Darwin's Plot To Undo Me

So I find myself enbroiled in Gillian Beer's Darwin's Plots: Exploring the Evolutionary Narrative in Darwin, George Eliot and Nineteenth-Century Literature which unfortunately needs to be read for my seminar on Thursday. Actually, not just read, but presented on. Which means I need more than just a casual knowledge of what the book is about. The up side is that so far it's actually quite interesting, and accessible, compared with some works of criticism. So, I guess things could be worse.

The problem is that I've essentially painted myself into a corner. I figured that I didn't really have too much work this semester (which on paper is true - I only had two essays, a couple exams and no finals during December). However, now that I've convinced myself I see that I only have 3 weeks of school left in which to do a couple of presentations, write a Christmas exam in Old Icelandic and a 10-12 page paper of which I have no clue what the topic will be. Oh, and keep up on my readings. Ah, the joys of an English major.


I may have to pick this one up this week.

Of course, being the movie addict that I am I found time to watch a couple of movies in the last couple of days. My love of The Incredibles led me to finally find the much hyped debut feature from Brad Bird, The Iron Giant. However, it lived up to its hype. It's touching, it's funny, and it's well animated. All in all a modern children's classic. I loved it. I also finally saw Will Ferrell in Elf, which also exceeded my expectations. Seriously, I can't help it Will Ferrell is just to goofy not to laugh at. This is one of the few recent Christmas movies that I actually liked (I can already tell it's gonna be better than that God-awful Christmas With The Kranks - I can feel the bile rising in my throat when I see the trailers). All in all, worth checking out.