Friday, August 23, 2002
 

I am CONNECTED to the internet from none other than my own apartment! My modem arrived today, along with detailed instructions and a quickstart CD, and pretty durn quickly I was connected. I have DSL service through BellSouth. The other good news (as if actually being connected to the internet isn't good enough-- no more trekking over to campus every day!) is that there's a rebate on the modem, so it's free. This is pretty fast, too. The bad news is that the phone cord (of the special type used for this) provided isn't long enough to reach from my desktop to the nearest phone jack (this apartment only has two, one in the den and one in the bedroom-- I guess it's because the building was built in the 1970s, before the technology boom), so I've connected it to my laptop. That's not a problem in and of itself, of course; the problem is that about half my coffee table is monopolized, and there are cords trailing all over the floor (at one point, they were strung all along the futon, but I have fixed that). There's not much hope for improvement there, either. When I want the laptop out of the way, I think it'll fit on the lower shelf of the end table (formerly known as my bedside table). I'm just going to have to be careful to step over all 34694597 cords every time I get up (that, or exit the futon in the other direction). The cords semi blend in with the pattern on the rug (kilim-style), which helps out from the aesthetic angle (and, as anyone who has lived with me or seen my living spaces knows, I'm all about decorating aesthetics).

I bought some of my books today. Only one professor had actually turned in a list of stuff to the university bookstore, so I bought 8 there. That was about $90 damage. Then I went to Borders for some of the other stuff I knew I needed soon-- $126. And I don't have all my books yet. I'm taking:

Seminar in Victorian Prose and Poetry (Topic: The Victorian Novel and Science). Mondays, 3:30-6:00 pm
Studies in Southern Literature (Topic: Faulkner, Wright, Welty, and Mississippi). Wednesdays, 4:00-6:30 pm.
Special Topics in British Literature (Topic: Modernism and Media). Thursdays, 12:30-3:00 PM.

I had intended to take the intro to literary theory, but the DGS said my preparation was sufficient (thank you, Dr. Theoryprof) to skip that. I guess the Murderous Term of Theory was worth it, after all. A lot of people don't have theory at the undergrad level, and I got the impression that this course was designed to address that lack.

The first readings for Southern lit are mainly reserve readings, so I'll have to figure out how that works, but the library is closed now. We'll also start with excerpts from three novels. First reading for Victorian is Frankenstein, which we read in theory (thank you, Dr. Theoryprof). We read it then in Lacanian / Freudian terms, so this will be a somewhat different focus. Suppose that means I can't recycle my paper on the absent mother in the novel. Sigh.

Oh, and I would like to announce that I procured some Pam at CVS yesterday and successfully (well, with only one small burn) made tuna chip casserole last night. It made six servings, so I froze the leftovers in serving-size containers for easy reheating (an excellent suggestion for the great book Help! My Apartment Has A Kitchen).

Elvisette philosophized at 6:37 PM