Tag Archives: Tufts

One Stage at a Time

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Alright.  I think I’m firmly in the saddle.

It’s been (officially) twenty days that I have been in class as a PhD student.  This seems

I have no good ideas for pictures on this topic, so I'll just stick things here that amuse me

like all the time in the world and, simultaneously, no time at all.  It’s most definitely enough time to go through the various phases of first-semester-at-a-new-program.  Let’s talk about that for a while.

Phase one: Excitement.  Usually this happens when you’re far enough out that the program itself is a pale shade of what it will be.  Usually this occurs before you’ve moved to where it is that you are moving, before you’ve purchased books, because the financial and daily realities of your new program have really had time to dawn upon you.  This is the phase of starry-eyed possibility.  Anything could happen, what should you expect?

Phase two: Nerves.  Okay, you’ve purchased your books, you’ve got a parking pass, you’re settling in to your new digs, everything is peachy keen and dandy.  But… oh god… what does that really mean?  Where are you going to fit into your new department?  Will everyone be smarter than you?  Will you be able to handle the workload?  What if they just laugh you out of class when you tell them where you came from?  What if you say something dumb on the first day?  Better wear the argyle knee socks and sweater-vest.  Maybe you can at least psych them into thinking that you’re smart.

Phase three: Enthusiasm.  This isn’t so bad.  In fact, it’s kind of awesome.  They have a library!  They have free unlimited access to the OED!  They talk and walk like I do!  They also love books!  I can quote Shakespeare at them and they don’t get that terrified look in their eye!  They share my disgust with Julie Taymor!  Yessiree, I have landed in the right place.

Phase four: Sheer Terror.  Oh god.  Oh god oh god ohgodohgodohgod.  They want me to do what?  How do I even start this research?  What’s refworks?  That’s a lot of assignments that they’ve given me… that’s a heck of a lot of reading… I’m not sure I’ll be able to keep up.  In fact, I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to keep up.  Just bury me in a shallow grave now and cover me with historiographic handbooks.  Maybe the department was wrong about me.  I’m an utter failure.  I suck I suck I suck.  Why did I pick this dress, why did I pick this song, why did I pick this career?

...still amusing

Phase five:  Acceptance.  Well, no turning back now.  Best to just trudge forward.  If I budget my time carefully, I’ll be able to get through at least most of this.  If I’m super careful, I can even knock some of the small assignments off now so that I can focus on the big stuff in time to get it done.  Hey, maybe it isn’t all that bad.  Okay, my social life just flat-lined and likely won’t be revived until I have a diploma in hand, but who needs friends anyway?  I’m okay not going on a date until I’m 30.

Phase six: Blissful struggling.  Yep.  I’m FINE.  Nothing to see here.  Just me working at my computer.  Again.  Nope, can’t go out tonight, thanks for asking.  I’ll just stay home and read some more.  Yep.  Peachy keen.  Pursuing my dreams.  Loving the field….

….god I need a drink.

Shakespeare is my Co-Pilot

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Wowie Zowie, it’s been a hell of a week.

Today is Wednesday which means that I have officially been a PhD student for a week now.  I have attended all of my classes at least once (though two out of three of those classes didn’t really count because they were based upon syllabus discussion and random talking rather than any pre-assigned readings).  I have done a week’s worth of homework.  I have signed up for oral reports.  I have managed to keep on top of everything (as of just now, in fact, I am perched daintily atop my workload having completed all required reading and assignments for this week… though I have class in two hours which will mean that the reading mountain slides back down upon my head once more).

During the first class of my PhD career (the requisite course in research methodologies which occurred on Wednesday last – the professor wore a tweed suit and a bowtie by the by which means that my faith in the academy may be maintained), we went around the room introducing ourselves and our research interests.  This is thrilling in its own right because, for the first time in my academic career, I was sitting in a room full of (get this)

Sigh. Julie Taymor, I loved you once...

theatre people who weren’t my students!  Everyone is bombastic!  Everyone has a sense of humor!  Everyone can talk about Julie Taymor and her travesty of a Broadway show with some dexterity!  They understand my pain!

Due to sheer dumb luck, I was the last person to speak and introduce myself.  Programs like to have a broad range of research interests and so admit individuals who will open that demographic nicely.  As I understand it, my program’s resident Shakespearean just went ABD this year (having finished he coursework in the Spring) which leaves the mantle to me.  After a table full of Russian theatre, queer studies, vaudeville, and sundry other theatre interests which merited lengthy explanation, I opened my mouth.

“Hi, I’m Danielle, and I’m a Shakespearean.”

The professor grinned impishly, looked askance at me, and said; “You’re a Shakespeare scholar?  That’s like saying ‘I like books’!”.

We all laughed.  He wasn’t wrong.  I took a moment to feel slightly out of my element, and we plowed forward into discussing written assignments and term papers.

Panic erupted inside my head.  Should I have stayed with an English department?  Were my studies ill suited to a room full of dramatists?  Everyone knows that theatre as we know it is indebted to Shakespeare and, thereby, any theatre historian/scholar worth her salt will know something about the Bard.  Was there room for a Shakespearean at the table?  Was I doomed to be the bastion of information that everyone else knew anyway?  A redundancy?

Well there was no helping it now.  I may as well plow forward and feel out my research interests as I went.  After all, I’m a first year.  Nobody expects me to have a dissertation title yet (I hope).

Flash forward to the next day, my course in Adaptations.  We began to discuss assignments, areas of interest, readings, and the professor made very clear that this course was open-ended and designed to be tailored by the individual to his unique area of interest.  When we went around the room, we were each asked to name our favorite adaptation.

Adaptations?  Of Shakespeare?  I have to pick just one?  I was awash in a sea of possibilities.  Luxuriating in the ability to pull any number of things out of my hat; movies, musicals, other stage plays, comic books, video games…

As I glanced around the room and began to se beads of sweat form upon the faces of the

Guess my favorite Shakespeare Adaptation

resident Vaudeville scholar and our Wilde expert next to him, I couldn’t help but think that life was pretty darn good on my side of the room.  After all, I had Disney movies to talk about.  I could list Shakespeare adaptations for a week and still not mention them all.

Maybe this gig wasn’t so bad.

Flash even further forward to Monday of this week.  My History of Directing class.  The history of directing, the professor explained, was really a history of modernism.  Commence a discussion about modernism and the history of modern ideas (to which I had next to nothing to add but, ironically, was saved by my hard-won knowledge of Henry James thanks to a semester-long flagellation session last Spring).  Feelings of insecurity began to re-arise.  Was I not smart enough to do this?  Did I know enough random information about information to be a true scholar?  What was I even doing here?  I took copious notes, but even that couldn’t distract myself from the silence emanating from my corner of the table.

However then, oh then, the Professor backed up.  He backed up a lot.  He backed up to the inception of theatre as we know it.

And everyone knows when that happened.

That happened with Shakespeare.

He began asking questions to which I knew the answers.  He began talking about things that I had studied before.  He began to have a conversation which I could be part of!

And the most miraculous thing?  I was one of the few who could talk!  My colleagues remained mostly quiet, listening, as silent as I had been earlier.  Certainly there will be moments later in the semester when their special areas of interest will be discussed and I will return to being a post, but for now… I knew I could do this.

You see, Shakespeare is general.  Shakespeare is everywhere.  But far from being a weakness, that’s a strength.  I have something to say about everything because Shakespeare is a part of everything.

I’m important.  I matter.  And I can totally add to a classroom environment.  Oh and I’ll never be stuck for a paper topic because my research interest is applicable to well… everything ever.

Maybe it is like saying “I like books”, but when all else fails, nobody can say anything

always there. Even in a movie with a performance that's a spoof of another movie...

except that my Man Will is a vigilant angel; always waiting, always watching, always present.

Pre-School Jitters

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Ah September.  A month of new beginnings, crisp wind, autumn colors, the glorious goodbye to being woken by the sounds of screaming camp children outside my window.

September?  SEPTEMBER!?  Uh…. Right…. School’s starting soon.  Like… next week soon.  Like… Wednesday soon which isn’t even a whole week away.  I have pre-homework to do.  I have to make sure I’m mentally prepared.  I have to go school supply shopping!

I’ve been to campus several times at this juncture, both for business and to walk around (and yes, after Tuesday’s kerfluffle I do finally have ID and Parking Pass in hand).  I have ordered my books (thank you, Amazon!).  I have begun to read the articles for my first class.  I have started to put together correspondence between my MA program and my PhD program to ensure that I receive cross-credit for language exams.  Overall, I’m on the right track.

There was, I must admit, a feeling of vertigo when I first glanced at my booklist.  There have been moments of panic which have extended into long afternoons of panic which have required the liberal application of wine to quell.  There have been the inevitable “am I really doing this?” bouts of squeamishness which were pleasant surprises despite their nauseous undertones.

Through all of this, I have come to one very important conclusion: this is going to be a great deal of work.

Oh yes, I was prepared for the concept of work, but the actuality is hitting me fast and hard upside the head much to the chagrin of my clenched and sore jaw muscles.  My long days of leisure are at an end.  This became abundantly clear today when I settled in with the first in my stack of reading and was only able to manage a third of it before my eyes started going numb.

Flash back to Wednesday and a meeting with the Chair of my department.  We went over pleasantries and exchanged your regular sort of questions and answers, as well as registration bookkeeping and the like.  It was then that he cleared his throat, adjusted his glasses, and set to business.  He reached for a first stack of papers, “Here is the syllabus for my class.  Please have the readings done before you arrive on Friday.”  I nodded.  The syllabus wasn’t horrible, a few pages double-spaced, your standard research paper and oral presentation, it was a little more reading intensive than I was used to but this is the big leagues after all.  “Here,” He said, reaching for a second stack of papers, “Is the current Graduate Handbook for the department.”  It was slightly weightier, but what would you expect from a book made of policies and red tape?  “Here,” He said, reaching for yet another stack, “Is a set of informal guidelines which I have put together for the writing of research papers at the graduate level.”  I nodded with a smirk.  I would surely give this…

paperwork... on my desk. And other things on my desk.

rather weighty document (eighteen pages double-sided single-spaced) a glance through, but I’ve read style guides before.  I’ve also been writing graduate-level papers for two years now.  I wasn’t going to worry about this.  “And here,” He said, reaching for the final stack, “Is your comps list.”  This was the breaking point.  Twenty-four pages, double-sided, single-spaced, with a quid pro quo at the end denoting that we are expected to keep up on contemporary theatre and since no single list can possibly hope to accommodate all new works satisfactorily we should simply know everything.

Induce panic. Oh god oh go we’re all gonna die.  Break out the chocolate.  Someone come rub my tummy and play with my hair.

It wasn’t too late to back out, right?  I wouldn’t be a total failure if I only kinda went for my PhD and gave it my best shot but fell flat on my face doing so?

Actually, yea I would be.  You see, I’m a homo sapien.  I have opposable thumbs.  I’m renowned throughout the animal kingdom for my intellect and ability to overcome obstacles in the face of enormous adversity.  I can’t let a measly little twenty-four-page list of books overcome me.  And if I get that far, I might as well just write the dissertation for fun.  You know.  Just to see if I can do it.  A lark on a Sunday afternoon.

And besides, my business cards are going to look WAY sexier when I can put those letters after my name.  Like… for reals.

A note: despite this flippancy, my reverence for the Academy extends deeply into the heart and soul of my book-nerdish self.  I assure you that my reasons for wishing to acquire this degree extend beyond sexy business cards and a title in front of my name.  But really, what’s life without a certain degree of affability?  If I can’t laugh about this… I may start crying.  And if I start crying, I won’t stop until five to seven years has passed.

Well… my life as I know it has ended.

Goodbye, cruel world.  I’ll see you when I’m done flaggelating with my textbooks.

The Start of a New Adventure

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Today I visited Tufts for the first time as a real student and was officially matriculated into my program.

…in other words, I attended my Graduate Orientation.

Graduate Orientation is a whole different species from its undergraduate cousin.  Certainly you have the same trappings; the same high-powered individuals from the university standing up to give welcome speeches, the same awkward sitting in the auditorium wondering how everyone else there seems to know someone already, the same hall full of tables peddling pamphlets and various school swag (TUFTS SILLY PUTTY!), but there’s a certain level of grown-up-ness to the Graduate version.  A definite amount of “well, you know the drill, we’re sure you’ll figure the rest out”.  And for that, I am vastly appreciative.  I didn’t want a campus tour, I didn’t want a lecture about how to manage my time well or deal with being away from home, I just wanted my ID and school swag and someone to point me the way to the bookstore and parking services.

The campus is somewhat idyllic; green fields and old brick buildings nestled into the

HELLOPHANT!!!

crevices of a bustling city.  That’s how I like things really; a place to go see trees while simultaneously have the option to order Thai food at ten PM if I wanted (not at all hours maybe, this isn’t New York, after all).  I went and said hi to the elephant (which, you may recall, is the Tufts mascot and one of my favorite animals).  I scoped the library and a couple prime sitting locations upon which to read.

Overall, things were going pretty smoothly.

I was feeling pretty good about the situation when I exited orientation and poked my nose around for the aforepromised table where IDs were to be picked up.  I had been responsible and everything, sending in my ID picture beforehand so that all I had to do today was grab it.  After this, I had to run to the parking office and acquire my permit for the year (I needed my ID to do so).  Last stop was the bookstore where I would grab my textbooks and maybe a token item of Tufts merchandise to prove that I’m a real graduate student. 

I should have known things were going too smoothly.

When two passes over the resource fair proved that the ID table was nowhere in sight, I asked the all-too-eager-to-help student standing by where I might find it.  “Oh.”  She said, eyes downcast, “Well, in theory you should be able to pick them up here…. But the company which delivers the plastic that the IDs are printed on didn’t come through so we have nothing to print them on until tomorrow.  They’re hopefully going to be arriving then at 9AM when we will print as many as possible and with any luck you should be able to get them after that.”

Really pretty spot on campus.... may become a prime reading location in good weather

“Uh… okay.”  I replied, blinking a few times, “You do realize that this provides a problem for those of us who need parking passes?” I failed to mention the fact that all of the Graduate Students were commuter students since Graduate Housing didn’t exist and, thereby, all of us would have a problem…

“Yeaaa… uhm… well the good news is that you can pick both up in the same building!”

Okay, so strike parking pass and ID off of my list.  Perhaps I could at least deal with the bookstore…

I arrived at the cutest university bookstore I’ve ever been to with a surprisingly small amount of people considering it was orientation week.  I managed to make my way down to the actual book section past the merchandising without spotting something I wanted yet (I have standards about my hoodies, darnit).  They require personal book shoppers to assist you during busy season, which seemed fine to me since it meant someone else had to locate and carry all of my books for me.  I handed my assistant my class list and his eyes went wide for a minute.  “Yea, you’ll need a basket.”  He said.

I smiled, “I’m a PhD student.  I’ll need a cart.”

He took me over to the shelf where my department should have had all of its classes.  He picked out four books for one class and, lo and behold, my second two classes weren’t there.  “Maybe there are no books for them.”  He suggested.

I looked dubious.  “Uh… right… maybe we’re just going to read plays off the internet all semester.”  I don’t think he thought it was as funny as I did.

Apparently, my other two professors have yet to turn in their book lists.  Class starts next week.  One of those professors is the chair of my program.

Book fail.

I paid for the books they did have for me (only four!?  For Intro to Grad Lit Studies!?  SCORE!) and returned to my car.  I had to return to campus the next day anyway for a talk with aforementioned chair, so I could check back in on sundries (like my ID and parking pass… sigh) then.

The way the visitor garage works is that it costs one token to remove your car at the end of

hi, Boston! (Also, look at the sky today!)

the day.  Tokens cost five dollars and may be purchased at machines on floor 3, 5, and 7 of the garage.  I parked on floor 3 so that I wouldn’t forget to purchase a token on my way out.

As I approached the machine, moderate load of books in hand, I realized that its out of order light was on.  I sighed and proceeded up the stairs to level five, deciding that I had eaten a lemon bar at the refreshments table during orientation and thereby hadn’t earned the right to be lazy today.  Level five was also broken.  I grumbled and marched myself up to level seven which, thankfully, was not broken.

ID, parking pass, textbooks, and even visitor parking fail.  Beautiful.

On my way home, I realized I should have known this would have occurred.  I have chosen life as an academic.  The only rainbows and butterflies in that life are made of red tape and migraines.

Despite my whinging, I am very happy with the new digs.  I can’t wait for school to start and I can’t wait to finally see my darned ID.

yep. He's holding "butt paste". It was a present!

Also, for something completely different, this is Ben.  Ben is a friend of mine who hates Christmas.  Ben has probably forgotten that I have this picture of him from last Christmas.  Ben has publicly denoted that my blog is much more interesting when he is mentioned.  Ben should probably be careful what he asks for next time.