write my Henry James paper!

I know it will take longer for this paper to get corrected, and it’s much more complicated to talk to my prof about it, but hell, I had just started on the sociology paper (when I got that letter) and I will get that done first.

I ran into my professor last night, waiting for the subway. My boyfriend was there, too. We all came from an election party at my institute, and my professor rushed by, recognized me, came to something of a halt and said, “hallo! didn’t you write me an email this afternoon?” I said no, “that wasn’t me”, and my boyfriend told him, or both of us: “But it might very well have been her!” My professor continued, “oh but that’s okay [or sth.], the exams are already behind you…” – “Errr…. no… that’s not me, either.” My boyfriend looked at my prof and said: “She SHOULD write you an email.” And off the professor went, wishing us a pleasant night… – did he hear that last comment? In any case my boyfriend gave me a talking-to afterwards. Why don’t I write that paper, why do I lack basic communication skills, etc. etc. Quite some conversation about how and when and why.

I should not forget to do what my boyfriend suggested: Write an email to my professor emeritus, see if I can make an appointment with him, tell him I’ve written that paper.

Shame, fear, yes. But I should keep in mind that my professors want me to get out of here, with my degree. Nobody ever said: Why don’t you just leave. They said: You’ve come so far, already! Just a few months more and you’re done!

I’m back to Milly Theale and Kate Croy and loving it. I don’t think I’ve ever been as much inside of a novel as with Wings. I get so immmersed in it, however, that I daily postpone my goal of writing an outline for my paper. Instead, I endlessly read essays and journal articles and the original text. I should probably take a step back from this, gain some distance, and decide what interests me most and what I’d like to write about. I already know that I’m most fascinated by the Venetian episode, sensuousness, treachery, the romantic imagination. Why do I feel that I will miss out on all the interesting questions, and not be able to show my professors how much I know, if I limit myself to one topic? This is just being silly and evading the real work.

My boyfriend suggests that I write an email to my professor emeritus. See if I can get him to meet me somewhere, in the institute, where he still has an office. (I think that he’s probably in the States, anyway.) Tell him I still want to write that paper, and ask if I may. Ask for help with the topic (no way I’m gonna do that). Maybe I will try to set up a meeting, but not within the next two days! I’m empty-handed. The shame would be too much.

I postponed this in order to write my paper for sociology, and should take it up again, as of today, but right now I’m kind of paralysed. I had planned to talk about this paper and the general question of how to obtain my degree with my professor, who holds her office hours on Thursday. But how can I go there with empty hands? No! How could I convince her to have trust in my ability to complete this degree if I haven’t even finished the paper!? Still, is showing up empty-handed (but maybe with a working outline that I can exhibit) better than not talking to her at all? Plan B: Write the paper, and talk to the male professor instead (which I’d prefer anyways), by email???

I’ve no idea what to do. But I know I will probably go for Plan B, with a very bad conscience.

In whatever case, gotta get started on this today.

Back from my vacation – I’ll take this up again tomorrow. Feel bad about not finishing in time, and not finishing before my vacation, but there is no giving up. There simply isn’t. I try to remember the occasions during which my professors showed understanding and tolerance – it’s a hope I cling to.

And now I’m really in trouble. Going on a two-week-vacation in two days and I haven’t gotten this darn paper out of my way. Such a burden.

I’m thinking: It’s possible to write an exam about this topic in four hours – can I manage to finish the paper?

Another problem: The professor cancelled this week’s office hour. The other one’s not even at uni right now. I need to talk to her, or him, or them – I can’t hand my paper in two months late and not say a word!!!
Can I?

Oh, stupid, stupid me.

And what’s my big problem? I could pass an oral exam on Henry James’s novel any minute, this confident I am. but I find it impossible to sit down and write these 20-25 pages? I’m absurd. My head is filled with info and I KNOW I need to sit down, engage in some cluster/mindmap activity and would probably come up with something worthy. But that’s exactly what I’ve been shying away from. WHY?

Just do it: sit down, let my head spin, jot down ideas, connotations, questions. And then see what interests me most, which points I am most eager to bring across.

There was a poster in the Parisian subway, advertising something by the title “Portrait of a Lady”. Of course it caught my eye. “Oh no, not Henry James again”, my boyfriend sighed. Funny that he remembers the titles to the books… I like that I have an influence ;-)

Due to our busy “schedule”, we couldn’t make it to the Museum Giverny and its exhibition of “American Paintings and Photographs in France, 1870 – 1915”. Still, James and his age were on my mind when I walked through Paris. This sense of the past, nearly everywhere…

Other than that, I don’t think I can second his words “Paris is always in order”.
London next…