Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Not Dead Yet...

Thanks to those of you who are calling me to make sure that I haven't been crushed by a falling log, or suffered death by a thousand student-paper cuts. I'm still here, and still (shallowly) breathing.

On Friday, I got up at 6:30 in the morning to finish grading papers for my class, which met for its final at 10:30. They gave group presentations, I handed stuff back. I went to meet with advisees (?! Clearly, finals week is EXACTLY the time to discuss whether you should pick up a minor! Obviously! Why not?). At 2:30, I wandered, bleary-eyed, over my colleague's office to work on an abstract for a panel that we're putting together for a conference. We worked til 5, at which point I went home and ate dinner, and then continued to work on the abstract til 10:15. At which point I gave it a terrible title and sent it to my colleague. Which means that we beat the deadline by approximately one hour. Hooray for online submission technology.

Pulling fourteen-hour days during finals week---particularly those that don't involve making a dent in the grading pile---is just a feat of superhuman strength. So on Saturday, when I should have been reading the papers for my other class, I spent 8 hours reading Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan fiction.

You heard me.

I KNOW, right? Who knew that people were still obsessed with Buffy? Not that I don't understand why, of course. I freakin' LOVED that show, up to and including the wonky back-from-the-dead Season 6. But I don't love it enough to write thousands of words about what could have happened if Spike had made a different decision in Season Two. Nor do I compose 12,358 words graphically describing the kinds of kinky sex that Spike and Buffy (who fall under the "Spuffy" category) probably had. You know what other ways I didn't love it? I didn't love it enough to write "off-canon" multi-chapter serials about Spike the publishing executive and Buffy the graduate student at UCLA. I have to tell you, this shit is fascinating. I'm both dumb-founded and totally impressed that people create this and post it in their spare time. (Um, hello, pot [read: blogger]? This is kettle [read: Spuffy writer].) To each her own, is all I got to say. It beats the pants off reading Baudrillard papers. (For the record, there are a number of stories in which Buffy quite literally has the pants beaten off her. I wonder if Joss Whedon knew that he would inspire such BDSM fantasies?)

So that's where I'm at, folks. And I'm not done yet. But I'm closing in. And Buffy DVD's are now in my Netflix queue.

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5 Comments:

Blogger Ashley said...

Don't forget the Spangel slashfic. The hate of mortal enemies--it drieve such passion. Who knew?

We're going to have to talk Buffy after you work your way through. I love it with all my heart but every time I watch it through I think that A) Whedon secretly hates girls, even as he is ostensibly putting forth a kick-ass heroine, and B) oh yes he totally knew that he would inspire those BDSM fantasies, because sex=pain (see point A).

Wednesday, May 09, 2007 11:39:00 PM  
Blogger Ashley said...

(That'd be "drives" such passion, btw. Proofreading is too hard for my post-semester brain.)

Wednesday, May 09, 2007 11:40:00 PM  
Blogger kfluff said...

Do I really want to go back to the beginning and go through all of them? Can I just skip the whole season with Faith?

As to Spangel (and I assume that's pronounced "Spain-gel" not "Spang -el", that's just great. How am I supposed to finish grading NOW?!

Thursday, May 10, 2007 9:18:00 AM  
Blogger the Truth Hz said...

If you skip the season w/ Faith, you also skip the Mayor as the Big Bad;; is that really an option?==my personal collection awaits your request,, so that you can free up your netflix....

Thursday, May 10, 2007 8:44:00 PM  
Blogger kfluff said...

I'm SOOO psyched! This is what I plan to spend the next two weeks doing! Thanks, Hz!! Hook a girl up!

Thursday, May 10, 2007 10:06:00 PM  

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