Lazy, Hazy, Crazy . . .

Just because it's summer, I assumed that I would have a lot of time to myself. After all, I'm taking only three credits, in American Literature before 1870. Just me, Emerson, Thoreau, and Dickinson, whiling away the summer days on the patio. Read a little, nap a little, think a little, write a little: doesn't that sound wonderful? Silly me.

For one thing, it's been too chilly and windy to spend much time on the patio, now that it's been furnished and accessorized on the cheap. For another, the reading load has gradually increased. Here we are, only a three weeks past finals, and all my mentors have made reading suggestions for my summer of enlightenment.

My senior thesis advisor has suggested that I develop a bibliography, as I may have mentioned before. This is taking a lot of time, since every book and research paper must be skimmed at the very least, so that my journal reflects some understanding of the work's thesis and related sources. A few weeks ago, this did not seem like any kind of problem at all.

This was before Mentor One (I like how his nickname reminds me of The Cat in the Hat) started suggesting fiction that would enrich my unfurnished brain. He's right, of course, as he always is: Cutting for Stone is enthralling. I wish I could write that way and get a passing grade on my next research paper.

Then Mentor Two suggested that I read an article from Commonweal Magazine, in addition to a book by Rae Langton. Also not a problem, except that I still want to read a bunch of papers and book chapters that came up during Bioethics last semester. The matter of finding Commonweal was resolved, after I ran all over town today, through their free online subscription for college students. Hey, I qualify for the student special!

Then, of course, there are Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse and Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment. I'm approaching the Woolf novel with some anxiety, since it is such a simple story on the surface, and seems so easy to read. The story is reputed to have great depths, which my trivial mind may not be able to perceive without guidance and a stick. Crime and Punishment has another type of unintended effect: it makes all shorter works look easy to tackle in comparison.

I've tried stacking all this material in order of attack on my study table, but then there's no room to actually sit down and study. It looks like a small paper mountain. At least there are no cougars lurking in the thickets around the base of the mountain, except of the dualistic secularist variety (please note: this is a joke based on an article about philosopher Gilbert Meilaender -- you may laugh now).

That last paragraph is a fine explanation of why philosophy students can't make a living on the comedy club circuit. Anyway, the only way out is through the stack of reading material, so here I go!

Footnote City

Thanks to the Easter weekend, which works out to four days at St. Martin's University, I am almost caught up with the assignments. The Bioethics paper is in the hands of the professor and the gods, the American Dream presentation is planned, The Vicar of Wakefield and Women Beware Women are read and considered, all the class notes for the semester are sorted, the reader response for the American Dream class is written and critiqued by a professor, the poem for the American Dream presentation is written, the reading for Japanese history and the notes for the Japanese geography test are done, the summer school application is written out, and the materials for tomorrow's embryonic stem cell debate in Bioethics are printed out and ready for highlighting for use as talking points. Oh, and I bought some groceries.
So why am I telling you all this? The main idea is totally to make myself feel better about the fact that I am stuck at the very beginning of the first of two (2) papers on Renaissance plays. The short one of the two is due Thursday, I think, and it is not springing to mind the way the paper about The Vicar of Wakefield is. Not being able to come up with an argumentative thesis is no surprise, but I can't even come up with anything I want to say about anything.
Could this be writer's block? It could be. Writer's block is so unfamiliar to me that it feels like a luxury. A writer who is being paid by the hour or the story or the word, for that matter, can't really afford to be blocked up. A radio news editor once told me, "Start at the middle or at the end, but write that bastard because it's going on the air in 15 minutes!" He actually used more words than that, but I'm trying to spare your dainty sensibilities. Anyway, deadlines help, unless you stay up all night trying to meet them. Then you just write crap.
Besides being from eight to fifteen pages, this paper must also have ten sources. Why ten? Why not? When I finally make professor, I'm looking forward to setting arbitrary goals, too. I think I'll assign at least one scholarly research paper to be based on articles in the Seattle Weekly. Not the Stranger, though -- that would be easy: way too much pathology.

Think, Think, Think

This is not the right moment in the semester to make a serious decision. Today I had an exam, followed by a group presentation; I need to create an argumentative thesis for the presentation to the bioethics class; about 180 pages of reading are due tomorrow; a short paper is due Thursday; two more long papers are due on the sixth . . . you get the idea. Being this deep into the semester is like being depressed: make no permanent decisions until things return to normal, whatever that may be.
The current problem is this: I may not be able to do what I want to do, once I work my way through the bachelor's degree. if I decide to get a master's in bioethics, I'm pretty much limited to one school on the east coast. Their master's program doesn't require concurrent enrollment in an M.D. or R.N. program. A school in Europe was suggested, but I don't have the Latin, calculus, and who knows what that are typical of anyone graduating from a European baccalaureate program.
So, maybe no graduate degree in bioethics. I could go back to plan A, which is to get a master's and maybe a doctorate in some kind of English program, so I can teach English as a second language on the college level. How many colleges hire brand new Ph.D.s who are as thoroughly seasoned as I will be by the time I'm ready to look for a job?
This is pretty discouraging. My dream is to teach at the college level, and it's looking unlikely. This could be depressing.
On the other hand, the presentation this afternoon went well. We got the rest of the class to participate, including one young woman whose voice I have never heard before. The hour went by quickly, and the professors didn't look cranky afterward, so I'd say we did well.
At this point, no decisions on what to do next, besides registering for fall semester, just in case that's the right thing to do.

Rational and Irrational

"It must be Thursday; I never could get the hang of Thursdays."
-- Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Broadcast, BBC Radio

This semester, Tuesdays and Thursdays hold four-and-a-half hours of class. The progression is from the 18th century novel to Renaissance studies, with a break in between for lunch. Then I depart the 16th century and travel across the hall in one of our campus buildings to an hour-and-a-half of rationality -- the study of bio-ethics. This final class of the day is fascinating and frustrating, since it's not as familiar as reading and analysing English literature. My mentor keeps reminding me of two things, though: he says I'm a worrier, and therefore likely to doubt my own abilities, and it's my own fault, since I couldn't resist the chance to learn more about ethics, logic and their application to real world problems, like organ donation, cloning and dividing rationality from emotional judgements.
After all this, I usually stop at a local restaurant to buy a takeout order. Tonight, though, as I was walking out of the restaurant, the chef followed me to my car and started yelling at me after I got into the car. He pulled the door of the car open and accused me of ruining his work by shaking the carryout container and not carrying it properly.
I was more than surprised -- I was stunned into not being able to respond. I finally assured him that I hadn't ruined the dinner, but he wanted to see the carryout container, which I had already placed carefully in the trunk of my car.
The poor guy didn't seem at all rational. He whirled around and went back into the restaurant, and I drove home, after locking the car doors.
Of course, one irrational act breeds another, so I threw the dinner away when I got home. As a certified and recognized worrier, I had started wondering if the chef's tantrum was preceded by another irrational act somehow involving my dinner.
From now on, I think I'll buy a sandwich at school for my dinners on Tuesdays and Thursdays, or find a frozen dinner in my freezer. It seems like the rational thing to do.