Things to do before I can relax:

So, while every other university in the country (probably the continent) is done for the year, I'm still at school, still working like a mad person, and trying to get everything done. End of year blitz is the worst. Here's what's going down:

• Writing and presenting a conference paper on the character of Caravaggio in Michael Ondaatje's In the Skin of a Lion. One of my favourite books, and a fascinating character that generally gets ignored in favour of reading him as a stand in for Caravaggio the painter and the play of light and dark he made so famous. I'm working on a rather different reading of him as a carnivalesque agent of social change and egalitarianism; it's quite an entertaining paper to write, and I'm looking forward to turning it into an article to be published in the academic journal that I've just helped to found. Yep, I've founded a journal. Pretty cool.
  

• Writing a paper on Susan Howe's relationship to the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poets. Writing this makes me realize just how obscure my field can be. Anyway, it's about the political projects of writing that on the surface seems to be very much related but underneath is doing rather different things. I'll be happy when it's done, which will be soon, as it's due tomorrow. I like contemporary poetry, but modernism is always going to be where my heart's at.
  

• After that's done, I'll be marking 40 student midterms between Tuesday and Friday. This is the second last assignment of the year that I need to grade, so I can deal with it. I've got such a good handle on my student's writing styles and what my course director wants in terms of grading now that it's not as much of an agonizing process as it used to be. Can't say that I won't be pulling another late nighter, but it won't be the end of the world.
  

• Teaching my last two tutorials for the year. Woot! I love my students, but Fridays are a long and tiring day for me--lecture, office hour, and two tutorials crammed into a day. I get to teach Fall on Your Knees, another favourite book, so it's a great way to end off the year.
  

• Finishing up a paper on Marianne Moore for my modernism class. I love her writing; when I was doing my thesis on Anne Wilkinson, so many critics compared her to Moore, and now I know why. They're both weird and wonderful.
  

• And writing my final term paper for my public intellectuals class. I have no idea yet what I want to write on; it's not the writing that's daunting so much as all of the background research that goes into coming up with a new idea. I've got some time, though, so I'm going to worry about everything else first.
  

I'm also going away two weekends this month (camping at The Pinery for the long weekend, and then to Shelagh and Lynda's the weekend after), participating in a conference, celebrating Mother's Day, and continuing to get everything organized for our house purchase, which will hopefully happen before the end of the summer. We've gotten a mortgage pre-approval lined up, our real estate lawyer at the ready (Purple Mangos, in fact), and plenty of ideas for furniture and decorating. Now we just have to wait and see what happens! Oh, for it to be June and for all of this to be done and over with...can't wait for a break.