Happy Halloween!

Presentations went well. Now, I'm off to have dinner with Kenyon's campus advisor for the program (my first year advisor) and his wife (another professor of mine). But I'll leave two more pictures for you.

First, a Graceland Cemetery tombstone (from our lovely tour):

And now a Navy Pier tombstone:

And so it goes.

This week's writing is not coming along AT ALL. Our twenty page draft is due this Friday, and I haven't even started writing my next ten pages. BUT we got our ten page drafts back today, and apparently I'm off to a good start! That's exciting. What's kind of frustrating is that I've slipped back into my dark habits. Those habits being late-night brainstorming and writing. Usually, I don't mind falling into my pattern. But it's hard to do that here, where most of our books are non-circulating, and the latest the library is open during the week is 7.45pm. So I'm going to have to be a little better about having disciplined writing. But that's not my style. At least it used to not be my style. So I'm going to have to pretend that it's me, this semester, for my sanity's sake! We'll see how it all works out. I'm sure that it will.

After we turn in our twenty page drafts this Friday, we will be presenting to the campus advisors from all of the ACM/GLCA  schools. Eek! By the time I leave here, I won't have a presentation-shy bone in my body. 

My schedule is going to be crazy demanding, from here on out. But in such great ways that I'm sure I'll find it hard to complain. Well, maybe not. I'm pretty good at complaining, when I need to be. Maybe I'll just tone it down a bit though. I don't generally complain aloud. So.

I'm getting excited for the Chicago Humanities Festival which kicks off this weekend. Because we're in this program, we get to participate in the Chicago Humanities Festival, and the ACM paid for us to attend some sessions. This year's Chicago Tribune Literary Prize goes to David McCullough. This weekend I'm attending a breakfast on Saturday, and a breakfast on Sunday, followed by McCullough's lecture, among the other sessions that I plan to hit up. I think that it actually lasts about two weeks, so I'll try to attend plenty of events. 

My research is changing and taking shape in ways that I hardly imagined it would. But the research is getting a lot more focused, now that I know what I'm looking for in each of my sources. And I'm learning the art of skimming. Skimming used to be virtually impossible for me to do. I never liked to skip over words, sentences, and paragraphs! I still don't like it, but I can appreciate having to do it a bit more!

 I'm about to watch a few episodes of Rome with some friends, after I  try to knock out at least two or three pages of this draft. I'm feeling super bad about not having started this draft. But all is well that ends well--I'm counting on that. Well, I'm going to end here, for fear that I won't have any words left when I try to start the next ten pages of my draft. :) That's not a real fear, but I thought that it would be an interesting way to end. Except that, apparently, I'm not ending there anymore. I'm ending here.

In the groove.

Things are moving along here. It is getting real. I actually see words on paper. I'm writing. This is happening. And it won't stop until 8 December, when the paper is due. For some, the writing aspect of research is the most rewarding part. For me, I never want to stop researching. If I could just research for the entire semester, that would be all right with me. But I can't. I'm sure that in a week, or so, I'll feel rewarded by the execution of my research that is writing. For now, though, it hardly feels real! My topic is developing really well, and that is something that I sometimes forget that writing does for me. I've come to a conclusion about the relationship between the memories in Henson's narrative. However, I have yet to decide what that even means. But I don't need to do that just yet. Not yet.

Tonight I'm going to see the opera, Manon, with a colleague. This will be my first opera experience, and I'm pretty excited about going. In November, I'm planning to go the Margaret Garner opera performance, just to get a taste of that performance. And Toni Morrison writes the Libretto (I hope that's the right word--I don't know opera talk).

While my research is going really well, and the city is fantastic, for some reason I keep crying. Randomly. Just crying. I could just be sitting in my apartment and something completely meaningless can happen and I just start crying. And many of us have experienced this. It's part of being in an off-campus studies program.

We had a sleep-over in my room last night where we watched Now and Then, ate popcorn and snacks, and just had girl talk. It was all good fun. I'm finding that the people in this program are genuinely good people. I look for realness in people long before I can consider them friends. It's very important for me to see how a person treats others, before I determine to what extent they might fit into my life, and also to what extent I might fit in theirs. I didn't start doing this until my sophomore year, when I discovered that everyone that says they are for you aren't. And so I re-evaluated my friendships and minor associations. I didn't put people through tests to see who was the best, but I examined the relationships on my own. This is sort of how I determined who to spend my time with. It seemed to me that if someone was bringing me down I should let them go. For example, I *had* a friend at Kenyon that would criticize every, single thing that I did. It frustrated me to the point that I would sometimes cry. It occurred to me that my friendship with her was in no way, shape, or form making me a better person. A good friend of mine, Jamesy Flaherty wrote to me once that he was happy to be surrounded by people that make him want to love in a better way. Those are the types of relationships I stick with; I want to be better and do things in a better way. The Newberry program and the seminar dynamics are amazing. I'm writing all this to let you know that I'm happy here in terms of the friends I have made. I'm surrounded by a community of scholars that make me want to work and learn in a better way. That's fantastic.

A lot of my classmates here are sick, and I'm doing my best to stay healthy. I have to! Mostly because we have draft, after draft, after draft, after draft due. Ten pages this Friday, twenty the next Friday, thirty two Fridays later, and about a week later  FORTY!. Our full sixty pages is due on 8 December at midnight! This is all frightening and exciting at the same time! I'm beginning to recognize that I will, without a doubt, be able to write sixty pages on my topic. And it continues to get more and more fascinating to me!

I've discovered that it is not writing that I love, at first. It's the research that I love. I get a kick out of learning, learning, and learning. For some reason, it's always painful for me to start writing. But once I start I remember why application is so important. I love that my words are providing information, and giving even more substance to my research. Because what good is knowing, if you don't share your knowledge?! I know this is kind of backwards. Many people that I know rush through the research to get to the writing parts. I always have to *force* myself to stop reading and researching. But, at this point, I'm loving writing again. I'm realizing that I can write and research simultaneously! That's no small thing. Honestly. I used to think of writing and research as either/or, meaning that you do them one at a time. But I like that I now think of it as a both/and deal. How could I have not realized that before?! I probably sound so silly right now, but extensive research makes one that way. I love it. :)

Fall(ing).

I hear that back home it's starting to look like fall. Here in Chicago, it's starting to feel like fall, but we don't quite have the look down pat. We went on a class field trip to Graceland Cemetery this past Friday, and it definitely looked like fall there. I have been looking for fall a little closer to home (the Near North area of Chicago), these days. For example, I've been getting a kick out of the fire red leaves that climb the bricks that surround the huge windows on the second floor of the Newberry. That view has worked wonders for me this week. 

 

I think that we are experiencing the point in the semester where work is picking up, research is picking up, and everyone is missing home. I know that I've definitely reached that point. I've been worried that I would fall back into my bad habit of procrastinating (big time!). Just when things were starting to look bad, I decided to make some changes. Spice up my experience a bit. Make myself as excited as I was when I first got here. Get it? And so I did. I started going to Operas with my colleagues, experiencing more fine Chicago dining, and hanging out with the group more. 

Most importantly, I changed the way I saw my research. Literally. When I work in 2-West at the Newberry, I'm surrounded by what my colleagues consider my fort of books. I take notes in a new journal, *always* write with my super-pencil, and keep my focus rock in my field of vision at all times. These little things help. I'm now back into my research with renewed energy! My weapons of mass destruction were all made possible by the woman that, I think, cultivated my intellectual side more than anyone else. She's a super-professor, with a super-brain. And my weapons remind me that I, too, have super-qualities. And I am here in the Newberry's intellectual community to nurture them.

We are working hard, people. All of us.

Guilty Pleasures.

You learn to cope with extensive research projects. This evening, I've just finished watching a couple of episodes from season two of The Tudors and one episode from season one of Rome. Great shows, great shows. Tonight, before I lay down and rest my body and brain for 7.5 hours, I will probably watch an episode or two of The Secret Life of the American Teenager. THAT show is a guilty pleasure of mine. Thank God for TV on the interwebs. :)

If you've never watched Tina Fey's 30 Rock, you're missing out on life.

We each had to turn in a prospectus for our research projects last week. We are supposed to get them back tomorrow, and we are all a bit nervous about our professors' comments. This is one event that I'm not so nervous about. I'm generally only nervous when I don't think that I know what I'm talking/writing about. That is not the case with this project. In some ways, I feel like I know a little too much about what I want to write about. So, I'll be looking forward to seeing their comments on my initial approach to tackling this project. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

In the meantime, I'm back to my guilty pleasures. And tonight I'm not feeling ashamed. At least not *too* ashamed.

And some nights.

Some nights, you are so researched-out that you don't know what goes where. All you know is that Chicago Deep Dish pizza sounds really good.

*Eating pizza with a friend at Gino's East.

President's Reception, and such.

Tonight we were invited to the Newberry President's reception for the fellows. We mixed, and mingled, and met some brilliant scholars. I think that I speak for us all when I say that we are exhausted. 

Yet research and class must go on!

This morning was so foggy that I thought something outside was afire.

Happy October.

I think that this is the earliest I've written on here so far. It's 10am here, and I've just finished my reading for tomorrow's class. It is strange for me, this having a full day to read but completing it in the morning. But I think that I like it. We don't have our seminar class on Tuesdays, but we have Brown Bag lunches from noon until 1pm, and I have to work from 2-5pm. Once I've finished this post, I will head out and do an hour, or so, of research before the lunch. After work I will probably sink into my chair in front of my reading desk, in a cozy corner of the Newberry beside a huge window on the second floor. While there, I will (deo volante!) finish the third edition of Josiah Henson's narratives. My research is proving to be quite fruitful, mostly in that each of his editions have enough difference for me to want to examine--Mr. Henson is truly an interesting man. I'll tell more about it, when I'm confident enough. :) 

Today's weather is beautiful. I was only out of the apartment for my 7am walk, which wasn't very sunny because the sun was just rising, but I'm excited to go  back outside and walk around.  

I'm missing Gambier and my Kenyon people an awful lot this week. I don't know that I'd call it home-sickness yet. But if there were a way to bring my Kenyon people to Chicago with me, I would be ALL over it! I like this city a lot. My affection for it does not compare to my affection for Gambier, but it's pretty close. It's so different, in a way that I am completely in love with right now. This past Saturday, after I went to a banned books reading here at Pioneer Plaza, I hung out with some recent Kenyon grads and I had a blast. We went on the river and lake boat cruise, which is actually a really cool architectural tour, in a boat. I realized when we were out to dinner after the cruise that I missed Kenyon a lot. They are cool people. I hardly spent time with them at Kenyon, but I suspect that we'll all be hanging out--at least a few times--here. 

I'm going to go on and make my way to the library. I'm going to take the long way, just to enjoy being outdoors in the sun for a little longer. It's scarf weather--my favorite!