Category Archives: finals

Getting Un-Stuck

Posted on by
Reply

As you, dear reader, have seen from my previous posts, it is, as they say, “go time”.

This semester, I have a unique conundrum.

I am a meticulous researcher and a slow writer. This is good for some things, but not for others.

In certain fields, it’s very easy to get bogged down by what everyone else has said before. There is so much writing on Shakespeare already that finding a place for one’s own voice can be extremely difficult. In this regard, the fact that I do spend so much time in the research phase means that it’s even easier for me to fall into the chasm of academic apathy: “Why bother saying anything when everything’s already been said?! Why do I even exist?”. It also means that it’s extremely exciting when I do come upon something within my own mind that has not been said before (“YAY! I’m smarter and more creative than a whole giant field of scholarship!” Disclaimer: not really true, it’s easy to get carried away sometimes).

Sometimes I go into the research process with an idea already formulating. Sometimes I just go into it with a general topic in the hopes that something will spark.

This semester (for one of my papers at least), I’ve been on a long and winding road of type two. I’m working on a project involving eighteenth century depictions of Shakespeare’s ghost onstage and, surprise surprise, there’s a WHOLE LOT out there.

So how do you go from “What have I done?” to “Look what I did!”? Well, let me give you a sneak peak of my process.

I’ve already written about the process which I follow to create a paper. But what if, as happened to me just this week, you hit a snag? What if you have all of your research together, piled neatly into little segments by theme, but no clue as to what it says? What if you are on a deadline and have to turn in an abstract re: what this paper is going to be about before you yourself even know? What if you simply can’t understand how the heck you’re supposed to fit your voice into this mammoth discourse already in progress, but you don’t have time to start over, and the thought of re-hitting the books is simply making you cry?

Don’t despair. Yet. Try a few of these things (they worked for me eventually).

*Take out a piece of paper and physically write down (not type, WRITE) everything

My writing-it-down led to something... as you can tell by my enthusiastic circling. Also: my desk ornaments.

you know about the topic which you have chosen to research. What are the big ideas? How do they relate to each other? Where are the holes in this web? This act in and of itself may spark something. Writing things down and thinking about them in terms of the big picture loosens up the information in your head. It gets your synapses firing in a meta way and forces you to draw connections which you may have already known, but hadn’t quite understood yet. It also demonstrates very graphically where the lapses in information are and those places are places for you to do some work. Fill in those gaps with your own thinking! Write and publish, people, so that students in the future will have to contend with your work as a roadblock.

*Don’t forget step three. The shower is the most important part of my creative process. And really, who couldn’t use more showers in her life?

*Re-read your source material. Now that you’ve done the research around it, turn back to the piece that originally inspired you (be it play or novel). Chances are, you will spot all the things that the other people have spotted, but you may also spot something new, different, and exciting. And really, you started this project because you were inspired by this piece, why shouldn’t it inspire you again?

*Go back to your theory. You haven’t just been reading it for your health. A straightforward, theory-driven reading is often times too simplistic for a graduate-level paper, but integrating theory is another great way to get you thinking about something differently. Applying theory can help you to arrive at some new conclusion, something you hadn’t seen before. Most importantly: theory is the building blocks of an argument. You can bat around theory, there are plenty of spaces for interpretation, and theory is universal and applicable almost anywhere. Get canny with your Kant, formative with your Foucault, dexterous with your Derrida, and brilliant with your Bakhtin!

*If none of these things work, and you still feel buried and struggling, contact your professor. She is a pro. She’s been doing this a lot longer than you have. If you have your research in order, if you are on top of your writing schedule, there is nothing to be ashamed of. Floundering happens to EVERYONE and your professor has also, in her time, floundered. She will have tips and tricks to help you. She will understand the discourses you are dealing with. She will likely also have a few ideas about your project that can help to unstick you. Trust in her experience, trust in your ability to articulate your own work eloquently, and turn to your mentors for support. That’s why they’re there, after all.

And if all else fails, just remember the sage words of the good Doctor (no, not THAT

not THAT Doctor

Doctor…):

You won’t lag behind,
because you’ll have the speed.
You’ll pass the whole gang
and you’ll soon take the lead.
Wherever you fly, you’ll be best of the best.
Wherever you go, you will top all the rest.

Except when you don’t.
Because, sometimes, you won’t.
I’m sorry to say so
but, sadly, it’s true
that Bang-ups
and Hang-ups
can happen to you.
You can get all hung up
in a prickle-ly perch.
And your gang will fly on.

You’ll be left in a Lurch.
You’ll come down from the Lurch
with an unpleasant bump.
And the chances are, then,
that you’ll be in a Slump.
And when you’re in a Slump,
you’re not in for much fun.
Un-slumping yourself
is not easily done.

You will come to a place where the streets are not marked.
Some windows are lighted. But mostly they’re darked.
A place you could sprain both your elbow and chin!
Do you dare to stay out? Do you dare to go in?
How much can you lose? How much can you win?

And IF you go in, should you turn left or right…
or right-and-three-quarters? Or, maybe, not quite?
Or go around back and sneak in from behind?
Simple it’s not, I’m afraid you will find,
for a mind-maker-upper to make up his mind.

You can get so confused
that you’ll start in to race
down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace
and grind on for miles cross weirdish wild space,
headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.

The Waiting Place…
…for people just waiting.
Waiting for a train to go
or a bus to come,
or a plane to go
or the mail to come,
or the rain to go
or the phone to ring,
or the snow to snow
or the waiting around for a Yes or No
or waiting for their hair to grow.
Everyone is just waiting.

THIS Doctor

Waiting for the fish to bite
or waiting for the wind to fly a kite
or waiting around for Friday night
or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake
or a pot to boil, or a Better Break
or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants
or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.
Everyone is just waiting.

NO!
  That’s not for you!

Somehow you’ll escape
all that waiting and staying
You’ll find the bright places
where Boom Bands are playing.

So go! Off with you! Find those boom bands and make those papers sing!

…I’m off to take a shower.

Happy Tuesday

Posted on by
2

Good friends and gentle readers,

Hello from finals panic!  Things are progressing apace here in Dani-land and I’m steeped in the inevitable mountain of reading, research, work to do, not enough hours in which to do it, library books, and yenning for my social life that comes with the end of the semester.

As such, here’s a completely random list of things that have crossed my mind/desk this week.  I don’t have a single sustained coherent thought to share, but maybe this will serve as a brief entertainment while I struggle to not get run over by the homework truck.

1)    Tea is great and wonderful and everyone should own a French press.  I get most of my tea from adagio, and have even tried my hand at blending my own.  My blends can be found here.

2)    Good god, if I need to explain to another undergrad at the library that no, I don’t want to just leave my returned books in a stack by the door, I want to watch you return them for me while I stand here checking them off my list because I have a giant mountain at home and I really can’t be financially responsible for a lost book, I’m going to beat someone with a bad Hamlet quarto.  I understand that it is possible to leave one’s books by the door.  There’s a giant sign there that tells me so.  I also understand that you’re busy checking your facebook or e-mail or whatever.  I also understand that you’re being paid to sit at this desk, so please just scan these books for me and don’t roll your eyes at me.  In my day, we had to walk uphill both ways to the library in ten feet of snow without shoes on!  You don’t know how lucky you have it!  Harumph.

3)    Knowing that I’m stressed, and knowing that I’m having a hard week, my

Charles and Mary Lamb.... also not particularly attractive individuals...

best friend brought me a copy of Lamb’s Tales From Shakespeare.  I cannot think of a better finals gift.  What says “I love you and I am here to make sure you don’t drive yourself crazy with schoolwork” like a well-loved copy of early nineteenth century moralized children’s stories based upon Shakespeare’s originals written by a matricidal kook and her quasi-incesty brother? (…no… I’m serious.  The Lambs were effed up.  Also: I love it).

4)    I got interviewed as an expert for GSAS’ blog post about academic conferencing!  It went live today; you can check it out here.  I love feeling legitimate!

5)    My tweet has made it to the final round of voting for the Tufts GSAS Tweet of the Semester competition.  I managed to win this last semester, and I’m hoping for another win this time.  I’ll let you know when voting for the finals opens up.  The winner receives a gift certificate to the school bookstore (which, for a graduate student, is THE BEST THING EVER).  Go team Dani!

6)    I sat down the other day to begin the pile of research that’s on my desk and, in the first book I cracked, came across an essay by my mentor over at Rutgers.  It made me smile to see his name in print first thing in the morning and, while not entirely surprising since he IS an authority on Johnson and the book WAS about Shakespeare and Johnson, still somehow felt serendipitous.  Also: right or wrong, it gave me a cosmic sense of hope.

Since I can't think of anything else to put here, here's an adorable baby sloth.

 7)    Tally of total library books checked out this semester: 68 and counting.  Books currently checked out: 31.  Books currently unread on my desk: 8.  Days until last final is due: 34.  Number of projects that still require completing in that time period: 7.  Number of projects which require completing in the next seven days: 3 (not counting the one I finished yesterday).

8)    …and miles to go before I sleep.

A Cautionary Tale…

Posted on by
Reply

A Cautionary Tale for you….

Once upon a time at the beginning of a semester long ago in a far away land called Boston, there was a Lady Knight deeply embroiled in battle with the Homework Dragon.

It was one of three beasts of its type which she knew she would be facing this semester (as she did every semester).  It was of the genus “Classius Presentationus” and had a knack for being a time-consuming creature which often required creative tactics in order to properly finish off.

Just as she was reaching the peak of her epic fight, the moment that would make or break

Yup. Totally what I do every day.

her, she was given a choice as to when she would like to face the other two of its kind which inevitably awaited her down the path.

Between dodging its razor-sharp fangs and neatly avoiding the swings of its sinewy tale, the Knight uttered from between gritted teeth “as far away from now as possible”.

Of course, as often happens when entrenched in a fight for one’s very life, the Knight made one key oversight: there was a chimera lurking at the end of her current journey which she would also need to, inevitably, face.

In putting off the second two Dragons, she had created a situation in which she would be mercilessly torn at by all five adversaries at the same time.

In other words: check your calendars before you commit to class presentations, folks.  Don’t make my mistake.  Due to my own stupidity, I’m currently drowning in three papers, two and a half presentations, and the usual weekly dosage of class reading in addition to some personal projects and a conference paper which has been requested for submission to publish.

My white board is at critical capacity.

So is my brain.

So is my schedule.

Oh, and I’ve managed to incubate the finals plague again, once more baffling medical science with my body’s ability to creatively re-arrange contagion in ways that may even make Dr. House cry.

It’s going to be a long month.

Idea Time

Posted on by
2

We have reached that point in the semester at which one is not only expected, but required, to have original thoughts.

Yes, folks, it’s paper-topic-pitch time.

You see, before you begin work on your final paper, you need to check in with your professor and ensure that you’re on the right track.  You need to ensure that your idea is A) what the professor is expecting from a final paper, B) viable in the confines of your time schedule and resources, C) interesting both to you and said professor, and D) not an egregious example of something totally done before (which you didn’t know about because you’re a lowly grad student, but your professor does because he’s a total rockstar).  To check in with your professor, you need to first formulate an idea, then do some amount of preliminary research to ensure that (should you be given the green light), this is a viable project in terms of the amount of work already done in the field.  In addition, you never want to walk into a professor’s office and sound completely “green”; knowing what you’re talking about (even if you don’t really know what you’re talking bout) is KEY in academia.

For some, this process  occur later in the semester than for others.  I personally like to start

Romantically, I would like to think that he NEVER had this problem. Realistically, he probably had it ALL THE TIME.

as early as I can.  While it is POSSIBLE for me to pump out a research paper in a month, ideally I like six to eight weeks to produce something complete, intelligible, and intelligent.  Especially when I’m working on multiple projects at the same time.

Which means that, now that I’ve done about half a semester’s worth of reading in each class, I now need to have something to say about it… something original, something ready to be backed by research, something that can sustain the breadth and depth of a twenty-ish page research paper.

This comes easier in some classes than others.  Sometimes I’ll have an idea going into a class.  Sometimes something will spark when doing class reading.  And sometimes I’ll be left with pen in hand, a blank screen, clutching my Norton fervently and paging through the reading furiously to try and eke something out.  Usually, I’ll have a fairly solid idea for one class, then something more amorphous for a second, and only the barest hint of concepts for the third.

This semester, for whatever reason, I’m feeling extremely pinched to come up with something worth exploring.

It’s not that my classes aren’t interesting or thought provoking.  It’s not that there hasn’t been enough reading to spur ideas from.  It’s certainly not that my professors are sub-par.  I think my current state is simply an immediate effect of second-semester burnout.  My mind has gone so numb with EVERYTHING I AM CRAMMING INTO IT EVAR! that original thought is almost beyond me at this point.

The worst part is that idea conception is probably one of my favorite bits about academia.  The creative spark is something that, as an artist, I’m always excited about.  There’s nothing quite like that moment when the lightbulb flicks on and a single idea snowballs into something feasible, even more interesting than you had initially thought, and something which you’re excited to share with the world at large (or at least your colleagues… or at the very least your professor).  I’ve been fascinated in recent years by the idea of structured creativity; the sort of artistry that an academic can bring to one’s work.

There’s no doubt that creativity is a must-have for my job.  The ability to think laterally is what makes a good researcher, a good idea-chewer, and a good scholar.  The ability to effectively communicate the culmination of this makes a good writer.  In order to be successful in this field, one needs all of these qualities.

Far too often, creativity is suppressed in the graduate student.  As I addressed in my post earlier this week, we are simply force-fed so much information that digesting all of it into one’s own self is simply impossible.  There is no way that I will walk out of this semester able to truly own the majority of what we’ve been given.  The best I can hope for is a lasting memory (aided by good notes) of the Wise Words of Wisdom my professors have uttered, a sense of the dominant theories we’re dealing with, and a few good papers which I can advance as personal projects.

Of course, that is, if I can come up with some brilliant ideas about what I should write.  Or

one of these! That's what I need!

even a starting place.  I’ll take a starting place at this point.

…maybe I just need a drawing board.  It can’t hurt, right?  I bet I could find room for one in my apartment…

To Liberty, not to Banishment!

Aside

1

Today is an historic day my friends.

A day, as they say, that will live in infamy.  A day for the books.  A day to be celebrated.  A day of wonder and joy.

Today, I turn in the last two finals of my first semester.  Turn in.  Done.  Can’t look at them anymore, won’t look at them anymore, goodbye, see you next year, adios, hate to see you leave but love to watch you go.

I can’t say it hasn’t been a bumpy ride.  This semester has had its trials, its tribulations, its joys, its sorrows, its mysteriously unexplainable illnesses which the doctors are still scratching their heads over…

But I did it.  And I’m still standing (though barely due to aforementioned mysterious illness).  As of this afternoon, I will be free to enjoy a few weeks of working on other projects and reading things that I want to read before I dive back into the fray in January.

For now, let’s have a look at the things that I’ve done this semester.  A re-cap, if you will; a sentimental journey into the past three and a half months.

I have seen seven plays (not bad, but not great… will do better next semester).

I have read four leisure books (before you start casting aspersions, remember that this is reading I did when I wasn’t in class, sleeping, reading for class, researching, or writing papers.  Considering these books average about seven hundred pages a pop, I think that’s pretty darn good).

At the peak of my book hoarding, I had forty-seven simultaneously checked out library books.  Every semester, I mean to do a count of total books checked out but this isn’t as easy to manage as you may think.  I have a revolving door for library books and sometimes only keep a book for a single day before returning it… I really have to develop a more sophisticated tracking system.

I can’t even begin to approximate the number of pages I have read.  Again, every semester I mean to develop a system to figure this out (either to scare or impress myself, I’m not certain which).  I’m open to suggestions about either of these systems in hopes that next semester I can have an actual counter… and maybe a progress bar or something.

I have produced eighty-two pages of turn-in-able scholarly writing (if you think about that as a breakdown of pages per day I’m averaging 1.17 pages per semester day; not counting the blog or leisure writing.  That’s pretty darn impressive, if you ask me!).

I have conducted my first bit of research based in interviews with real live people.

I have produced my first bit of turn-in-able scholarly research based solely in archive work.

I have narrowly avoided being eaten by velociraptors.

I have landed my first gig writing something to be published (book review, forthcoming, not a huge thing but it’s definitely a start!)

I have, on the whole, survived, more or less intact.  This, again, is a gigantic feat.  For many days, my mantra was “don’t worry, you’re a first year, you’re only expected to survive.  Keep plugging.  Don’t fret.  Just keep going.”  Hey, look, with the strategic application of that mantra, I did survive!

So now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go turn in my last papers for the semester.  Then I’m going to go read something involving zombies and having no scholarly value whatsoever.  Then I’m going to watch a movie that has nothing to do with my research or area of expertise.

Winter break, she is here at last.

Toy Story

Posted on by
Reply

I have a lot of things on my desk.

Oh of course I have the usual stacks of books, papers, sundry office supplies, pictures, etc. but in addition I have accumulated quite a few cute little desk decorations from one

Liberty Duck, Shakescat, Gargoyle, Cthulhu, and a few other friends in between

place or another.  There’s Shakescat (a gift from an old roommate), Baby Hatching Gargoyle (a gift from my grandmother when I opened my theatre company and she realized that our logo was almost exactly like this sculpture), chibi chtulhu (I made him.  He’s adorable.  Who doesn’t want an elder god on their desk?), statue of liberty duck (gift from my nearest and dearest), and, of course, a few requisite littlest pet shop sets.

Okay, fine, I admit to it.  I, as an adult, have purchased toys that I, as a child, would never have played with.  When we were kids, the littlest pet shop playsets were TINY (and probably all manner of choking hazards).  They also weren’t all that cute.  Have you seen them recently?  Now, they have big giant eyes.  Also, as far as I can tell, a sense of humor.  For instance: on my desk right now are a pirate parrot, a carrier pigeon in a mailroom, a cute little cow, and an owl in a library who wears glasses.

Now, I love my owl.  She’s adorable.  But she has this problem.  She doesn’t like to stay in her library.  She flies the coop at least three times a week, sometimes while I’m sitting at the desk.  I don’t really know what her end goal is other than SWEET SWEET FREEDOM

FREEEDDDOOOOMMMMM!!!

(…which I assume would be acquired if she ever got any further than the patch of desk just below her library… unfortunately, I’m pretty good at preventing owl escapes so she’s never seen the outside world).

I never really understood what her trouble was.  After all, she lives in a LIBRARY.  Why would she EVER want to leave?

…I’m getting to the place in the semester where I’m beginning to see her point.

I turned in my first PhD level paper the other week (in Chicago style, a first for me, and with pretty pretty diagrams!).  The sense of accomplishment I should have felt at plonking that stack on the professor’s desk was, unfortunately, dwarfed by the knowledge that this was only one down…. There were still two lurking on my own desk waiting for their share of my rapidly dwindling attention.

So here I am.  Stuck in this library.  Looking yearningly to the world that I know awaits

my first PhD level paper!

outside.  I leave on Thursday for a two-week vacation and, by that time, all of my coursework for my first semester of the PhD will be completed.  By that time, I will have shrugged the weight of these papers from my back.  By that time, I will be able to sleep soundly knowing that the pages are tucked in to good hands and awaiting critical commentary.  By that time, I will be done done done.

And it will be time to take off my glasses, and leap bodily out of the library.  Alright, owl, maybe you have a point.  There’s a time for reading, and there’s a time for liberating, and right now I smell that beauteous odor of freedom wafting through the open door.  A few more days… just a few more days.

A Plague on Both your Houses

Posted on by
Reply

So I have this problem….(you know, I really wish I could go back through and easily determine how many blog posts I’ve written in the last year which begin with that phrase).

Inevitably, every year, no matter what else is going on in my life, no matter how well I’m handling things, no matter how tranquil I seem on the outside, I get sick during finals time.  If it’s a particularly stressful midterms time, I get sick then too.

I think the worst part is there is actually nothing I can do about this.  I am a healthy individual.  I work out regularly, my diet is bountiful with vegetables and lean proteins, I limit my carb and sugar intake, and I keep a good balance of work and fun in my life (it helps that I consider “going to the library” a “fun” activity).  I’m convinced that I could be the Buddha and still have this problem.  Even reaching a state of complete and utter spiritual nirvana would not save me from the finals crud.

Oh and even better than that; it’s not just normal sick.  Oh no.  That is FAR too maudlin for

Some year, it's going to be the zombie virus. My finals crud will be the start of the zombie holocaust.

this diva body apparently.  Every year I churn out a new and improved illness that is a perplexing case study for the medical profession at large.  I don’t just get a cold, I get the untreatable cold from hell that doesn’t respond to any medication (even symptom-relieving stuff that SHOULD WORK DAMMIT!).  I don’t just get a flu, I get the undiagnosable flu that Persephone got upon her first visit to the underworld and that’s why she had to eat the pomegranate because there was nothing else she could eat at the time and this flu has never since been heard from in myth or reality but oh man will it make some Medical Resident’s year that they have discovered another case of it!
Previous finals-time illnesses have included (but are not limited to): shingles (yes, people do get shingles… apparently the chicken pox virus attaches itself to your brain stem and outbreaks of shingles can be triggered by any number of things including stress), mono (yes, you can give yourself mono… all the bed-ridden splendor and none the fun-yet-apparently-not-required extracurricular activities that are supposed to precede it), and an undiagnosable eye problem which resulted in my vision fluctuating so wildly that I thought I was losing it and twelve (count them, TWELVE) trips to the eye doctor before they were able to figure out what the heck was going on.

So it just figures that, since I’m in the home stretch of finals, since my birthday is on Sunday and I have a full weekend of celebrating planned (including a requisite booze-a-thon which I will hopefully be able to participate in as my meds will have worn off by then), since I was handling things so well before some cosmic force decided to inexplicably add another thing on top of my teetering pile of stuff I’m juggling, I’m on day seven of the apparently untreatable illness from hell.

I’ve been two rounds of meds already for this (one the preliminary over-the-counter, the second prescription) and had my second doctor’s visit this morning (from which I emerged clutching a veritable atomic bomb of medication in hopes that this will clear things up).  I have missed a week at the gym, four pre-planned social activities, one day of classes, and countless hours of productive time at my computer spent otherwise curled up in a miserable ball on my couch.

There are few things more infuriating (and more devastating) than betrayal.  And the worst kind of betrayal is betrayal from the inside.  It’s not even like I can keelhaul my mutinous body for breaking down over something that my clearly superior mind had well in hand.

I’m working through the misery as best I can.  Really my body needs to recognize that slowing me down is doing it no favors as that simply makes me MORE rather than LESS stressed out.

I promise, body, there is a rest in your future…. Just not until after the holidays.  Stay with me for at least two more weeks, then at least you can collapse in a pile of mush for a few days before we sweep off to fulfill family obligations and spend the break making conference papers readable and getting a jump on the comps list and searching for publication venues and fellowship hunting…

….at least we can do most of that in our pajamas.  Pajamas, like muppets, make everything a little more tolerable.

A Special Kind of Hell

Posted on by
1

I seem to have hit that special place in finals.

Here’s a convoluted mixed metaphor for you:

Kid's got it right....

Writing a paper is like birthing a baby.  At first you start with your research.  That little niggling idea at the back of your head that’s based on something which you think you know but really have only the slightest idea about.  Maybe you’ve babysat it in the past.  Maybe you’ve flirted with it while walking by on the street.  In any case, you know it exists, you know that other people have done something like it, but you’re ready to try it for yourself now.

So you research and you research and you go along at a fair clip and one day, you realize, this has taken over your life.  This is all you do.  The only thing you want to talk about is your paper.  The only thing you can think about is this thing.  And it’s stressful and time-consuming and you can’t imagine that it’ll ever be done, but there’s so much to do, and at the same time that deadline is looming Damocles-like over your head (no matter how far off it may seem).

And then, one day, you sit down at your desk for hours and you create.  You stack up your research, you write, you attempt to gain some semblance of hold over what it is that you’ve found over the past few months/years.  And at the end, exhausted and brain mushy, you collapse in your chair knowing that this is only the beginning.

Now it’s time to hone, refine, attempt to comprehend what you’ve created.  It’s still in its infancy so it takes some time and sensitivity to really understand the personality of what it is that you’ve made.  You need to listen, but at the same time be a bit harsh with it, but not too harsh because then you’ll just convince yourself that you suck at everything.  You need to know when it’s time to write and know when it’s time to quite for the day and understand that some days will be better than others.

You sit at the forge and hone.  You grind off the spiky edges.  You adjust the awkward bits.  You crouch over your work in the most uncomfortable positions at the most uncomfortable of times because it needs to be perfected and challenged.  It needs to have the right amount of pressure put on it, the right amount of heat put under it, and the right amount of nurturing added to it.

And one day you think you’ll never get through it and god why did you even start this

Ah yes, mister Greenblatt. Someday I will have your career. Somehow.

project it’s so inane how could you ever think this was interesting you suck you suck you suck.  And the next day you realize that this isn’t half bad, in fact, it’s quite good.  It could really turn into something.  And the next day you realize maybe it has become something.  Maybe it’s worth something.  Maybe this is the elusive bit of “work” that you’ve been striving after for your whole career.  Maybe this is what makes you the next Stephen Greenblatt.

And, at some point, you need to let go.  You need to say “I’ve done everything I can” and, even though you know your little fledgling paper isn’t perfect, it needs to go out into the world and prosper.  Well… at least you hope it’ll prosper because an entire semester’s or year’s or years’ worth of work is on the line here and if it doesn’t prosper then it’s just a giant waste of time and your time really means something and can’t the professor/the professional world see how important this is to you and to the academy at large?

I’m thick in the drafting process of two papers, the third is still broiling on the back-burner and will need to be drafted in the next week.  As such, I feel like I’m riding a roller coaster of textual uncertainty.  The highs, the lows, the long nights with the firm knowledge that my martini glass is the only thing in the world that understands me.  It really makes me feel alive.  And by “alive” I mean exhausted on every possible level; physically, mentally, and emotionally.  Just a heads up, if the world has something important or potentially spirit-crushing or even slightly unpleasant to tell me, it should wait a few weeks.  Telling me now will only warrant a sure-fire over-reaction resulting in shouting, tears, physical violence, or potentially all of the above.

At the same time, that ever-creeping light at the end of the ever-narrowing tunnel keeps getting closer.  I can almost feel it on my face.  Oh the glorious resplendence of a break!  The conference preparation, the fellowship applications, the book reviews I’ve been putting off writing, the search for CFPs, the revision of publishable material, the preliminary tackling of the comps list, the… oh hell who am I kidding.  Breaks don’t exist.  I’m a grown-up now.  I’m lucky if I get a few moments to glance mournfully at my knitting basket.

I guess my comfort lies in the fact that, despite all of this, I’m still happy with my life choices.  I guess I am doing something right.

>Dawn of the Dead

Posted on by
Reply

>

Right now, my life consists entirely of cocktail parties with dead white men.
Before you make the inevitable “I see dead people” joke, have a looksy at these sage words of wisdom from Mister Stephen Greenblatt:
“I began with the desire to speak with the dead.
“This desire is a familiar, if unvoiced, motive in literary studies, a motive organized, professionalized, buried beneath thick layers of bureaucratic decorum: literature professors are salaried, middle-class shamans.”
Well.  I’m gettin’ my hooba-joob on.
In this last stretch of my MA, I have holed myself up in my tower and barricaded the door with library books.  I have been using my machete of focus to forge through the dense textual jungle of Henry James and Gothic and Shakespeare to put together the research that will quickly turn into the last three papers of my Master’s.  I have been questing for the grail.  I am tired and battle-sore, my arms are stiff from fighting (and typing!), and the burden of the scholarship weighs heavily on my over-tense traps.  I can see the finish, it’s right there, and it shines ever-promisingly in my near future as I reach towards it.  There’s a meadow with the sun of success shining down on comfortable beds of sweet grass where I can dip my feet in the cool pool of well-deserved summer laziness while the laurels of my degree make a nice comfy pillow.
I wish I could say that the process to getting there is glorious, but these dead guys are contentious!  Henry James and I are barely on speaking terms, Kenneth Branaugh keeps rearing his not-so-ugly head and challenging me to arm-wrestling matches, and my man Will looks benevolently and mysteriously over the wholes scene as if to say “you’re almost there, but not quite”.  Will’s Mona Lisa smile pretty much drives my existence as a scholar, and I love him for it, but for once I just wish he’d be clear and direct with what he’s telling me.
As a paladin of The Bard, I never expect him to give me real answers (at least not right away).  Searching for them strengthens my ties to my deity.  If the Red-Cross Knight had everything he needed from the start, he never would have gone questing.  In fighting with Will and the other scholars who interpret him, I’m coming to my own understanding of him.  It’s like finding Nirvana; even though it’s inevitably unachievable you have to keep working if you ever want to even vaguely understand it.
In addition, it’s the good fight that makes the hero in the end.  Dorothy had to walk the yellow brick road.  Alice had to fall down the rabbit hole.  It’s about growing, becoming stronger as a person, becoming more certain of your connection to whatever it is that drives you, learning yourself, you know, all that jazz.
But my god is wonderland tough and Oz isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.  To make matters worse, I’m stuck in a general Bartleby-esque malaise and continually left wondering “how much work do I really have to do to get through this?”  I have a place in a program, I have funding, what would it really take for me to lose that?  With the coming of bright, sunshining weather and the promise of the impending move, I have so many things that I would much rather be doing than stuck in the ivory tower day after day.
Do you think a ouija board would help me write these papers?  Maybe I can convince the dead to speak for themselves… I wonder where one gets goats prepped for ritualistic sacrifice in New Jersey these days…..

>Getting by with a Little Help from my Friends

Posted on by
Reply

>Finals.  Finals finals finals finals paper finals finals beer finals.

I’m sorry, the brain which you are trying to reach has been reduced to a drooling, sniveling mass by the papers which she is desperately trying to crank out on a reasonable deadline.  Please try your call again later.
To satisfy the blog-o-sphere until she gets her head sewn put back on, please enjoy the following snippets of texts/e-mails/facebook status updates/actual people conversations that have occurred sometime in the last week and a half.
________________
Quote from a student paper: “Pope, who clearly did not take rejection well, indirectly called Lady Mary a lesbian for not wanting to make romantic advantages with his hunchback tubercular self.”
B – “Three cheers for the use of the word ‘tubercular!’
D – “I love the use of ‘make romantic advantages’ … and Pope wasn’t tubercular.”
B – “Oh, right, he was a mutant, but was ‘tuberculosis’ an actual malady of the time?”
D – “The consumption.”
B – “That term always bothers me… makes me think of sin-eaters.”
________________
Dr. J – “Dear Gradfolk,
“Some news on the MA Reading Exam.
“First: it’s time to schedule the exam for this spring’s graduating class.  The exam takes place over two days, and has traditionally been held on the week immediately following spring break.  Once upon a time it was common for there to be a day between the two halves — say, Monday and Wednesday.  Recently students have opted for two consecutive days, typically Monday and Tuesday, on the assumption that the one-day break in between isn’t long enough to relax or study, and just long enough to prolong the anxiety.
“I suggest, then, that we schedule it for the Monday and Tuesday immediately following the spring break, viz., 21-22 March.  The exam is usually scheduled for 4:00-7:30 both days. If anyone has strong opinions on any of this, let me know; I’ll book the room immediately after the winter break.”
D – “I have a strong opinion.
“My strong opinion is as such:
“AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!
“…..grading almost done, will be in your mailbox by Friday….”
________________
D – “Alright, secular theorist, capital or lower-case ‘g’ when talking about a Judeo-Christian god in the context of a non-secular conversation?”
B – “Judeo-Christian + non-secular = God, no?”
D – “I dunno, I was hoping you would… how often do I, the early modernist Renaissance dramatist, talk about Jesus?”
________________
A – “According to one review, [Pride and Prejudice and Zombies] answers ‘certain puzzling questions: Why were those troops stationed near Hertfordshire?’

D – “So, having finally read the paper, why were those troops stationed near Netherfield?”

________________

D – “Would it be appropriate to entitle this paper ‘Fuck Me, [name of Professor] Bradbury?” 
B – “I think that’s the subtitle of everyone’s paper.”
________________
L – “Procrastination has a different texture when one is supposed to be creating a final exam rather than studying for it”
________________
D – “Okay, so my romantics paper may be 17 pages long, but I have a few huge block quotes in it thanks to needing to quote about 20 lines of ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ in one spot…”
B – “I love block quotes.”
D – “I think I’m beginning to fall for them… like I get that little butterfly swoopy feeling in my stomach when I think about them these days.”