Honors, Papers, and Sleeping with Scarlett

So! I got accepted for Honors! I keep remembering it and it feels sooooo unreal! It was way scarier than any sort of place I've applied for publication, because, as opposed to just judging only my writing, people looking at my application were also judging my work ethic and my ability, and eventually, me. So I'll be workin' mah ass off next semester and the one after, especially since I'll be finishing up two majors. But I'll have a summer inbetween to work, too, if I need it. I'm going to be translating a book and then I'm going to be writing an Honors paper. Yikes! Michael and I can angst together, although his will probably be super-hard--he's going to Honors in philosophy.

Papers--I'm putting together currently a really intense paper on Marguerite Duras' The Lover and it's totally driving me crazy. I'm writing about something that I've found impossible to find in JStor. I'm a little scared that it might totally suck, but at the same time, it's a totally badass idea.

Sleeping with Scarlett is going well. I'm going to translate it into French to show the un-translability of things ultimately in a presentation for my conversation class. Oh, man. What a sad story. It's totally my goodbye to Paris, too...I can tell I'm really going to miss this place. Excerpt time:

“Oui,” I said, practicing the native language. “Let me just get my tie on.” I took out a green one from the fake wood drawers, where I kept a couple watches and some spare condoms.

“Real men don’t wear ties anymore,” she said, grabbing the tie from my hands and throwing it back in the drawer. After sex, we walked over to the nearby Metro stop and we took the eight line to Bastille. It was a little cafe she said she had come across, where people recognized her but weren’t rude and wouldn’t ask her for anything, except the three euros sixty for a hot chocolate. She ordered her usual chocolat chaud, and I ordered a kir d’alsace, some sweet wine.

“So I’m leaving tomorrow,” she said, sipping her chocolate slowly.

Reading I've Done Recently...and other things...

So, I guess I should update y'all on what readings I've been doing lately...

So, I finished up Benedetti's La Tregua (whilst taking a break from Allende's Casa de las espiritus), and it was absolutely fab. I'm still waiting to hear about Honors...but I've decided to apply to a creative writing workshop if I don't get accepted for that...and then do some translation work over the summer.

I know I mentioned before that I was reading some other books; I finished Duras' The Lover (English translation), and I also finished Sagan's Bonjour Tristesse, which was challenge, but totally awesome. I'm currently working on Maryse Conde's Crossing the Mangrove (English translation) for class, Paris in the Fifties (for class!), and, finishing up Allende's Casa de los espiritus.

Other things:

I really want this program for MFAness....It looks so fab...: http://iub.edu/~mfawrite/about/
Of course it's amazing so who knows if I'll get in. But it's very international-like, and reputable. Two very good things.

I really miss philosophy classes. As usual. But I will be taking 2-3 this next semester, so...

I will be doing a reading in French literature for Winter Term...so I will be able to continue studying...yay!

--me.

Update!

So, everyone, clearly I haven't really been updating this blog for very long. Apologies! (Although, I really don't think many people read this blog, so perhaps I'm only apologizing to myself...) Anyway, I really think I should give an update on how everything is going.

I traveled to London to visit Tevi this weekend, and brought a couple friends with me from Paris, and it was absolutely wonderful. As usual, travel did a lot for my writing: I worked on one short story (Strange English), started a new short story/novella (something having to do with a curse), and did some work on the botany story (which I haven't done in a very. long. time.), all on the Chunnel! Both on the way to London and from.

I also bought a new program, recommended by Harris, for only 35 bucks, called Scrivener. You can find details here:
http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.html
I'd recommend the program no matter what if you have the cash to spend--if you have a good income, or whatever. If you're very unorganized as a writer, then this program will obviously give a really good benefit. I'm actually unorganized most of the time, but when it comes to my writing, I'm not--I just feel that time goes against me a lot of the time. So, this program will help me with concentrating better while writing, as well as being aesthetically pleasing enough that I will work with it often. I'm expecting it to up my long-prose by 20%, my short stories by 10% (they don't take as much research, and in general, I have more practice at them), and screenplays probably by something like 50%. (Poetry is far too manual for me, so I don't think I'll be using Scrivener for that.) However, I think in general it will make writing more of a pleasure, mostly because of the 'full screen view' that I really enjoy--it makes your writing look like it's already in a book, I think. Anyway, look at the details if you're interested. I don't think it's a necessity, but if you're serious about writing and have the money to spend, I'd say buy it.

As for books I'm reading right now, I'm doing a lot with trilingual reading:
In English: Middlemarch by George Eliot; short stories by Vladimir Nabokov, Swann's Way by Proust (this is assigned, so it gets preference maintenant)
In French: Bonjour tristesse by Francoise Sagan (assigned), La Bete humaine by Zola (assigned), L'Amant by Marguerite Duras (the English version is assigned later, and I've already read it, so I figured I'd have a try at the short French version)
In Spanish: Casa de los espiritus by Isabel Allende, Eva Luna by Isabel Allende, La Tregua by Mario Benedetti (preference--I've been meaning to read it for so long!), and some poems also by Mario Benedetti.

So...I'm hoping all this reading will be wonderful! As, I hope, will be the writing! Also, I'm submitting the story I'm working on currently (Strange English) to a competition on the 25th--to find out five days later if I made it...Ahh!!