I would like to point out a few brief things.

Firstly, being sick is absolutely crap. Especially being continuously sick for about a month now. ‘Common Cold’ sure, but I’m pretty certain that there are supposed to be gaps in it where you feel fine. Gaps longer than a single day, at any rate. In fact, I missed a day at uni for the first time ever today, because I was that sick with the ‘flu and a migraine (probably ‘flu related) when I woke up. And of course, I have an assessment due tomorrow (more on it specifically in a sec.) as well as six due next week, and two the week after. Hoorah for sick.

Secondly, the eBay Trust & Security team are awesome people. Yesterday morning, I woke to be notified that thirty five items I had just put up for auction had been listed… thirty five brand new pairs of authentic Chanél sunglasses, at around US$70 a pair shipped. Me, who finds that the closest they have ever come to sunglasses is that their prescription lenses change colour.

Yes, somehow and somewhere, my eBay account was hacked. W00tastic. So I contacted eBay security, and within twenty minutes, the listings were removed, and my account was deactivated. I (feeling tired) decided not to get into a live chat with the team for a few hours, and went to sleep. When I reawoke later in the morning, I logged onto their security website, and five minutes later was reactivated with a new, securer password, and nothing at all wrong in the world. So kudos to eBay - I’ve often heard that the customer service is crap, but for me they’ve come through. Oh yeah, apparently I’d sold one of those pairs of sunglasses to. Two minutes after it was listed. I was, shall we say, very surprised. :-S

Thirdly, (and this relates to a subpoint of secondly), I would like to ask that all writing lecturers who request essays as submissions, especially essays worth 30%, actually supply criteria that fit within the essay form. For instance:

Criteria: “Consistency and strength of argument, skill level demonstrated in analysing text, fundamental spelling and grammar, precision in sub-editing skills, and application and demonstration of text strengths in own work. The text should be referenced full to support any claims about it. The following questions should be raised and answered. 1. What is your chosen text’s strengths? 2. How are these achieved? 3. How can you apply this understanding to your own work (and show examples of this)?

The fun part comes when we realise that this is a seminar paper that is based on a specific part of writing in reference to a single text - that is, for me personally, on the use of characterisation and narrative voice within Alessandro Barico’s ‘Silk.’

Would someone like to tell me exactly how I can relate this back to ‘my own work’? The assessment task is dealing with an analysis of the author’s text!

That said - I have a 1500 word essay written, anaylsing the text in terms of characterisation and narrative voice. I have effectively answered the questions raised, apart form the personal experience one. The essay is being edited right now, and is relatively smooth and clean. But how can I possibly refer to my own stuff here, when that isn’t what the assessment is about in the first place… and without using the forbidden ‘me’ and ‘I’ and ‘my’ that are necessary evils in the essay writing process!?!

Gah. I think I’ll tack something in. I have to, this is work 30% after all. At the moment, I am wholly confident I have a decent characterisation/narrative voice analysis that is worth a fairly good mark. So I’m fine with it as it stands - but if i have to include own examples of my work (which, incidentally, doesn’t exist for this course yet) I can see my mark being, although not bad, not exceptional either.

Horrible Shady. Provide essay questions and criteria that damn well work. Sigh. Off to it, I guess.

Hate being sick. :(

Alcata’riel.

-Andiyar