Why?

• Some much-needed documents are on their way here.
• I received my copy of Interzone 219, with some very fine art illustrating it., and a cheque for my story, too.
• My students in one class — the graphic novel class — volunteered to work during the first week or so of post-semester break, in order to do a good job finishing up their project, rather than rush through and do a so-so job before exams. I was quite stunned. They jokingly asked for extra credit, but the best I can do is give them a pizza party or take them out somewhere. Something like that.
• I’ve finished tidying the student-made subtitles for Such a Long Journey, the film we’re watching tomorrow evening in the make-up class. And a damned fine film it is — the “Real Mommy-Daddy kiss” scene is precious, yes, but I like it anyway, and the Tower of Silence scene is just… wow. If only the DVD had subtitles on it. Or even captions. Since there weren’t, and since I ordered it for the class, I had the students do up subtitles. I knew it’d be a lot of work

  We’re discussing the first couple of chapters of the book in class next week, basically looking at what happens to “historical novels” in a multicultural society — I’m going to argue that Such a Long Journey unfolds chunks of what is now, for a considerable enough segment of Canada, “Canadian history” in that it’s the history of a segment of Canada’s population, and that one of the real features of multiculturalism in its literary incarnation is that it blurs all the boundary lines like what it means to be Canadian, or how far the roots of “Canada” can be imagined to reach. After all, it’s relevant to the larger whole of Canada because Canada is impacted by its Indian presence; and for that matter, that it also is relevant to Korean history to the degree that there is an Indian presence here, however marginal and disrespected in general it may be at the moment.

  Note to self: I really must get around to reading A Fine Balance at some point. (Let alone more recent novels… I’m okay with being a decade and a half behind.)

• I’m mostly on top of my work-related tasks. Some tabulation to go, yes, and some writing assignments to check-mark and comment on, but otherwise I’m mostly in the home stretch.

I’m still going to be too busy to do much creative work until January, but I’m seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. I see the Island, and its banks are fair… wave of school-work, take me there.

(Extra points to the first commenter — on my site, or on LJ — who can name which poem by which poet I horridly bastardized above.)