When reading House of Leaves I always found it really interesting that Johnny’s inserts usually began as relevant notes about Zampano’s analysis, and would then deteriorate into a commentary on something about his personal life that at times was completely unrelated. His footnotes appear to mimic his thoughts in an almost stream of consciousness way (not fully stream of consciousness because a lot of the time they make perfect grammatical sense), and I thought it would be interesting to examine how my mind wanders when reading a piece of scholarly work.

Tonight I had to read an article for French about university education, and I wanted to do my blog post on how my mind wandered whilst reading the beginning of that article. My mind definitely wandered and I found my thoughts similarly wandering as Johnny’s did, beginning with something related to the article and quickly going off on a tangent not entirely related to the subject at hand. This to me seemed very indicative of a student’s process in doing homework. I think that many of us have a huge problem with procrastination, and at times our minds just wander in directions completely unrelated to what we should be doing.

Le lobby en faveur de la suppression de la quasi gratuité des études supérieures revient à la charge dans Le Figaro, profitant de la période estivale[1] où les étudiants sont moins vigilants, pour avancer ses pions. Reprenons point par point la thèse des partisans d’une américanisation de notre système pour mieux la démonter.

Tout d’abord, les officines en faveur de frais d’inscription à 10 000€/an (dans un premier temps… !) comparent notre système en premier lieu avec le système américain sur un seul critère : celui de la quantité d’argent disponible pour former un élève. Cela relève d’une pure idéologie dont le qualificatif n’existe guère, mais qui est pourtant très répandue en notre société ; l’argent serait à même de régler tous les problèmes et un problème non résolu ne serait dû qu’à un manque d’argent. Rien n’est plus faux et il faudra bien un jour que les mentalités polluées par cet état d’esprit changent profondément. De même, la qualité de l’enseignement et la quantité d’argent qui est injectée seraient liés.[2] Là encore, on est en plein délire américain ! Dieu merci, bien qu’anglo-saxons, les britanniques ne pensent pas ainsi. Quant à la France, son histoire est jonchée de prouesses qui ont été faites, justement, avec presque rien, prouvant par-là que ce qui compte avant tout c’est la volonté et non l’argent.[3]

[1] That would be an awesome word for my French vocab assignment “estivale”… too bad its already taken. You know I love my French class, I really do. I love my teacher and I love the topics that we discuss, but I also don’t love it, you know? My professor is super sweet and awesome but she also assigns like a million things to do each class. Does she not understand that I have other classes with other just as important and time consuming assignments? Just last week I had to write a huge paper for her on immigration. Qu’est-ce que l’immigration? Qu’est-ce que cet mot répresent pour toi? It was actually a really interesting topic to write about. I don’t think our next paper will be as interesting. The upcoming chapter is about the cost of higher education. In general this class is a lot more interesting than other French classes I’ve had because we discuss actual relevant issues. Anyways this week is going to be tough. I just realized that I have way more to do than I thought, and because of meetings I have at night this week I really just don’t have enough time to get it all done. I’m majourly stressed. And yes, I use british spelling. I was raised in Egypt where they use british spelling so I’m sorry but that’s what I’m going to use.

[2] “Lié” is my word. It means related. I had no idea. I used it in a sentence discussing how the church and the state shouldn’t be related. I’m not a huge fan of government. It really isn’t something that interests me so I have avoided it at all costs, but I have to take 6 hours of it at UT. I’ve actually learned a lot about the government, but that doesn’t change how I feel. See I’m a conspiracy theorist about a lot of governmental things, and most people in the US don’t believe you when you talk about conspiracy theories because they don’t want to believe that their government is capable of such things. But I honestly believe the US government is behind some truly abhorrent things.

[3] Okay I’m done for today. She said we have until Wednesday to read that article and do the vocab assignment. I’m honestly so exhausted from all of the homework and errands that I had to do today I can’t think anymore. Mais, ces sont mes responsabilités, non? Do you ever study or do work for a language class for so many hours that you find yourself thinking in that language? Whenever that happens I’m always so amazed because I realize I can speak this language and think in this language and that is super cool. Last semester I devoted an entire day to studying for my French midterm a couple of weeks ahead of time and I couldn’t stop thinking or speaking in French… it actually got kind of annoying but at the same time is was super cool. Okay yeah I’m gonna make dinner now. Its almost 8 I definitely deserve a food break.

Robert Walton, the romantic 28 year old explorer through whom Mary Shelley’sFrankenstein is told, serves not only as the young Viktor Frankenstein’s audience for his tragic tale, but also as a parallel to Viktor. They are both in their twenties, desperately seeking adventure to give their life meaning, face repercussions for their fanciful minds, and are plagued by a sort of naive angst about themselves and the World. In Volume I, Letter I, Walton writes to his sister that his spirits have been dramatically lifted upon having a “steady purpose”: to sail to the North Pole, literally unexplored territory. Viktor, at this point in his life, has already fixed what would be the whole of his life’s focus on creating his infamous monster and bringing it to life, an undertaking even more grandiose than Walton’s. At the beginning of their undertakings, both characters were filled with ecstasy at the idea of fulfilling such a “favorite dream” of which they had read much about. Walton read feverishly  about “mathematics, the theory of medicine, and those branches of physical science from which a naval adventurer might derive the greatest practical advantage.” Frankenstein read about physics, alchemy, philosophy, chemistry, anatomy. As they progressed however, and as life-threatening obstacles became evident, both Walton and Frankenstein face disillusionment, which essentially destroys Frankenstein in the end. Once he created his monster, his life became a near endless series of tragedy and depression. They both posses brilliant, educated minds but they use their potential by playing dangerous games of life and death.

It gets interesting in that Walton, like Frankenstein, also resembles the creature in many aspects. Walton and the monster are both desperately lonely as well as being self-educated, and all three…”men”…actually have good intentions, or at least are not evil. They just are bad at acting out their intentions in a way that reflects who they want to be. In the end, Walton, Frankenstein, and the monster all end up in the arctic. Walton is near his dream, but hasn’t completed it, Frankenstein is chasing his mangled dream, and the monster’s dream of companionship is chasing after him with the intent of destroying him. The protagonist and the antagonist die, and all that’s left is Walton, the conduit of the story. Though the dying Viktor, still full of hubris, tells Walton not to give up on his dream, Walton is the only character to have enough instinct for self-preservation to save himself and his crew by turning away from the North Pole. Though he emerges seemingly defeated, “ignorant and disappointed,” Walton was the only one of the three men to learn his limits and to grow up some out of that selfish, naive angst that hindered them all. Walton was not the most important character, per se, but he is the one who readers are ultimately left with, and he is the one who we know made the more logical, less romantic choice.