i'm skipping tennis ostensibly to do work so i should do some: i need to finish v. woolf's magnificent three guineas, i need to brush up on slavery, i need to print out my mini essay about whether or not saturday night fever is a musical (my conclusion: no more than the graduate or strictly ballroom is, which is to say, just plain no. still, it's a better film that i expected.) after an hour's intense discussion with the honors-special-major guru, i think i've more or less convinced myself i should go for it. now i just need to convince (a) marge, my woman in the history dpt; (b) patti, the mysterious feminist/queer theory/eng/film woman i've heard much of and never met -- she's presently hiding out in nyc and how jealous am i; and (c) the history and film dpts in general.

you have to be invested in this, said the guru. i nodded soberly. now i need to figure out if i am. basically, it's a trade-off: i take four preps -- three that i've figured out and one that'll require some creativity (dorsey's slavery seminar? something with rick vallely in american polisci?) -- and in exchange i get the freedom to write a screenplay next year and have professors work on it with me and in the end have two experts descend on me and spend serious time combing through it. if i could survive that without breaking into tears, it would be invaluable.

the guru described the kind of person who usually does this sort of thing: self-motivated, very bright, responsible, independent. he said those people almost always succeed fantastically with this program. those aren't the words i would necessarily pick to describe me, but, hell, i have nothing to lose by trying.