You may now address me as Master

That's right. I did it. The MA is in the bag. (Thanks to Ananda for the picture!)

Now, on to the next big thing: holding and playing with these two adorable little girls every day for the next month. I know you're jealous.

California, here I come.

The end

Today was the last day of classes at BYU (my last last day of classes as a student here! Eek!). I asked my Writing 150 students to reflect briefly on what they learned from 150 that they will carry on to other classes or to life in general.

There were many smart and interesting comments, but I think my favorite came from a student who remarked that learning about rhetoric has helped her to better understand the process of expression and communication. She writes: "People just make a lot more sense now."

What this first-year student gained from Writing 150 is, I think, precisely what I've gained from a two-year master's program in rhetoric and composition. After all the response papers, seminar papers, discussions, lectures, late nights, mugs of herbal tea, readings, and the thesis, the most valuable thing I've gained is a greater understanding of who I am and who other people are and the ways in which we communicate with and influence one another.

The funny thing is, I feel like I'm now at the beginning of something instead of at the end of it. I love, love BYU and will miss being a student on this campus, but here at the end of it all, I'm more grateful than regretful. I'm grateful for what BYU has given me: the understanding, knowledge, and confidence that makes me excited to move on and eager for what's next.

After nearly seven years here, things (people, me, life) just make more sense now.

Thanks, BYU.

Made with love

"Craftsmanship to be artistic in the final sense must be 'loving'; it must care deeply for the subject matter upon which skill is exercised."

--John Dewey, Art as Experience, p. 69

This is why, then, my Thai curry is art, and my thesis is not. Today I do the work of writing the thesis and tomorrow I practice the art of making curry. (Yum!)

A neverending story

Last semester, one of my students concluded her writing reflection with this idea: "But in the end, I neither love nor hate writing. It’s just one part of my life that will probably never go away, and I’ve accepted that."

In echo of her words, I write, "I neither love nor hate my thesis. It's just one part of my life that will probably never go away, and I've accepted that."

First draft

I just finished and submitted my first draft of my thesis.

Is it an oxymoron to say you've "finished" a draft?

A lie

Says motivational speaker Denis Waitley,

“Procrastination is the fear of success. People procrastinate because they are afraid of the success that they know will result if they move ahead now. Because success is heavy, carries a responsibility with it, it is much easier to procrastinate and live on the 'someday I’ll' philosophy.”

Denis Waitley, I disagree.

Procrastination is not the fear of success: it is the fear of failure. It might also be the fear of unpleasant hard work. But it is not the fear of success. I do not procrastinate writing seminar papers and chunks of my thesis because I'm thinking, "Man, if I move ahead on this now, I will succeed and dazzle my professor, and, oh, wouldn't that be frightening?"

No, no, Denis.

I procrastinate because I'm thinking, "If I write this now and turn in the ideas currently floating around in my head, my professor will finally know that I'm a phony who has nothing really interesting to say. So, rather than writing a flop, I'll blog or check my email."

Because, really, who can fail at checking email?

Thesis-ing

In today's all-day, thesis-writing binge, I have

read a lot,
written a little,
eaten probably a pound of chocolate and two bowls of curry,
visited Facebook only a couple of times,
and chugged two* mugs of herbal tea.

Oh, and I showered, got ready, and put on make-up.

Not bad, eh?

*Addendum at 10:25pm: Make that three mugs of herbal tea.

End of the road?

When I was about fifteen, I planned out my life. I would study English Teaching in college, serve a mission, and go to graduate school. And then . . . ? I'd just figure out the next step.

Aside from changing my undergraduate major from English Teaching to English just after my mission, I've stuck to the plan. But, here I am, nearly at the end, and not quite sure what comes next.

So what do you do when your teenage wisdom runs out of steam? I feel a little lost, here at the end of the things I knew for sure I would do. I can now move anywhere and do anything that a Master's degree in English qualifies me for (which is, shockingly and surprisingly, very little). What now?

Suggestions?

Intellectual insecurity

"In short, the painful truth we voracious students discover, at twenty, or forty, or sixty, is that what we sometimes call the 'knowledge of explosion' has left us all ignorant of vast fields of knowledge that every educated man and woman ought to have mastered. Is it any wonder that we tend to be defensive in debate, sure that our next class or public lecture will reveal the fatal truth: We are ignoramuses, and since we call ourselves professors, scholars, even doctors, we risk exposure as frauds?"

--Wayne C. Booth, "The Idea of a University--as Seen by a Rhetorician"

Conundrum II

Thank you for your thoughtful answers to the conundrum below.

Although my thoughts have turned bloody of late as a result of your suggestions and my rising irritation, the offending fly continues to live. I keep missing it with my newspaper. Dang Daily Universe.

I occasionally wonder if there are two flies, but that may just be paranoia.

Perhaps the next step is changing my shampoo to a less appealing scent.

In other news, I now officially have four signatures on my thesis prospectus. (YIPEE!) Four down, two to go.

Thinking

Today, I read this:

"Thinking, which is a method of reconstructing experience, treats observation of facts, on the other hand, as the indispensable step of defining the problem, of locating the trouble, of forcing home a definite, instead of a merely vague emotional, sense of what the difficulty is and where it lies. It is not aimless, random, miscellaneous, but purposeful, specific and limited by the character of the trouble undergone. The purpose is so to clarify the disturbed and confused situation that reasonable ways of dealing with it may be suggested."

--John Dewey, Reconstruction in Philosophy, pg. 141

Yes, I've been reading for my thesis. Yes, I'm enjoying pragmatism.

AND, next time someone tells me I'm over analyzing, I'm just going to say that I'm simply trying to "clarify the disturbed and confused situation that reasonable ways of dealing with it may be suggested."

Just sayin'.

Thank you, John Dewey.

According to Facebook . . .

it's high time I reconnected with my good friend, Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

I mean, we even share the same birthday. With a bond that close, you'd wonder how I ever lost touch?

Now the question is, does reconnecting mean simply reading some more poetry or will it require holding a seance?

Decisions, decisions.

Oh, the bus stop

So every day after work, I wait for the bus at a stop that seems to attract a lot of interesting people. Today, as I was minding my own business and probably looking depressed (not because I was depressed, but because I'd just gotten out of work and was tired and staring into nothingness), a middle-aged man approached me. He was tall, wore tan pants, a short sleeve striped collared shirt, glasses, and a straw hat.

"You made me feel really good today," he said.

I wracked my brain, trying to figure out how he had confused me with someone else or how I had unwittingly performed some act of Christian service while looking depressed, when he followed this comment up with, "You look so cute. It brought back some memories for me and made me feel good. Have a nice day."

Then he walked away.

I was wearing no make-up and my hair was pulled back in a tight bun.

Go figure.

This experience was almost as bewildering as what happened last week when another man (this one short and also middle-aged and probably not completely sane) approached me and said, "Did you put that outfit together yourself?"

I answered in the affirmative.

"It is so cute! You should go into business."

So, there you have it, folks. Apparently, I don't need to wear make-up or do my hair. And I can drop out of graduate school because I have a promising career in coordinating clothes.

I love crazy people.

Life is good

After talking to many lovely library people who couldn't figure out what was wrong with my account, a simple password change has finally restored my interlibrary loan privileges.

Thank you, lovely library people.

Now I have no excuse for not getting some good work done on my thesis this month.

Wahoo.

Wanted: a nice man

"A woman should have the same chances in the professions as a man. But a woman's work about the house is never ending; the care of a child is the sweetest of professions; and that woman is neglectful of her best interests who goes out into the world to work when she can get a nice man to do the work for her."

--Sarah Grand (1854-1943), feminist activist

Oh, the gems you find when you're writing a paper titled "Women's Heads Weren't Made for Thinking"!

1 down, 1 to go

I finished one of my 8-10 page research papers today. Yay. I was up until nearly 3am last night working on it and then up again at 6am. At 8am, I went to teach my class (making little sense and asking the students after nearly every sentence, "Does that make sense?"). I then worked on the paper again for an hour before going to sub for another class, and then had one more hour before it was due.

The scanty eight pages I turned in seemed pretty sad in comparison to the hours and hours and hours of research I put into it.

Maybe it's because I'm an English major, but the arithmetic isn't working for me here.

Midnight, or, Avoiding homework

One (1) year until graduation means approximately four (4) eight to ten page seminar papers and one (1) roughly thirty page thesis left to write. This makes a grand total of about seventy (70) pages of polished academic writing to be produced over the next year.

Seventy pages of polished academic writing translates (according to my calculations) into the need for about twenty-five (25) cartons of ice cream. Assuming I was able to purchase said ice cream on sale for about $3.00 per carton, I would spend $75.00 on ice cream in the next year.

Oh, the hidden costs of graduate school.

I need to go to bed. Or get to work. Or get some ice cream . . .

Swimmer

a poem by Vernice Wineera

My clumsy life, lived
in the space
between accidents,
flounders before me,
I swim like a crab walks,
from one craft to another
but always they are filled
with careful people.
I will spend my days and all
my wide black nights
in deep ocean,
arms reaching for dreams,
feet seeking solid ground,
constantly treading water.

Writing term papers

Remind me why I am an English major, and why I am in graduate school.

Because right now I don't remember.

Adventures in studying

So I'm studying in the little alcove off the main hallway in the JFSB. Another guy who is also studying in this area just got off a loud, long telephone conversation. Now, I know this is not the library, but everyone in this area is quietly studying--some are quietly sleeping. Common courtesy requires not having a long cell-phone conversation--or, at the very least, it requires hushed tones. This guy talked for nearly half an hour about dating, Halloween costumes, etc. in a loud voice just outside the alcove. At the end of the call, he said, "Well, it was nice talking to you, Grandma and Grandpa," and hung up his phone. He then walked back into the alcove, laid down and slid underneath one of the benches, and, using his backpack as a pillow, went to sleep.

I'm thinking it's probably time for me to get my cellphone out.