these boots are made for walkin
This semester seems to be a milion times better than last semester already.
I like my freshman comp class already; you can tell a group's personality right away and I think my students will be fairly good participators. Anything beats the one section I had last spring; they just refused to participate.
My own classes are going well. I've started on my independent study on Plath and I am so glad I chose to do that instead of take a grad class; it's nice to be on my own schedule and also not have to give up 3 hours of one week night for weekly class meetings.
My Milton class is amazing. Seriously, I don't think I have ever had a professor speak with such passion and intensity and keep me enraptured for the full class period! Dr. Johnson is awesome! There is so much work though (weekly journals and webboard posts, a midterm, an oral memorization test of some lines from Paradise Lost, a final, and a final paper). At the same time, i really respond well to hard classes. If I can slack off in any possible way, even if i don't want to, I will. My re search methods class was a perfect example of that last semester. It was the only B i have gotten so far and I was actually happy with it because I didn't care. I'm hoping to get back into my usual overachiever mentality this semester.
Beowulf also promises to be a good class: weekly translations, a midterm, and a final. Should be like last term except more exciting because.........we ar ereading Beowulf! What a rich text.
Studying for my comprehensive exam (on february 28th) is maybe not going as well. The text list is: The Canterbury Tales (Franklin, Merchant, Clerk, Wife of Bath), The Tempest, Rape of the Lock, Jane Eyre, Heart of Darkness, Life of Frederick Douglass, and Plath poems. I've started reading but I haven't really had time to stick to a schedule and I just feel like other people are ahead of me in terms of work. I've actually read all of these things before and even written papers on a few so I'm probably over dramatizing but still. I'm not sure why I'm not as motivated.
So hopefully I get into the swing of things.
I'm also awaiting grad school results (beginning of february). Mainly because getting into any program means a move; it's where I will be for the next 5 years. That's a more permanent residence. I can finally get a cat (p.s. i am so much more of a dog person than cat person but I tend to be too workaholic to properly care for a dog). Taking a year off is good but it means staying in limbo, uncertain of my future.
Certainly I prefer certainty.
At the same time, part of me realizes that taking a year off would benefit my studies. Also, I love grad school and learning but I have been weirdly jealous of my friends' office jobs lately. I've got my resume ready and plan to start applying for jobs at the end of february. I have all my bases covered so that makes me calmer. I feel suprisingly cavelier about rejection letters; people are literally freaking out and i feel like, it's not the end of the world, you know? I mean I'm sure when i see a letter from a school in my mailbox I will be racked with nerves (that happened with the GRE scores...it took me five minutes to open the envelope because my hands were shaking).
If I can just make it to March....that would be an amazing feat!
Anyways, things that are good in my life and make up for the obscene amounts of studying and future rejection:
-yoga classes
-my new (and working) Ipod nano....i can download and listen to NPR and librivox book podcasts!
-seeing new episodes of Damages and LOST every week.
-starting my mornings out with readings of BBC World News and Gofugyourself partnered with big cups of black coffee
-coconut water (it's a strange thing)
-Curel body lotion with honey, vanilla, and shea butter extracts (note: I have never had to use lotion or hand lotion because my skin tends to be a bit more on the oily side. Even in winter my hands are soft and smooth. Not so much this winter....yuck)
-cardigans (i'm addicted to layering)
-Sudoko (who knew it was so easy to learn!)
-space heaters!
-these boots:
(i'm picturing wearing them with thick tights and my gray dress and stomping around in April puddles.)