scotland calling....

as i've finished wrestling with my bedsheets (it's tuesday, new sheet day, and making up my bed has got to be the most difficult thing ever, as it is boxed in on 2.5 sides....), i figured i might as well do a wee bit of blogging before it's time to start my work. it's the 2nd-to-last week of term and there's an awful lot going on, but i'm trying to take it one step at a time. sigh. where to start? narrative, i s'pose, would be the best bet...

i was invited to my narrative tutor's home last friday for class and lunch, along with a few of my classmates, so i took the bus up to headington (supposedly older than oxford itself; there's a church not too far from nigel's house that dates to saxon times). i had, literally, a 40 minute nap, because my work took forever to do (up all night in the lecture hall drinking inordinate amounts of tea to keep my body happy)... but nigel liked my concept and my idea. i took the original novel synopsis i had given him and completely reworked it. my heroine now, though still named simone elliot, is someone vastly different. at 29, she is a fashion designer about to enter "the big time" -- she's been chosen to show at the NYC fall fashion show at bryant park, which seems to be the culmination of years and years of hard work. the story opens at a swanky soiree being thrown for simone by her PR agency; as simone enters the venue, however, she is accosted by her best friend, the wife of the agency's president, and informed that there is a man at this party that she absolutely must meet. of course, the man in question is someone simone knows from the past, a man whose scathing criticisms of her work were so horrible that she almost considered leaving the field altogether. simone, however, agrees to meet this man, neil huntington, to appease her friend, and, of course, sparks fly and sexual tension ensues. said tension grows when simone learns that neil is to be working at the PR agency as the new VP; tension doubles when she discovers that he's to be her new contact, so to speak. what simone doesn't know, however, is that neil's horrendous behaviour six years before was heavily influenced by events in his personal life (a cheating wife who he had loved and adored). the overarching theme will have something to do with the idea of second chances in love, of taking a risk when you've been hurt before, etc, and will be set in the fantastic, beautiful, wonderful city of san francisco. if everything goes my way, this will be my love song for san francisco, the city of my birth and place where my heart truly does lie (even if it is super cliche to say).

anyway, nigel liked the idea, and so my assignment for friday is to write him 2 chapters + a synopsis, along with a cover letter to be given to his agent. egads! and so this week i am writing, writing, writing in earnest; i don't even want to think about all the other things that need to be done (an 'exemplary piece of research' on aquinas? mwah. or my extended research project for austen? jeez....).

in other news, i decided yesterday that it would be a good idea to get started on grad school research. i've had this list of schools put together for months now, and i've finally narrowed down my research field: i want to explore the modern-day wedding industry in terms of consumption and commodification, but also in terms of the social construction of femininity, masculinity and heterosexualiy, and the representation of gender/sexuality/race/ethnicity in the media. i sent off letters of enquiry to 10 different grad programs: ucsb, uc santa cruz (both the soc and history of consciousness programs), u of pennslyvania, u of maryland (home of pat hill collins!!!!), city university of new york, university of london, university of cambridge, oxford, and the university of edinburgh. got back a form response from cambridge and a short email from ucsb indicating that they have strengths in gender and sexuality studies, but so far the most interesting email is from edinburgh, who "strongly encourages me" to apply as i have a very interesting research topic and a number of the faculty share my interests. so... that's definitely 'yay'-worthy, i think. so we'll see what comes of it. i'm hoping to perhaps take a trip to edinburgh next month to poke around, maybe meet some of the faculty members, etc. in the meantime, i've got to figure out what i'm doing 9th week. val and i are thinking about paris, which could be grand. otherwise.... it's 1. time for lunch and work. more to come...