This summer has flown away-- I'm not sure where it went. But I do know where I've gone:
Gettysburg, PA
Washington, DC
Philadelphia, PA
Boston, MA (many, many times)
Worcester, MA
Wakefield, MA
Albany, NY
Manchester, NH
Walden Pond
White Mountains
And soon, it's back to Buffalo for me. I'm going with less trepidation, less nostalgia, and more hope this year. Last year was definitely a big transition, and I've dealt with many changes, losses (see Elegy for a Dog post), and anxieties. But I've realized that I have, indeed, dealt with them. I suppose I'm a real adult now, and whatever comes my way, I think I'll cope with it.
Showing posts with label grad school. Show all posts
Showing posts with label grad school. Show all posts
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
The Thesis, Part Deux
I wrote a thesis as an undergraduate student. When I finished my thesis (which had a rather embarrassingly stupid title when I turned it in to my advisor; I have since changed "Are You There God? It's Me, England" to "Looking for England: National Identity in Post-World War II Britain"), I was certain that I was going to study 20th century British literature, with a focus on Irish expatriates. I was sure of this up until halfway through last semester, when I realized that I kind of only liked Samuel Beckett and sometimes W.B. Yeats, and I had no desire to read James Joyce... ever. And I loved my 19th century American class. And I wanted to publish my paper on Washington Irving and Kierkegaard and include it in my thesis. I wanted to read more about the theater and its development in the United States. (And I wanted an excuse to write about Artaud again, because really, not enough people read him. Go read The Theater and Its Double. Right now.)
So, here I am, back at the American Antiquarian Society, reading obscure novels about actresses. I'm going to read more into Kierkegaard, education and seduction, and look up a performance history of Rip Van Winkle, and doubtless give myself carpal tunnel syndrome as I prepare to write another thesis.
The strange thing is, I'm starting to like research again. I really enjoyed the hours I spent in the reading room at the Antiquarian Society this afternoon. I think part of it is handling old books. I love leafing through a book that went out of print a hundred years ago, that perhaps no one else has read since 1920. Those books have lives and histories of their own, and I can take these flights of fancy wondering where they had been and where they would go next, how it is that I stumble upon them. There's a wonderful piece in The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, "The Mutability of Literature." Crayon picks up an old folio from the 17th century, and it begins speaking in an antiquated tongue. It had been on the shelf for over a hundred years, and couldn't believe that Shakespeare was more widely read than any other author of the time. I know that the books I'm reading might wonder at Hawthorne's popularity, Melville's ubiquity in American education, and, what interests me especially, the dissipation of theatrics and drama into every aspect of American culture except for the stage.
I'm almost done with being a student. I am still resolved to stop at my Masters degree and not get a PhD, but I'm now starting to appreciate the rare opportunity I have to conduct this kind of research, to read these obscure books, and to resurrect a few names that no one remembers any longer, but knowing myself that these names have something to say, that I should listen.
So, here I am, back at the American Antiquarian Society, reading obscure novels about actresses. I'm going to read more into Kierkegaard, education and seduction, and look up a performance history of Rip Van Winkle, and doubtless give myself carpal tunnel syndrome as I prepare to write another thesis.
The strange thing is, I'm starting to like research again. I really enjoyed the hours I spent in the reading room at the Antiquarian Society this afternoon. I think part of it is handling old books. I love leafing through a book that went out of print a hundred years ago, that perhaps no one else has read since 1920. Those books have lives and histories of their own, and I can take these flights of fancy wondering where they had been and where they would go next, how it is that I stumble upon them. There's a wonderful piece in The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, "The Mutability of Literature." Crayon picks up an old folio from the 17th century, and it begins speaking in an antiquated tongue. It had been on the shelf for over a hundred years, and couldn't believe that Shakespeare was more widely read than any other author of the time. I know that the books I'm reading might wonder at Hawthorne's popularity, Melville's ubiquity in American education, and, what interests me especially, the dissipation of theatrics and drama into every aspect of American culture except for the stage.
I'm almost done with being a student. I am still resolved to stop at my Masters degree and not get a PhD, but I'm now starting to appreciate the rare opportunity I have to conduct this kind of research, to read these obscure books, and to resurrect a few names that no one remembers any longer, but knowing myself that these names have something to say, that I should listen.
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Summer, hurry up!
I am SO anxious for this semester to end. I have one paper due on Monday, then another due May 16th, and then I am freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.
Jarrod and I are going down to Washington, D.C. for a few days before heading back to Massachusetts for the summer, and I can't wait! We've both been so stressed this semester that we could really use a vacation. And it will be amazing to be somewhere warm! I'm usually not that into sticky summer heat, but after ten months in Buffalo, I want to wear shorts and flip-flops and swim in the ocean.
Gah, I need to focus and get these papers done!
Jarrod and I are going down to Washington, D.C. for a few days before heading back to Massachusetts for the summer, and I can't wait! We've both been so stressed this semester that we could really use a vacation. And it will be amazing to be somewhere warm! I'm usually not that into sticky summer heat, but after ten months in Buffalo, I want to wear shorts and flip-flops and swim in the ocean.
Gah, I need to focus and get these papers done!
Saturday, March 26, 2011
One paper down, one more to go
I finished my paper on Kierkegaard and The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon. Now I only have to write one more major research essay (plus a three-page abstract for my Greek drama class) before May. So it's time to start thinking of some potential paper topics.
The class is on mediation and dictation, and all of the literature is from the modern period with a heavy emphasis on Irish literature. I think I want to write my final paper on The Poor Mouth by Flann O'Brien. This novel was originally written in Gaelic and parodies the Irish obsession with reclaiming a Celtic identity. The Poor Mouth was first published in 1941, and this especially intrigues me; I wrote my undergraduate thesis on post-WWII British literature, and love Irish literature. Ireland's neutrality in WWII is also interesting to me, and I think I understand it better now after reading The Poor Mouth, even though the novel never mentions WWII directly. The obsession with a mythicized Celtic tradition, of Irish lords locking themselves in a stone tower to wait out the Viking invasion, untouched by the foreign aggressors, played a big role in Irish neutrality, and that spiritualized national identity is mercilessly lampooned in this novel. Another aspect of Ireland's neutrality was its self image as a small, poor nation; the Irish prime minister at the time stated that small states like Ireland should stay out of the affairs of the grand powers. Ireland was a very poor nation, especially in the south; I don't dispute that, but what The Poor Mouth elucidates is the peculiar approach to poverty in Ireland (by the upper classes, of course), the pride in abject poverty, the identification of poverty and parochialism with true Gaelic-ness.
I loved the acerbic wit of this book and I'd like to read it again (it's short, only about 180 pages) and think more about the fetishization of the Gaelic language, referred to in the book almost exclusively as "sweet Gaelic," contrasted with bitter English.
The class is on mediation and dictation, and all of the literature is from the modern period with a heavy emphasis on Irish literature. I think I want to write my final paper on The Poor Mouth by Flann O'Brien. This novel was originally written in Gaelic and parodies the Irish obsession with reclaiming a Celtic identity. The Poor Mouth was first published in 1941, and this especially intrigues me; I wrote my undergraduate thesis on post-WWII British literature, and love Irish literature. Ireland's neutrality in WWII is also interesting to me, and I think I understand it better now after reading The Poor Mouth, even though the novel never mentions WWII directly. The obsession with a mythicized Celtic tradition, of Irish lords locking themselves in a stone tower to wait out the Viking invasion, untouched by the foreign aggressors, played a big role in Irish neutrality, and that spiritualized national identity is mercilessly lampooned in this novel. Another aspect of Ireland's neutrality was its self image as a small, poor nation; the Irish prime minister at the time stated that small states like Ireland should stay out of the affairs of the grand powers. Ireland was a very poor nation, especially in the south; I don't dispute that, but what The Poor Mouth elucidates is the peculiar approach to poverty in Ireland (by the upper classes, of course), the pride in abject poverty, the identification of poverty and parochialism with true Gaelic-ness.
I loved the acerbic wit of this book and I'd like to read it again (it's short, only about 180 pages) and think more about the fetishization of the Gaelic language, referred to in the book almost exclusively as "sweet Gaelic," contrasted with bitter English.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Grad Life
I had an unexpected day off today; the one student I usually advise on Thursdays is travelling with his sports team, and my professor cancelled class. And as I was clicking through fashion blogs while eating my oatmeal this morning, I realized that I seriously don't get dressed when I don't have work or school. And it would be hilarious if I started a fashion blog myself. You'd see that I many, sundry patterns of pajamas and put the sweaters Jarrod doesn't like to good use.
Evidence:
This is from St. Patrick's Day, during spring break, and an accurate representation of what I wear around the house. Yes, I'm wearing leggings. I put those on when I figured that 3 PM was a little too late to still be in pajamas. Hey, at least I don't leave the house like this.
Oh, grad school. Eating a banana with peanut butter because you're out of bread. Substituting coffee for adequate hours of sleep. Leggings count as pants. Lowering standards all around.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
My Spring Break: Dutchmen and Danes
It's spring break wooooooo! In my grand tradition of taking tropical vacations and getting drunk off my face for spring break, I am writing an essay on Soren Kierkegaard and Washington Irving. (For the record, the bit about drunken spring breaks... in the past few years, I have spent spring break: taking the MTEL, preparing to defend my senior thesis, and visiting prospective grad schools. Yeah.)
Anyway, I wanted to write down a few of my main ideas for this paper, kind of sort things out here and then get cracking on secondary research.
While Irving predates Kierkegaard by a few decades, and there is no evidence of Kierkegaard regarding Irving as an influence on his writing or thought, what first got me thinking about reading these two in conjunction with each other is their use of pseudonyms and fictional sources. This is interesting to me in terms of authorial distance and textual authority. Kierkegaard's pseudonymous "editor" of Either/Or, Victor Eremita, is very careful to emphasize that he did not write these papers and functions in the text as little more than a reader, interfering as little as possible with the papers he "found" in a second-hand writing desk. Similarly, Washington Irving's narrator Geoffrey Crayon frequently references the posthumous papers of Dietrich Knickerbocker as the source of much of the New York Dutch folklore in the Sketch Book. Like Victor Eremita, Crayon regards himself primarily as a reader and an observer, not as the authoritive voice in the text, but a facilitator of a conversation between many texts. Rather than an all-seeing, detached, authoritative author capable of giving final meaning to the text as a whole, in both Irving and Kierkegaard, we get a multiplicity of voice, numerous and contradictory points of view that are impossible to reconcile. For Kierkegaard, this is very much the point, to have irreconcilable differences between texts so that the reader is forced to make an ethical choice between two mutually-exclusive absolutes. I think Irving employs numerous authorial voices and points of view to evade choice, so as to preserve the cultural multiplicity that he saw was dwindling in nineteenth century America. Irving counters the idea that there needs to be a single narrative for the nation; instead of the great American novel, he gives us a series of sketches that stretch across the Atlantic and across hundreds of years. Irving fights against homogenization of American culture by weaving together fragments of other cultures; he is especially fond of Dutch New York, perhaps because the Dutch were the first European settlers in America and he disdained the anglicization that began after the Revolution.
Geoffrey Crayon and A, the author of the first section of Either/Or, both refer to folklore frequently. Folklore and fairy tales are not authoritative texts; they come from the voices of the common people, coming to us from the indistinct, remote past. No one can identify a precise origin, a single author, in folk tales; rather, they are the result of multiple authors, each changing the myth slightly every time it is told, yet preserving something as well.
In Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard describes the poet as the spirit of remembrance, and this is a very apt description for Irving's Geoffrey Crayon. Part of what makes Rip Van Winkle so comical is that he only slept for twenty years, yet in merely a generation, everything has changed so drastically that it is no longer recognizable; his community is alienated from the past, and as such, the individuals in it are alienated from each other. Rip Van Winkle, however, serves as a gathering point as the spirit of remembrance; he preserves the past that everyone has already forgotten. Rather than leaving a legacy of wealth for his own children, Rip Van Winkle leaves his stories to the community's children; he is not a father in the particular, insular family, but a patriarch of the entire community, initiating the liminal (children and travellers) into the society through his stories.
Authorship requires some distance, then; in order to be a storyteller, Rip Van Winkle abandons his domestic and work duties. He is not a man of business. Victor Eremita's name implies his distance from society as well; eremita is Latin for recluse, hermit. A also writes that he does not spend much time in society. Instead, he swoops down and retrieves pieces of it from time to time, bringing these scraps back to his nest to weave a tapestry of them.
There's a lot more that I'm going to write about this, but I need to do some more research first. I'm really enjoying this paper so far, though!
Anyway, I wanted to write down a few of my main ideas for this paper, kind of sort things out here and then get cracking on secondary research.
While Irving predates Kierkegaard by a few decades, and there is no evidence of Kierkegaard regarding Irving as an influence on his writing or thought, what first got me thinking about reading these two in conjunction with each other is their use of pseudonyms and fictional sources. This is interesting to me in terms of authorial distance and textual authority. Kierkegaard's pseudonymous "editor" of Either/Or, Victor Eremita, is very careful to emphasize that he did not write these papers and functions in the text as little more than a reader, interfering as little as possible with the papers he "found" in a second-hand writing desk. Similarly, Washington Irving's narrator Geoffrey Crayon frequently references the posthumous papers of Dietrich Knickerbocker as the source of much of the New York Dutch folklore in the Sketch Book. Like Victor Eremita, Crayon regards himself primarily as a reader and an observer, not as the authoritive voice in the text, but a facilitator of a conversation between many texts. Rather than an all-seeing, detached, authoritative author capable of giving final meaning to the text as a whole, in both Irving and Kierkegaard, we get a multiplicity of voice, numerous and contradictory points of view that are impossible to reconcile. For Kierkegaard, this is very much the point, to have irreconcilable differences between texts so that the reader is forced to make an ethical choice between two mutually-exclusive absolutes. I think Irving employs numerous authorial voices and points of view to evade choice, so as to preserve the cultural multiplicity that he saw was dwindling in nineteenth century America. Irving counters the idea that there needs to be a single narrative for the nation; instead of the great American novel, he gives us a series of sketches that stretch across the Atlantic and across hundreds of years. Irving fights against homogenization of American culture by weaving together fragments of other cultures; he is especially fond of Dutch New York, perhaps because the Dutch were the first European settlers in America and he disdained the anglicization that began after the Revolution.
Geoffrey Crayon and A, the author of the first section of Either/Or, both refer to folklore frequently. Folklore and fairy tales are not authoritative texts; they come from the voices of the common people, coming to us from the indistinct, remote past. No one can identify a precise origin, a single author, in folk tales; rather, they are the result of multiple authors, each changing the myth slightly every time it is told, yet preserving something as well.
In Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard describes the poet as the spirit of remembrance, and this is a very apt description for Irving's Geoffrey Crayon. Part of what makes Rip Van Winkle so comical is that he only slept for twenty years, yet in merely a generation, everything has changed so drastically that it is no longer recognizable; his community is alienated from the past, and as such, the individuals in it are alienated from each other. Rip Van Winkle, however, serves as a gathering point as the spirit of remembrance; he preserves the past that everyone has already forgotten. Rather than leaving a legacy of wealth for his own children, Rip Van Winkle leaves his stories to the community's children; he is not a father in the particular, insular family, but a patriarch of the entire community, initiating the liminal (children and travellers) into the society through his stories.
Authorship requires some distance, then; in order to be a storyteller, Rip Van Winkle abandons his domestic and work duties. He is not a man of business. Victor Eremita's name implies his distance from society as well; eremita is Latin for recluse, hermit. A also writes that he does not spend much time in society. Instead, he swoops down and retrieves pieces of it from time to time, bringing these scraps back to his nest to weave a tapestry of them.
There's a lot more that I'm going to write about this, but I need to do some more research first. I'm really enjoying this paper so far, though!
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Cough Cough Wink Wink
I'm sick and I'm failing to concentrate on reading at the moment. So I thought I'd post.
I'm working my way through Either/Or and I'm really enjoying it so far. I'm using it for my research paper (due in two weeks, good grief!!!) in my class on American literature, read in conjunction with Washington Irving's The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon. I know, it's a weird combination-- an early American short story writer and a Danish philosopher. But it makes sense (I swear); I'm writing about authorship, the writer's contentious relationship with larger society, aesthetic distance and pseudonyms. It's going to be a good time.
If only I could stop coughing.
:-(
I'm working my way through Either/Or and I'm really enjoying it so far. I'm using it for my research paper (due in two weeks, good grief!!!) in my class on American literature, read in conjunction with Washington Irving's The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon. I know, it's a weird combination-- an early American short story writer and a Danish philosopher. But it makes sense (I swear); I'm writing about authorship, the writer's contentious relationship with larger society, aesthetic distance and pseudonyms. It's going to be a good time.
If only I could stop coughing.
:-(
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Masks
I've been writing this blog from an impersonal perspective. The premise was to write about books I've read, and then these last few posts have been attempts to keep myself on-track in other areas of my life, but I've kept my writing vague and distant. Both of these subjects, reading and maintaining a balanced life, are intensely personal, and these bland updates are not helping me with the unspoken goal here of reflecting thoughtfully on my experiences.
So let me begin again. I'll introduce myself. I'm in my second semester of grad school, working towards a Masters degree in English with the intent of teaching high school in two years. This summer, I moved over 400 miles away from my hometown and I'm now living on my own for the first time in my life (a college dorm 30 minutes from my parents' house doesn't count as living on my own). I live with my boyfriend, and my decision to go to school here was largely based on wanting to be together; he got a PhD offer here, I got into the Masters program, and I can say unabashedly that love led me here. People go to grad school for the humanities for a host of irrational reasons, and I say that being with my boyfriend is a perfectly valid one. Three years ago, that notion never would have made sense to me, when I was bent on earning a PhD even if it took me 20 years and a monomaniacal level of focus. Scholarship and learning are still very important to me; I'm in grad school and want to be a teacher, after all. But they're not everything, and since Jarrod came into my life, I've realized that there is much, much more to me than being a good student, although he certainly encourages me to be a scholar too (he wants me to apply to the PhD program here, but I have a lot of reasons why I don't want to). Yes, I love him.
Moving far from home has been a complex experience with a lot of highs and lows. Some days, I love my new city. Sometimes I feel inexplicably nostalgic over something random and weird, like the roads I used to run on in my hometown or the way the morning sun fills the kitchen of my parents' house. I occasionally hate grad school and threaten to quit. Other times, I love it and get excited about what I'm reading and writing. It's an undulating tide of emotions that I'm trying to sort through, but I'm thankful to have this experience. For a long time, I avoided all risks and didn't challenge myself beyond what I knew I could achieve with reasonable effort. Now, for the first time in my life really, I know that I could put everything I have into some of my endeavors and still fail.
There's life after failure, and I'm a deeper person because I've failed. There is tragedy in life and I don't try to turn away from it. There is a great deal of comedy too. I'm trying to be brave enough and smart enough to recognize both.
So let me begin again. I'll introduce myself. I'm in my second semester of grad school, working towards a Masters degree in English with the intent of teaching high school in two years. This summer, I moved over 400 miles away from my hometown and I'm now living on my own for the first time in my life (a college dorm 30 minutes from my parents' house doesn't count as living on my own). I live with my boyfriend, and my decision to go to school here was largely based on wanting to be together; he got a PhD offer here, I got into the Masters program, and I can say unabashedly that love led me here. People go to grad school for the humanities for a host of irrational reasons, and I say that being with my boyfriend is a perfectly valid one. Three years ago, that notion never would have made sense to me, when I was bent on earning a PhD even if it took me 20 years and a monomaniacal level of focus. Scholarship and learning are still very important to me; I'm in grad school and want to be a teacher, after all. But they're not everything, and since Jarrod came into my life, I've realized that there is much, much more to me than being a good student, although he certainly encourages me to be a scholar too (he wants me to apply to the PhD program here, but I have a lot of reasons why I don't want to). Yes, I love him.
Moving far from home has been a complex experience with a lot of highs and lows. Some days, I love my new city. Sometimes I feel inexplicably nostalgic over something random and weird, like the roads I used to run on in my hometown or the way the morning sun fills the kitchen of my parents' house. I occasionally hate grad school and threaten to quit. Other times, I love it and get excited about what I'm reading and writing. It's an undulating tide of emotions that I'm trying to sort through, but I'm thankful to have this experience. For a long time, I avoided all risks and didn't challenge myself beyond what I knew I could achieve with reasonable effort. Now, for the first time in my life really, I know that I could put everything I have into some of my endeavors and still fail.
There's life after failure, and I'm a deeper person because I've failed. There is tragedy in life and I don't try to turn away from it. There is a great deal of comedy too. I'm trying to be brave enough and smart enough to recognize both.
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Wouldn't it be loverly?
(To explain the title, I just read Pygmalion. Songs from My Fair Lady have been stuck in my head all week)
A couple of weeks into the semester, I feel like I'm doing fairly well with staying balanced. Last weekend, Jarrod and I played music (he plays bass, I'm a clarinetist), I painted during my mid-week snow day, and I've talked to my parents and my sister on the phone/Skype. I've also been working out more frequently, using the gym on campus even though I hate gyms. I like to run outside. That's about it. I loathe treadmills and elliptical machines with a passion. I'm hideously awkward on them; I can't figure out my usual running speed in miles per hour, I hate all the mirrors (who really wants to see what they look like when they run?), and I don't like indoor tracks because I feel like a hamster on a wheel... but no one plows in Buffalo so running outside is still too hazardous. Therefore, the gym One benefit is that I am getting better about mixing up my workouts. I tend to focus exclusively on cardio with either running, swimming, or biking, but now Jarrod is helping me with weight training.
I think I'm going to quit coffee for a while too. With the early, early mornings we have to put in this semester, it's tempting to start the day on campus at Starbucks, but I don't want to become dependent on caffeine or spend more money than I need to, so coffee is out. Presently, tea tastes better to me now anyway, so it won't be much of a sacrifice. Yes, I know tea has caffeine too but it's about a third of the amount of caffeine in coffee, so I'm not getting bent out of shape about it.
That's all for now. Back to homework before hopefully doing something fun tonight.
A couple of weeks into the semester, I feel like I'm doing fairly well with staying balanced. Last weekend, Jarrod and I played music (he plays bass, I'm a clarinetist), I painted during my mid-week snow day, and I've talked to my parents and my sister on the phone/Skype. I've also been working out more frequently, using the gym on campus even though I hate gyms. I like to run outside. That's about it. I loathe treadmills and elliptical machines with a passion. I'm hideously awkward on them; I can't figure out my usual running speed in miles per hour, I hate all the mirrors (who really wants to see what they look like when they run?), and I don't like indoor tracks because I feel like a hamster on a wheel... but no one plows in Buffalo so running outside is still too hazardous. Therefore, the gym One benefit is that I am getting better about mixing up my workouts. I tend to focus exclusively on cardio with either running, swimming, or biking, but now Jarrod is helping me with weight training.
I think I'm going to quit coffee for a while too. With the early, early mornings we have to put in this semester, it's tempting to start the day on campus at Starbucks, but I don't want to become dependent on caffeine or spend more money than I need to, so coffee is out. Presently, tea tastes better to me now anyway, so it won't be much of a sacrifice. Yes, I know tea has caffeine too but it's about a third of the amount of caffeine in coffee, so I'm not getting bent out of shape about it.
That's all for now. Back to homework before hopefully doing something fun tonight.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
First Semester Re-Cap
Happy 2011! I'm back after the most grueling five months of my life. That's right, I completed my first semester of graduate school (I'm getting a Master's in English).
A lot has happened since I first started this blog about a year ago; I started off by posting about the books I read as a way to keep myself in a semi-academic mindset in the gap year between graduating college and starting graduate school. Now that I'm here in grad school, academic exercises do not require the kind of extra exertion that they did when I was out of school. Academics now take up a large portion of my life-- in this first semester, it felt like an excessively large portion-- and that requires a redirection of energies. Reading and scholarship will take care of themselves now; I have and will put in the necessary hours of studying, writing, editing, etc., but I need to be as diligent about not letting other areas of my life slide for the sake of scholarship as I was about keeping up with reading and thinking critically when I wasn't a student.
I will always think of myself as a student and learning will always be an important part of my life, but now that I have this first semester behind me, I know better what it's place should be. Academia is not the place for me, and I will be very happy to finish this program next spring. I value all that I have learned and I look forward to my remaining time as a Masters student, but I would not consider going for a PhD. Scholarship cannot be my entire life.
As far as this blog is concerned, well, I'm not really sure what shape it's going to take now. I want to hold myself accountable for being healthy, nurturing my relationships, and enjoying the new city in which I live. I suppose now its focus will broaden to include all the aspects of living on my own and shaping my adult life. Still much to be learned, so I'll keep the title as it is.
I particularly want to make sure that I keep art in my life as I press onward with graduate studies. I did not take time to paint or draw at all this semester, and I noticed a change in my mood as a result, so I will probably use this blog to document some of my artistic projects (like the mural I started on the back of my bookcase in August, which I'm working on presently).
That's all for now; the new semester starts in less than two weeks and I intend to make it a more balanced one than the first.
A lot has happened since I first started this blog about a year ago; I started off by posting about the books I read as a way to keep myself in a semi-academic mindset in the gap year between graduating college and starting graduate school. Now that I'm here in grad school, academic exercises do not require the kind of extra exertion that they did when I was out of school. Academics now take up a large portion of my life-- in this first semester, it felt like an excessively large portion-- and that requires a redirection of energies. Reading and scholarship will take care of themselves now; I have and will put in the necessary hours of studying, writing, editing, etc., but I need to be as diligent about not letting other areas of my life slide for the sake of scholarship as I was about keeping up with reading and thinking critically when I wasn't a student.
I will always think of myself as a student and learning will always be an important part of my life, but now that I have this first semester behind me, I know better what it's place should be. Academia is not the place for me, and I will be very happy to finish this program next spring. I value all that I have learned and I look forward to my remaining time as a Masters student, but I would not consider going for a PhD. Scholarship cannot be my entire life.
As far as this blog is concerned, well, I'm not really sure what shape it's going to take now. I want to hold myself accountable for being healthy, nurturing my relationships, and enjoying the new city in which I live. I suppose now its focus will broaden to include all the aspects of living on my own and shaping my adult life. Still much to be learned, so I'll keep the title as it is.
I particularly want to make sure that I keep art in my life as I press onward with graduate studies. I did not take time to paint or draw at all this semester, and I noticed a change in my mood as a result, so I will probably use this blog to document some of my artistic projects (like the mural I started on the back of my bookcase in August, which I'm working on presently).
That's all for now; the new semester starts in less than two weeks and I intend to make it a more balanced one than the first.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Still Alive
I don't think anyone actually reads this anymore.
Anyway.
I'm almost done with my first semester of grad school.
This is harder than I had ever imagined. I've been pushed to my limits. Tears have been shed. Much sleep and a few pounds have been lost.
But I've gained so much being here, and I think I've become better for these past five months. I know that this experience will make me a better teacher. I have a new empathy for struggling students, the ones who just can't seem to get it. I've been there now.
I still hope to get it in the end. I'll write back later for a more comprehensive reflection, but until then, I'm writing until my fingers break.
Anyway.
I'm almost done with my first semester of grad school.
This is harder than I had ever imagined. I've been pushed to my limits. Tears have been shed. Much sleep and a few pounds have been lost.
But I've gained so much being here, and I think I've become better for these past five months. I know that this experience will make me a better teacher. I have a new empathy for struggling students, the ones who just can't seem to get it. I've been there now.
I still hope to get it in the end. I'll write back later for a more comprehensive reflection, but until then, I'm writing until my fingers break.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Sweet New England
My worldly possessions are ready to be loaded into a truck tomorrow morning, including a lot of my pictures. I still have them all on my computer, however, so here are some images of my final summer in New England.
The first few images are from a walk around my neighborhood
Love
Strawberry-picking in New Hampshire
And baseball in Rhode Island
Boston on Independence Day
A garden in Harvard
One last trip to my alma mater
My friend's mad tea party birthday
And a goodbye cakeThursday, July 22, 2010
Movin' Out
My life is slowly being packed away into cardboard boxes, stuffed and crammed into impossibly tight corners, waiting to explode into a new space.
(I have four boxes packed like that, nothing but books.)
This is my final week of living in my parents' house, which has been home for my entire life. This inspires certain thoughts.
I remember what it was like in the days before my older sisters left home. I was eleven when my eldest sister got married. Just a few days before the wedding, my father, my sister's fiance, and the best man stood around a huge map unfolded across my kitchen table and traced the route from Massachusetts to Kansas with their fingers. I was enthralled by the idea of driving hundreds and hundreds of miles away to a place that would instantly be their new home. I foolishly imagined my sister making the entire journey in her white wedding dress, and failed to comprehend why my mother was crying in the other room. There was a wedding and an adventure, and this was the best time of all because of the pleasure of anticipation; none of it had happened yet, but it was so close, just brushing the fingertips of the grand event. To the eleven year old mind, it was like 10 PM on Christmas Eve, and called for excited impatience for a day when everything would be different.
I expected great change-- my sister was now going to be a bride and immediately transform into a wife. The entire day would be filled with romantic magic. But we got up the morning of the wedding and Laurie's maid of honor and bridesmaid came over to watch a few episodes of Friends, and I sat on the swing outside until I was made to come in and put on my yellow dress. My hair was braided and sprayed stiff and had flowers woven into the twists, and then it was time to go to the church. The church did not look any different than it ever did; I genuflected and sat in the pew between Katie and our mom, as always. Then I watched my sister and her husband have their pictures taken, and we went to the reception hall, where there were no mysterious and romantic boys for me to dance with, no glittering aura filling the air or reflecting off the candle centerpieces.
Afterwards, my life went on and we all settled into a new normal. Laurie left and Diet Coke was now excinded from the grocery list. She had been living away at college for the last three years, so her absence wasn't completely foreign. There was an empty room in the house now, and my parents moved their bedroom downstairs to give my sister Katie and me free reign over the upper level of our house.
We could have had our own rooms then, something that most eleven and fourteen year old sisters would rejoice over-- but Katie and I were unusual girls. We decided to stay together in the same room we had shared our entire lives. Little changed, even when Katie graduated high school and began college; I was her only college roommate, since she commuted to school from home.
(I have four boxes packed like that, nothing but books.)
This is my final week of living in my parents' house, which has been home for my entire life. This inspires certain thoughts.
I remember what it was like in the days before my older sisters left home. I was eleven when my eldest sister got married. Just a few days before the wedding, my father, my sister's fiance, and the best man stood around a huge map unfolded across my kitchen table and traced the route from Massachusetts to Kansas with their fingers. I was enthralled by the idea of driving hundreds and hundreds of miles away to a place that would instantly be their new home. I foolishly imagined my sister making the entire journey in her white wedding dress, and failed to comprehend why my mother was crying in the other room. There was a wedding and an adventure, and this was the best time of all because of the pleasure of anticipation; none of it had happened yet, but it was so close, just brushing the fingertips of the grand event. To the eleven year old mind, it was like 10 PM on Christmas Eve, and called for excited impatience for a day when everything would be different.
I expected great change-- my sister was now going to be a bride and immediately transform into a wife. The entire day would be filled with romantic magic. But we got up the morning of the wedding and Laurie's maid of honor and bridesmaid came over to watch a few episodes of Friends, and I sat on the swing outside until I was made to come in and put on my yellow dress. My hair was braided and sprayed stiff and had flowers woven into the twists, and then it was time to go to the church. The church did not look any different than it ever did; I genuflected and sat in the pew between Katie and our mom, as always. Then I watched my sister and her husband have their pictures taken, and we went to the reception hall, where there were no mysterious and romantic boys for me to dance with, no glittering aura filling the air or reflecting off the candle centerpieces.
Afterwards, my life went on and we all settled into a new normal. Laurie left and Diet Coke was now excinded from the grocery list. She had been living away at college for the last three years, so her absence wasn't completely foreign. There was an empty room in the house now, and my parents moved their bedroom downstairs to give my sister Katie and me free reign over the upper level of our house.
We could have had our own rooms then, something that most eleven and fourteen year old sisters would rejoice over-- but Katie and I were unusual girls. We decided to stay together in the same room we had shared our entire lives. Little changed, even when Katie graduated high school and began college; I was her only college roommate, since she commuted to school from home.
I was 18 when she married Eric, and much more comprehending of the significance of the event. The night before the wedding, Katie and I sat on our beds in our pajamas and talked, like we always had, the conversation ranging from the wedding to her moving to Maine (and how I was going to buy her a big ugly flannel nightgown for the cold Maine winters), to random childhood memories. I wasn't sad, though I was wistfully aware that this was the final night of us being the two Jaworek girls and that, from tomorrow onward, things would be different. It would never be like this again, and that was sadly sweet; childhood never lasts, and the final vestiges of ours were falling away. The next morning, we woke up early and padded downstairs to a breakfast of muffins (I took a cranberry one, Katie went for the double chocolate muffin), and talked with our parents at the table like always. Then it was time for Katie to change into her white dress, me into my pink one, and we headed to the church.
After the wedding, I returned to my half-empty room and for the first time, I was Jen Alone.
That room gradually metamorphosized into my own; my twin bed's twin was dissembled and stowed away in the attic, my desk and bookshelves eventually took the bed's place, our old stuffed animals were donated or passed down to Katie's daughters, and my own twin bed joined its counterpart in the attic when I upgraded to a queen-sized bed.
And now I sort through it all and decide what to bring with me, what to keep here in my parents' house, what to throw away. This room will soon be vacant. Before, it was Laurie's and then it was passed into my and Katie's hands, and then left solely to me, and there is no one to take my place. Already, it feels like it's not fully mine, like my college was no longer mine during my final week on campus; I walked about by myself in those last days, remembering the places and people and felt that I was already absent. I was a ghost.
Will I haunt this room, this house? Katie haunts it still, so does Laurie: I still keep my bed to the left side of the room, perhaps to preserve the space for Katie's phantom bed, there are marks on the ceiling from our old glow-in-the-dark plastic stars, the carpet in my parents' bedroom is the same deep cranberry color that a 15-year-old Laurie chose, my sisters' chairs at the kitchen table remain vacant. Rooms store memories in their corners, even when those corners are empty and dusty.
Soon, I will leave this house and leave part of myself here. I'm just not sure what part will stay behind in these rooms, how much of me is left out in the backyard with the old spoons and plastic toys, long forgotten, rusted and buried and broken, but still there. And other parts of me will emerge in Buffalo from the strange new soil of grad school, my own apartment, Jarrod's presence, my natural mutability.
Everything feels so amorphous and jumbled together, though it's all wrapped in paper, packed away into tidy boxes and labeled neatly. I feel excited, nervous, wistful, hopeful, hopeless, afraid, ambitious, determined, and everything all at once.
You know? I wouldn't change that. I want to feel everything, think everything, and write this all down, as confused and inelegant as it may be.
Friday, July 16, 2010
Life Update
I haven't written on here in a few weeks. First, I want to note that I'm not nearly as sad as I was when I wrote that last entry on the day that my dog died. I'll always miss Sasha, but I know that it was her time and I had to let her go.
This month has been insane because I'm preparing for my big move. In two weeks, I'll be packing up my life and [cliche alert!!] shuffle off the Buffalo, where I will earn my Masters in English. I'm packing, planning, making phone calls, reminiscing, painting, and writing and moving in a million different directions at once (emotionally, that is; physically, I just get on one highway and head west until I hit my first Great Lake). The last few weeks have been a whirlwind of activity and emotion, and it's only going to intensify from here on out. Despite all the turbulence that necessarily surrounds this kind of life change, I can't contain how excited I am to embark on this adventure with my boyfriend, my best friend, Jarrod.
So this blog will undergo some changes in this process; I won't have as much time to write here, because I'll be writing papers for classes, studying, exploring my new city, and living. But, when I do post, I am certain that the quality of these scribblings will be much improved, because I want to keep this as a sort of portfolio of my work; after I hand in my papers for school and get them back with grades and comments, I'm going to make some edits to them and post them here.
In the meantime, I'll post a few things about this preparation period and my move (expect pictures!), and try to keep sane.
This month has been insane because I'm preparing for my big move. In two weeks, I'll be packing up my life and [cliche alert!!] shuffle off the Buffalo, where I will earn my Masters in English. I'm packing, planning, making phone calls, reminiscing, painting, and writing and moving in a million different directions at once (emotionally, that is; physically, I just get on one highway and head west until I hit my first Great Lake). The last few weeks have been a whirlwind of activity and emotion, and it's only going to intensify from here on out. Despite all the turbulence that necessarily surrounds this kind of life change, I can't contain how excited I am to embark on this adventure with my boyfriend, my best friend, Jarrod.
So this blog will undergo some changes in this process; I won't have as much time to write here, because I'll be writing papers for classes, studying, exploring my new city, and living. But, when I do post, I am certain that the quality of these scribblings will be much improved, because I want to keep this as a sort of portfolio of my work; after I hand in my papers for school and get them back with grades and comments, I'm going to make some edits to them and post them here.
In the meantime, I'll post a few things about this preparation period and my move (expect pictures!), and try to keep sane.
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