Troll: What are you fighting for, miniscule blond one?

And to think... I had actually told myself that once the semester ended, I'd update this journal more often. Ha! I scoff at my optimism! And I trample it underfoot! ...and I wish, once again, that I had boots, or at least new sneakers, 'cause optimism is squishy and slimy and gets into your socks and between your toes, and...

...obviously, I'm up too late again. That didn't even make any sense.

(That sounds vaguely homoerotic, doesn't it? Ah, the dangers of personification...)

The "typing" part sounds productive, but it's not; or, rather, some of it has been, but only at one remove. I've been working on my long-overdue provocative language project, which, it now turns out, is turning out to be pretty much exclusively my project on the "c-word," as (a) that project keeps expanding, and (b) I don't think I'm going to have time for anything else.

I have two weeks in which to finish this, writing a semester's worth of essays by the time my final semester as an undergraduate starts in the last week of January. I also have a bunch of paintings to paint, ideally by the same deadline, but I have doubts that I'm going to manage the latter so quickly. Especially as I still haven't cleaned my apartment yet, so I wouldn't have enough room to paint, even if I were inclined to do so.

Anyway. I have yet to actually write a word of the essay -- or, more likely, essays -- about the term I'm studying. I have, however, been interviewing people. In one case, on Monday, this was in an actual live conversation; in other cases, I've gone with chat rooms, e-mail, and a survey on ThreeWay Action.

Ideas have been developing along the way, which is good. I have no clue what to do with them, or what form the essay or essays will take, which would be bad, if it weren't par for the course. In a way, it may be a promising sign that panic is starting to set in now, 'cause that suggests that matters are moving along, and I'll be ready to move on to the next stage soon.

The stages are roughly as follows:

• vacuum down all the data I can get my hands on.

• End up with a complete mess, a hodgepodge of observations that go nowhere. All of this being inside my mind; I don't generally have anything on paper until I actually start writing the thing.

• Panic.

• Spend a sleepless night writing, fortified with lots of caffeine and sugar. Intervals of despair and optimism may occur along the way.

• Write an essay, ideally a brilliant one.

• Hate what I've written.

• Hand it in anyway, and get some sleep.

• Get feedback from my oldest sister and my professor, and decide that it was actually pretty good after all.

As for the "vacuum down data" stage, up until now, this has always taken the form of books. I generally take out as many as I can find in the library that look interesting or useful and that deal with whatever it is I'm studying.

This time around, for the first time, I've tried to supplement this by interviewing people. I've found that my overall strategy has remained the same, though; get as much data as I can, from as many sources as possible. It's been interesting, and a learning experience, and very helpful... and, nevertheless, I'm going to be happy to switch back to books again in the future. Human contact can be fun, but it's also draining.

As for panic... this is an essential step, or at least an inevitable one. Usually, it takes a deadline to get it underway; that it's starting to begin now -- two weeks before the final, final deadline -- is either a sign that I'm ahead of the game, or a sign that my subconscious is well aware that I have a helluva lot of work to make up, and won't stand a chance of doing it all in one night. Probably the latter. I'm gonna need those two weeks.

In fact, I really need to finish this by the end of this coming week, I think, allowing me one more week to write something else to wrap up that course, and/or do the other things I wanna do before next semester begins. Cleaning my apartment and doing some painting might be nice, for starters.

Anyway. Bamboozled. The first Spike Lee film I've seen. I loved the beginning of it, right until the point where "Mantan's New Millennium Minstrel Show" made its debut. After that, I had more trouble with the film. For one thing, I found it hard to suspend my disbelief enough to accept that the show would actually catch on (I mean, The Producers would fall apart, but for the fact that "Springtime for Hitler" really is funny), and for another, the events that followed seemed increasingly irrelevant to the setup.

(I could say much more, but not only am I tired, but I'm trying to avoid any actual spoilers. The one event I've mentioned above was in the trailer, and hardly a secret.)

Partway through the credits, I realized that I'd clearly been looking at the film the wrong way all along, failing to recognize its satirical nature, or, more to the point, just what it had been satirizing. I still can't say I've had enough of a paradigm shift to figure out exactly how it's supposed to be taken, but it seems probable that this owes more to my not getting it than it does to flaws in the film. The latter do exist, I think, but they're not my main problem.

I've continued to think about it since, though. Which means that it's accomplished something, at least. Tentative thumbs-up, although it'll almost certainly help if you're more familiar with pop culture than I am. Just be aware that it's a satirical tragedy, rather than a comedy.