Writing about War is Hell

The "Heroic Age" roster of the Avengers. Cover art for Avengers vol. 4, #12.1, by Bryan Hitch. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Can't sleep again.  I was just flipping through channels on tv, stopped for a minute on Troy (about the only movie that I thought I could scan), and heard Hector telling his men about his warrior code, which reminded me that I'm still 5 posts behind.

I had a scheduled conference yesterday with the prof to talk about how she wants me to revise my research paper draft.  She gave me some ideas about how to fix the wording of my thesis, and told me to quote both my sources and the film a lot more.  Luckily, she thought the scenes I chose from AAoU (I'm kind of tired of typing out Avengers:  Age of Ultron.  Hey, I just did it again) worked, so I don't have to start anything over.  It's going to be a lot of work.

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What's in a Title?

Old bottles of wine aging by candle light
 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The mouse is dead!  A good thing, too, because I was starting to think that Rebbie needed her eyes (or maybe her mind) examined.  Anyway, I'm still revising my research paper, and I finally came up with a title that I like.  Dr. Toffee wants us to try to use what she calls a "double-barrelled" title, which just means a title with a subtitle, divided by a colon.  And, I guess she's right, because all of the articles I've looked at for my project have that kind of title. 

I was home for dinner last night, for once, and the 'rents were asking me about how my classes were going.  I never know how to answer that in a way that won't have them giving me advice or a lecture (you know what I mean!).  I didn't even mention geology, because that would have brought on the lecture for sure, but I talked about my PJ1 paper to distract them, since that seems to be going okay.  When I explained what it was about, they were both interested, and we talked about neo-mythology until we were done eating.  One of the things my dad said gave me an idea.  He said, "so, it's like new wine in old bottles, isn't it?"  I'd never heard that expression before, but in a way, he's right.  The filmmakers aren't using their old bottles (existing mythology/folklore) to trick the audience, but it is kind of a selling point just the same. 

And, that's why I've decided to call my paper "New Wine in Old Bottles:  Neo-Mythology and Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief."  I like it.    

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The Moment of Truth

Виньетка: герои "Илиады" Гомера. С оригинала Г.В. Тишбейна (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Today is my conference about revising my draft.  I barely finished it in time for class last Wednesday, but there were plenty of other people who didn't make it at all, so I felt better about it.  I'm still not happy with my thesis, but I thought I did a good job on the scenes I analyzed.  I also think that she's going to tell me that I need to find another source on groups of heroes working together, and I sure hope she can recommend one, because I've had real trouble finding any material on it.  Maybe I should look at books about The Iliad, which has lotsa heroes-  Achilles, Ajax, Odysseus (my Zemanta feed just kicked in with over a dozen recent articles and posts, all on The Iliad). 

The peer review I got was okay.  The paper I reviewed was only 4 pages long, and didn't make much sense to me -- I told the guy he should look at a scene I remembered from his movie (300), and I thought for a moment that he didn't see why.  Then he seemed to get it, so maybe I helped.  Hope so.

Fingers crossed for today.  I'm hoping I won't have too much revising to do.  I've got stuff due in all my classes.

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Is there a draft in here? (revising my research paper)

I had my conference with Dr. Toffee yesterday, and it was an eye-opener.  I was amazed at how many things I didn't notice were wrong with my draft (on one page I even misspelled Avatar!).  I knew that I had a problem with organization, and she showed me how to fix that (define terms one by one in the lit survey section of the paper, then keep all the analysis divided into the three scenes I'm looking at).  Now it seems obvious, and I can't believe I didn't figure that out for myself.  I have to drive out to NIU in Dekalb tomorrow to use their library.  Ours doesn't have the 2 books I need to quote from (I returned the copies I got through interlibrary loan already.  I was sure I was finished with them).

Anyway, I have until 8AM Monday to finish the revision, and I plan to rewatch the entire movie (during breaks from revising, so it'll probably take all weekend) before then.  I want to come up with a brilliant conclusion about what Avatar is saying about disability and the disabled.

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