19.02.05..1:21 pm

The jukebox in my mind is currently being wrestled over by a gay man insisting upon Cher's greatest hits and some bush-worn Canadian yokel. I'm not sure which is worse.

I really did think that having internet not only in my flat, but IN MY ROOM would mean reverting back into the surfmunch of days gone by, but those days apparently really have gone by. Where I found the time to dedicate at least twenty hours a day to random internet abuse (porn sites, music downloads, literary cheat sites) plus fit in five lectures/corresponding seminars and a social life everyday for the four years of my undergrad is entirely beyond me. If I manage to divert my attention away from this essay, it's inveriably for the sole purpose of fixing my eighteenth cup of tea, some elaborate concoction of beetroot and roasted chestnut mushrooms or gratefully inhaling as much nicotine as my lungs can take.

BUT! And this is a big BUT! BUT I've actually found a REASON for this essay. It's taken me eight weeks of solid research, sobbing into M's neck, persuading myself NOT to have panic attacks and endlessly typing still-unconvincing notes to sieve through more than 12000 words of useless text to find this, the sum of my labours:

Modernist experimentation in literature sought the palimpsest.

Bung in some Derridean diff�rance, a little supplement and some disgarded literary devices and you've got my essay.

Not finished. But very definitely and quite securely beyond the 3000 mark, and with less than a week to go I actually think I'm on schedule.