Sorry, I'm gonna have to take myself off the grid for the next 24 hours. I'm knee deep in two very difficult papers that are making me pull my hair out.

The first paper (10-15 pages) is focused on Henry James' depiction of the clash of American and European cultures in the story "Daisy Miller" while the second (4-8 pages) is about Toni Morrison's use of "the disembodied voice" in her latest novel entitled "a mercy"

In other words, I'm FREAKING OUT as both papers are due tomorrow and I've been wrapping my head around this stuff for the last two weeks. It's not like I don't know the material (in fact, I'm a rather big fan of Morrison and James), it's that writing 10-19 pages of stuff isn't the easiest thing in the world...especially when you have to present an argument as well as facts from other sources that back up your argument.

...what the hell am I doing, I should be writing my papers as opposed to writing here. Just wanted to give everyone a heads-up on why the site hasn't been updated in a while.

UPDATE: Okay, real quick (but only because you guys were asking.

Although not as good as The Bluest Eye, Beloved, or even Love, once I finished the book, I appreciated Morrison's latest novel. It took about 80 pages to get a understanding on what was happening, but in typical Morrison fashion, once you get to the final lines, everything becomes crystal clear and you understand the message(s) (you'll just have to read it to understand).

As for Henry James...either you like him or hate him. Trust me, if you don't like Daisy Miller, you NOT going to like his other works (i.e. The Pupil, Beast in the Jungle, The Real Thing, In the Cage, etc).

Okay, that's it! Leave me be...I have papers to write and no time for local stuff :-)