This week has been a research disaster! (aka the blog I forgot to publish)
In this entry: Dublin, Genre as social action, reading, teaching, marking in the future.
This week has been manic! I have had so much to do and absolutely no time to focus on my research. Before departing for Dublin I received 55 essays to mark for the class I teach every Friday. As the first marking work I have ever had to do I was understandably concerned to get going and make a start of the box full on my desk.
However, I decided to put it out of my mind, go to Ireland, enjoy Dublin and return to the work after the trip.That was, it would seem, to be easier said than done. Most of my Dublin break was spent wondering about the ins and outs of marking and concerning myself with whether I was qualified to be be writing professorial comments in the margin on a 1st years work.
Marking aside, Dublin was mixed. A good time was had by all, it was great to see my father in law and spend some time relaxing with him in the very nice surroundings of Dublin.
– CONTENT REMOVED —
(sorry if certain things don’t make sense anymore, I decided that however little known this place is, it’s still public and therefore accessible by anyone and everyone)
There was an incidence which overshadowed proceedings… the loss of my wife’s diamond necklaces. It was the third day of our trip and she and I were had been walking the streets of Dublin almost all morning. We decided to go to a café in the Temple Bar area called The Elephant and Castle for brunch. As my wife takes her coat off I notice the chain of her necklaces hanging from her woolen jumper, minus the pendant. I could barely bring myself to point it out. After a VERY nice Irish breakfast we spent the whole afternoon searching for the necklace in every street we’d walked that morning. Unsuccessful, we returned to our guest house where the owner (Robert) suggested that we report it to the police so that we could claim on our travel insurance. Admittedly the experience of reporting this to the Gara (the Irish police) was actually not that unpleasant and the insurance company are currently considering our claim… so we’ll see…
Also during our trip, my wife’s Dad was talking to me about Genre as social action. His explanation focussed on upon how every social phenomenon is a genre. Take for example an email. A email is a genre and then within that genre there are many sub-genre such as a formal email applying for a job, a one line note to a friend or a forwarded message. This confused matters even further for me and got me to thinking about scope. How do you scope an exploration of genre? If genre is everywhere, how do you proceed in addressing it in terms of Hollywood?
Having returned from Ireland and read an article on Popular Culture Perspective by Clinton R. Sanders I am beginning to understand better where the separation lies. Finally, I have been considering my options for the future and trying to get some more teaching work for the coming semesters. I get the feeling there is a lot of change going on at the University at the moment and that may or may not be a good thing.
While I am enjoying my teaching I am also concerned that I am going to lose focus on what I actually what to end up doing. I want to write and direct. However, I realise that I need a financially viable career on top of my lofty dreams of being an auteur. While I realise that I am on the right path, financial concerns and lack of immediate job opportunities in University teaching are a bit of a worry….
And there I stopped… dunno why, think I got distracted with making the tea or summat… more in the next blog coming THIS weekend 
K
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