3.30.2008

Not exactly archive fever

Why is it that I can find the journals that record all of my personal traumas and triumphs, as well as a good deal of everything I've read or worked on over the past two years except for the journal that would contain all the notes I made while reading the Biographia Literaria last summer?

Also, how could I have not typed up more than a couple lines of notes from the Biographia? Irritatingly, I'm sure that decision had something to do with taking notes in my journal.

Relatedly: I sometimes wish my life writing and work writing could be more separate because there's really no way for me not to be reminded of what I was doing and feeling as I search to figure out what I was reading. This is sometimes inconvenient. But I don't know how to do otherwise in the moment, and I think that if I were to be able to separate them more effectively, I would start to be a very different (and possibly lesser) scholar.

It's really noisy in the building today, for some reason. Probably time to decamp to school soon and try to finish that damn conference paper.

2 comments:

negativecapability said...

The BL is exploding my brain right now, too. I'm supposed to hand in my diss. on Wed., and this chapter on Coleridge is the last thing standing between me and freedom.

the other woman said...

Fortunately, since this is a reread, I'm mostly focusing on the response to Wordsworth and the "willing suspension of disbelief" thing. I did do a pretty thorough reading of it last summer, if I could only find it.

Much more exciting is your imminent doctorate-ing. Congrats! Also, you'll have to email me at my real-life address and tell me how the job search worked out.