10 posts tagged “qual”

Yea, a professor came unto her, and said, "thou shalt write your qual; and you shall call its name Written, and there will be much rejoicing."

And so the qual was Written, and it was turned in, and there was gaiety and joy in all the land!

Well, first of all, I'm nearly done with my qual. Go me!

Second of all, I am still sick. The flu turned into the awful stuffy sneezes which turned into the coughing which turned into the sore throat which turned into the loss of voice and I have no idea what's coming next but it's gotta be something like broken bones or whatever. I get the feeling that this illness is not afraid to take the nuclear option. Anyway, Mom and Dad, I know you read this -- I'm not going to call until my voice come back; sorry.

Right now, my roommates are camping for a Wii outside a Best Buy somewhere in the outskirts of Portland. I'm excited. I just want to play "Twilight Princess" until my arms fall off is all. Of course, we've run out of cords and plugs (we have a PS2, a PS3, a Super Nintendo, and an Xbox 360) and therefore we're going to have to decide on something to unplug -- we've already benched the PS2, which is a pity because we don't have adapters for the memory cards yet and that means that when I finish my qual I can't celebrate by playing FFXII or FFX. Hopefully, they'll actually get a Wii -- the Target we called earlier sold out in 26 minutes -- and since I don't play anything on the PS3 or Xbox 360 I won't care what they unplug. Although, I guess we have Lemmings on the PS3, and the Xbox is really only good for Halo 2, which I am absolute shit at. So.

Lastly -- this semester. Lots of reading. I discovered, qualling, that I am indeed ready to go back to school, that I can indeed put in work in six-hour stretches like I need to during the semester. I'm pretty sure that's great.

I want to write more of my novel. With qual worries and a multitude of distractions, I've barely looked at it since November. I think that school starting again will be my cue to bring the novel off the back burner, try and get a couple hundred words every day. Since I know I can write upwards of twenty pages in a day, no sweat, and have them even be moderately readable, that ought to be a piece of cake. (Ought to be.)

Okay. Back to the qual, back to the grind.

Well I'm sick. Sick, sick, sick. And I'm wondering what kind of a sick joke it is to make this happen to me right before my qualifying exam!

Last night, while chilling out and keeping it low-key (Jess, if you're reading this, I'm sorry I didn't make it to your birthday -- but I was already feeling a little run-down then, and didn't want to push it. I hope Tim and Allie told you happy birthday from me) I got this sore throat. Then my body started aching. I felt nauseous, my ears stuffed up. I'm pretty sure that during the night I had a fever, because I was alternately too hot and too cold. Miserable!

I ended up getting up at least four or five times during the night (probably more; I have a tendency to sleepwalk), drinking water, wishing that my muscles didn't hurt when I put weight on them and that my head didn't spin when I was standing. This morning I feel a bit better; I've taken some ibuprofen and drank a lot of water, and I'm sure that Allie will know the exact best combination of things to take to make me feel better. (Her mom's not a doctor for nothing; she always knows these things). Right now I'd kill for a DayQuil, though.

I guess I'd better call John and see if he would photocopy the articles I have yet to read for the qual and bring them over here (I'll wait till 10 AM, of course). I'll be damned before I do poorly on this test because of this! So that means lots of water, lying down, medicine, vitamins, and nothing that will make me drowsy because I have to study.

Okay, my pity party's over. I'm going to try and get a couple more hours rest before I start the day.

Okay, so I'm pretty cracked out right now -- I'm on my fifth day of "all library, all the time," and that'll do it to you.

But I just found two major errors in my qual. I did parenthetical citation instead of a footnote, in one. In the other, I actually forgot to cite a quote entirely.

The worst part is, I am so crap at academia that I can't find that quote anywhere in my notes. I know it's from a particular book (Catherine Edwards, The Politics of Immorality in Ancient Rome) and I know that it's probably from a certain chapter in the book. But I can't find that quote.

I'm pretty sure that Ellen is going to make me commit hara-kiri. Or at least proskinesis. I still feel like the argument is the best I've ever made, but Ellen is a complete obsessive about grammar and formatting. I bet Sonia is, too. Crap, crap, crap.

I just thought up the best name title* for my qual -- and it's even G-rated!

"Our Bodies, Our Selves: Power, Effeminacy and Medicine in the First and Second Catilinarian Orations."

Rock on. Now, all I have to do is edit it into something I'll be proud of.

And write my Greek paper (6 pages).

And write my Religion paper (20 pages).

And translate for Monday.

Uh, and stop posting to my damn blog and whining about all my schoolwork. But, the title is still really awesome!

*Yes, I really did just type "name for my qual." I guess I should start calling it my only -- my love -- my fair mistress! It certainly is taking up all the time that a boyfriend would. Oy vey.

Wow, I have no idea how I am ever, ever, ever going to get my qual to even twenty pages, much less thirty (which was my original goal). Right now, I've got about six pages, and I've used all the research I've done so far, pretty much. The funny thing is, Ellen thought I'd done a lot of research, and that I had plenty to go on. Guess not.

Let's do the "Wow, I'm screwed" dance!

Oh well. As long as I have, say, fifteen pages to turn in to Ellen, I think she'll be able to give me good advice on what to expand upon. And I can refer a lot more to the Latin, which will both strengthen my argument and add words. I just am frustrated, because I am fitting a lot of ideas into a short paper -- but I'm not sure if I'm being admirably concise, or ridiculously dense.

1) Today I read the words "master chef" as "Master Chief." And I've never even bothered to beat Halo!

2) Final Fantasy XII is beginning to eat my soul. My thoughts so far: it took me a while to pick up the new combat system, but I like it nonetheless -- though the way one controls the other characters' AI still feels awkward to me. I wish that one was able to go back to an entirely turn-based system sometimes, but on the other hand, this is a lot more exciting (it makes the monster battles actually interesting, even after you've done a million of them). Also, hooray for monster battles no longer being totally random! The plot itself, too, I'm finding engaging, with a real mix of influences (so far our favorite description, I think, has been 'Aladdin + Star Wars + the Roman Empire + Harajuku fashion') and the bravery to break out of a couple Final Fantasy tropes. Last but not least -- Young men with beards? Thank God! The reign of the bishi is challenged!

3) My Greek exam is also eating my soul, but in a different way. I've studied more than enough; I'm gonna be fine... I just keep worrying about it. Oh well: it isn't till one o'clock, even if I do have to finish a Latin exam before then.

4) My qual status: still unwritten. That's what happens when you go out of town all weekend. Next weekend is going to be the Weekend of Qualling Horror, I think. Isn't it interesting that 'Qual' looks so much like 'quail,' as in "quail in fear"?

Today, just about the coolest thing happened to me: an old friend contacted me to say that she'd been following my blog for ages.

You've gotta realize that I grew up with a certain group of kids. We went to elementary school together, then middle school, then high school; this was because only a few schools in the district had real Gifted & Talented programs, and so especially in elementary school there were only a couple of options available for our parents.

Leaving aside the question of "are Gifted and Talented programs really the best way to educate extremely intelligent children" (I would say no, but they may be the best of bad options), I had a pretty idyllic experience in school. Sure, I didn't like middle school -- who did? -- and I never really realized how much everyone in our elementary school class actually got along, and I definitely could have made more of high school if I wasn't so focused on the Gay-Straight Alliance (and Harry Potter fanfiction, but that's a different matter). But overall? I wasn't bullied; I wasn't a bully; I had great teachers and great classmates.

The thing is, I pretty much left school (at mid-year, no less) and was out. Gone. Like a rocket. I didn't want to have anything to do with high school or anything in it, including a lot of my old friends. I pretty much even didn't keep in contact with Steph, who'd been my best friend since we were four years old. And now I'm kind of regretting it. My senior yearbook barely has any signatures in it -- sure, the ones it does have are really meaningful, but nonetheless. People talk about parties in Sacramento over breaks, but I don't go to any of them, and I certainly don't blame people for not inviting me; it's not like I've ever reached out.

And that all's a long-winded way of saying: It totally made my day when Deni messaged me, and I hope we keep in touch, and I'm being somewhat passive-aggressive but in a good way by posting this in my blog, but I think everyone will forgive me, won't you?

...on another note...

I've kind of stopped talking about my qual here. I should keep this somewhat up to date, anyway! So here's the thesis statement as it currently stands: In the first and second Catilinarian orations, Cicero uses language of illness and poisoning to describe both Catiline's followers and their effect on the state, thus casting himself as the healer who will cure Rome. What's really cool about this focus on illness is that the most important other source we have on the second conspiracy of Catiline also uses images of illness, probably at least somewhat lifted from Cicero's speech, but he focuses on how Catiline's group represents a cancer which has metastasized -- that the Roman Republic cannot be saved. It highlights the two different attitudes in Rome at the time perfectly: Cicero the Republican, Sallust the Julian.

Anyhow, I ought to work on my qual, not write blog posts about it. In our next installment: my new computer, and my Halloween costume, and why my digital camera is a piece of crap!

Edited to add: This day just keeps getting better! Kati discovered that one of my favorite places in Portland is actually where the Decemberists did their publicity photo shoot for Picaresque. So cool! It's this park on a hill which is basically a miniature open-air fortress, called Rocky Butte. There are pictures of me there on my flickr. OK, this is definitely geeky, but it's very exciting if you're... uh... me, Kati, or Stacia!

1) it makes me excruciatingly happy that stephanie (my best friend from, uh, the age of four on up) got back in contact with me! we completely lost contact over college but hoorah, it seems like we still have a ton in common, and were basically being nerfherders about the whole thing. anyway, when i woke up this morning and saw her email, i just about jumped out of my skin in a good way!

2) i have gotten addicted to crossword puzzles. allie had this problem because the l.a. times has a daily crossword that is relatively easy and awesome. what really got me is when i learned a new word ("ort") for the first time in about two years. now i've got two crosswords that are half-finished at my library desk and two at my desk at home and the l.a. times one every day and it's really bad. i need to go buy me a "1001 new york times crosswords" book or something, so i can stop photocopying allie's.

3) i'm qualling on cicero! cicero, cicero, cicero. i'm so excited and mom and dad must be sick of hearing me babble. but i'm thinking the his orations against catiline. i mean, come on:

We must war with luxury, with madness, with wickedness. For this war, O citizens, I offer myself as the general. I take on myself the enmity of profligate men. What can be cured, I will cure, by whatever means it may be possible. What must be cut away, I will not suffer to spread, to the ruin of the republic.

he is so very, very, very, very much an asshole! and he goes on (and on, and on) like that, but with all these fantastic anecdotes about people vomiting and having sex (and sometimes both, in drunken orgies) and then he extends it to the entirety of rome. oh, i'm in love with his bizarre morality of the body.