Excited.

I’m so happy to be a grad student, y’all. I just got a package from Amazon, my reading for the next month or so–Lyle Campbell’s introduction to historical linguistics and James Kugel’s How to Read the Bible. I’m REALLY EXCITED. And the best part is, I don’t have to downplay the excitement. I’m supposed to be dorky about this. It’s my job.

I feel as though I never knew just how much of a nerd I was until my natural proclivities were given free rein.

Catching Up

So, what have I been up to since the last time I posted, long, long ago?

Well, I’ve been reading and writing. My first-ever seminar paper is DONE and turned in. Though it didn’t turn out as well as I had hoped (the more I read on the subject, the less I liked my thesis, and organizing it was surprisingly difficult), it was, I think, good enough. I keep thinking of things I’d like to change, and then I think about the maxim of Dr. Thompson, Luke’s mentor from W+M: “Just concentrate on getting the ball over the goal line.” Not every essay has to be a work of genius. Sometimes, “done” is enough. The good news is that now I feel as though I know a great deal about the subject of purity laws, sacrifice, and homicide law in the Hebrew Bible and in Jubilees (I must have read, conservatively, 1000 pages for this essay), which is the whole point anyway.

I’ve been translating. I don’t think Greek will ever really be my language, but I’m back to about the same skill level I was at my peak in college, under the tutelage of Professor Reilly (badass extraordinaire, a woman who raised show corgis, lived and researched in Greece during the summers, and took the attitude of, “yes, Greek is just that hard. Suck it up. If the 10-year-old British boys can do it, so can you.”).  I doubt I’ll earn an A in that class, but then, I’ve never ever gotten an A in Greek, so that’s okay. Hebrew continues to be more my thing–I’m looking forward to doing more in the vein of historical linguistics in the future, starting with Aramaic in the spring. I haven’t done a new language in a while…it should be fun!

I’ve been playing with the dog. Clementine is about 6 months old now, around 15 pounds, and decidedly adorable. She had her spay operation last week and has been wearing a giant conical collar to keep her from licking the stitches ever since–seriously, this thing is enormous. When you face her head-on, it hides the rest of her body. The operation slowed her down for about 12 hours, and then she was back to her usual self.

I’ve been making things. The desire to avoid real work generally kicks the creative/domestic side of me into overdrive. I’ve been baking bread, making cookies and homemade soup, knitting, and actually doing some sewing as well. I’m thinking about starting a quilt. It will probably pass.

I’ve been hanging out with actual people, something I’m not always terribly good at. I’m really enjoying the people in my program these days–they’re fun and into the same stuff I am (well, mostly) and by and large incredibly nice people, which is always a good thing.

I’m realizing that I lucked into a program that I’m very well-suited to. Honestly, I didn’t do as fantastic a job of the grad school search as I might have: wanting to be with Luke, not being in a university setting while I was applying, dissing the Ivies on principle, and deciding to apply only a couple of months before applications were due all limited or skewed my search somewhat. I applied to Notre Dame mostly because it was the only school that both of the undergrad professors I talked to recommended, and I enrolled because it was the only location where both Luke and I were accepted. I had my doubts about doing a Master’s program rather than jumping right into the Ph.D; frankly, I didn’t think I needed it, and I didn’t want to get further into student-loan debt. But this is turning out to be just about the best place I could have gone, I think. It’s not just the faculty reputations (badass though they are) or the money the school is willing to invest in their students (though that’s a nice thing too).

One of the things I really need in a graduate program is to be part of a supportive community. I don’t do well in ruthlessly competitive environments. Not that I’m not competitive, far from it, and if you all knew how much I have riding on being one of the smartest people in the room you would probably not want to be my friend any more, but I don’t like those parts of myself. I’m trying to stamp them out. I like when I’m the kind of person who rejoices in the success of others. And I firmly believe that good scholarship–and good thinking in general–involves being more invested in getting at the truth than in being right. And if I’m feeling insecure about my place in a program, if I’m worried about not getting the scholarship or not being at the top, and if I sense that kind of insecurity in others, not just my personal well-being but also my academic work suffers. So it’s nice to be in a place that feels like a community, and not just a whole bunch of people trying to score points off each other.