I'm out from under the big pile of work, though I still have responsibility enough to keep me more or less on my toes for the rest of the ruddy semester. We get six weeks' vacation over Christmas, a SUNY gift still half-incomprehensible to a private-college girl like me. Apparently we're expected to earn it.
Choosing classes for next semester (signups are Thursday) has been mostly depressing: sure now that I'll never be a Ph.D, I'm trying to find ways to avoid courses that demand seminar-style research papers (what use now in going through that rot?), or indeed any papers more than about ten pages long (one class wants 20-25, with an abstract at the fore, and wasn't even a writing workshop). This cuts out a couple of options, and even at a biggish school like this, I don't have so many class options to begin with.
I did take some pleasure in learning, though, that there's now actually (amazing, here!) a class in our own department that's more or less about how to teach composition to students. The professor, when I e-mailed to ask about it, told me that, while it's going to be a requirement for all actual TAs, any interested student is welcome, and she hopes I'll register. I replied with my thanks, told her I would.
I do have to look into the difference between English lit and English education, decide whether it's a better idea for me, if I'm going to end up teaching in a community college or high school instead of a four-year, to simply learn education as better prep. Not that it should matter, but my parents would clearly rather have me teach in a community college. They have a point, though they don't know it: I'm not always very good, if camps this summer were any indication, with high schoolers.
Yet I helped out with the tiny Good Shepherd senior-high youth group this past Sunday and found myself wishing I were better at all of this. Two lonelyish boys (one of them technically a junior-higher, but never mind that for now), playing card games and studying Acts with Micah, who's youth pastor as well as choir director, not much older than me.
So different from Pearce's senior high group, so big, with so many more resources, rich in Roberts Wesleyan youth-ministers-to-be and dedicated parents (though the children of those parents, I couldn't help pitying, shuddering at the awkward imaginging of my mother or father being there instead).
Good Shepherd is at the edge of the city, just close enough to strip-malled Vestal for that not to be quite obvious. One of the two boys from Sunday, I know more about than he knows about me--what Pearce didn't have a lot of, at least not to my scant knowledge, were kids with drug-addicted siblings, mothers who violate court orders; fathers slowly doing construction work despite mostly-disabled backs to get money to fix abcessed, uninsured teeth. It sounds more like story than reality, to my sheltered life.
There's a lot I could say about politics of assistance, about poor families not poor enough to want charity, about upper-middle-class guilt, but I've tried for more than an hour and haven't really said any of it well. I'm going to bed, where I should've gone in the first place.
-Laurel
10.21.2007
Back in contact with the online world
Glory to God for church; and for apple pie; and for friendly, patient customer service guys at Time Warner; and for the restoration of my internet connection.
And now I'm going to work like ruddy sixty until this thrice-wretched creative-nonfiction draft is finished. Hopefully before midnight, but even that's going to necessitate some considerable productivity and diligence. Clearly, there is not yet literal rest for the weary.
Not to mention that Dr. Keith doesn't know how to put our readings up on Blackboard, and his grad-student assistant is at a conference, so I'm going to have just over twenty-four hours with my theory reading this week before I actually have to lead a discussion (with handouts) thereon.
That all sounds cranky, but really, I'm at the point where there's almost nothing to do except be perpetually amused. This is easier to do now that I have internet.
-Laurel
And now I'm going to work like ruddy sixty until this thrice-wretched creative-nonfiction draft is finished. Hopefully before midnight, but even that's going to necessitate some considerable productivity and diligence. Clearly, there is not yet literal rest for the weary.
Not to mention that Dr. Keith doesn't know how to put our readings up on Blackboard, and his grad-student assistant is at a conference, so I'm going to have just over twenty-four hours with my theory reading this week before I actually have to lead a discussion (with handouts) thereon.
That all sounds cranky, but really, I'm at the point where there's almost nothing to do except be perpetually amused. This is easier to do now that I have internet.
-Laurel
10.20.2007
Nota Bene
Joe has alerted me to the fact that this year's IV-Alfred square dance is Friday, November 9th. Since this past May, I've been telling people I'd be back for that, since I've never yet made it to one before, so it's time for me to deliver.
Therefore, I'm apparently going to Alfred on the 9th, which opens out Veteran's Day weekend (though Veteran's Day itself--should that be Veterans' Day? You would think, wouldn't you?--is on a Sunday, thereby ruining any slim chance that I might have off on Monday...ah, well, no matter). Interested parties should note my car's ample free space, if you happen to want a ride to your alma mater (regardless of whether you're actually planning to dance); I can think of about four people who should at least consider it.
Some guys in the hall are singing the phrase "slide show" in arpeggioed harmony (is there a better term for that than the one I'm using?). It's kind of impressive, but I have no idea what they're up to.
-Laurel
Therefore, I'm apparently going to Alfred on the 9th, which opens out Veteran's Day weekend (though Veteran's Day itself--should that be Veterans' Day? You would think, wouldn't you?--is on a Sunday, thereby ruining any slim chance that I might have off on Monday...ah, well, no matter). Interested parties should note my car's ample free space, if you happen to want a ride to your alma mater (regardless of whether you're actually planning to dance); I can think of about four people who should at least consider it.
Some guys in the hall are singing the phrase "slide show" in arpeggioed harmony (is there a better term for that than the one I'm using?). It's kind of impressive, but I have no idea what they're up to.
-Laurel
10.19.2007
Random thoughts from an illogically-tired self (I've gotten enough sleep all week and am still cotton-headed; what is the deal?)
Still working on the creative nonfiction draft. I don't like what I've written all that much, but right now all I can do is pound things out, hand it in Monday, and try to forget about it until it's workshopped on the 29th (ewwww). Tell me why, again, I thought it was a good idea to take a class designed for MFAs as an elective? I understand that it said "lit students welcome," but all the same.
Also, the internet in my room is dead until further notice (I'm in the apartment's computer lab). This is a good way to minimize my distractions while I finish the draft, but it's also a hassle because I'm not sure whether or not I'll actually have to call Time Warner to get things fixed, which's what the apartment staff suggested. There's another thing I can probably do, though, instead. Way to be vague, right? Well, we'll see.
IV had a service auction tonight, which was great fun...we all offered things we're reasonably good at, people bid on them, and the money all goes to the chapter. I didn't expect to bid on anything, but Carrie asked me if I'd go halves with her on the dinner for two that Sunroot and Luther were cooking, since apparently Sunroot makes really good Chinese food. So I did, and we won. There is eventually some homemade Chinese in my future, then, which does sound delicious.
I auctioned off my breadmaking skills, so when things calm down a bit homework-wise, I'm making some pear spice coffee cake and some mango bread, which's what my winner picked (the options were pretty much one recipe's worth of yeast bread, since the batches tend to be bigger, or two smaller items, which's what she went for). Not that I've made either thing before, but I'll figure it out.
I miss Alfred. Also, I feel like this entry is really boring.
-Laurel
Also, the internet in my room is dead until further notice (I'm in the apartment's computer lab). This is a good way to minimize my distractions while I finish the draft, but it's also a hassle because I'm not sure whether or not I'll actually have to call Time Warner to get things fixed, which's what the apartment staff suggested. There's another thing I can probably do, though, instead. Way to be vague, right? Well, we'll see.
IV had a service auction tonight, which was great fun...we all offered things we're reasonably good at, people bid on them, and the money all goes to the chapter. I didn't expect to bid on anything, but Carrie asked me if I'd go halves with her on the dinner for two that Sunroot and Luther were cooking, since apparently Sunroot makes really good Chinese food. So I did, and we won. There is eventually some homemade Chinese in my future, then, which does sound delicious.
I auctioned off my breadmaking skills, so when things calm down a bit homework-wise, I'm making some pear spice coffee cake and some mango bread, which's what my winner picked (the options were pretty much one recipe's worth of yeast bread, since the batches tend to be bigger, or two smaller items, which's what she went for). Not that I've made either thing before, but I'll figure it out.
I miss Alfred. Also, I feel like this entry is really boring.
-Laurel
10.15.2007
My brain actually sort of feels tired...
Stolen from 'Nanda and everybody should go show off their vocabulary:
Free Rice
The only problem is that it doesn't appear to cut you off at any point (or at least I got through about 153 words without being cut off), so you (read: I) basically just want to keep going and going and going, seeing how high I can get my vocabulary level. I think I topped out, across those 153 words, at Level 46, and mostly I rose and fell along the low 40s. I really want that to mean that nobody's going to do better, but I'm sure certain people will.
Okay, gonna do a wee bit o'reading for class, and then I'm ruddy going to bed.
-Laurel
Free Rice
The only problem is that it doesn't appear to cut you off at any point (or at least I got through about 153 words without being cut off), so you (read: I) basically just want to keep going and going and going, seeing how high I can get my vocabulary level. I think I topped out, across those 153 words, at Level 46, and mostly I rose and fell along the low 40s. I really want that to mean that nobody's going to do better, but I'm sure certain people will.
Okay, gonna do a wee bit o'reading for class, and then I'm ruddy going to bed.
-Laurel
This is upstate New York; am I really surprised?
Whoa! How'd the forecast for this week get, like, fifteen degrees warmer every day? Thursday night, when I checked, everything was supposed to be October-cold for the next ten days. Now it's going to be, like, seventy-four on Friday, with fifties and sixties all week besides.
So glad I cut into my worktime to get myself a couple of warmer shirts...? Oh, well, they came in handy this weekend.
-Laurel
So glad I cut into my worktime to get myself a couple of warmer shirts...? Oh, well, they came in handy this weekend.
-Laurel
10.13.2007
Supplemental
Question for myself: am I actually hoping that, if I did work with IV/GS next semester, I'd discover that I'm cut out to teach them English? Or am I really hoping I'm cut out for IV staff?
-Laurel
-Laurel
10.12.2007
Midterm Mirror-Stare
Greetings from Friday afternoon; I'm farther behind on my work than I'd like to be, but I've mostly outlined my five-pager for Diaspora and now have only to put it in coherent typed form. Dr. Strehle changed her mind, thank goodness, on making us talk about theory within our analysis. Now we don't have to do that until the final, so, not being otherwise inspired, I'm going to write what I know: I've picked a theme that intrigues me (surrogate parent-child relationships between diasporic and native-born characters) and investigated it across three or four of the short stories within Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies, easily my favorite of the four books we've read so far.
My keycard has also been replaced--for free. They offered to punch a keyring hole in it, but, fearing an encore of the first key's fate, I declined, hopefully with decorum. After all, I actually own and use a wallet now, and have even, in what I amusedly regard as a concession to femininity, acquired a purse (denim, mind you, not one of those leathery things...I haven't entirely changed). It's the cell phone and keycard that did it: I couldn't just shove those in my pockets the way I used to do with my Alfred keys and ID. The keycard (as demonstrated!) would've cracked, the cell phone would've fallen out. I had to join the adult world and find secure places to keep them, and it's ridiculous that I feel like I have to explain this, as though anyone would care.
...The thing about teaching that does attract me is the fact that it's not all doing, but not all analyzing. What I didn't like about working at RIT, back in high school, was not just that the work was all very simple and often repetitive. It was also that I had to sit in the same place all the time, interacting awkwardly with all the same people. Not that they weren't very nice people, but I loved running errands and even liked answering phones, as long as I knew what all the answers should be to the questions. Just customer service, I don't think I'd be much good at. But something where I could balance private work time with public time is an attractive thought. Something like editing, though I know I could do it well, might be a bit one-sided.
Yet I don't know what I think of teaching itself, don't know anything about how to do it, or about how to deal with people who aren't themselves enthusiastic. FYE and Writing Center helped, but were much simpler than teaching itself would be. Would I be able to do it to my own standards, which are high? Would I wish, like I do as a graduate student, that I could just stop thinking and defending for a while, just be told what to do and do it?
Like with college itself, where noplace presented itself as the one shining school to which I was inexorably drawn, I've never in my life been able to picture myself in a career, even during all those childhood years when I wrote proto-fanfiction and called myself a future author. I'm going to have to choose whatever seems best and pray that I'll grow into it, as I grew into Alfred; have to rely on the fact that, at heart, I want to be, and usually am, content. Out of anyplace I am, I want a good church, warm and close relationships, a job that doesn't bore me to death, and a place I can call home and get to know well. I don't care to be rich, nor to live in some big city, or be anyone famous...and APO taught me that I don't even want a position of much power, just as Dr. Mayberry tried heading the English department and hated it. Alfred is still the closest thing I have to a home, but I've been amazed at how quickly I've come to feel at home in Binghamton, despite its strip-mall quality, its lack of quirky people and down-to-earth coziness, its lack of my best friends. I credit IV-Binghamton for easing much of the way, and church for the rest. Rather than go to a different school and fervently hope that all that works out again, I'd much sooner stay here.
What I'd like to do, I've begun to believe, is take next semester off of classes, but stay here in Binghamton. A part-time job would be enough to keep me in whatever I need, at least for now. And in the time I'm not doing who-knows-what, I could be on volunteer staff for IV (oh happy thought!), and could help lighten Micah's load at Good Shepherd with the just-starting high school youth ministry. It would give me all the high school and college students I've ever wanted, give me a chance to figure out what I think of them, see whether I'd ever be good at teaching them. And if I was, I could go back to school, finish up my Master's, see about teaching at a community college, or maybe take education classes and teach high school.
I don't want a Ph.D in English lit, that much I know right now. I'm not into research; I'm repelled by the dreaded, alliterative "publish or perish"; not interested in which author's coming out with what, or who's saying something provocative about what book, or what history lies behind my favorite things. Even in children's lit, so far my favorite of everything, such things don't interest me: a Newbery Honor winner came to campus on Tuesday night and I skipped her over and went to IV instead. I hadn't read her book (only an Honor); I had no questions; I didn't really want to go. I have no interest in conferences, in my own work.
I want to read books. I want to talk with people about what those books are saying and how they're saying it. I want to ask what that says about how we should be living, and then I want to go and live it. And maybe I'd like to be able, gorgeously and compellingly, to describe moments from my life that I find important. Those things are all, really, I've ever wanted from literature.
Teaching at a lower level, maybe I could do that. But rather than apply to other programs, go somewhere else, write papers, pray for a TA position I might never, as a Master's student, get, I'd rather stay here and serve, use those I'm helping as guinea pigs I can get close to. I'm still so young for a grad student; of all the people in my program, I might be the only one who's only a semester out of undergrad. (I think Ryan's in the same boat, but he's MFA.) I could easily take next semester, or a year, without falling behind. Or, the way the program's set up, I could go part-time for the semester instead of working, so that if I wanted to complete the Master's, I wouldn't have to reapply. I'd still graduate on time, believe it or not, if I only took one class next semester.
This weekend I'll ask Carrie and Micah about what it'd take to be on their teams. If it all sounds right, maybe I'll gather my thoughts together and present it to my parents. Maybe I've figured out what to do.
But for this minute, I suppose, I should start my Diaspora paper.
-Laurel
My keycard has also been replaced--for free. They offered to punch a keyring hole in it, but, fearing an encore of the first key's fate, I declined, hopefully with decorum. After all, I actually own and use a wallet now, and have even, in what I amusedly regard as a concession to femininity, acquired a purse (denim, mind you, not one of those leathery things...I haven't entirely changed). It's the cell phone and keycard that did it: I couldn't just shove those in my pockets the way I used to do with my Alfred keys and ID. The keycard (as demonstrated!) would've cracked, the cell phone would've fallen out. I had to join the adult world and find secure places to keep them, and it's ridiculous that I feel like I have to explain this, as though anyone would care.
...The thing about teaching that does attract me is the fact that it's not all doing, but not all analyzing. What I didn't like about working at RIT, back in high school, was not just that the work was all very simple and often repetitive. It was also that I had to sit in the same place all the time, interacting awkwardly with all the same people. Not that they weren't very nice people, but I loved running errands and even liked answering phones, as long as I knew what all the answers should be to the questions. Just customer service, I don't think I'd be much good at. But something where I could balance private work time with public time is an attractive thought. Something like editing, though I know I could do it well, might be a bit one-sided.
Yet I don't know what I think of teaching itself, don't know anything about how to do it, or about how to deal with people who aren't themselves enthusiastic. FYE and Writing Center helped, but were much simpler than teaching itself would be. Would I be able to do it to my own standards, which are high? Would I wish, like I do as a graduate student, that I could just stop thinking and defending for a while, just be told what to do and do it?
Like with college itself, where noplace presented itself as the one shining school to which I was inexorably drawn, I've never in my life been able to picture myself in a career, even during all those childhood years when I wrote proto-fanfiction and called myself a future author. I'm going to have to choose whatever seems best and pray that I'll grow into it, as I grew into Alfred; have to rely on the fact that, at heart, I want to be, and usually am, content. Out of anyplace I am, I want a good church, warm and close relationships, a job that doesn't bore me to death, and a place I can call home and get to know well. I don't care to be rich, nor to live in some big city, or be anyone famous...and APO taught me that I don't even want a position of much power, just as Dr. Mayberry tried heading the English department and hated it. Alfred is still the closest thing I have to a home, but I've been amazed at how quickly I've come to feel at home in Binghamton, despite its strip-mall quality, its lack of quirky people and down-to-earth coziness, its lack of my best friends. I credit IV-Binghamton for easing much of the way, and church for the rest. Rather than go to a different school and fervently hope that all that works out again, I'd much sooner stay here.
What I'd like to do, I've begun to believe, is take next semester off of classes, but stay here in Binghamton. A part-time job would be enough to keep me in whatever I need, at least for now. And in the time I'm not doing who-knows-what, I could be on volunteer staff for IV (oh happy thought!), and could help lighten Micah's load at Good Shepherd with the just-starting high school youth ministry. It would give me all the high school and college students I've ever wanted, give me a chance to figure out what I think of them, see whether I'd ever be good at teaching them. And if I was, I could go back to school, finish up my Master's, see about teaching at a community college, or maybe take education classes and teach high school.
I don't want a Ph.D in English lit, that much I know right now. I'm not into research; I'm repelled by the dreaded, alliterative "publish or perish"; not interested in which author's coming out with what, or who's saying something provocative about what book, or what history lies behind my favorite things. Even in children's lit, so far my favorite of everything, such things don't interest me: a Newbery Honor winner came to campus on Tuesday night and I skipped her over and went to IV instead. I hadn't read her book (only an Honor); I had no questions; I didn't really want to go. I have no interest in conferences, in my own work.
I want to read books. I want to talk with people about what those books are saying and how they're saying it. I want to ask what that says about how we should be living, and then I want to go and live it. And maybe I'd like to be able, gorgeously and compellingly, to describe moments from my life that I find important. Those things are all, really, I've ever wanted from literature.
Teaching at a lower level, maybe I could do that. But rather than apply to other programs, go somewhere else, write papers, pray for a TA position I might never, as a Master's student, get, I'd rather stay here and serve, use those I'm helping as guinea pigs I can get close to. I'm still so young for a grad student; of all the people in my program, I might be the only one who's only a semester out of undergrad. (I think Ryan's in the same boat, but he's MFA.) I could easily take next semester, or a year, without falling behind. Or, the way the program's set up, I could go part-time for the semester instead of working, so that if I wanted to complete the Master's, I wouldn't have to reapply. I'd still graduate on time, believe it or not, if I only took one class next semester.
This weekend I'll ask Carrie and Micah about what it'd take to be on their teams. If it all sounds right, maybe I'll gather my thoughts together and present it to my parents. Maybe I've figured out what to do.
But for this minute, I suppose, I should start my Diaspora paper.
-Laurel
10.11.2007
The keycard crack'd from side to side
Okay, so it only cracked further along the original line, but a whole piece of it broke off. The thing still works, but you know I'm not going to be able to just hand it in this spring (this winter?) and get away with it. So I guess tomorrow I take it to the office, explain the whole thing, and see whether they'll replace it for free or treat it like a lost key (in such a case, I'd incur a $35 charge and would not, as the Alfred '04 girls used to say, be of the amused).
Just thought I'd update. I'm quite upbeat. Workload goes fairly. I should be farther along in my reading than I am, but I had to go run some errands. I'll finish off my box of cereal and keep reading.
-Laurel
Just thought I'd update. I'm quite upbeat. Workload goes fairly. I should be farther along in my reading than I am, but I had to go run some errands. I'll finish off my box of cereal and keep reading.
-Laurel
10.10.2007
::giggles::
After spending last week, in the thick of work, going please, God, can't theory class get cancelled?--and only half meaning it, figuring all the time that it probably shouldn't be and therefore never would--I came back tonight to an e-mail from Dr. Keith. Cancelling theory class for tomorrow.
It's still a good time for that, too--things go much more calmly this week (my sanity has returned; everyone's safe to socialize with me), but there's still plenty to be done. Feels rather like a snow day!
-Laurel
It's still a good time for that, too--things go much more calmly this week (my sanity has returned; everyone's safe to socialize with me), but there's still plenty to be done. Feels rather like a snow day!
-Laurel
10.09.2007
Minutia (just one), plus update
We use keycards to get into the apartment complex. I was allowed to punch a hole in mine so's to thread it through my keyring, which made me look like I lived at a Holiday Inn.
Except last week I managed to crack said keycard in a short line down from the punched hole. It still works (and is still in one piece), which's good, since I think I'd be charged for a replacement. So now it looks like I live in a cheap motel, haha.
*
Classes have gone better yesterday and today than they were logically supposed to. I'm still very busy, but things are arranging themselves such that I might end up with a little less work, or at least a little less time crunch, than there looks to be on paper. Well, gloria.
Though I'm not suddenly okay with three more semesters of this, mind you. I'm really starting to wonder whether I want to get into a profession wherein my work doesn't end when my workday does, since teaching certainly doesn't. I guess I'd have to decide whether the rewards were worth the investment.
Of course, Maggie's Tim reminds me that there's perhaps no such thing as a "normal" job, that even in a factory position he's pushed to work extra hours, only some of them paid for. Well, great.
-Laurel
Except last week I managed to crack said keycard in a short line down from the punched hole. It still works (and is still in one piece), which's good, since I think I'd be charged for a replacement. So now it looks like I live in a cheap motel, haha.
*
Classes have gone better yesterday and today than they were logically supposed to. I'm still very busy, but things are arranging themselves such that I might end up with a little less work, or at least a little less time crunch, than there looks to be on paper. Well, gloria.
Though I'm not suddenly okay with three more semesters of this, mind you. I'm really starting to wonder whether I want to get into a profession wherein my work doesn't end when my workday does, since teaching certainly doesn't. I guess I'd have to decide whether the rewards were worth the investment.
Of course, Maggie's Tim reminds me that there's perhaps no such thing as a "normal" job, that even in a factory position he's pushed to work extra hours, only some of them paid for. Well, great.
-Laurel
10.08.2007
Postscript
The work is going a little faster than I expected. I've decided that the not-quite-an-hour between Diaspora and Creative-Non will be enough to finish up the last little bit of CN work, or at least that I don't really care if my "working bibliography" (said remaining work) isn't quite as good as I'd like it to be. Since I feel a little funny but mostly passable, I guess I'll go to both classes after all. I don't know whether this means that things aren't as bad as I feel like they are, or what. It's not worth pondering, anyway.
Also, note to self: cinnamon and chili powder both come in red containers. Please season your squash with the first, not the second.
-Laurel
Also, note to self: cinnamon and chili powder both come in red containers. Please season your squash with the first, not the second.
-Laurel
Giving myself ten minutes to post...sort of
Having finally decided, for one thing, that more than a year is too long a time to spend not seeing people who're important to me, I worked like sixty all last week and then took the weekend to visit Albert. I've now seen the loveliness that is Rhode Island, the Scituate Arts Festival, and Atwater and Donnelly (who are every bit as talented and kind as Albert said). His dog is perhaps my favorite dog ever, which is not hard, as a) I only like small, fairly-gentle dogs; and b) I don't have to live with said dog full-time, haha. His family is a good one, especially his mom, who played board games with us on Saturday night; I actually won Scrabble, which you'd think would happen more often to an English major, but usually doesn't happen to me. I met his best friend Rachel; we later Facebooked each other, of course (note to Albert: on her favorite-books list, though it's technically not a book, is "The Open Boat." I can only assume that this is the one that I got teased about, so apparently she has questionable taste as well).
Grad school does not go well; there's no way around it. People who've known me for a while will know that I don't take prolonged heavy stress well on any level. I won't be free of seemingly-perpetual tension, thanks to my first three graded assignments of the semester (one paper, one rough draft of a massive project, one discussion-leading) coming due within eight days of each other, until about the night of October 23rd (Zinni's birthday, heh). So things are kind of deteriorating physically (woke up rather sick this morning, actually...I've never skipped a grad class before, but think I will beg off of Diaspora today, since we're not doing anything important) and mentally; my apologies if I snap at anybody or freak out on people, even though I'm told that I don't show as much of it as I think I do.
I don't want to whine too much, though. Please let me know if there're things going on in your lives that're bothering you.
Okay, that's eleven minutes, not counting revision time, so I've got to go. I won't have much excuse for having lots of work if I write blog posts instead of actually getting things done.
-Laurel
Grad school does not go well; there's no way around it. People who've known me for a while will know that I don't take prolonged heavy stress well on any level. I won't be free of seemingly-perpetual tension, thanks to my first three graded assignments of the semester (one paper, one rough draft of a massive project, one discussion-leading) coming due within eight days of each other, until about the night of October 23rd (Zinni's birthday, heh). So things are kind of deteriorating physically (woke up rather sick this morning, actually...I've never skipped a grad class before, but think I will beg off of Diaspora today, since we're not doing anything important) and mentally; my apologies if I snap at anybody or freak out on people, even though I'm told that I don't show as much of it as I think I do.
I don't want to whine too much, though. Please let me know if there're things going on in your lives that're bothering you.
Okay, that's eleven minutes, not counting revision time, so I've got to go. I won't have much excuse for having lots of work if I write blog posts instead of actually getting things done.
-Laurel
10.04.2007
Lightbulb moment and comment on the tenor (alto?) of my recent posts
Not to cite Rev. Matt twice in a week, but I'm impressed enough with this little insight on a Gospel incident that I'm posting it here in case anyone else has ever wondered about it (where did he--Matt--learn that about the common saying? I've never heard that and would be interested to know):
Once when Jesus was preaching a message, a guy came up to him and said, "Jesus, I’ll follow you anywhere, but let me bury my father first." Does anyone remember what Jesus said? "Let the dead bury their own dead." Now, that sounds incredibly cruel at first. But it really wasn’t. When the man said, 'let me go bury my father first', he wasn’t saying that his father was dead and laying around unburied, he was repeating a common phrase back then that meant, "I can’t leave my family while my father is still alive because he needs my help." The guy’s dad not only wasn’t dead yet, but he could have been decades away from the grave.
The man wanted to follow Jesus, but he also felt an obligation to his father, his family, and so he essentially said, "Hey, Jesus, blood is thicker than water."
And Jesus said, "I’m not water. I’ve got to be your priority; you need to follow me first and foremost."
I know I've done a lot of outside religious citation over the past couple of weeks--and indeed, have brought my faith into my posting a lot more over this past year than I may ever have before. I don't mean to do it to be exclusive. I do mean to ponder and hopefully clarify complex issues wherever I can for the benefit of anyone at all who's interested. If you're not (...whether because you're not interested in pondering Christianity or because you've already heard all of my insights in other places!), I applaud your persistence if you're still reading this blog. This isn't a devotional site per se, and I don't intend to turn it into one, but I can't help writing about what I'm thinking about, and often that's going to bring in that which's the basis of my entire world. So thanks again for reading.
It's the Thursday of a chaotic week: my creative nonfiction project's taking a turn in a different direction, I think, though I may end up bringing folk dancing in where it touches the topic (so far it's about how sometimes the things we do for enjoyment turn into things we do for the sake of excellence, as it were, and what I see as the advantages and disadvantages thereof...old-school SFErs, especially 'Nanda and Daf, I might try to pick your brains about this soon). Things, both connected to creative nonfiction and to other general life aspects, are not easier quite yet: I still have a lot of work ahead of me. But they are going better.
-Laurel
Once when Jesus was preaching a message, a guy came up to him and said, "Jesus, I’ll follow you anywhere, but let me bury my father first." Does anyone remember what Jesus said? "Let the dead bury their own dead." Now, that sounds incredibly cruel at first. But it really wasn’t. When the man said, 'let me go bury my father first', he wasn’t saying that his father was dead and laying around unburied, he was repeating a common phrase back then that meant, "I can’t leave my family while my father is still alive because he needs my help." The guy’s dad not only wasn’t dead yet, but he could have been decades away from the grave.
The man wanted to follow Jesus, but he also felt an obligation to his father, his family, and so he essentially said, "Hey, Jesus, blood is thicker than water."
And Jesus said, "I’m not water. I’ve got to be your priority; you need to follow me first and foremost."
I know I've done a lot of outside religious citation over the past couple of weeks--and indeed, have brought my faith into my posting a lot more over this past year than I may ever have before. I don't mean to do it to be exclusive. I do mean to ponder and hopefully clarify complex issues wherever I can for the benefit of anyone at all who's interested. If you're not (...whether because you're not interested in pondering Christianity or because you've already heard all of my insights in other places!), I applaud your persistence if you're still reading this blog. This isn't a devotional site per se, and I don't intend to turn it into one, but I can't help writing about what I'm thinking about, and often that's going to bring in that which's the basis of my entire world. So thanks again for reading.
It's the Thursday of a chaotic week: my creative nonfiction project's taking a turn in a different direction, I think, though I may end up bringing folk dancing in where it touches the topic (so far it's about how sometimes the things we do for enjoyment turn into things we do for the sake of excellence, as it were, and what I see as the advantages and disadvantages thereof...old-school SFErs, especially 'Nanda and Daf, I might try to pick your brains about this soon). Things, both connected to creative nonfiction and to other general life aspects, are not easier quite yet: I still have a lot of work ahead of me. But they are going better.
-Laurel
10.01.2007
"October,/And kingdoms rise and kingdoms fall,/But You go on/And on."
Partly to supplement my own Bible reading, which's been kind of up and down lately (among other potential contributing factors, I think I have to find a better place to do it than stretched across my bed, because that exacerbates any tired feeling I already have, and already my mind's a bit prone these days to wandering off as I read...this creates a lot of trouble during theory homework), and partly out of curiosity and appreciation, I've been working my way through the Good Shepherd sermon archive. It's quite good. I especially appreciated this one when I read it just a bit ago. There's just something about that balance between free grace and responsibility where it's always helpful to me to see it sketched out, even though it's not the first time I've heard that question addressed.
Secular responsibility is also important, which means that it's time for me to finish up my reading for creative nonfiction class this afternoon.
-Laurel
Secular responsibility is also important, which means that it's time for me to finish up my reading for creative nonfiction class this afternoon.
-Laurel