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.

New Beginnings

And, she returns! After a summer spent without a computer or easy internet access, I am back in the blogging world. The only constant these days is change: I have a new job–if you can count grad school as a job, which I do (even though I am not technically getting paid for it). I have a new apartment–in a new city–near my new school (Notre Dame)–in a new state (Indiana). I have a new-ish car, though that might be old news. Best of all, I have a new puppy. Her name is Clementine, she’s a tan/orange-and-white beagle, and she’s mostly wonderful and occasionally infuriating. Today, for example, she learned how to play fetch all on her own. She also climbed into my lap to snuggle when I sat on the floor. Then she peed on the carpet when I went out of the room to do laundry and bit my chin. Expect much more about her.

So what hasn’t changed? Well, I still procrastinate. I’m still messy. I’m still broke. But I’m still dating Luke!

More later–I’m hoping to become a much more regular poster than when I had a real job. Hooray for the slack life of the grad student! Now I’m off to translate a couple chapters of Esther.

Clementine.

Decisions

The decision has been made.

Next year, I’ll be going to the University of Notre Dame. I’ll be working toward an MTS (Masters in Theological Studies) with a concentration in Biblical Studies. From there, I’ll apply to Ph.D programs, hopefully going to Notre Dame again, though there are several other good schools in the area.

Blondie, meanwhile, will probably be at the University of Illinois, which is about a 3 to 4 hours’ drive away.

Potentially unfortunate things about this: 1) It’s an MTS program, which means that they can’t offer me a fellowship, so while they’re giving me full tuition, I have to take out loans and probably get a job to pay for my living expenses. 2) We’ll be paying for 2 apartments and doing a buttload of driving. 3) ND is definitely a school of theology rather than religious studies, so it might possibly be somewhat oppressively Catholic, and I might reasonably expect to encounter people who have a distaste for healthy skepticism. 4) I will have this as a school logo.

Potentially wonderful things about this: 1) It’s a really, really good school in terms of size and track record of faculty. The Biblical Studies concentration alone has 14 professors, about 3-4 times the size of most of the other programs I was looking at, and most of the faculty members seem to be at the top of their fields. 2) U of Illinois is also a top-notch program, with lots of different kinds of electron microscopes and other cool machines that make Blondie happy. 3) South Bend is super cheap–apartments are around half the cost of those in Boston. 4) Because of (3), I’ll be able to afford a dog, which is increasingly high on my priority list. 5) Notre Dame’s Ph.D fellowships are quite generous, meaning that I’ll be able to afford my life after 2 years, assuming that I get in. 6) I really like the idea of being in a consciously religious community, even if it’s not necessarily my religion. And I’m almost sure that at Notre Dame I won’t run into many people who think I’m silly or irresponsible or biased to try to study in an academic light the beginnings of a religion that I also count myself a practitioner of.

So all in all, a good deal. And now I find myself with 10 weeks to go at St. Catherine’s, feeling anxious to go one minute and anxious to eke out every minute with my students (whom I dearly love and thoroughly enjoy) the next. It helps that we’re doing Romantic poetry, which they really really get, right now; the last three days have been a breeze of sunshine and daffodils.