This weekend, I shall do nothing but read this book from start till finish. It’s a brilliant reflection on revivals, bricolage, pastiche and other postmodernism manifestations in today’s pop cultural landscape. While I do read this for academic research, I also take the occasion to enjoy the interesting thoughts and trivia. Oh, the irony.
PS My playlist (of rainy day songs) for January that's meant to be shared.
Breakfasts in bed are dreamy in notion. Wouldn’t it be nice to wake up from a dream, only to have your beloved presenting you with a tray of toasts, crispy bacon and freshly squeezed juice? Similarly, albeit a lot less romantic, I had my breakfast in bed with…a bunch of books. On top of my list right now are books on digital culture, which serves as the basis for the PhD project I intend to embark on. Like most academic books, they’re a bit on the dull side. But the developing theories on identities and bodies in cyberspace are nothing short of fascinating.
Do you get butterflies when you speak in public? I give lectures for a living and as ironic as this may seem, I certainly do get them. This usually happens at the dawn of each semester. I’m at my fifth year of teaching; yet I get the flutters all the same. Nonetheless, I’m glad that my first class of this cycle went fine today. The rest should now be a walk in the park. Having released all those “butterflies,” I’m now going to close the night with a bowl of macaroni and cheese and this Woody Allen movie.
Learning to navigate Prezi today. The mechanics are slightly tougher than expected. But that doesn’t mean I’m giving up on mastering Prezi. I believe I’ll get used to the platform one day. Baby steps, baby.
I'm grateful to have found all those readings as prescribed by my professors in graduate school. I'm in dire need of texts by Braudillard, Barthes, Bordieu, Benjamin, Freud, Jameson, Sontag and...well, I could go on forever. They're what I need to prepare for another trip to the ivory tower soon.PS I found this poem, an abcedarian, that I wrote in my college poetry workshop. This makes no sense today but it sure rolls nicely on the tongue when recited. Try it.
The desire to pursue my PhD has finally kicked in. I‘ve been holding off for almost two years ever since I completed my MA. I told myself, "You're too busy teaching," "You're still on break," and "You have a life." Excuses they were. But this year is going to be different. I’m going to build my courage to go down this road. It’s going to be a long one but I know it’s going to be worth it. I’ve set my foot down on academia a long time ago so I might as well start walking further.
If I could give myself a pat on the back, I would. I just finished wading through the piles of papers to be graded. The red pen’s resting, the marks all keyed in. Everything has finally ended. Now it’s time for a breather with a healthy dose of quietude (in other words: chill out).
This journal is a collection of my gratitude and love letters for assorted little things in life. I believe in being thankful by celebrating life's simple pleasures on any given day.
My name is Shana and I teach for a living. I currently live in the fringes of Kuala Lumpur with my cat Zoë.
