Be Like an Unwelcome Guest

Dear Thanksgiving Break,
and Christmas soon after:
please be like an unwelcome guest.

Come early, leave late,
leave your keys on the sink,
and stand talking beside the door.

Bring unhealthy food;
wear garish red sweaters;
monopolize conversation.

Thanksgiving, Christmas:
Just one thing, please promise:
Don't cancel at the last minute.

That's all.

Life in 10 seconds

I have officially become a scholarwuss. I can't even carry a hay bale 100 yards without breaking a sweat. Or carry 4 water buckets without spilling. Sheesh.

Happy Saturday.

But Then...

Sometimes, I am just incredibly grateful for the ability to laugh.

Today was one of those days. After two weeks of increasing stress, I hit writer's block this week, with a paper due tomorrow (about torture and the literary) among other monsters. Nothing. I mean nothing. Commence mini-breakdown.

But then...

I'm grateful for a couple friends who pulled me out of my own head, kept me company working, and listened to me grumble. There's something purgative about calling your work what it is, especially when it's just plain bad.

I'm grateful for finally being able to put words on paper that, bad writing as it is, can pass for a paper when the deadline rolls around.

I'm grateful for Jim Brickman sheet music and a piano I could play (after trying for two weeks to find one where no one was studying) without an audience, except a very nice security guard - even if that requires it to be midnight on the worst weather day in a long time.

And I'm grateful I fell on my backside in the mud AFTER the other two events, so that I was significantly lighter-hearted and didn't waste the opportunity for a good laugh at myself.

Sometimes, that's enough.

Life in 10 seconds

...because that's about all I have right now.

At least one paper per week between now and mid-December. Currently reading Hardy's Jude the Obscure - like it - Lynch's Catching the Big Fish, Camus's "Myth of Sisyphus," and Kincaid's Autobiography of My Mother.

Seems like a lot of my reading material lately is about meaningless. Camus opens by saying that life is absurd, and if people were consistent, we would all commit suicide. The rest of the essay is his attempt to figure out why he doesn't want to, life's absurdity being a given. Happy stuff, this.

Extreme Makeover, Grad Student Edition

I never thought I would go to graduate school to get a fashion makeover. I came here to study, right?

Wrong.

Introducing the newest breakout hit in reality television, Extreme Makeover: Graduate Student Edition. Although lacking in "move that bus" lachrymal drama and Stacy's erstwhile pointy-toed heels, this show will revolutionize the way graduate students throw on a sweater vest.

It certainly has for me.

The semester is more than half over, and the graduate school machine has already worked its magic in my daily wardrobe.

See for yourself.

That watch you're wearing? It is so totally yesterday. Obsolete. I mean it. For shame. When you leave a class, or a job, or an appointment, that means it's time to be at the next one! Life does not fit itself into 24 hours anymore. Get used to it. Embrace it. Ditch the timepiece.

Slender computer shoulder bag? Whoa, stop right there. How many books can you fit in that thing? Two? Three? What are you thinking!!! The first cardinal rule of grad school apparel is that if it fits on your bookshelf, it must fit in your book bag. This season, we're seeing a reemergence of the traditional pack, with significant increases in the swiss army backpack, although some avant-garde grads are already moving toward the frame pack. Slight difficulties with fitting up the stairs in the library have temporarily hindered the progression of this trend.

Cute shoes? Hold it just a second: 13 x 3. I would tell you to do the math except that you're studying the Humanities. Count them: 39 stairs, and that's just to get to your study carrel. If you want to come back down (not that you would), that's another 39 right there. It's time to put your feet first for a change.

Ponytails, buns, and other up-do's? I can't believe we're even having this conversation. When was the last time you slept on a pillow made of tennis balls and needles? So why would you want to inhibit your ability to fall asleep in any chair, anywhere by creating a tennis ball and/or mat of bobby pins on the back of your head? Keep it simple, ladies. Keep it simple.

And finally, the second cardinal rule of gradual school apparel: any clothing that can substitute for pajamas is a no-brainer. Unless, of course, you're still wearing the outfit after you fell asleep in the library last night while trying to write a paper...

There is a limit to everything.

Now go forth and conquer the world of fashion.

10 Things You Learn...

10 Things You Learn After Spending 26 Hours on Campus Over a Two-Day Period

---

10. Candy corn will probably be made an illegal stimulant at some point in the near future.

9. Trying to translate one's Latin sentences into Elvish instead of English is a good indication that one should go to bed.

8. Protocol matters: Dropping a book in the 24-hour study room is cause for Class 3 dirty looks after 10 p.m.

7. Coughing is cause for Class 2 dirty looks at any time.

6. Setting off alarms on doors to restricted areas is cause for Class 1 A+++ dirty looks and, if repeated, of expulsion from the society of conscientious graduate students nationwide.

5. Coffee shops secretly pay professors to assign their papers all in the same week.

4. Anything involving stairs after Hour 15 should be avoided.

3. There are 29 specks of dirt on the window in the study lounge which, if examined with the head at a 13.5 degree angle for two minutes consecutively, resemble a small kangaroo jumping over a Christmas bell.

2. Productivity = (0.5 x cups of coffee) + (1/hours-until-deadline) - (0.7 x hours-spent-working) / time-of-day-in-military-time. and...

1. You are a graduate student.

C'est fini

L'examen, c'est fini. Si je l'ai echoue ou reussi, ce n'est plus ma probleme!

Life in 10 seconds

Trying in vain to transition my brain

from Latin to French

between now and Tuesday

for my translation test.

Ad infinitem.

Non omnes qui errant amittuntur.

Et cetera.

C'est tres difficile, n'est-ce pas?

Confessions

Confession: I frequently re-read papers which received a good grade. Not to analyze what I did well and could do better, but to relive the euphoria of the positive comments.

Confession: I save and revisit emails in which someone complimented me. Not for any practical purpose, but to read nostalgically when I'm discouraged.

Confession: About half the contents of my "memory boxes" are mementos of my successes or awards. Not because I loved the essay that won a blue ribbon at the fair ten years ago, but because the ribbon is "proof" that I did something well.

I've been thinking about the facts of those confessions quite a lot since I started graduate school. This afternoon, I read the post Asking "Is it true?" from the blog Stuff Christians Like. Check it out:

When I feel wounded or hurt, I often feel tempted to ask Google Analytics, a web traffic tool, if I’m any good. I want to open up my statistics and look at all the pageviews and say, “See, that’s not true. I’m not worthless, look at all the countries that have read this site.”

And maybe if you don’t have a blog, you go somewhere else for the answer to the question, “Is it true?”

Maybe you go to a memory, and try to relive a time in your life when you felt popular or loved.

Maybe you ask a new car or a new pair of shoes or a new anything your question.

Am I old? Is that true sports car?

Am I ugly? Is that true new outfit?

Am I dumb? Is that true new laptop?

And we ask and ask and ask, but regardless of the answer, regardless of if our loved ones provide a temporary salve to a question that hinges on our true identity, something gnaws at us. ...

Oych. It's so easy to do that...to ask my twelfth grade soccer trophy if I'm valuable, my conference acceptance letter if I'm grad school material, my test scores if I measure up to my peers.

The problem is that for every positive memento is a negative one: rejection letters, criticism, angry words. The problem is that on the balances, the accolades may not always be heavier.

I think ultimately it's not that I keep these mementos, not that I prize the respect and praise following a job well done, but that these things are the Band-Aid I use to heal my self-esteem and the cold weather gear I put on my identity.

"Who am I?" and "What am I worth?" are awfully big questions to tie to a few crumpled ribbons, scraps of paper, and dusty trophies.

"Because you are precious in my eyes,
and honored, and I love you."

Isaiah 43

When Benjamin Met Lynch and Blake

This is what happens when it's 10 o'clock at night and you don't want to read philosophy for your 9:30 class.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

When Benjamin Met Lynch and Blake

When Benjamin met Lynch and Blake
They all went out for tea,
Except that Blake re-named the cakes,
And Lynch forgot the brie.

"No problem, friend," said Blake to Lynch,
"I have this pound cake here.
But since the name has now been changed
We'll eat it all as 'Prear'!"

"Except, dear sir," said Benjamin,
"There's not enough for three."
"But wait! But wait!" cried David Lynch
"Mix dirt in with the tea!

The taste, you'll find, is not unlike
A bit of blood and worms:
Quite suited for the appetite
Of men who've come to terms."

"He has a point," said Benjamin,
"The aura is quite rare."
"Well then, let's dreat," said William Blake,
"And sup this glooging fare."

Since glooging fit the mood by chance,
They all agreed to "dreat"
And when they'd dreaten all the prear,
They called it quite a treat.

But after all was cleared away,
A feeling strange came on,
And William Blake asked David Lynch,
"That dirt you chose - a pond?"

"A puddle, Will," said David Lynch
"With scum that has no peer!"
"Aha," said Benjamin to Blake,
"At last it's all come clear.

The sounds that whistle round our guts
Are not the Future's art.
Instead, quite simply, what we hear
Is nothing but the start...

It's Lynch's first film coming true,
Except not six but three.
You see, our skills are better spent
On books than fixing tea."