Wednesday 24 June 2015

I am dissertation procrastinating, so let's talk about my dissertation!

Heyyyyy guys, it's me! I know, I know, you've given me up for dead and you're all really sad but that's the way life is. BUT WAIT! It's a Wednesday night and I am in front of my computer, and even though we all know I should be doing work, I think we also know how unlikely that is, and so I'm going to write a stream of consciousness that will probably not really go anywhere but which totally counts as a contribution to the world and... Stuff. 

SO. The way my Masters has worked (apart from taking up every moment of my spare time, thank you very much Shakespeare, it's a good job I like you) is that we submitted two essays after Christmas, two after Easter, and then have about three and a half months to write our dissertations. About a month and a week of that time has gone, and I'm not panicking... At all... Really... 
Well. I'm not really panicking, but I am totally aware that I need to do a lot more than I've done. June has been a total write off, essentially- not only have I been operating under griefhaze (TM) but I had already over-scheduled myself to the point of having all my weekends taken up, and quite a few of the weekdays I have off too. Because I'm a dumbass. Anyway, the moral of this story is, July and August I'm going to have to be ON IT, otherwise when am I even going to write a dissertation?! Exactly.

But anyway. This is really just me complaining when ACTUALLY I want to describe my dissertation to you because I'm pretty pleased with what I'm getting away with in regard to it. Basically, I'm writing my dissertation on Shakespeare in cartoons. What this has so far meant is that I've spent a pretty huge amount of time watching anime, South Park, and reading The Sandman series by Neil Gaiman (There are two comics which relate to Shakespeare, but OBVIOUSLY I have to read the whole thing so that I can catch the other references to him too!) Just today, I've started Kill Shakespeare, which is another comic book series starring many Shakespearean characters, and it is EXCELLENT and I'm pretty much enjoying all these fun parts.

To get more specific: I'm looking at three plays (A Midsummer Night's Dream, Titus Andronicus and Romeo and Juliet) and then cartoons that relate to them (Titus Andronicus has the LEAST cartoons about it, BUT the South Park episode I want to talk about is basically Titus so that clearly has to be one of the plays I talk about!) and then kind of discussing the aspects of the plays that the cartoons bring out that may not be readily apparent just on a simple reading of the plays. I think. Kind of. Because, and I think most of you probably know this because we seem to be a very educated bunch, when you start writing such a giant piece of work, things are subject to change and you can be taken in different directions than initially anticipated. But, I'm pretty excited about my research so far (such as it is) and I'm really excited to read more comics. 
So. This is kind of what I'm going to be up to from now until 7th September! I'm writing this not only as procrastination but because I remembered the other day that I'd written a 26 before 27 list, on which I said I was going to blog twice a week aaaand that hasn't happened. But I want it to! And it's fully achievable! So this is happening and GOD will I need a break from all the cartooning. Mwahahaha I still feel like I'm getting away with something here... 

8 comments:

  1. SHAKESPEARE IN CARTOONS! OH WOW THAT SOUNDS AMAZING!!! Ahhhhhhh!
    (please excuse my mad fangirling at your brilliance in coming up with such a great dissertation.) And Titus Andronicus! I have a soft spot for that one, with all its gore and gruesome ridiculousness. Best of luck with the dissertation, Laura! You're going to be awesome.

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    1. Hahaha, oh Katie, you can fangirl at me as much as you want! I can take it hehe. I actually really enjoyed Titus Andronicus and it makes me sad that no one (academically speaking) really seems to take it seriously. But OH WELL. We will just have to enjoy it by ourselves hehe

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  2. This sounds like a fascinating topic for a dissertation! I'm about to start my Master's in a few months and I'm worrying about my dissertation and where it's going to go, but reading your post reminded me how much fun it is to research and write about a topic that you find so interesting personally.

    Good luck with your dissertation! It sounds like it's going to be excellent. :)

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    1. Ooooh, you're about to start a Masters! Good luck with that... (haha, no it's great but I've never been so tired or overworked in all my life!) And I mean, yeah. I think sometimes you need to just do what you want to do, especially when your uni makes you write your dissertation over the summer instead of in term time like normal freaking people! Haha.

      Thank you! And if it isn't excellent, at least it should be fun!

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  3. Didn't I tell you how great Kill Shakespeare was like eleventy billion years ago?! But yay for dissertation progress!! I can't remember if it actually has Shakespeare references (I'm sure it does) but you should also read The League of Extraordinary Gentleman.

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    1. Oh Kayleigh, you probably did tell me such things, but since it involved non-work related reading I probably ignored it... UNTIL NOW, when my time has come! Such excitement :) I was actually thinking about The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen yesterday because I was like 'they have Mina Harker in the league cause she's clearly the biggest badass in Dracula, just like they have Juliet leading the people instead of Romeo because she's a much bigger badass than him' but now Romeo has shown up in Kill Shakespeare so now I'm confused haha. But obviously I want to read all the comics! In the world!

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  4. YAY about Shakespeare in cartoons! That sounds super fun and HEY it also includes a comic I've actually read (well, at least the first one...)

    Also I second Katie's soft spot for Titus because it is so ridiculous how can you NOT love it?

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  5. I noticed that I blogged the most when I was in grad school, during the week I actually had to turn in my papers, hahaha - I totally understand where you're coming from!

    I'll have to check out Kill Shakespeare, because books with pictures are THE BEST and I will read ANYTHING you tell me to read! Best of luck with your dissertation!

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