clean gone

i haven't really been inspired to write in a while. maybe it is all of the energy i put into academic writing these days, but as i finally have time to read outside of the classroom, i'm slowly feeling more inclined to write outside of academia as well. i picked up a book which had been collecting dust on the shelf, so to speak, for quite some time now - a book that i started in a half-hearted attempt a couple of years ago, put aside, lost a copy, bought a replacement and still never got around to reading. it took a friend coming into my depressing little dorm room (yes, i'm 23 and still live in a dorm. let's not talk about it, okay? i think my age is the depressing element in the equation) and saw it on my shelf - a 1966 edition of C.S. Lewis' Till We Have Faces.

i can't even begin to talk about how much this book moved me once i sat down and gave it the time it deserved. i'm going to write about this book; professionally, i mean. or as close as professionally as an undergraduate can get. academically maybe, but it is a bit more than that. there is no grade riding on this, no deadline, just my own personal motivation to do it right. clive staples is one of the few writers i know who just gets it, who sees the world the way that i see it. okay, for all of you out there who just associate him with narnia, feel free to check out right now. granted, The Last Battle means a whole hell of a lot to me, the authorial voice really comes out in his philosophical works and in the Perelandra series. until this book, the closest i ever felt to C.S. Lewis was probably in The Problem of Pain (you can read more about that here). there is something about him and i can't articulate it (at least not yet), which oddly enough, brings me to my point.

the complaint was the answer. to have heard myself making it was to be answered. lightly men talk of saying what they mean. often when he was teaching me to write in greek the fox would say, "child, to say the very thing you really mean, the whole of it, nothing more or less or other than what you really mean; that's the whole art and joy of words." a glib saying. when the time comes to you at which you will be forced at last to utter the speech which has lain at the center of your soul for years, which you have, all that time, idiot-like, been saying over and over, you'll not speak to us openly, nor let us answer. till that world can be dug out of us, why should they hear the babble that we think we mean? how can they meet us face to face till we have faces?

the necessity of nescafe

so, i hope that by writing something without pressure i can get the words flowing again, at least enough to write my personal statement. the gravity of the situation, applying to graduate programs, is building and accumulating more and more stress and imminence. i have what feels like a million and a half things to do at school, what with research paper season on the horizon, my archaeological projects looming in the distance, and simple things like having to make my tutoring hours. the GRE is on monday and it honestly slipped my mind this weekend. granted, i was busy working on other things so it wasn't like i was idling, but all of this just feels like too much. there is never enough time in each day and i can't even think about being social - my 23rd birthday is on saturday and now it looks like i won't be celebrating at all. well, celebrating by putting together grad school dossiers, editing my writing sample and drafting my personal statements. how did all of this sneak up on me? i like to think i'm more on top of things than a lot of people, so i can't imagine how anyone else could manage right now. the one thing i'm looking forward to most at the moment is knowing that next semester it will be smooth sailing - just french, herodotus with dr. yates and a directed study of vergil with dr. sypniewski. the one time in my college career that i will be taking less than 18-22 hours and i will be taking 12. i can't even imagine what that will feel like...i guess a girl can dream after all.

right now, i'm in the process of typing out passages in greek for my seminar paper and crafting my own translations. sure, i can translate in class, but trying to put something onto paper that isn't translationese, that a normal, run of the mill person could get the sense of the meaning - now that can be a challenge. i'm four passages in out of eight, so i'm making progress - just very slowly.

what do i want to do at grad school? how can i articulate my goals? i suffer from shiny ball syndrome - i'll chase anything that catches my eye. i know what i want to do - to a point. first and foremost, i want to learn. well, that isn't really going to be an award-winning answer, but it is true. i want to know more, i want to see what else is out there. i've only seen a very thin slice of what classics had to offer and i'm ready to spread my wings a bit. nothing appeals to me more than the thrill of the hunt - finding an idea and chasing it down. sometimes it can be disheartening, sometimes someone else fifty years ago, six months ago came up with the same argument, but finding that space for the way my mind works around an issue...that is worthwhile.

i don't have any doubts about whether i will be able to handle graduate school, it is just a matters of getting there. if only i had more time - if only i hadn't put so much on my plate this semester. luckily i have great mentors that are helping me along the way, but it is still overwhelming. yesterday, dr. turkeltaub and i were emailing back and forth and i hadn't really realized how much i miss him. i'm glad to have an ally outside of millsaps and i'm glad he isn't here to see the slightly panicked look in my eye every step of the way. i'm so tired, so exhausted all of the time -  my body just can't keep up with all my mind has to do these days. a big part of the problem is that i have run out of coffee here in the room and i haven't had time to one, go get coffee off campus or two, heaven forbid make it to the grocery store. if billy weren't in the middle of initiation week, i know he would go do it for me, but he is in the same boat (for the time being) as i am. i don't like asking people for help, but there is really no escaping it at this point.

some things are looking up - my finger isn't hurting any more and i have a whole store of arthritis cream to keep the pain at bay. i thought with the weather cooling off it would start to flare up again, but i've been lucky thus far. all of the online components are completed, except for my personal statements and writing samples at this point. i have all my transcript requests ready, so that is another plus - just have to get those cover letters in place. it feels like such a distant memory applying to undergraduate programs, it is hard to believe that i've been through a similar process before. it is a bit more daunting to say the least, and now that i'm older i understand the gravity and weight of every word, misplaced punctuation, forgotten bureaucratic nonsense (no staples, only paper clips - last name first, social on every page, whatever the little inane details may be).

what is most frustrating of all is that i don't have any peers to talk to about this. dr. s has become that peer in a lot of ways, but no one i know has applied to graduate school in classics. i recently decided to drop chicago from the list of schools i was applying to and simply trying to explain why i dropped that school is a headache. the politics of classics, the way programs work...i can't even say that "oh, well chicago is like michigan...they chew you up and spit you out." outsiders don't know what it is like, what i have to "look forward" to in my education. it becomes more arduous to discuss the process than it is to tackle it (says the girl sitting at a computer writing a blog). class in an hour, then hopefully employing my survey for methods and statistics.

instant coffee in hand, i'm ready to face this first draft.