Time Warp, or Thoughts During a Pandemic

It’s a jump to the left. Then a step to the right.

And ope, look at that it’s the end of July and my wall calendar still says March. The past four months have somehow disappeared and it feels like they never happened. What did I do with that time? I keep thinking it can’t be later than April, but then, no, here comes a writing deadline with a PhD progression deadline close on its heels. Didn’t I have months before these were due? Where did those months go?

It’s astounding. Time is fleeting.

Look again, and the calendar on the wall still says March but the calendar on my laptop says July, and that seems to be the general consensus among news websites, podcasters, and the outdoor temperature. Even the sun is in on it, rising early and setting late, taunting me with its mid-summer-ness when honestly if it wanted to do its February thing right now that would better match my mood. Sure, things are reopening, but honestly, I still feel uncomfortable with the idea of eating indoors and I don’t see myself booking a desk at the British Library anytime soon – despite the fact that I would desperately love a place to work that wasn’t my one-bedroom apartment where work-life and home-life have become so intertwined that I’m constantly stressed out, but also constantly eating pizza and watching Netflix (shout out to Schitt’s Creek). I used to catch so many colds at the British Library. Best not to risk it at the moment… right? Am I being overly cautious?

Madness takes its toll.

I spent the first three months of lockdown completely alone. One day in May I looked at my hands and started crying because they were so human, and I hadn’t been within six feet of another living being – animal or person – in more than two months. A glorious spring was passing by, and all the theatre I had booked was canceled. A trip to Paris canceled. A weekend in Cornwall evaporated like a dream. Everything that motivates me to work, gone. “If I write this much I can visit a museum or check TodayTix.” Or, “If I write this much I can get a tea with a friend.” No more. And yet, I knew I was lucky. I know I am lucky. I wasn't sick. I had food and a roof over my head. But I started to feel like a husk of a person, nevertheless. Wandering between the two rooms of my flat, growing older, like that montage in the Ghost of Christmas Past bit of Muppet Christmas Carol that shows Scrooge growing up. I played so much Animal Crossing and became so attached to a few of my islanders that I began to feel like Millie from Fahrenheit 451. Every day I needed to log in to visit my friends. My computer-programmed friends. “Do the white clowns love you, Millie?”

Time meant nothing never would again.

I’ve realized that I’m an analog person. I used to never keep a diary/calendar, because I could remember all of my meetings in my mind. I could visualize myself going to a place, at a time, meeting a person. I never missed appointments or classes or research coffee hours. Now it’s all on my computer and I find I can’t make heads nor tails of the various reading groups and meetings set up through the school. Is it on Zoom? Microsoft Teams? Google Meetings? Skype? WhatsApp? Did I receive an email about this? I even forget plans I made to video chat with friends – I’m shocked every Saturday at 4pm when my computer ‘rings’ and my friend is calling for our standing date. And the school hasn’t been exactly clear about plans for next year, or about sending invoices for all the marking I did at the beginning of lockdown (!!!), and in general, I’m feeling disillusioned with academia. Is it about education or the bottom-line? Look at all the jobs being lost – is this degree worth it?

With a bit of a mind flip, you’re into the time slip.

Then I had a glorious month that flew by far too quickly of Tim visiting me, and we watched movies and cooked dinners and – after his quarantine period ended – became regulars at the coffee shop on the corner. I felt like a normal person again. We spent most of our time in my flat, but with him working, I could work, too. I managed to finish editing/re-working a paper for an academic journal while he was here, and I wrote the only bit of my thesis I’ve managed to eke out since all this began. We’d get coffees and walk through the graveyard, and visit my graveyard boyfriend, Percy (Tim knows, he gets it). (EDIT: Tim would like for me to clarify that Percy died in 1899.) And now… I’m alone again, with mountains of writing ahead of me.

It’s so dreamy, fantasy free me.

Part of the problem is finding value in my writing. Cinderella? At a time like this? ::Gestures broadly at everything.:: But what else am I doing if not distracting myself from the news cycle? Why not distract myself with fairy tales and ballgowns, and thinking more deeply about the role of adaptation and story in the world we live in? Isn’t that valuable? Because stories keep being told, even now. Clothes keep being worn, and if anything, our relationship to our clothing has been under a re-evaluation in the past five months in a way it never has been before. Isn’t that what I study? Our relationship to clothing? Has it ever been more important than now, when dress-codes have crumbled and are being made anew? When the catwalks of Fashion Weeks have moved online, or in the case of Dior, have been made miniature? When fast fashion companies are under scrutiny for their business practices, and we have a chance at pushing for more ethical fashion? Why not disappear for a bit into costume design and iridescent blue chiffon and crinolines? Maybe I just need to have a bit more faith in my dreams, as Cinderella might sing. Maybe if I keep on believing, this thesis will actually take shape.

Let’s do the time warp again.



(Image from Rocky Horror Picture Show, 20th Century Fox)

Last of the Last Hurrahs

I thought that graduation would give me a sense of finality about this program.  When that didn't happen, I thought for sure that after our fancy-dress party I would suddenly realize how everything had ended.  Surprisingly, that didn't happen either.  In fact, I think it first hit me last Wednesday.  I drove down to Williamsburg mid-week last week for a day-long embroidery class with the Royal School of Needlework.  As I sat there, working on my embroidered teacup with my British tutor, I realized that Amanda was flying home.  She was gone.  I had said my final goodbye to her on Monday night, and now she had left.  And something about that made it feel very, very real.

But then I came home and a round of parties started up again, and that sort of negated my impression of everything ending.  On Saturday, Zan and I attended a Nats baseball game with a few of his high school friends, and we stayed out late talking in Crystal City, despite a wide-spread power outage in the area.  The next morning, we had brunch near Dupont Circle with a few people from Zan's cohort, then went to the zoo with Zan's high school friends to see the panda bears.  Later that night we attended a dinner party with the people from my cohort who have not yet left.  It was an amazing dinner party-- Alex made turkey, roasted potatoes, almond green beans, fantastic carrot cake and gluten-free chocolate granola bars.  We had fun imitating each other, telling jokes, talking about the future.  I got Alex to sign my copy of the book that he wrote-- something I'd been meaning to do for over a year.

Then on Monday, my dad made me and Zan his famous grilled hamburgers for lunch.  Later, Cara and Emmett came over to spend an afternoon at the pool with margaritas, and that evening a group of us got together to watch St. Elmo's Fire (and now we say that everything is "out of hand" and feel grateful that our lives are more together than those of the characters, despite some existential similarities).  And last night we all gathered at Penn Commons for a goodbye round of drinks for Emmett and Emily.  And now... now it feels real.  Emmett leaves today.  Emily leaves tomorrow.  Thomas leaves in a week.  We're all really splitting apart and going our own ways-- teaching in Germany, biking to Portland, starting grad programs in California and New York.  This little bubble of time is over.

Leaving the Hilltop

 
The commencement ceremony for the class of 2015 happened on Friday morning.  For the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, it was an early morning.  We met at our line-up locations at 7:30 AM, and finally processed out onto Healy Lawn at 9:00.  Luckily, the morning was bright and clear, low humidity, and almost a little cold.  For May in D.C., we couldn't have asked for more.  

The ceremony was much as any graduation ceremony, I suppose.  We donned our caps and gowns, and had our degrees conferred upon us, and put on our Masters Hoods.  We walked across the stage when our name was called, and had a photo taken with the dean.  After the ceremony, friends rushed to congratulate each other, and we parted to have lunch with our families.  My family, Zan, and I went to Good Stuff Eatery on M Street.  Burgers, fries, and milkshakes!  Perfect!  We ran into several of my co-workers from Special Collections also eating lunch there, which was an added bonus.  

After lunch, Zan and I returned to campus to await the English Department Reception.  We visited the library to pick up a DVD I had requested (St. Elmo's Fire, of course), browsed through the DVD section for awhile, then crashed in the grad lounge for a bit.  After that early morning wake up call, I felt exhausted.  Emmett came in to work on a thank you note for his adviser, and then we descended upon Dahlgren Quad for a nice little party.  We spent the afternoon outdoors in the perfect weather

catching up with people who hadn't come to the ceremony, and meeting parents and friends.  After I got home, my parents took me out to a nice dinner and then gave me a lovely Hot Air Balloon Clock for my graduation present-- it's beautiful, and will go nicely with the many other Hot Air Balloon objects I have acquired over the course of this year of thesis-writing.



Still, it doesn't feel quite over yet.  Tonight my cohort is holding our fancy dress party-- the last of the last hurrahs-- and maybe then it will hit me.  Everyone keeps asking, "What's next?", as they will.  I don't know.  Last time 'round I had plans, but the ground kept shifting under my feet.  Maybe it's best to just go with the flow this time, to see where I land, and to trust it will be right where I belong.

Endings and Beginnings

On Thursday, as I usually do, I took my lunch to the graduate lounge to eat before going into work.  Most Thursdays the lounge is teeming with people getting ready for their afternoon class, or-- more recently-- finishing up final papers.  When I opened the door yesterday, the room was empty and still.  A few minutes later a first-year showed up-- finishing a final paper-- and we chatted for a bit as I ate.  Then, as I packed up my bags to walk over to the library, I realized that I had just eaten what would probably be my last lunch in the graduate lounge.  No more will I grab a quick bite before work, or before class.  I have no need to spend hours in the English Department, and no need to stock my shelf in the graduate lounge with tea and popcorn and granola bars.  In fact, my shelf looks rather bare these days, devoid even of my theory reader which has occupied the space for the past two years.

Yesterday marked another momentous 'last.'  My last day of work in Special Collections, at least for the foreseeable future.  For the last time as a graduate student assistant, I pulled open the glass doors into the center and helped researchers at the reception desk.  I cleaned up my space in the workroom and bid adieu to the processing room and the stacks.  One of my co-workers made me brownies from scratch, and we watched the WWII planes fly over DC from the library window.

After work, summer really began.  I met Cara and Amanda by the John Carroll statue and we stretched out in the sun on Healy lawn.  After awhile, we walked to Amanda's to pick up a bottle of Pimms, then headed across the river to sit outside on the balcony at my place.  We met up with Zan, Amanda made Pimms Cup, and we soaked up the warmth of the afternoon.  Around seven, we met up with Harry and Charlotte for a sushi dinner and split bottles of sake, then afterwards we all returned to the balcony to sit out in the warm night talking about the past and the future.  It seems magnificent that the weather is warm enough to sit outside at night.  Not long ago the idea of summer seemed impossible.  Yet, in less than a week we will all have graduated, onto new adventures.  A summer stretches before us, full of possibilities.      
  
Even though I finished all of my requirements for my M.A. a few weeks ago, and received word that my thesis was officially accepted by the graduate school a little over a week ago, the routine of work kept me coming to campus and feeling like this graduate student life would never actually end.  But somehow, it has.  My thesis was difficult, and this year was trying in many ways, but I absolutely could not have asked for a better M.A. cohort than the class of 2015. 

Last Hurrahs

This weekend signaled the beginning of the end.  Suddenly, everything feels like the last time.  My last official day of classes.  My last frustrating attempt to print in the grad lounge.  The last time I double-click to open my document entitled "English Masters Thesis" (at least for awhile).  

We had our English MA end-of-the-year party on Saturday, at the same place that we had one of our first beginning-of-the-year parties back in late August.  As we piled BBQ pork, burgers, macaroni salad, and more onto the small table in the dining area, I couldn't help but remember just eight months ago when we set it with home-made lasagna, garlic bread, and salad.  Then, Thomas did all of the cooking as we second-years greeted each other after a long summer apart and began to get to know the first-years.  Then, we all still brimmed with the excitement that comes with the first week of classes, and we gave each other knowing, exasperated sighs as we contemplated the months of thesis-writing ahead of us.  Now, we ask each other about our after-graduation plans, speaking of the far-flung places we'll land, the jobs we want and the jobs we got, and excitedly talk about the moment that we officially submitted our theses and capstones.  I submitted mine on Thursday. 

In three weeks, we will graduate and my cohort will disperse to Germany, England, Michigan, and Massachusetts.  Still others have plans in California, New Hampshire, and Ohio.  Our close-knit little community is breaking apart and once again I feel like Jo March, saddened by all of the change, by a chapter closing.  But now, like Jo, it's time to start realizing some of my own life-long goals.  It's also time to banish fear of failure (or, perhaps, to learn to work with that fear), and to learn to accept that not every path to fulfillment has clear-cut mile markers.  But that's a post for another time.

At the moment, I think there's nothing wrong with reveling in a few more weeks of last hurrahs.

Holding Out for the Ides

It's go time!  I have twenty-five pages to write in the next eight days.  I then need to tighten up the writing, revise a little, and I'm aiming to have everything turned in for my defense draft by March 14th.  I can rest on March 15th.  Tall order?  Yes.  Do-able?  Yes.  It's going to be a long two weeks, but I can do it.

A few more small victories: just completed Unit 7 in Rosetta Stone!  Only missed one day since the 16th, even if February has been a bit slower going due to all the writing.  And, it's only 11:30 this morning, but so far today I've taken my car for my state inspection, run/walked 1.5 miles, stretched, done crunches, washed a load of laundry, Rosetta Stone-d, and made Pillsbury Cinnamon Buns.  I'm on a roll!  Can't stop me now!  Aiming for seven pages today-- here I go!!!!!

A Crazy Week

Well, I sent off nearly 30 pages to my adviser on Sunday.  Then today I realized that a page and a half-- what I thought was a brilliant new insight-- was actually a totally erroneous reading because I hadn't done my history legwork and had relied on someone else's notes.  It's okay, I noticed it before my adviser could point it out to me, I revised it, and I sent him the revised edition, but boy, do I feel foolish.  We all make mistakes, I guess.  Luckily, this doesn't affect the overall thesis. 

The craziness of this week doesn't come from a faulty reading, however.  In the past week or so I've had a snow day, a trip to New Mexico, a six and a half hour delay at the Denver airport, and my fifth anniversary with Zan.  The snow day was kind of fun-- I didn't have to go into work.  We had some friends in town so we went to a late breakfast at a roadside diner style restaurant.  Kind of a relaxing day (if any day is relaxing when I'm so far into thesis mode).

New Mexico was beautiful and sad.  We're putting my grandma into hospice care.  They found a cancerous mass in her abdomen.  She's 82, very weak, and her kidneys aren't functioning well.  The doctors said they didn't know if she had a few weeks, months, or a year, but they recommended hospice.  It seems like it might be months-- if that.  My mom and I booked a flight to see her immediately.  I thought of waiting until Spring Break in mid-March, but I'm glad I didn't.  She's rapidly declining and I didn't want to wait until too late. We had a good visit, though.  We did some fun things: got to see my aunt's new frozen custard/fudge/popcorn shop (it's all SO tasty!), had a few nice dinners out with my aunt, uncle, and cousins.  Mostly, though, my mom and I tried to spend as much time as possible with my grandma.  We watched a Peanuts special together, talked as much as didn't weary out my grandma, and my aunt brought us all Chinese carry-out for lunch.  After my grandma had gone to bed, my mom and I went to our hotel bar and got margaritas and sat outside by a fire, looking out over the mountains.  For, in spite of it all, these were hard days.  It's not easy watching someone you love... you know.  I'm sure I could write more eloquently if I tried.

But the American West is really something.  You feel so small, but not in an insignificant way-- it's like, a kind of gratefulness washes over you.  I kept thinking, "I get to live on this Earth.  What a magnificent place."  It was warm while we were there, too.  The second day, while my mom and aunt had a long meeting with hospice, I sat outside in the sun and worked on my thesis.  I felt so able, somehow.  I wrote around 12 pages in two and a half days.  At night I could see the stars so clearly, and I just kept thinking of a line in the poem I'm writing about, "This dead of midnight is the noon of thought/ And wisdom mounts her zenith with the stars."

...and then getting home we got stuck in Denver.  Not because of snow, but because of a mechanical issue.  I appreciate that we can't fly with a mechanical problem, but wow.  We didn't get home until 3:00 AM-- when we were scheduled to arrive just before dinner.  Still, I got a lot of writing done in the airport, and we had some really tasty Wolfgang Puck Pizza Express.  Seriously, the guy cooking the pizzas was an artist.  Good food really improves any experience.

And on Monday, Zan and I celebrated FIVE WHOLE YEARS together!  Since he had work until 9:30 we couldn't do anything super special, but we ate lunch at Ray's (we get burgers each year on our anniversary) and then for dinner had some homemade soup and exchanged gifts.  Simple pleasures.  So happy to have spent five years together.  What a five years it's been!   

Going Back to Canon

The Lizzie Bennet Diaries is, in a way, fan fiction writ large.  I'm sure I'm not original in thinking so.  But the thing is, I've never been a hard-core Austen devotee, so over the past two years (yes, I found the series pretty late in the game) The Lizzie Bennet Diaries has been my Pride and Prejudice.  Yeah, I'd seen the Colin Firth mini-series a couple of times and swooned over the clothes and the men, and I read the book once during undergrad, but what really made it breathe for me was this YouTube series.  It's no secret that I totally fell in love with the characters, and especially Lydia.  I loved gossiping with my friend Megan over Jane and Bing, and I actually took time out of a graduate school admitted students day to go watch when Lizzie posted the video of her and Darcy's first kiss.  Unfortunately, no one else there that day could understand my excitement.  This past summer I listened to the audiobook of The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet and I'm so looking forward to Lydia's book.

So fast forward to today, when I realize that I need to read Pride and Prejudice this weekend for the class I'm auditing.  I considered skipping it, since I mean, I just listened to The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet a couple months ago and how different will it really be?  Plus, I've listened to/read a lot of Austen and other 18th-century novels recently, so I have the style of it down in my head.  I can pretty much imagine how Austen wrote it.  But I went ahead and downloaded it in audiobook format (because I'm positive that I'll "read" more of it while cooking dinner and during my morning commute than I will if I try to carve out dedicated time for it-- I need that time for thesis-writing right now).  And while yes, it's just what I expected on most levels-- even in the first hour, I'm shocked to remember that Kitty Bennet is not an actual cat, and the I'm beginning to recollect the level of loathing that I formerly felt towards Lydia.  I mean, yes, logically I knew these things, but when you become so invested in a story, it can be hard to remember how it feels when those "facts" revert to something else.  This will be an interesting couple of days.  And I think it will probably spark a lot re-watching on YouTube.

Closing January

January is ending with mild acute thesis panic (as, I imagine, the next few months will).  I keep writing and writing, but it never feels good enough.  I'm having a hard-hitting case of imposter syndrome.  I know it's my adviser's job to, well, advise, and offer suggestions, but it doesn't make it easier to hear that parts of what I've written need to go back to the drawing board-- even if I kind of felt that these parts did when I first wrote them.  Especially with so little time left to complete this rather large writing project.  I want to just force him to accept what I've written even if parts don't quite make sense or some historical fact is a little gratuitous because it makes the word count longer!  And I want that right now!  And it seems so easy when he says it: "Just write what you think."  But what if what I think isn't good enough?  What if... well, what if.  Anyone else feel this way?

On a brighter note, today I finished The Mysteries of Udolpho for class.  What an incredibly long book!  I feel so accomplished having actually completed it!  And, it has set my mind in motion for some future schemes (that no, don't involve black veils, kidnapping, murder, or a trip to the Pyrenees)! 

On Finishing a Thesis Chunk

At 1:06 this afternoon I officially finished the semester.  At 1:06 I printed off my sixteen-page thesis chunk (5657 words!) and my four-page semester self-reflection paper and placed them in my adviser's mailbox in the office.  It's a nice feeling, but not so sweet as the end of a semester usually feels.  Despite having spent more time on these sixteen pages than I ever have on a paper of comparable length, I know it's not really over.  I have my work cut out for me on this thesis, and turning in the chunk today only means that now I have time to get more research done--in a very compressed time.  The whole thesis is due in late March.  I read a thing online recently called "The Manifesto of the Cult of Done," and one of the tenets said: "Done is the engine of more." I liked that.  I'm done, so I can do more.  I used that to push myself to complete the introduction-- once I finish this task, it will leave me free to do more research.  And I am looking forward to the research finally.  The path looks so much clearer than it did from August to early November.  I wish I had another six months to continue researching.  I have a nice stack of books and articles to take home with me over the break, and while I've spent this afternoon not doing very much of anything, I really intend (and need) to read and write quite a bit over break.  If I can get a chapter draft done by January 10th I will be a very happy camper.

But this afternoon I langoured in the freedom of not having a paper immediately due.  I sat on the couch with an episode of Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, a plate of almonds, dried cherries, and goat cheese, and finished up some online Christmas shopping--while I longed desperately for every piece of clothing in Miss Fisher's wardrobe.  The week stretches busily before me, but at least this afternoon afforded me a moment of quiet, calm, and relaxation.  

Writing a Thesis at Home: A Haiku

Sitting on the floor
Attempting to concentrate
Two too many cats.

Writing a Thesis at the Grad Write-In: A Haiku

Click-clacking of keys
Books strewn across the table
I belong right here.

Writing a Thesis in Disney World: A Haiku

Sweet Florida sunshine
A gorgeous day at Disney
Inside I'm writing.

Tentative Thesis Revelation

I'm a little scared to say it, since I've said it so many times before and I keep getting stuck, but... 

I've had a thesis break-through.  I think, finally, I see where I want to go.  I don't know exactly what I want to argue yet, but then, I didn't know that for about a year with the last thesis I wrote.  But at least now, instead of eagerly grabbing at anything and everything that captures my attention or seems even tangentially related to something I might possible want to write on someday, I have a more focused reading plan and something that feels like an honest-to-God topic.  I have even picked out a couple of central literary pieces from the huge mess of poems, short stories, treatises, and novels I've been looking into-- a step that has done more for me than anything else to this point.  I feel more positive about everything, even if thus far my attempts at writing on the subject have been a little crap.  Writing always starts out a little crap, so I'm not too worried.  The fact that I can envision writing sixty pages, finally, warms me to the cockles of my hitherto grad-frozen heart.  Before this is over I'll probably have several more weeks of nerve-wracking stress, feelings of inadequacy, and days and nights of questioning everything I've ever thought, but I think I've finally gotten to the point that I can just make out a path through the woods.  One foot in front of the other.

Beginning a Thesis

I have started a Thesis Log, separately from this blog (and just for me).  My professor for my thesis research methods seminar recommended writing for 25 minutes a day-- and by writing she also meant reading/thinking/note-taking.  But I like the idea of writing and reflecting on my reading for (at least) 25 minutes a day.  I'm approaching it a bit like The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet, so my Thesis Log includes bits and pieces of my life, too, and personal thoughts and reflections.  I'm hoping that, like Lizzie, I may be able to look back over my Log and discover how my thoughts were shaped, what it is that I enjoy about what I'm doing, and that these discoveries will help me both with my writing and with my future career goals.  I loved getting the backstory on Lizzie's thesis-- why the videos were relevant to a thesis topic and not just a girl with a camera-- and even though my thesis has nothing to do with video blogging, I think writing about it for 25 minutes a day will help my ideas.  At the very least, it might make good reading material for me once this whole thing is over.

As of right now, I've been doing the reading/thinking/note-taking recommended, but I still feel a bit panicky over it all.  I am trying to remind myself that when I started out my history masters I still hadn't read the book that would end up informing the 'thesis' part of it.  I didn't really think about the stakes of a thesis then: I just knew that I had to compare two things (it was a comparative history degree).  I found a colonial American theater company and knew a bit about London theatricals, and thought, "Well, this seems perfect!  I can just compare what shows they put on and their staging.  Done!  And they all speak English!  No need for a translator!"  And, at the time, that seemed like enough-- as if a thesis were nothing more than a glorified research paper.  Of course, over the ensuing year and a half I learned quite a lot-- both about 18th-century theater and the purpose of graduate school-- and perhaps I just got lucky that I found a way to say something new in the field.  My thesis chunk that I turned in at the beginning of my second semester (comparable to the one I will have to turn in at the end of this semester) certainly didn't say anything new at all.  But I worked with it, and found my angle.

The thing is, it's easy now to look back and see exactly what I wanted to say in my history thesis, and it's hard for me-- in this program-- not to feel like I'm behind because I can't find the 'intervention' that I want to make in the first week or so.  I mean, I've read a biography and a book of poetry and the (long) introductions to two critical editions, why don't I have an angle?  See, when I say it like that it seems pretty silly to expect to have a grandiose plan at this point.  I have a topic.  I am interested in female Romantic writers.  I am focusing on Mary Robinson and Anna Laetitia Barbauld at this point, letting their works wash over me, and seeing where I might take them.  Maybe I'll find someone else entirely-- a few new names have cropped up in the last few days of reading.  And I need to know that that's okay.  That my history thesis didn't come to me fully-formed.  That I hadn't even read The Marketplace of Revolution when I discovered the Hallams and the London Company of Comedians. 

So, the point of the Log is, then, to provide me with a map, so that I can see where I've been and, perhaps, to point me towards where I'm going.  Here's the journey!

Last First Day of Classes...?

I've made the claim to have attended my last first day of classes at least once before now, so I'm hesitant to say so again with certainty.  But, at least for the foreseeable future, yesterday was my last first day of classes!  Last first day of classes that I'm taking, and not teaching, anyway.  See?  Very little may be said with confidence when it comes to last first days of classes.

The day started a bit rough, for no discernible reason, but ended on a very nice note.  For months now, we thesis-writers have been panicking a bit about our first day of thesis class.  Our professor asked us to speak on our topic for 5-7 minutes, and few of us felt prepared to do so.  The day before yesterday Cara and I had lunch together to prep what we might say.  The lunch made me feel less panicky, but not entirely settled.  So, yesterday I woke up, drank my tea, and read a few 'beads' in Eat Pray Love (it's good practice for me to have a book from which I read a small amount per day and really reflect on what I've read, especially this book with its religious and self-knowledge themes).  After an early lunch, I caught the bus to campus.  I worked on booking flights for a wedding I'm attending next month, then stood up too quickly and hit my side hard on a handrail.  It really hurt.  I plunged into a dark mood.  To try to cheer up, I purchased a clementine flavored soda and a Snickers bar, then dedicated the remaining hour or so until class to reading Heavens to Betsy.  I've needed this sojourn to Deep Valley.

Then class started, and I absolutely love our professor.  She's warm and friendly and guided us through our initial presentations with ease.  I even ceased to feel nervous!  After class, I briefly discussed with her an idea I've been having for a new direction, and wondered if she thought it too late to switch things up a bit.  The talk made me feel an inkling more excited about my thesis and definitely put me in a better mood.  Then I checked my e-mail, and I got the job at the library!  I'm thrilled!!!  I really, really think this might just be the start of something good.  And thus the day ended with a pint with some friends from my program, and the prospect of good things to come!

Quiet in the Noisy Swirl

My life this past week turned into a noisy swirl.  I led an ordered life during the summer: in June, I read during the day and attended class in the evening.  In July, I spent carefree days in Williamsburg, reading in the mornings, watching movies during the afternoons, and visiting friends in the evenings.  In August, I spent a lovely week at the beach, finishing a book for my thesis, completing a Rosetta Stone unit, and starting on a cross-stitch sampler.  Then it all changed, and suddenly the noise came back to my head, telling me to read more and do more and that I'm not enough.

This week, I had meetings to go to, appointments to attend, interviews, and events to plan.  Suddenly the rapidly approaching change of seasons started to agitate me; how will I withstand the cold of another winter?  Why are we drinking pumpkin spice lattes in August?  Then I begin to have anxiety about how will I ever learn Spanish and have all these hours been for nothing, because I can't even read children's books without stumbling over at least a few words, and why am I not perfectly fluent yet, and will I ever be? (My perfectionism won't let me appreciate my small accomplishments as I learn more and more words.)  Mostly, I began to panic again about my thesis project and the seeming impossibility of it, and dread that seeps into my bones when I try to imagine writing another thesis.  I know this dread is of the moment, and will dissipate as I read and formulate ideas (better-- will turn into joy! I do love the eighteenth century) but that doesn't stop it from feeling awful now.

So on Wednesday I decided to try to quiet my mind.  I walked up the hill listening to my Frankenstein audiobook, feeling productive (I am loving audiobooks).  I stepped inside the Bayou Bakery, where zydeco music is always playing and the smell of chicory coffee and beignets fills the air.  I ordered a glass of sweet tea and a slice of freshly made blackberry-almond coffee cake, still warm from the oven.  One gooey bite of warm blackberry dispelled most of my worry.  I opened my new book, the one I really didn't need to buy at the beach, but that I felt I needed to buy at the beach, and I began to read.  Then I stopped, because this book is too good and I don't want it to ever end, plus I needed another bite of that warm crunchy coffee-cake top.  With a bit of blackberry, too.  Then I read a bit more, and I think some odd sixth-sense must have led me to this book, or maybe this book-- like the house it's about-- is magic and it knew that I needed it and it placed itself on the shelf just so, that my eye might catch its bright cover.  I'm only twenty-two pages in, but already I think this may be a book I read again and again, like Eat Pray Love or The Alchemist.  I feel comfortable in its pages, even though I'm still new to it.

Then I finished my tea and coffee cake, and I walked further up the hill, listening to Frankenstein, and I bought a pair of crop jeans and I used up the last of a Barnes and Noble gift card on a Spanish children's book full of illustrations and some words I understand and lots of words I don't understand, but have faith that I will learn.  Then I walked home in the warm-but-not-too-warm evening sunshine, and I cleaned up the apartment a bit, which helped my mood considerably.  The noisy swirl inside my head felt calmer; my mind felt clearer.  And even now, as anxiety again tugs at the corners of my thoughts, whispering horrible things about my academic preparedness and the state of my thesis research, I try to remember that my adviser told me not to harden my thoughts, and that I'm on track, and that I have two books ILLed that should arrive at the library anyday, and in the meantime I'm just a short walk from sweet tea and just a few pages from a magical house full of hope.

Pumpkin Ale and Research Plans

It's the end of August.  The weather has been shockingly mild this summer, so the air already feels like a Virginia September.  The light quality is changing, too.  I'm noticing the days getting shorter; I see the way the sunbeams slant in the afternoons a bit more richly than in high summer.  I caved; despite saying I would wait until September, I've bought both Woodchuck Fall cider (my favorite) and pumpkin ale.  I even drank a pumpkin ale last night at our back-to-school Pizza/BBQ party that EGSA hosted.  It ended up being a great party-- we got pizza from Pizza Paradiso, everyone mingled, lots of laughter, new faces, old faces.  I still haven't seen a few of my closest friends, as they are spread across the world currently (they don't have class 'til next week, either), so I'm still looking forward to a few joyous reunions.

Today, too, is the first day of classes, so perhaps it's alright that I'm embracing that autumn feeling and those autumn flavors.  I don't technically have a class until next week, but I have spent the past two days on campus, and yesterday I had a meeting with my thesis adviser.  It was a reassuring meeting.  Just after it, I felt very confident in my lack of solid direction, but last night the anxiety started to return a bit.  I know I've been instructed to read, think, and make notes for the next month-- without hardening my thoughts and feelings-- but I want to have hard feelings.  I'd feel so much more secure-- even though I know my adviser is right, and the more reading I do this month, the better my words will be when I do finally start writing.  Looks like I'm going to become very well acquainted with the library this September.  I also want to become familiar with the Library of Congress.  A few of my classmates mentioned getting a reader card there, and I think I will, too.

Plus, I have a bit of personal research to do on some very interesting eighteenth-century personas and the history of science...and I can't wait to dig in!

Back-to-School Feeling

Wow.  In the past couple of days, my calendar has really filled up.  Must mean that it's time to go back to school!  I have not one, not two, not three, but FOUR orientation events to attend/organize between now and Tuesday.  I have coffee with a former teacher, an interview (!), brunch with a friend, and more.  Meanwhile, I'm trying not to have a panic attack about my thesis and (what I perceive as) my woeful state of preparedness.  I know once I get into it I'll be fine, but if last semester and this summer were anything to go by, I'm not sure when I will feel into it.  On the other hand, the last paper that I wrote for my adviser was one that I really loved-- and loved writing.  I just need to latch onto what kinds of questions I want to ask of my subject... and why those questions matter.

But, yesterday I had a mini-EGSA meeting with two other board members, which got me kind of got excited about the semester starting up.  It's just nice to see people again.  We have such a good cohort, and I can't wait to make memories together as second years.  So, between the meeting, planning events for the first week of classes, and Pumpkin Spice Latte suddenly showing up in my Twitter newsfeed, I'm beginning to think maybe I'm ready for this autumn after all.

Invasion of Oktoberfest and a Return of Lizzie Bennet!

Today has felt entirely too fall-like for August.  Don't get me wrong, I love this weather, but... it's unsettling.  Is this recompense for the harsh winter?  Or does it mean a harsher winter ahead?  It also brings thoughts of melting glaciers and rising sea waters to my mind.  Sometimes I just can't let myself enjoy a good thing.  But I should, because, I mean, this weather might be the only silver lining!

And, strangely, it's like everyone else is conspiring to make fall happen in the middle of August, too.  I ordered a seasonal ale today at a pub up the street, and I was told that they now had the Oktoberfest on tap.  What?!  What happened to my summer seasonals?  I understand that clothes lines get in fall merchandise early, since people start buying for the season in anticipation of the season-- but beer?  I want my pumpkin ales and Oktoberfest brews in autumn, not August!  Right now I want to continue to savor my wheat ales... and my days without classes.  Especially those.

Because days without classes mean time to read (okay, most of that reading is for my thesis, but it feels so relaxing and pressure-free right now!), time to use my Rosetta Stone, and time to listen to audiobooks while driving and/or cross-stitching!  I've started a free trial of Audible and got the audiobook of The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet.  It's a companion to the webseries The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, which you may remember I became totally obsessed with last year.  It's an eight-ish hour long audiobook, and I'm about four hours in.  Surprisingly, I really like it.  I thought it would just sort of be a recap of the videos, but it's not.  It's like seeing behind the scenes into "Lizzie's" life.  I'm learning all sorts of salacious details omitted from her videos!  It makes me miss last year when I could look forward to new videos and tweets from the characters, and when Megan and I had lunch at the Blue Talon and gossiped about the Jane, Lizzie, and Lydia as if they were real life people.  Interactive webseries are the way of the future, people.*

So, that's where I'm at right now.  Trying to enjoy the last few days of summer, despite the world (and the weather) suddenly pushing onto autumn.  Tomorrow I'm attending a baby shower for a friend, on Monday Zan starts some pre-classes school stuff, and I'm going to do my best to finish at least one more research related book before my own classes start, in an effort to sharpen/focus my topic.  Wish me luck!

*As in the post I linked to, this is not a sponsored post for The Lizzie Bennet Diaries or Audible.  I just really like The Lizzie Bennet Diaries and, now, the audiobook of The Secret Diaries of Lizzie Bennet.