Alea iacta est.

I handed in a paper about Byron to a literary society. The dead line is 10 July, but I cannot stick it on any more because the more I look, the messier it reveals to me. My head is almost exploding. And I have many other things to do. I must read over 28 volumes of books this summer, 13 volumes of which are written in English. English always makes me hard variously, let alone speaking/listening.

The paper had been previously submitted last winter. I was absolutely smashed then. One of three judging panel harshly criticised the paper, saying that my argument was too inconsistent to be published. Besides, my paper—also the abstract in English— was considerably long, and so s/he said that there’s no need to be such long. Unlike the rest, his/her every criticism was so severe to me as if got a personal feeling of antipathy for me that I could not avoid being hurt by his/her expressions. Has personal feeling for me? Of course it can't be! :)

In fact I presented three papers to three separate literary societies in the first half of this year, two of which except the retreated have been published this spring. Frankly speaking, the panel was merciless to me, but I deserved to be. The retreated paper was not good also in my own judgement. My impatience drove me to hurry in making results. I had to elaborate my point of argument more precisely, but I didn’t do that. Furthermore Byron—i.e. poetry— is not my major!! Mine is British [modern] fiction, especially Joseph Conrad and Graham Swift. :)

After the spring semester I revised the handed-back paper in my own way with consulting the panel’s advice. I don’t know I did my best revising it, but at least I tried to. I asked Paul to examine the [English] abstract if it made sense in English. He said that it was well written and was an interesting read even though he didn't know anything about Byron. ‘Byron’ is not his forte, too. Anyway I thank God for having Paul as my friend.

I had thought over and over that I would re-present it to the same society, and I decided to do so. Just now I clicked on my email to them with the paper-file attached. The dice is cast. There's nothing more I can do. The only thing I can do with the paper is to wait for their reply during the summer.

Brit…