I am completely mad
Apr. 29th, 2012 01:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI just rewatched A Good Man Goes to War.
Which of course led to rewatching Let's Kill Hitler and The Wedding of River Song.
but I had decided to focus on just that first episode for my dissertation.
... what was I thinking? I mean, yes, it's great, I can watch that all year and find a bazillion words to write about it, but... all the characters! Focus on gender, leads to themes of faith and war and child soldiers and also storytelling, which doesn't seem like it connects but there's that little speech bit where the Run Away guy is telling them all how things are going to work out, like Amy told Melody. Competing storytellers. Amy has power of telling true things, but it's all awry from how she wanted it to turn out. I'm going to have to pay attention to how the other guy does, in the truth telling stakes. So there's stories that lead all these people to this war where they take their heads off so they can't rethink it. And the Doctor running in the forest with the young girl which inspires her to be a warrior, compared to the deliberate use of River Song as a weapon. Lots of connecting parts.
... how am I going to make them all academic and make all those words about them? How will it ever untangle?
And how on Earth did I think I could write about River Song?
I mean, she makes perfect sense when you know the whole story, but oops, we haven't seen the whole story yet! *facepalm*
... but she's introduced as a professor, goes all gun toting, turns out to be somebody's daughter and somebody's husband, and sometimes she's a killer and sometimes she's all self sacrificing and usually she's both at once. Just looking at River through gender is just huge topicy goodness.
But just from the one episode?
Could I maybe sneak a second one in?
I also said I'd be comparing it with an episode from very near the start of DW with the same two guys two girls team. (Except is that really the team, when River is kind of sort of with them? She's a baby through most of my chosen episode! I think I really need a second episode...)
So I pretty much said I'd compare it with gender in The Aztecs, on account of I own that one too and... thought of it?
I haven't rewatched it just now, I just put it in the machine and noticed it's one in the morning, so now I have the usual stay up and study or go to bed and see if I stare at the ceiling connundrum.
ANYway... do I really need to do that? If I do both I have to contextualise both and have one chapter be about the 1960s and gender and feminism there and the other be about right now. And why did I decide to study right now? Nobody's writing about it yet, I'll have to get theories out of books and make stuff up. I couldn't just pick an episode based on some theory dude already having written about it? It happens, I've got books of it, I could consider it a place to start.
... I have so much (re-)reading to do this summer. It's awesome. It's all the books I usually read for summer only this time with little post it notes and making it all be about these two stories.
I'm either going to run out of things to say (hah) or totally run out of words (eeeeeevery time)
Why did I say compare?
I could just do the one story. Structure it as one chapter on masculinities and the other on femininities.
... is that a word? It looks weird.
... aargh, I'm having an academic freak out about Doctor Who, why did I decide to do this?
... because otherwise I'd have to study something for a year that wasn't Doctor Who, and then I'd fail because of thinking about Doctor Who all the time.
So I'll have to do a presentation on what I'm studying and why.
I think I can sound all focused and confident for ten minutes.
It's just the inside of my head that sounds like this all the time.
All the characters need different episodes to be their best most interesting. I picked this one for Rory and the Doctor. Amy and River aren't so much getting stuff to do. Which one to pick for Amy and River?
Or is it typical of what they always get to do?
Oooh, whole two season rewatch!
... *sigh* ...
Okay, so, there's a ton of shiny, shiny thoughts to look at.
Even if I do keep thinking of things that a fan said on a blog when I really need to do more reading of the sorts of things academics say on peer reviewed journals and proper academic books.
I have a whole list of those. Somewhere. possibly rather less list than I planned to have by the end of the semester.
... aaaaaarrrrrggggghhhhh...
... if I'm like this now, imagine what I'll be like by Wednesday?
Wednesday is when all the lessons are. So I also have to have a draft of the critical commentary to go with my short story, and a proper tidy version of my short story, which has only had two or three drafts and I can't really believe is in a fit state to hand in but the teacher only wanted me to get rid of three words and had no other suggestions so maybe she thinks it's good already or something. And, for the last lesson, I have to have a question ready for the essay where we have to make up the question. I've decided to do something about Dr Caligari's glasses on the theory I can get in an argue with one of the books. But I have to actually read the book. Or at least substantial of the bits about Dr Caligari.
... doing more work as I go along would mean less panic at the end of the semester.
... but I was doing all the work I could.
... it has not been a very worky semester.
Right then. No point flapping at half past one in the morning.
The episodes are really very good.
... also, I still can't watch them without my sonic in hand. I, er, may have to bring it to the presentation. Possibly also my vortex manipulator.
The trouble with being part time is every year I meet a new group of people and have to get up and do a speaking exam in front of them. And the trouble with nobody turning up for lessons this semester is I haven't really spent much time in the same classroom as these people. So it will feel like standing up in front of strangers. Who I already stutter in front of when I'm just answering questions in class. :-p
I will bring my toys and my shinies and I will speak out loud and call it a win.
... speaking out loud and making sense would be a bonus.
Which of course led to rewatching Let's Kill Hitler and The Wedding of River Song.
but I had decided to focus on just that first episode for my dissertation.
... what was I thinking? I mean, yes, it's great, I can watch that all year and find a bazillion words to write about it, but... all the characters! Focus on gender, leads to themes of faith and war and child soldiers and also storytelling, which doesn't seem like it connects but there's that little speech bit where the Run Away guy is telling them all how things are going to work out, like Amy told Melody. Competing storytellers. Amy has power of telling true things, but it's all awry from how she wanted it to turn out. I'm going to have to pay attention to how the other guy does, in the truth telling stakes. So there's stories that lead all these people to this war where they take their heads off so they can't rethink it. And the Doctor running in the forest with the young girl which inspires her to be a warrior, compared to the deliberate use of River Song as a weapon. Lots of connecting parts.
... how am I going to make them all academic and make all those words about them? How will it ever untangle?
And how on Earth did I think I could write about River Song?
I mean, she makes perfect sense when you know the whole story, but oops, we haven't seen the whole story yet! *facepalm*
... but she's introduced as a professor, goes all gun toting, turns out to be somebody's daughter and somebody's husband, and sometimes she's a killer and sometimes she's all self sacrificing and usually she's both at once. Just looking at River through gender is just huge topicy goodness.
But just from the one episode?
Could I maybe sneak a second one in?
I also said I'd be comparing it with an episode from very near the start of DW with the same two guys two girls team. (Except is that really the team, when River is kind of sort of with them? She's a baby through most of my chosen episode! I think I really need a second episode...)
So I pretty much said I'd compare it with gender in The Aztecs, on account of I own that one too and... thought of it?
I haven't rewatched it just now, I just put it in the machine and noticed it's one in the morning, so now I have the usual stay up and study or go to bed and see if I stare at the ceiling connundrum.
ANYway... do I really need to do that? If I do both I have to contextualise both and have one chapter be about the 1960s and gender and feminism there and the other be about right now. And why did I decide to study right now? Nobody's writing about it yet, I'll have to get theories out of books and make stuff up. I couldn't just pick an episode based on some theory dude already having written about it? It happens, I've got books of it, I could consider it a place to start.
... I have so much (re-)reading to do this summer. It's awesome. It's all the books I usually read for summer only this time with little post it notes and making it all be about these two stories.
I'm either going to run out of things to say (hah) or totally run out of words (eeeeeevery time)
Why did I say compare?
I could just do the one story. Structure it as one chapter on masculinities and the other on femininities.
... is that a word? It looks weird.
... aargh, I'm having an academic freak out about Doctor Who, why did I decide to do this?
... because otherwise I'd have to study something for a year that wasn't Doctor Who, and then I'd fail because of thinking about Doctor Who all the time.
So I'll have to do a presentation on what I'm studying and why.
I think I can sound all focused and confident for ten minutes.
It's just the inside of my head that sounds like this all the time.
All the characters need different episodes to be their best most interesting. I picked this one for Rory and the Doctor. Amy and River aren't so much getting stuff to do. Which one to pick for Amy and River?
Or is it typical of what they always get to do?
Oooh, whole two season rewatch!
... *sigh* ...
Okay, so, there's a ton of shiny, shiny thoughts to look at.
Even if I do keep thinking of things that a fan said on a blog when I really need to do more reading of the sorts of things academics say on peer reviewed journals and proper academic books.
I have a whole list of those. Somewhere. possibly rather less list than I planned to have by the end of the semester.
... aaaaaarrrrrggggghhhhh...
... if I'm like this now, imagine what I'll be like by Wednesday?
Wednesday is when all the lessons are. So I also have to have a draft of the critical commentary to go with my short story, and a proper tidy version of my short story, which has only had two or three drafts and I can't really believe is in a fit state to hand in but the teacher only wanted me to get rid of three words and had no other suggestions so maybe she thinks it's good already or something. And, for the last lesson, I have to have a question ready for the essay where we have to make up the question. I've decided to do something about Dr Caligari's glasses on the theory I can get in an argue with one of the books. But I have to actually read the book. Or at least substantial of the bits about Dr Caligari.
... doing more work as I go along would mean less panic at the end of the semester.
... but I was doing all the work I could.
... it has not been a very worky semester.
Right then. No point flapping at half past one in the morning.
The episodes are really very good.
... also, I still can't watch them without my sonic in hand. I, er, may have to bring it to the presentation. Possibly also my vortex manipulator.
The trouble with being part time is every year I meet a new group of people and have to get up and do a speaking exam in front of them. And the trouble with nobody turning up for lessons this semester is I haven't really spent much time in the same classroom as these people. So it will feel like standing up in front of strangers. Who I already stutter in front of when I'm just answering questions in class. :-p
I will bring my toys and my shinies and I will speak out loud and call it a win.
... speaking out loud and making sense would be a bonus.
