An Epitaph

I'm in the process of trying to wrap up the semester which constitutes hurling the remnants of my energy and enthusiasm into one final paper which will, hopefully, while not be great, not suck hard.

This will of course THE final paper. As of tomorrow, I am officially in that interstitial part of grad school between trainee and professional. When I return in the fall, I will be facing teaching undergrads classics and medieval literature, and preparing for exams, both designed to test my mettle as Ph.D. material.

In a way this is the part that I dread. Instead of merely being responsible for your own education, you're suddenly on the other side of the desk, opening up the week's lectures for 20-odd freshman. And when you're sitting in front of 3 professors being grilled on 9 months worth of reading at least 1/3 is impossible to get through, there's no hiding those chasms and fissures in your knowledge.

At the same time, after three years of course work, I think it's time. I'm ready to feel as though I'm working towards something rather than writing disconnected term papers that may or may not contain the embryos of my dissertation.

I've also purposely arranged things to give myself the rarest of rarities; space and time to think. Ideally I wouldn't be going back to my parent's house where I will to some degree be at the mercy of my family. But solitude is, literally, a luxury I can't afford. So Chicago it is where there is a deck were I can read, sip, coffee and recharge, a lake, a dearth of nightlife, and a lot of books. Despite the daunting length of my exam lists (and I'm tempted to post them to illustrate in detail exactly how crazy one must be to become an academic) I am excited to do something I haven't done since I was a teenager; spend the summer reading. Ah the decadent life of a grad student.

Of course you will hear from me when I awaken to the downside of being trapped in Hyde Park.