Procrastination, thy name art BLOG!

So I have a presentation tomorrow, and since I am blocked, I thought a little blog post might help me get more into the writing mood.

It has been awhile since my last post. I've been very busy with my schoolwork over the past two weeks, but I am less than three weeks away from the Christmas break, yippee! I have to start thinking about decorations for my house and what gifts to buy people (and where to find the money for said gifts), but right now I am focused on trying (operative word: trying) to finish the essays that stand between me and my well-deserved break. I am cloistered here behind an impossibly large stack of books and copied articles that are just begging to be read, appreciated, and cited. Great. I think I may be up late tonight working on this, but the outline and intro are already done, so at least that's a start. My presentation is on early modern woodcuts in Chaucer General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales. Hmmm...

Well, I suppose that's enough self-indulgent blathering on about things no one really cares about except me... Back to "work..."

My Blog Assignment

So remember my first post, where I mentioned that this blog was part of an assignment for school? The assignment report is due tomorrow. I guess I've gotten over my writer's block... Sorry if some of my posts were a bit long! So I am reflecting on the process of the writing and the reception of this blog, and it would be REALLY helpful if some of you who have been reading could tell me what you've thought of the blog cummulatively. Have you enjoyed reading my blog, or have you just done it out of obligation, because I told you it was for an assignment? What would you have liked to see more of, or less of, for that matter? And possibly my most important question to you: do you feel as though you know me better as a result of having read my blog for the past six weeks? If so, why? If not, why not?

Finally, I just wanted to say thanks for reading. I know I'm not really that interesting, but I appreciate your participation for the sake of academic inquiry! I may continue to post, but perhaps with less frequency during essay-writing time...

My Milestone Anniversary and Hallowe'en

It's been a crazy weekend! Thursday was my 10 year anniversary with my boyfriend, so we decided to go to Niagara Falls for an overnight trip. It was really great. I had a lot of fun. I always think that the touristy-ness of it is quite funny, though. Most of their tourism centres around providing different angles for looking at the falls. Really, how much can you get of them? You can see the falls from the path around them, you can go behind them, you can take a boat right up to them, you can take a helicopter ride over them, you can look at them while riding in a carriage driven by horses, you can even get eat your dinner at a fallsview restaurant or choose a fallsview hotel so you never have to stop looking the falls! "Let's see the falls from this angle, and then this one, and then this one...!" I'm sure the locals are sick of looking at them. I also think it's interesting that people come to witness the sublimity of nature as represented by the falls, but then they get a very manicured, built up area, catering to the tourism, and witness the falls in ways that would indicate a human mastery over nature (especially "Journey Behind the Falls" for which engineers designed tunnels leading tourists to areas where they can go behind the water). But I guess that's enough cultural analysis. Peter and I did have dinner at a fallsview restaurant, and we saw the falls from a ferris wheel called the Niagara Skywheel. The next day we went horseback riding, made a forray out to niagara on the lake, where I bought a hat from "Beau Chapeau" and had my picture taken with a statue of George Bernard Shaw, and finally we got a tour of a winery called Pilliteri Estates (and a little tasting, too). Here are a few pictures:

It was a really beautiful anniversary. Horseback riding through the niagara escarpment was probably one of the biggest highlights of the whole trip. I recommend it to everyone!

Yesterday was Hallowe'en, and I usually like to dress up as some sort of literary figure. This year I chose Alice in Wonderland. It was a great costume. I'll spare you the pictures on this one... My favourite comment with regards to my costume last night: " OMG! You're Alice, right? That was, like, my favourite movie of all time! I LOOOOOVE your costume!" This was spoken by a girl dressed up in a cat lady costume. Rather than explain that I am a literary scholar and that my choice of costume was contingent upon that, I just smiled and nodded.

Today I was wedding dress shopping with my sister. She looked absolutely stunning in all of her dresses. I can't post any pictures because we can't let the groom see! But take my word for it: gorgeous!

Needless to say, it has been a very hectic weekend! I have a presentation due on Monday about the historical significance of images in manuscripts and early printed editions of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Joy! I've done all the research, but I need to write the presentation. So the rest of my weekend will be occupied by that! I guess I'd better get right down to it!