Hey, look, it’s Christmas!

It’s been ages since I posted anything of substance. As I suspected, being in school all of the fall semester seriously put a dent in my desire to spend more time being creative and writing anything, what with all of the non-creative reading that goes along with that.

So, the fall went pretty well. I took six hours worth of courses (that’s two graduate seminars), which impressed the graduate coordinator in the History department; she had been expecting me to do the coursework one at a time. If I can keep this up, I’ll be able to get the courses done in another two years, at which point the real work begins, but we’ll focus on that later.

It was weird being back in school, not least because I feel like a dinosaur among my history cohort; several of them were born the year I entered high school for God’s sake! They’re a pretty affable group, though. Class didn’t really get started each week until someone pronounced the readings “bullshit,” or we had an extended argument about whether it was possible for someone to be racist in the 15th century when the modern concept of racism wasn’t invented until the 19th. (Yes. My answer, and I’m sticking to it, dammit.)

The other class I took was a classical Arabic course, that reduced me to tears a few times at the beginning of the semester when I had to read through some 10th century poetic verses, and not because the poetry was so beautiful. All in all it came out well, but at the end of the day, what I learned in the class was to try to avoid reading poetry when and where possible. I kind of saw this coming, though — I mean, I’m not a huge fan of poetry in English.

And so.

Tomorrow, the parents and I are going to Puerto Rico for a few days – just long enough to get away from the unseasonably cold weather, then zip back here for New Year’s Eve … and back to work. And then the next semester begins.

I may need a few more days off.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

I had an interesting realization not too long ago that I have, inadvertently, been keeping a secret on this blog. It’s not that it’s an actual secret, you see, it’s just that most of it came to fruition during a hiatus from blogging that started in September and lasted until the Egyptian Revolution. Since I hadn’t been to Tunisia at that point, the Tunisian revolution wasn’t of much interest to me — as I confessed from the heights of the Atlas Mountains, I actually went back and re-read a book I’d bought on the Arab Spring because the first time around I just skipped all the parts dealing with Tunisia.

None of this is neither here nor there, but the reason I’m bringing it up is that it’s about to become a huge theme in these pages, either because I’ll be referring to it frequently, or actively trying not to.

I am starting graduate school next week. Again.

I made a vague reference some months ago to submitting an application to a doctoral program, but I seem to have never actually mentioned that it was successful and that I’m one of about twenty five students (out of an applicant pool of around three hundred) who have been accepted to the graduate program in the History department. I don’t plan to quit my job — in fact, the staff educational benefit pays for three credit hours per semester, and I don’t think I can realistically enroll for more than six hours in any given semester while working forty hours a week.

The orientation started yesterday. One of the lighter moments involved a young man whose name I don’t remember (most people know that I’m absolutely terrible with names — I’m good with faces, but not names. I have, given my office’s location outside the reading room in my own department, had genial conversations with people I’ve seen every day for six months and I have no idea what their name is).  We had been asked to introduce ourselves to the group, say where we’re from (I decided that after thirteen years I’m allowed to say I’m from Austin), and what we’re interested in.

“Well,” he said, “I’m not a nudist, but I’m interested in 19th century German social movements like nudism.”

I can already tell that he will be known as The Nudist for the rest of his time here.  The things people say!

Yesterday, after three hours of orientation, I came back to my office and thought to myself, “What the frak am I doing?”  Even as a full time student, it would probably take me at least five years (six or seven, more realistically) to finish this degree all the way to fruition. Theres goes my evenings and weekends. So long, free time! And then, of course, were the nagging little doubts as I watched the graduate adviser and coordinator talk: “Can I really do this? I don’t know …”

This morning, during a roundtable of grad students in the program, one of them said that for three years she suffered from what she called “imposter syndrome.”  “Basically, I spent the entire time thinking, ‘What am I doing? Can I really do this? I don’t think I can do this … ‘ Then I finally said something, and it turned out that everyone else in the program was having the same thoughts!”

So, at least I’m all set there. But it’s a little weird being all the way back at square one and starting something from scratch…again.

So … posts may get a little scarcer…er…than they’ve been, but I’m still plugging along.  See you soon … or in December, once the semester ends!