Papers done, Proposals to Write, and Courses

Well, I have a replacement desk chair which if you can believe it seems to be more painful than the broken one!  Oh well - good thing I don't spend a lot of time typing at the computer!  *sarcasm*
On the bright side, the string of three consecutive papers is finally over as of Friday!  I could not be more thrilled.  My mark on each paper improved from the last one which is wonderful, and I am proud of my first round of writing effort here at Trinity.  My immediate task now is to write my Ph.D. dissertation proposal for the application due March 1!!!  It is exciting but also extremely intimidating.  I have been doing bits of research throughout the year, but now it is time to bring it all together in a coherent proposal.  Then I meet with Professor Slote (the god of Joyce) and ask if he will be my supervisor - cross your fingers for me!

My classes this term are still amazing.
The Perspectives on Irish Writing course continues from last term and we are moving into the early twentieth century.  The first two weeks of the term were spent with my favorite professor - Nicky Grene - who lectured on two plays: George Bernard Shaw's John Bull's Other Island and J.M. Synge's The Playboy of the Western World.  He is not only a great professor and mentor, but he is also the world expert on J.M. Synge!  I have very much enjoyed studying Irish drama because it brings back all my passion for the theatre.  Last week in the Perspectives course was a very interesting lecture on the resounding effects of the Easter 1916 Uprising through Irish society and writing up to the present.  Our lecturer was Gerald Dawe who is a renowned poet and poetry scholar.  He proved to be an extremely engaging speaker.  We are in conjunction with the lecture looking at the poetry of those involved in the Rising and WWI - fascinating statements of the pride of sacrificing oneself for one's country.  I look forward to his next lecture this Tuesday.  For the rest of the term, we will cover the remainder of the twentieth century.
Single Major Authors is another of the courses which has continued from last term - BUT these six weeks are devoted to my man JAMES JOYCE!!  We even had class on his birthday (Feb 2) last Thursday morning.  Sam Slote is an incredibly intelligent Joyce scholar who has just finished his own volume of annotations to Ulysses - no small feat!  He is nerdy and makes funny nerd jokes about Joyce which I am pretty sure I am the only one who laughs at! :)  Pretty much my hero!  I have been rereading Ulysses for the course and it is amazing how much new information I pick up each time I read it.  This section is by far my favorite part of the program so far!
My elective course for this term is entitled Irish Fiction after Joyce and is taught by Eve Patten.  She is, along with Nicky Grene, one of the heads of our program.  I enjoy her frank and ironic style.  The course deals with the legacy left in Irish writing after Joyce and if writers can escape his influence or if they build on what he did.  It is an area that I am for the most part completely unfamiliar with so it has been fascinating thus far.  We just read Flann O'Brien's At Swim-Two-Birds.  I enjoyed the style of the novel which reminded me a lot of Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.  I look forward to reading what everyone calls his best novel - The Third Policeman.  I would definitely recommend it.  Next up for that course is Kate O'Brien's The Land of Spices.