over the next three days, but heh ho - serves me right for being so lazy. I think I'll wear a hair-shirt as I mark ... and maybe my slippers that are that little bit too tight! Nothing like a bit of self-mortification to lighten the load. But before I launch myself once more into the breach, dear friends, I thought I would address my dear friends, such as are who read this, my inner stream of consciousness that runs its full course of creative expression, giving out into the mouth of my little enwalled harbour of cyberspace.
So on the physical level, I have two hospital appointments in quick succession, the first one next Wednesday morning in Belfast. I was wondering could Mademoiselle F. put me up on Tuesday night, and it would have the extra good effect of us being able to meet up again at long last?! Then I'm back down to Maynooth for just one more day of lecturing (no, not leching) around before I return to where God intended my body to rest, in the good old demesne of the northern clans, where they were so happily joined by the Scottish lairds four hundred years ago, who liked the Irish so much they wanted to share their very same earth, once upon a time. What about that for revisionist history? Anyway, F'er, are you free to see and be seen that night?
It is a relief to have a place to think and move and be ... silly. Not that I've been able to be too serious with study recently either. I've just been following my tail getting the courses sort of finished up this week, so as to revise them next - the last - week before the break. Therein lies the reason for the twenty hours of communing with the minds of my students this weekend through the media of their essays; I procrastinate until the very last moment of ripeness, until the old mental fruit just has to squeeze itself dry through the tedious business of marking. Oh marking, I hate you, let me count the ways ... Yes, I know this is just a work avoidance technique and I should bite the bullet and begin at the beginning, shut up, and sort of wade my way through. By the way, I'm trying to use as many idioms in this piece as possible, just in case there are any foreign english language students tuning in who want to improve their colloquisms! So to for the metaphors.
So please, F, is there room in your homely inn on Tuesday? Also, if anybody else has read this, I forbid you to read again unless you say hello this time. That goes for you too E (especially), and you B, the other F, even C, even the other C, one more C please Bob, very unlikely but maybe L, almost impossibly S, it would be lovely if G, I think I can depend upon A, there's no way R, not forgetting Z. P is not a theoretical impossibility. You all know who you are, so say something or I herenow curse the horse you rode in on. ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ, just in case.
Shit, I have to go and do some marking now.
10 comments:
Essie - The Inn has a vacancy on tuesday next! slippers and pipe at the ready. ees no problem. Effie.
That's great, Fionnuala. I'll be in touch by text to arrange when and where we can meet that night. Thanks alot.
whether tis nobler in the mind t suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous procrastination or to take arms against your sea of troubles and by opposing them, end them. Yea, I'm here! Procrastination is the only way to do true work!
Ah E! See, that shows you care, and now you are officially allowed to keep reading. Yes, there is something bubblingly creative about putting off certain things. There is something in the soul, something that nibbles and rebels and calls for depth. I'm glad to hear that the Oscar Wilde course sounds good to you. I hope you enjoy it. I saw an old film of 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' recently and was really affected by it. His story really speaks to this need.
I hope you have a Merry Christmas!
hi Stephen. Just wondering what happened to you. I hope you had a good holiday.
~E~
Hi E, good to hear from you. I'm afraid my holidays weren't so good. I got food poisoning on my birthday and then fell badly ill with pneumonia - temperature of 40.5oC!, that's 105oF in your language. I was in hospital over the New Year period, and had been sick all Christmas - so I couldn't manage much Christmas dinner and I lost 10 kilos in a couple of weeks! I had a bit of a relapse last week and in hospital again for a few hours where they diagnosed that I had pleurisy as a result of the pneumonia, and they gave me more antibiotics to try to clear the infection again. I'm feeling stronger now, but I'm just concerned the anti-biotics won't clear it properly this time either. But there are plenty of other antibiotics anyway.
So that's the reason, a pretty good excuse I think! I'm glad your mother convinced you to write again. I didn't have much energy to, and not much to say. I've watched almost every DVD that exists in my parents home, including the whole first series of 'House' which I bought for my father for Chrsitmas. It's great, but a bit difficult to contemplate when you're ill on occasion! But Hugh Laurie is excellent - well the whole thing is.
I picked up my Complete Works of both Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde and am considering at length opening them. I've read the tempestuous beginning of the tempest, re-read a few of the sonnets, read some of De Profundis and began Wilde's portrait of Mr. W.H. essay on the identity of Shakepeare's muse. But my energy is more suited to stopping and staring at the tv than creatively reading the text.
It's really good to hear from you. I'm doing better and hope to be back in health before too long, God willing. In a way, my prolonged recouperation is forcing upon me the opportunity for reflection, and the realisation of my renewed desire for life. We can become so complacent and jaded.
Your mother's right. Keep writing.
S - I can't believe you were in the hospital again - what a nightmare for you - I hope these anti-biotics do the trick. Thinking of you- will chat soon, F.
Thanks, Fionnuala. Yes, it's a bit hard to have a step back like that, it makes me worry. But I'm not too bad at the minute, so one day at a time. I'm certainly not going to be going south for a little while yet ... by the way, that wasn't meant to be a metaphor!
Wow. Ok, that's awful and I'm sorry to hear about all of that. I hope you start feeling better. I've been working all weekend and had no chance of reading any Wilde yet but we're supposed to read "Lady Windmare's Fan" for Tuesday so I hope it's a fast read. I really liked "The Sphinx Without a Secret" and the very hilarious "The Canterville Ghost"
Hi Emily, thanks for your concern. I'm starting to feel a bit better now, and am going to return to work and study next week, taking it slow though.
About Wilde, they've just changed the school curriculum here to include him, which I think is good. I've been reading some of his sonnets and I've been struck by his religiosity. His son has written that he always had had a mystical bent, and the more I read the easier I pick it up. I especially like the Ballad of Reading Gaol. But his letter De Profundis is the most revealing of all, and a work of art itself.
I'll begin to comment more now as I build my strength.
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