2013: A Year in Review
Dec. 31st, 2013 10:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerTen things I did this year:
1. Ragequit Downton Abbey. I mention this because I am trying to stay strong in this decision, even though Pinterest is inundated with adorable stills of Branson and Mary wandering around Downton carrying their respective babies. I will resist! The adorable is not worth it!
2. Survived my Post-Colonial Theory class. I think I would have found this class manifoldly less frustrating if we hadn’t so signally failed to discuss the fact that a lot of the things we read suggested strongly that there’s something inherently problematic about white foreigners studying and passing judgment on other people’s cultures - not just in a “you need to tread carefully” kind of way, but in a “maybe you should just not do this at all” kind of way.
But I was the only person in the class whose research would be unaffected by this, so it seemed a bit churlish to say “I think we should take this opportunity to seriously consider the possibility that your work is hopelessly compromised and you should give it up. You don’t have to decide that it is, but I feel like it’s worth talking about?”
3. Took a French course.
4. Read Les Miserables. (In English.) Also The Hunchback of Notre Dame, but that is somewhat less of an accomplishment.
5. Went on a canoe trip in Canada.
6. Finished reading all the Newbery Award books.
7. Quit grad school
8. Got my MA.
9. Wrote 103,646 words of fanfiction.
10. Wrote a novel. I’m working on revising it now, and it seems pretty solid, though of course it’s hard to tell with one’s own work.
Resolutions for next year: Finish revising the novel, get it beta read, revise it again, and send out query letters to some agents.
1. Ragequit Downton Abbey. I mention this because I am trying to stay strong in this decision, even though Pinterest is inundated with adorable stills of Branson and Mary wandering around Downton carrying their respective babies. I will resist! The adorable is not worth it!
2. Survived my Post-Colonial Theory class. I think I would have found this class manifoldly less frustrating if we hadn’t so signally failed to discuss the fact that a lot of the things we read suggested strongly that there’s something inherently problematic about white foreigners studying and passing judgment on other people’s cultures - not just in a “you need to tread carefully” kind of way, but in a “maybe you should just not do this at all” kind of way.
But I was the only person in the class whose research would be unaffected by this, so it seemed a bit churlish to say “I think we should take this opportunity to seriously consider the possibility that your work is hopelessly compromised and you should give it up. You don’t have to decide that it is, but I feel like it’s worth talking about?”
3. Took a French course.
4. Read Les Miserables. (In English.) Also The Hunchback of Notre Dame, but that is somewhat less of an accomplishment.
5. Went on a canoe trip in Canada.
6. Finished reading all the Newbery Award books.
7. Quit grad school
8. Got my MA.
9. Wrote 103,646 words of fanfiction.
10. Wrote a novel. I’m working on revising it now, and it seems pretty solid, though of course it’s hard to tell with one’s own work.
Resolutions for next year: Finish revising the novel, get it beta read, revise it again, and send out query letters to some agents.
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no subject
Date: 2013-12-31 03:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-31 10:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-31 05:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-31 10:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-03 04:25 am (UTC)And heh, number 2. I found that similar theme in my cultural inequality class. There were several third wave feminism articles that we read that, while emphasizing intersectionality, dismissed the ability of white women to ever discuss anything that has to do with race and that they shouldn't study it, etc. And it's weird because of course, being 100% white, I cannot live the life of a black women, now or 100 years ago. But I think I can understand what happened and still work to get their issues across? Fine lines, I suppose.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-03 05:13 am (UTC)What I found odd about the postcolonial theory articles was that, while they heavily implied that white people inevitably screw up when discussing other people's cultures and maybe just shouldn't do it, none of the articles ever actually came out and said it. I think it would have been much better if at least one of them did, because then at least we would have had that discussion.
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Date: 2014-01-03 10:34 pm (UTC)Ah, that's very interesting. The articles I read blatantly stated white people could not and should not study people of other races.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-04 04:45 pm (UTC)