musings of a neurotic mind

tomorrow the TdF ends in Paris and Lance is almost in the “7th heaven”, ie. he is going to win the TdF for the 7th in a row. today was an individual time trial and Lance won it of course. “Ulle” Ullrich did better than in the prologue timetrial but still Lance was 23 seconds faster. not only his girlfriend Sheryl Crow and his three kids where there at the of the stage today, but also the former presidential candidate John Kerry! i am looking forward to the final stage tomorrow and the closing ceremony in Paris. this is surely going to be a history moment.

tomorrow is the “big day”; the day i have been waiting for 2.5 years. the day of truth. the full dress rehearsal last week went very well and smoothly. i guess i am ready to rock tomorrow. this is going to be fun. keep your fingers crossed.

tomorrow i am going to do basically a “full dress rehearsal” of the final exam next week. that means that i will be presenting and talking about my thesis at the “privatissimum”, a class especially for graduate students to discuss their ongoing (or finished) work. i guess i am ready for the final step. or as ready as i’ll ever be. this is almost over. so let’s kick ass once more! (i’m glad my “kick ass attitude” returned just in time.)

for those of you wondering why i am rarely on IM networks these days here’s the explanation: i spend my days now mostly reading the books and articles that are on the reading list for the final oral exam at the end of april. most of the stuff is actually well known and also quite entertaining, but some articles are real suckers. even though they are written in german i have a hard time understanding what the author actually wants to say… thanks to a very confusing or call it “elitist” style, refering to loads of other authors and theories and stuff… so, here’s my current reading list:

Fiske, John (1999): Elvis: Body of Knowledge. Offizielle und populäre Formen des Wissens um Elvis Presley. In: Hoerning, Karl H./Rainer Winter (Hrsg.): Widerspenstige Kulturen. Cultural Studies als Herausforderung. Frankfurt a. M.: Surkamp.

Fiske, John (2001): Für eine kulturelle Interpretation. Eine Untersuchung zur Kultur der Obdachlosigkeit. In: Winter, Rainer/Lothar Mikos (Hrsg.): Die Fabrikation des Populären. Der John Fiske Reader. Bielefeld: Transcript.

Gillespie, Marie (1999): Fernsehen im multiethnischen Kontext. In: Hoerning, Karl H./Rainer Winter (Hrsg.): Widerspenstige Kulturen. Cultural Studies als Herausforderung. Frankfurt a. M.: Surkamp.

Giroux, Henry A. (2002): Brutalized Bodies and Emasculated Politics: Fight Club, Consumerism and Masculine Violence. In: Giroux, Henry A.: Breaking in to the Movies. Oxford: Blackwell.

Grossberg, Lawrence (1999): Was sind Cultural Studies? In: Hoerning, Karl H./Rainer Winter (Hrsg.): Widerspenstige Kulturen. Cultural Studies als Herausforderung. Frankfurt a. M.: Surkamp.

Kellner, Douglas (1995): Media Culture. London/New York: Routledge.

Kellner, Douglas (2003): Media Spectacle. London/New York: Routledge.

Virilio, Paul (1986): Aesthetik des Verschwinden. Berlin: Merve.

Winter, Rainer (1995): Der produktive Zuschauer. Medienaneignung als kultureller und ästhetischer Prozess. Köln: Herbert von Halem.

Winter, Rainer (2001): Die Kunst des Eigensinns. Cultural Studies als Kritik der Macht. Weilerswist: Velbrueck Wissenschaft.

i’ve been wondering: is there something wrong with my blog since i upgraded to wp 1.5? i haven’t been getting any comments lately… are you guys still reading me? or are you simply busy?

well, yesterday was the day i have been waiting for 2.5 years: i went to the copyshop and had my phd thesis printed. i need to hand in five copies and i cannot print 228 pages with my humble ink jet printer. this needs to look professional hence my trip to the copyshop. well, although i knew the shop is sort of “self-service” i didn’t expect to spend almost the entire afternoon there. why? i needed to print the 22 pages containing the screenshots of the movies with the color laser printer and leave them out when printing the text-only portions. that resulted in a huge “sorting pages” orgy. however, after 3.5 hours of happy pages sorting and checking if they are all in the right order i was finally done. and sort of proud, you know, that are fruits of my work from the past 2.5 years. it’s a good feeling for sure.

life is back to normal now after all the frenzy regarding my defective harddisk. and i guess my alter ego, my char in azeroth has settled down a bit as well. the first ten or fifteen levels are always a bit hectic because you want to do as much quests as far as possible to level up quickly. having played the beta turned out to be quite useful because i do not have to look for the NPC or mobs — i already know where they are. that means by playing one or two hours a day i still make good progress.

on a complete different note, i am going to bring my thesis to the copyshop next week and have it printed. i am making the finishing touches (mostly formatting issues) this week and will spice up the conclusion a little bit on the weekend, as my supervisor suggested. well, at least i can really see the end of this project coming…

good - no wait! - excellent news at last! i just got word from my prof that i can finally have my thesis printed and “published”. that means i am going to take the final exam (called “Rigorosum” in german) between april 18 and april 29, 2005.

i guess i am on the right track now as far as my phd thesis is concerned. i received a short note from my prof telling me that she read the first chapter and it’s looking good. so i am in a good spirit that this whole thing will be over soon. actually, it has to be. i still need to confirm the details, but i think i have to take the final exam by the end of april at latest in order to avoid having to pay tuition fees for another semester…

wondering what i have been doing today? to be honest, not much… i am in the middle of “proof-reading” my thesis. i expect to get some feedback of my supervisor tomorrow or on monday. i have my doubts about whether i will be able to have it printed soon but still… there’s always hope. i already picture myself struggling through the pitfalls of austrian bureaucrazy (excuse the pun!) in order to get a “custom” date for the final exam in march. it has to be in march otherwise i will have to pay the tuition fee for the upcoming summer semester, which is in fact the last thing i want to do!
np: Five For Fighting - Something About You

well, you can’t really tell from this picture, but these are exactly 222 pages. this is the copy my supervisor gets for the final review before i hand it in. (which i hope will be soon!)

the timing couldn’t have been better: now that the revising is finally done i got an invitation to take part in the European World of Warcraft final beta today!