I haven’t written in a while – my intial target was to write once a week, at least. But I’ve been quite busy lately – lots of training, lots of thinking. I’m thinking about a post that’s a little more sophisticated than just another update, but for now I’ll just summarize what I’ve been up to.

Officially it’s the Easter break but I don’t really feel like taking time off, so I spent today working in the university library. With all the other buildings closed the campus looked rather spooky. It would be a great place to shoot a horror- or science fiction film. Something post-apocalyptic.

I’ve watched quite a lot of films over the past few days, mainly because I’m thinking about using some to provide a background for my project. Over the past few weeks I felt like I was losing touch with the context of the novels I focus on and I think it’s actually crucial to stress that they weren’t written in a vacuum. The backbone of the thesis will still consist of novel analyses but backbones tend to be rather boring without flesh, skin and hair (I’ve done a lot of work on bodies lately, hence the elaborate metaphor). 

So over the past few days I watched Kill Bill (again), The Big Lebowski and Inception. In fact I’m still recovering from the last one. It has the “what the hell” factor which I like so much in Fight Club. Now I come to think of it, I always appreciate complexity and insecurity. I like stories that make me think, that don’t offer me their message like a readymade meal. I need something I can chew on.

I’m off to Belfast next week to present a conference paper (look for conferences and feminism in the tag cloud if you’re curious) and ended up writing a conclusion which was rather surprising and a lot more complex than I initially expected. And no, I’m not giving it away yet. But I’m looking forward to hearing other people’s opinions.

So that’s it for now – basically I’m thinking about the direction I want my project to take. It’s a complex, headache-provoking process but I actually quite like it. One of my colleagues who is finishing his project as we speak is quite jealous of me. He no longer has time to sit and think. All he has to do is get the job done and write the last few bits. He told me to enjoy this phase as much as possible, and I definitely am.