I may be a total waste of air today, but at least my kitchen is clean.

[grammargirl]

As penance for being a total useless schmuck tonight in the world of academia, I just cleaned the heck out of the kitchen for the first time in... well, an embarrassing amount of time, I can tell you that. We're talking mold that practically grew limbs and walked out of the sink, here.

And now I must go to bed so I can get up tomorrow and stay up for twenty four hours straight reading Ulysses aloud. Yes, it's for a grade. Yes, it's the geekiest final ever. I'd be looking forward to it if I didn't have to come home Tuesday morning, take a nap, then get up and write the paper I totally failed to write tonight. Because, as already established, I am a terrible person.

Comments

[misanthropicsob.livejournal.com]

You're the first person I've ever read/heard/seen who has said that James Joyce's Ulysses is NOT THAT LONG. It is a 700+ page book. (The edition on sale at Amazon says 783, but that probably includes editor's commentaries) So, I think it is of sufficient length to read for 24 hours. If it is 700 pages, thats reading 1 page aloud (not in your head) every 2 minutes.

[adam-oddfellow.livejournal.com]

And there is the source of the misunderstanding. I was under the impression that this was, you know, the original Ulysses. Like, translated from ancient Greek. Which isn't really that long. Either that or I read an abridged copy or something like that. Because the one I read, years and years ago, was a rather slim paperback only a couple hundred pages long.

This is what I get for attending a school whose founder honestly believed that the Illiad was the pinnacle of human literary achievement, and whose successive faculties (or rather, a small but vocal portion of the faculties) apparently concurred. God I hate Greek literature.

So now my only question is why on earth anyone would ever think this reading was a good idea. Which is probably why I'm not an English major.

[misanthropicsob.livejournal.com]

I think the reading sounds fun.

[adam-oddfellow.livejournal.com]

I dunno, for some reason the idea of being told, by a professor, to spend 24 hours doing anything, I find rather irksome, perhaps even offensive. But then, I've been feeling rather anti-academic lately.

In any case, considering the fact that I would in no circumstances have signed up to read Ulysses in the first place, is it any surprise that I wouldn't want to read it for 24 hours straight?