The Book of Na'Lon

I am so tired after the first two teaching session of 05-06. I hope that I can manage to stave of the dreaded lurgi that my colleagues have been sharing around. Teaching is hard enough work without feeling ill.

Waking the Dead was grim. But somehow still less disturbing than Evangelion. Spent much of last night dreaming about Rei and Misato with a bit of Ritsuko in there, I think. Odd dreams - it's the emotional cruelty that laces through Evangelion that I find really challenging: the way that people - especially Misato and the children - are used is something my softy squishy inner being finds hard to take. I need to take a bit of a break from Eva... Three more episodes to go - including the one with Kaworu, who I found really intriguing as a character from my first viewing of Death & Rebirth. That'll be another toughy, I shouldn't wonder. One day, I'll probably try to put some more of my toughts about this show into words. It's been a very interesting and challenging experience so far, watching Eva.

While the Marquis was making dinner, I went to call my mother but ended up talking to Na'Kim for a good long time. It was so nice to speak to her. The Marquis called her 'Ritsuko' - I can see what he means, too...

Tomorrow I am doing the first repeat of the session I did this morning with the second group. It's always very interesting to see how the same teaching session pans out with different people. I hope it goes well. I also hope that I won't be bored to tears by the time I get to Friday's repeat.

I hope I get a chance to look up some stuff for Meglorien tomorrow - she wants to know about how use of language might reflect personality. I don't know if I'll be able to suggest anything useful for her to read, but it sounds like an interesting idea that she is on to: in LoTR the book, Gollum's use of English is pretty childish, and Smeagol's near perfect. In PJ's movies, it's pretty much the other way around. Meglorien is interested in a psychological interpretation of these concepts... I'll see what I can rustle up, between writing next week's sessions.

Enough for now... I need sleep.

Got feedback today for the first manuscript I'd submitted for publication in a peer reviewed journal. The feedback was very helpful, but also negative. They don't want to publish the paper and don't even want to invite resubmission. I'm a little sad about this, but at least some of the points made were also quite nice: apparently the paper was well and clearly written, and the research question was valid. But apparently the theoretical contribution was 'meagre'. Oh well. Next time.