Monday, November 21, 2005

DAMN it feels good to be a gansta

…a literature gansta, that is.

This has been quite possibly the best Monday morning I have ever had. Or…at least the best in recent history, and definitely in the top 5.

Why? Exactly two reasons:

1) Coffee (sad, I know…but I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I’ve become a coffee drinker in the past two weeks…and I’m not ashamed!)
2) After an entire weekend of researching, brain-picking, library browsing, photo-copy machine wrangling, ceiling-staring, thumb-twiddling and reading (and more reading, and more and more and more reading), my two literature term-projects have finally fallen into place (or are at least well on their merry ways).

This morning (after going to bed at around 3:30) I woke up at 8 to head to the library to grab some more articles. After that I got some coffee (I know), did some more photocopying, then grudgingly decided to go to my aero/astro class (Structural Mechanic…engaging, I know). It’s a good thing I went to class because a) I found out our professor cancelled class on Wednesday for Thanksgiving, and b) while reading articles on renaissance medicine instead of listening to the lecture about beams and buckling, the pieces of my paper on medicine and gender in renaissance drama fell into place. It’s going to be about midwifery and pregnancy and surgeons and physicians and internal- and external-ity and oh man I’m so excited.

(I got very excited last night reading a 17th century guidebook on midwifery. There was so much talk about “yards” and “the matrix” and “spongy flesh” it was fantastic.)

Right, so great Monday morning continues as I’m walking back from my unexpectedly stimulating lecture I stop by my “Shakespeare and his Contemporaries” professor’s office and talk to him about my project…and he’s just as excited as I am. And he said don’t worry about getting the annotated bibliography to him today because he knows that I’m thinking about my term paper and making progress. That means I’ll have to work on it over Thanksgiving but…I think things will turn out all right.

(Oh yes, for those that would be interested—Mom, Dad—for Thanksgiving Saideep, my personal therapist, is coming to Boston and we are going over to his friend’s house—a.k.a. a stranger’s house from my perspective. I’m excited that it will be a home cooked meal and a house not a dorm. Then on Friday I’m going to New York for some festivaling or something similar.)

So, the fact that the payoff that I recieved (or even the suggestion of payoff) after hours and days of literature reasearch has brought me so much elation leads me to the conclusion that I think I want to be a literature professor. I know two weeks ago I wanted to be a volcanologist but…can’t I be both? I hate the “choose one path and stick to it” philosophy of life. Me being a literature professor makes so much sense why didn’t anyone suggest it to me before? I love books and I love to read, I love teaching, I love libraries, and (now) I love drinking coffee. It sounds like I have all the pieces, now I just have to make it a reality (which will actually be quite hard…).

Ok, I had such a great Monday morning that I ran right down to the laundry room and picked up my laundry (which had been sitting in the dryer since Friday afternoon). I hope my meeting with the professors for my aero/astro thesis class doesn’t ruin my day.

Oh yeah…for my photo archive project I chose to do logging photos from the early 20th century in the Pacific Northwest. I’ll post some of the most interesting ones up here soon.

Wow, today has been so great I’m even going to go to my probability lecture!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I have a friend at Wellesley who is writing her thesis on women and medicine and such things in the twelfth century--which isn't the Renaissance, but still.

Also, I completely support you in becoming a literature professor and a volcanologist and anything else your heart so desires!