Having not passed my oral exam and now my written exam on the first try, I am considering a career change. While I should probably hunker down and fight through these “hiccups,” these two events seem like symptoms of a deeper and underlying ambivalence about becoming an academic. So, I have spent this morning looking [...]

I just want to register for all posterity how awful Annette Bening’s performance on SNL was last night. She is a terrific actress. Why couldn’t she take her eyes off the cue cards? Mr. Sorkin, I smell a plot device for a future episode of Studio 60.

Since there isn’t a proper font to convey how screwed I feel right now. I will use the standard courier font often employed here. I have roughly 15 hours until my written exam is due. I am still one novel short. I have to write over half of a question I mistakenly thought I was [...]