Last night I simultaneously added and checked off "skinny dip in Lake Washington" to my list of things to do before I die. It was
"cold dark deep and absolutely clear," and very wonderful. I also went on a jog with a friend's dog that was great until the dog collapsed from overheating (but then she went in the lake and was fine), helped other friends move into a really great house, and made mango lassi "ice cream."
Now I must must must do laundry and clean up around here. Why does everything feel weird right now?
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Adventures in the city
Dog-sitting, Helping-moving, Sailing-instructing, Biking, Bar-crawling, Poetry-teaching, Business-mentor-seeking, Librarian-consulting, Fancy-new-phone-buying, Potlucking, Getting-out-of-the-city, Not-enough-working, Everything-rolling-along-in-a-way-that-resembles-life. Today I was almost brought to tears by a 3-legged cat who appeared to be lost (but wasn't). A phrase I often think of is, "a door opens and you walk through it."
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Star-struck?
Today I discovered that one of my students is the son of a famous intellectual. It came up in a weird way: in a report on a reading he attended, my student mentioned that the author had cited but misrepresented the famous intellectual's most famous work. Since it's rare for any of my students to be aware of the work of any famous intellectuals, let alone able to evaluate representations of it, this stuck out to me as interesting. Then my eye jumped to the last name at the top of the paper which, I suddenly realized, was the same as that of the famous intellectual. I thought . . . hmmm. So I asked the student about it in his conference today and he said, sheepishly and cutely, "he's my dad." I'm not sure how to feel about it. I've never taught the progeny of famous intellectuals before.
(I will tell you who it is, but obviously I'm not going to make it google-able.)
(I will tell you who it is, but obviously I'm not going to make it google-able.)
Thursday, July 16, 2009
I did two interesting things today
One, I went for a half-hour long run on the track at the gym . . . barefoot!It's part of my campaign to get stronger, better ankles. It actually felt pretty normal, and I don't think it slowed me down or made me more tired. I'm curious about what it will feel like tomorrow.
Then during sailing class my prescription sunglasses fell off my head into the water while I was rigging my boat. So I sailed blind all afternoon and then at the end of the class I had to dive to the soggy disgusting bottom of the lake in order to retrieve them. It was unpleasant but doable. Have I mentioned that I love summer?
My vet said that based on recent research she has started recommending that people make indoor cats work for their food more. So I just made a little contraption out of a tupperware container with holes cut in the top that requires Kitcat to bat his kibble into position below the only hole big enough for his head. Right now he is kind of cautiously stalking it, but I know he is going to LOVE it.
Then during sailing class my prescription sunglasses fell off my head into the water while I was rigging my boat. So I sailed blind all afternoon and then at the end of the class I had to dive to the soggy disgusting bottom of the lake in order to retrieve them. It was unpleasant but doable. Have I mentioned that I love summer?
My vet said that based on recent research she has started recommending that people make indoor cats work for their food more. So I just made a little contraption out of a tupperware container with holes cut in the top that requires Kitcat to bat his kibble into position below the only hole big enough for his head. Right now he is kind of cautiously stalking it, but I know he is going to LOVE it.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Cat in the light of day
Well, Kitcat got a clean bill of health from my regular vet and today's visit was way more pleasant than last night. It's funny that the thing I always didn't like about my regular vet is that she didn't seem to realize how good and special and beautiful and sweet a cat Kitcat is. But today she was full of love for him, and she told me that she likes adult cats better than kittens and enjoys watching them grow up into who they're going to be.
The experience last night made me realize, in terms of human health care, how totally inhumane a health care system is that makes people pay piecemeal for their own medical treatment. It's traumatic enough when you're dealing with animals but in a reasonable society no person would ever have to get on the phone trying to get a loan for a lifesaving procedure.
In other news, I think I totally have a crush on Sonia Sotomayor. I maybe kind of wish I'd tried to become a judge instead of an underemployed poet. Hearing her calmly parse words in the face of the blatant (and racist) misrepresentations of nincompoop Jeff Sessions is inspiring.
The experience last night made me realize, in terms of human health care, how totally inhumane a health care system is that makes people pay piecemeal for their own medical treatment. It's traumatic enough when you're dealing with animals but in a reasonable society no person would ever have to get on the phone trying to get a loan for a lifesaving procedure.
In other news, I think I totally have a crush on Sonia Sotomayor. I maybe kind of wish I'd tried to become a judge instead of an underemployed poet. Hearing her calmly parse words in the face of the blatant (and racist) misrepresentations of nincompoop Jeff Sessions is inspiring.
Cat Woes
This evening I got home from doing some work and noticed that my cat had become distressed. As I tried to figure out what he could have eaten that was making him sick, I discovered a corner of a door jamb that he had gnawed off. Chunks of plaster on the floor, insulation tufting out. So I took him to the late nite emergency vet and after almost four hours and $248 he is more or less back to his old self, though I'm supposed to keep getting his lead levels checked throughout the week. Also, alarmingly, he keeps returning to the now cleaned and blocked off scene of the crime.
I hate going to the vet. It just seems like such a rip off. It's not that I begrudge paying for actual care, but the only thing they actually did for Kitcat was to give him some subcutaneous fluid to rehydrate him; but it was $95 for the "exam" and what that basically consisted of was a $75 call to poison control, who, of course, didn't really know anything and just advised taking lots of expensive precautions. I shudder to think what tomorrow will cost--and, of course, I'm still also worried that Kitcat is not as much improved as he seems.
The vet trip was particularly stressful because the waiting room was occupied the whole time by a young couple who had just moved to Seattle and whose dog had also had an unwholesome snack of some kind. The woman spent hours on the phone begging her father to co-sign a loan to cover the several thousand dollar surgery that the vet was waiting for approval to start performing. She was weeping and incoherent; her boyfriend looked more and more miserable every time she forgot what she was asking for and said "we'll pay you back." I could kind of feel for the father too--she kept saying "we'll have jobs," and $4,000 is a lot to spend if your job is in the future tense--but the situation was pretty awful.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
The Hot Shop
After a hard spring term and no break before a hectic start to summer, I've been feeling like it's important for the "likes fun" part of myself to perform a little coup d'etat against the "feels guilty if not working" part, which has been getting awfully comfortable in power. So while I did do some work this weekend, I also did a lot of things that were not productive in terms of meeting any immediate goal but that turned out to be an important reminder that there's more to life than grading the next set of papers.
Including: walking a dog, sailing a boat, receiving a free burrito, chatting at a bar with the wryly reticent son of a famous author and his talkative wife, going to see Shakespeare in the park with a big group of gay Mormons, and, today, going to the totally awesome Museum of Glass in Tacoma where we spent a long time watching a bunch of guys working with blowtorches and a 2000 degree oven on what, after a lot of rolling, wrestling, cradling in a frying pan filled with water, caressing with a wet newspaper, and direct application of flames turned into what looked like a mad chemist's super-vial. We also saw a talk by the awesomely-named Preston Singletary, who makes versions of traditional Northwest native art out of glass. They are conceptually interesting as well as gorgeous (based on the slides--we got distracted by the "hot shop" and the museum closed before we got to the exhibit).
The whole experience made me remember what I think is hard for writers to really feel, the "it's just cool" aspect of art. Glassblowing, though I often don't like the results aesthetically, is, from a craft standpoint, obviously and inarguably cool. Some of what I found interesting: a lot of the artistry is clearly motivated by technical challenges (both the limitations they impose and the imperative to transcend them). The process is inherently collaborative and literally can't be done alone. We watched the hot shop guys try to put a little topknot on their vial three different ways before one finally stuck and was not too uneven, and my friend who is a glassblower said that "you always have to have a Plan B."
There's a lesson there I'm going to think about. In the hot shop I also got an idea for a poem, and I'm also going to think about trying to remember what that was.
Including: walking a dog, sailing a boat, receiving a free burrito, chatting at a bar with the wryly reticent son of a famous author and his talkative wife, going to see Shakespeare in the park with a big group of gay Mormons, and, today, going to the totally awesome Museum of Glass in Tacoma where we spent a long time watching a bunch of guys working with blowtorches and a 2000 degree oven on what, after a lot of rolling, wrestling, cradling in a frying pan filled with water, caressing with a wet newspaper, and direct application of flames turned into what looked like a mad chemist's super-vial. We also saw a talk by the awesomely-named Preston Singletary, who makes versions of traditional Northwest native art out of glass. They are conceptually interesting as well as gorgeous (based on the slides--we got distracted by the "hot shop" and the museum closed before we got to the exhibit).
The whole experience made me remember what I think is hard for writers to really feel, the "it's just cool" aspect of art. Glassblowing, though I often don't like the results aesthetically, is, from a craft standpoint, obviously and inarguably cool. Some of what I found interesting: a lot of the artistry is clearly motivated by technical challenges (both the limitations they impose and the imperative to transcend them). The process is inherently collaborative and literally can't be done alone. We watched the hot shop guys try to put a little topknot on their vial three different ways before one finally stuck and was not too uneven, and my friend who is a glassblower said that "you always have to have a Plan B."
There's a lesson there I'm going to think about. In the hot shop I also got an idea for a poem, and I'm also going to think about trying to remember what that was.
Friday, July 10, 2009
What Ankles Know
I've been thinking recently about proprioception--the body's ability to know where it is in space. I only recently learned about this as a distinct attribute, and, as a naturally klutzy person, I feel particularly able to appreciate how amazing it is that the body can coordinate with itself and its environment--even as prone-to-spillingly as mine does.
The New York Times has an article today about how ankle injuries are correlated with poor balance and the most interesting point it makes, I think, is that after an injury the nerves that allow your ankles to know where they are, where the ground is, where the rest of your body is, and how everything is moving--or whatever information you need to be able to balance on two little toothpicks like we do--that part of the healing process is that these nerves need to be retrained. (The article suggests doing this by standing on one foot while brushing your teeth.)
This is interesting to me because I've had some ankle problems recently, and have noticed that just in the past year or so I can no longer jump in and out of boats the way I used to. Or scramble over rocks. I've described the feeling as "not trusting" my ankles, but really the article gets at it more precisely; it's not really a confidence issue or that I don't trust my ankles, in the sense that I consciously expect them to fail me (I don't), but that they themselves seem no longer to know what they're doing. Since my goatlike springiness and confidence on rocks and boats has always been one of my few and prized physical abilities, I am pleased that I might be able to get it back while brushing my teeth.
I was also thinking about proprioception and boats because as I was sailing a Laser yesterday I was marveling at how much more gracefully I can move around that little boat than I can do almost anything else. I'm still klutzy compared to other people who know how to sail, but it is an odd but extremely enjoyable sensation to do easily what you know intellectually to be an awkward movement. I was having a really good time and realizing that that was a big part of why.
The New York Times has an article today about how ankle injuries are correlated with poor balance and the most interesting point it makes, I think, is that after an injury the nerves that allow your ankles to know where they are, where the ground is, where the rest of your body is, and how everything is moving--or whatever information you need to be able to balance on two little toothpicks like we do--that part of the healing process is that these nerves need to be retrained. (The article suggests doing this by standing on one foot while brushing your teeth.)
This is interesting to me because I've had some ankle problems recently, and have noticed that just in the past year or so I can no longer jump in and out of boats the way I used to. Or scramble over rocks. I've described the feeling as "not trusting" my ankles, but really the article gets at it more precisely; it's not really a confidence issue or that I don't trust my ankles, in the sense that I consciously expect them to fail me (I don't), but that they themselves seem no longer to know what they're doing. Since my goatlike springiness and confidence on rocks and boats has always been one of my few and prized physical abilities, I am pleased that I might be able to get it back while brushing my teeth.
I was also thinking about proprioception and boats because as I was sailing a Laser yesterday I was marveling at how much more gracefully I can move around that little boat than I can do almost anything else. I'm still klutzy compared to other people who know how to sail, but it is an odd but extremely enjoyable sensation to do easily what you know intellectually to be an awkward movement. I was having a really good time and realizing that that was a big part of why.
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
Proud
Today I changed a tire for the first time! Yesterday I tried and the lug nuts just wouldn't budge, but today I decided to jump on them, and they cranked right off. The rest was actually really easy. Still, I feel like I've become a different category of person now: a Person Who Can Fix a Flat. Just call me if you need me.
I'm continuing my genre fiction odyssey, and can report that John Le Carre's "The Night Manager" is awesome at first but ultimately kind of unsatisfying. I never thought that grad school would really change my relationship with reading but it actually has made me more reluctant to read anything literary outside of "work." It's unfortunate, but still, even if it's a mystery or or whatever, having a novel that I'm reading makes life so much better. I should start another one, stat.
I'm continuing my genre fiction odyssey, and can report that John Le Carre's "The Night Manager" is awesome at first but ultimately kind of unsatisfying. I never thought that grad school would really change my relationship with reading but it actually has made me more reluctant to read anything literary outside of "work." It's unfortunate, but still, even if it's a mystery or or whatever, having a novel that I'm reading makes life so much better. I should start another one, stat.
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
Now this is weird . . .
I'm writing an assignment prompt for my students about attending a poetry reading and, as usual, I searched google images for an illustration for the assignment sheet. As I often do, I used a bland search term literally describing the gist of the assignment, in this case "poetry reading." High up on the second page of results, I saw this:
And even though it was random and a tiny thumbnail, I thought, hey, that looks familiar, could it be . . . ? And I clicked on it. And it was!
It is, or at least it appears to be, a photo of one of the trailer park poetry readings back in Irvine, back when there was a trailer park, and there were poetry readings in it. Those were good old days.
The weird thing is that this photo was on a Minnesota arts blog. Huh?
And even though it was random and a tiny thumbnail, I thought, hey, that looks familiar, could it be . . . ? And I clicked on it. And it was!
It is, or at least it appears to be, a photo of one of the trailer park poetry readings back in Irvine, back when there was a trailer park, and there were poetry readings in it. Those were good old days.
The weird thing is that this photo was on a Minnesota arts blog. Huh?
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Where were the greenhouses going?
As you can see from the quote up there, I'm getting into Theodore Roethke these days. Right now I'm teaching his greenhouse poems in my summer class and I thought it would be fun to have my students draw the poems to get a sense of the full scope of his weird greenery. I love drawing poems--it not only produces cool results (new art for my office!) but also demystifies the interpretive process since it feels natural and not scary to decide how to draw something, even when it would be intimidating to say what it "means."
I drew the poem "Big Wind":
Where were the greenhouses going,
Lunging into the lashing
Wind driving water
So far down the river
All the faucets stopped?—
It's a cool poem. I wish I could draw better.
I drew the poem "Big Wind":
Where were the greenhouses going,
Lunging into the lashing
Wind driving water
So far down the river
All the faucets stopped?—
It's a cool poem. I wish I could draw better.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
My Day at Work
9:30 am Arrived at the conference room to lead daily meeting with my 35 clients.
10:25 am Concluded meeting. Walked to office, settled in at desk, chatted with co-worker.
10:45 am Began client paperwork.
1:00 pm Chatted with another co-worker.
1:30 pm Continued client paperwork.
2:00 pm Took a break from paperwork to prepare for tomorrow's meeting.
2:30 pm Continued client paperwork.
4:00 pm Left office for coffee break.
4:30 pm Continued client paperwork.
6:00 pm End of the workday. Decided not to finish paperwork, but instead to re-negotiate deadlines with clients and thought of plan whereby this would be advantageous to all.
6:15 pm Left the office, opened umbrella, and walked home.
Of course, clients are students, the meeting is class, and client paperwork is really grading essays. It's just interesting to me to try to align my day with a typical workday. It's not so different, I guess. Though we don't have a water cooler.
10:25 am Concluded meeting. Walked to office, settled in at desk, chatted with co-worker.
10:45 am Began client paperwork.
1:00 pm Chatted with another co-worker.
1:30 pm Continued client paperwork.
2:00 pm Took a break from paperwork to prepare for tomorrow's meeting.
2:30 pm Continued client paperwork.
4:00 pm Left office for coffee break.
4:30 pm Continued client paperwork.
6:00 pm End of the workday. Decided not to finish paperwork, but instead to re-negotiate deadlines with clients and thought of plan whereby this would be advantageous to all.
6:15 pm Left the office, opened umbrella, and walked home.
Of course, clients are students, the meeting is class, and client paperwork is really grading essays. It's just interesting to me to try to align my day with a typical workday. It's not so different, I guess. Though we don't have a water cooler.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Conversation of the day
At a campus convenience store:
Me: Sorry this $10 bill is a little ripped.
Guy at the counter: That's okay. I can understand why someone would have rage against Hamilton.
Me: I know! He's the one who got us into this mess!
Also, Josh pointed me toward this amazing tidbit for NPR junkies.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Teaching
So I have been trawling Flickr today, and one of the amusing but frustrating fruits of my labors has been the discovery that this is the first image that comes up when you search for "teaching." Of course! Who wouldn't want to illustrate some text about teaching with an image of a tender avian moment involving worms?
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Strange Life
Damn you, Mr. President and the adorable and needy children of the United States, you now have my $642.
Today when I got home from school my apartment was unexpectedly wrapped in plastic and some people were cutting a hole in my bathroom wall. I was planning to practice the cello, but even though that didn't happen, I felt on during orchestra rehearsal and it was exhilarating. I always wonder these days why I didn't think more in high school how physically intense orchestra playing is--it's exhausting, and also sometimes a big high. We are playing a great program with all these very Eastern European pieces on it that stay in your head and make you feel like doing a gypsyish dance all the time. I am writing a program note for this concert, on Dvorak's Symphonic Variations, and I'm excited about that, too, and keep pondering what I'm going to say.
I'm also making delicious potato salad. The potatoes are in the freezer, and I must rescue them soon.
Tomorrow I have to give a lecture in Construction Management. My life is strange.
Today when I got home from school my apartment was unexpectedly wrapped in plastic and some people were cutting a hole in my bathroom wall. I was planning to practice the cello, but even though that didn't happen, I felt on during orchestra rehearsal and it was exhilarating. I always wonder these days why I didn't think more in high school how physically intense orchestra playing is--it's exhausting, and also sometimes a big high. We are playing a great program with all these very Eastern European pieces on it that stay in your head and make you feel like doing a gypsyish dance all the time. I am writing a program note for this concert, on Dvorak's Symphonic Variations, and I'm excited about that, too, and keep pondering what I'm going to say.
I'm also making delicious potato salad. The potatoes are in the freezer, and I must rescue them soon.
Tomorrow I have to give a lecture in Construction Management. My life is strange.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Anger
Doing my taxes tonight I discovered that the test-prep teaching company I was fired from almost a year ago (for being insufficiently devoted to the cause, not wanting to give up every weekend day forever, etc) is continuing to screw me over by calling me a "nonemployee" for tax purposes. That means, technically (I now know thanks to H&R Block), that I am a business owner, and that means I have to pay a big whopping tax on a very small amount of income.
Of course, looking at the tax stuff more carefully, I discovered that out of the 10 or so criteria for having a "nonemployee," the only one that my company met was that they didn't give me any benefits (everything else clearly pointed to a normal employee arrangement). But I'm pretty sure that this status was in my contract, so there's probably not much I can do. Except destroy them with my own test prep business!
Comforting myself, because, while the situation seems a little ambiguous and I really don't want to pay a big tax when I was expecting to get a refund, it's against my morals to be a tax cheat, I thought . . . at least I'm giving it to OBAMA! It really is nice to know that my taxes might not go straight to Halliburton but instead could be used to provide, say, $642 worth of picture books for adorable children. That's what I'm going to think about.
Of course, looking at the tax stuff more carefully, I discovered that out of the 10 or so criteria for having a "nonemployee," the only one that my company met was that they didn't give me any benefits (everything else clearly pointed to a normal employee arrangement). But I'm pretty sure that this status was in my contract, so there's probably not much I can do. Except destroy them with my own test prep business!
Comforting myself, because, while the situation seems a little ambiguous and I really don't want to pay a big tax when I was expecting to get a refund, it's against my morals to be a tax cheat, I thought . . . at least I'm giving it to OBAMA! It really is nice to know that my taxes might not go straight to Halliburton but instead could be used to provide, say, $642 worth of picture books for adorable children. That's what I'm going to think about.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Poetry update
One of my post-exam goals is to try to take a couple of weeks to do some serious poetry-work before getting deep into my dissertation. I can't believe this, but it's been over a year since I've sent out submissions, so it's time to get out the ol' SASE operation again.
I'm also trying to figure out how to get beyond the one-poem-at-a-time paradigm, and after literally years of having no idea how to transform my (ever-growing and increasingly-unwieldy) pile of poems into a manuscript with shape, today I decided to take the empirical approach. So I sat down with all the print-outs of poems I could find, and just started sorting. At first, there was no principle other than what felt right. Pretty quickly I realized that I was making sections with a nice combination of direct and oblique approaches to a recognizable (I hope) general theme. I don't know if it would feel that way to anyone other than me, but it was kind of exciting still to feel a larger work taking shape. I was kind of surprised, too, at what the sections turned out to be. The working headings (not to be part of the book itself) are a funny mismatch of different kinds of topics:
1. History
2. Family
3. Boats
4. China
5. Evil
6. California
I'm also trying to figure out how to get beyond the one-poem-at-a-time paradigm, and after literally years of having no idea how to transform my (ever-growing and increasingly-unwieldy) pile of poems into a manuscript with shape, today I decided to take the empirical approach. So I sat down with all the print-outs of poems I could find, and just started sorting. At first, there was no principle other than what felt right. Pretty quickly I realized that I was making sections with a nice combination of direct and oblique approaches to a recognizable (I hope) general theme. I don't know if it would feel that way to anyone other than me, but it was kind of exciting still to feel a larger work taking shape. I was kind of surprised, too, at what the sections turned out to be. The working headings (not to be part of the book itself) are a funny mismatch of different kinds of topics:
1. History
2. Family
3. Boats
4. China
5. Evil
6. California
Sunday, April 05, 2009
Spring fever
Hi again. Anyone who might still be reading this, I'm sorry about disappearing. I think I'm back now. It's felt like a long, disorienting hibernation.
All last week and this weekend I was sick. I barely left the house except to teach and go to Petco for cat toys, read two mystery novels, ate popsicles, and tried to be patient and rest and trust that I was building up strength to use when I became human again. I think it worked.
So while I was sick, I did not take stock or reflect on anything. But now I have a few things to say, including . . . I passed my exams. I think I could have answered the questions with interpretive dances and still passed, but still being done feels more momentous than I expected. Everything feels new and different, like anything could happen, like I've slipped an anchor. It's both freeing and alarming. If I don't paddle, I'm just going to drift, but if I do paddle, I might get somewhere.
Today the weather, which had been rainy and snowy, finally turned balmily springlike, and I thought about how I used to have spring fever when I was in high school, how I would get these feelings of longing and excitement and melancholy and would daydream about the future and of course, those daydreams never included still having the same feeling half a lifetime later. It's funny how you think it's you, when it's just a condition of the season.
All last week and this weekend I was sick. I barely left the house except to teach and go to Petco for cat toys, read two mystery novels, ate popsicles, and tried to be patient and rest and trust that I was building up strength to use when I became human again. I think it worked.
So while I was sick, I did not take stock or reflect on anything. But now I have a few things to say, including . . . I passed my exams. I think I could have answered the questions with interpretive dances and still passed, but still being done feels more momentous than I expected. Everything feels new and different, like anything could happen, like I've slipped an anchor. It's both freeing and alarming. If I don't paddle, I'm just going to drift, but if I do paddle, I might get somewhere.
Today the weather, which had been rainy and snowy, finally turned balmily springlike, and I thought about how I used to have spring fever when I was in high school, how I would get these feelings of longing and excitement and melancholy and would daydream about the future and of course, those daydreams never included still having the same feeling half a lifetime later. It's funny how you think it's you, when it's just a condition of the season.
Saturday, March 07, 2009
Limbo
So . . . my written exams are over and since yesterday, when I met with my adviser and got some feedback, I've been starting to see my way out of limbo, though I still have orals to do next week. The short version is, I passed. My committee didn't like everything I did (some of it they thought was pretty bad), and what they liked most was not what I would have expected (which suggests that I should always write in a state of utter depletion at four in the morning . . . ), but it's pretty clear that the only one who is seeing this process as a referendum on my basic worthiness as a thinker, writer, and person, is me. So I should stop.
The really great thing about my meeting with my adviser is that he liked my proposed dissertation topic. So that means . . . I have a dissertation topic! It was so easy, and was really an incredible, existential transformation. One minute, I was a grad student with some vague interests, which is what I've been for so long I can hardly remember being anything else. Ten minutes later, I became a person with a project, a person who will be able to produce an answer when someone asks me what I write about. And I'm super excited about the topic. Our brainstorming session was really fun and my adviser had some good ideas about how I could structure the different chapters. It's exactly what I want to write, I think. (And yes, I will say what it is in some other post soon.)
So this means that if all goes well with the orals (which I am nervous about but my adviser referred to as "a doo-dad") I will be able to start shedding the "perpetual grad student" identity and be what I have always wanted to be: a writer writing a book.
The really great thing about my meeting with my adviser is that he liked my proposed dissertation topic. So that means . . . I have a dissertation topic! It was so easy, and was really an incredible, existential transformation. One minute, I was a grad student with some vague interests, which is what I've been for so long I can hardly remember being anything else. Ten minutes later, I became a person with a project, a person who will be able to produce an answer when someone asks me what I write about. And I'm super excited about the topic. Our brainstorming session was really fun and my adviser had some good ideas about how I could structure the different chapters. It's exactly what I want to write, I think. (And yes, I will say what it is in some other post soon.)
So this means that if all goes well with the orals (which I am nervous about but my adviser referred to as "a doo-dad") I will be able to start shedding the "perpetual grad student" identity and be what I have always wanted to be: a writer writing a book.
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