Keeping it together...
For the past several weeks now, I haven't had weekends. Instead, I've been bogged down in researching and outlining my response to my Political Geography course. The course is, I've learned, somewhat notorious for its exams, which are essentially comprehensive exam questions, but without the months of advised reading that builds up a knowledge of the field. Instead, we have a month (slightly more with extensions) to more or less find our way to the relevant piles of literature, and synthesize a topical and relevant response. That's taken me a long, long time---much longer than it should---especially since unlike many of the other students in the class, I'm relatively new to political geog, and don't really mean to make it a central focus of my graduate study.
Which is to say, I'm frustrated and tired and brain-sore. I've already consigned myself to not doing many of the other things I was supposed to do this weekend, I'm behind on my other two classes, TA'ing is a time-suck, and I can't let myself stop. And even so, I can't fathom how I'll have finished two ten-page papers by Wednesday.
I don't know how much of this is that this class is just plain HARD, how much is my own stubbornness and insistence on solving the problem right, and how much is an indication that I haven't really learned some of the lessons I thought I had. And if I keep down that line of reasoning, I wonder---for the first time since returning---if I'm really cut out for this, if I have the smarts, the guts, the resolve to make it here in grad school.
There's an upside to this, though. I'm slowly, slowly getting the sense that I know my way around this material, and I do realize genuine bits of insight when I manage to evolve them. If I could keep on like this for a week or two more, I think I might have something.
Part of this is a hidden curriculum of grad school---there's never enough time to fully master everything, so it's essential to learn to skim, and make complete, well thought-out arguments on the basis of fragmentary knowledge. You never read, or write, so quickly as when you've got a gun to your head. And even though that reading or writing might not be so good as what you could do given unlimited time, it might well be better than what you actually *would* do.
If I can make it through this, I might have a decent chance of making it through comps. Might.
That said, here's the one thing tonight that has been both a) a piece of procrastination that I actually can feel good about and b) actually related to the broader project at hand, in some vague sense.
Father mows the lawn and Mother peels potatoes
Grandma lays the table alone
And adjusts a photograph of the unknown soldier
In this Holy of Holies the Home
And from the TV an unwatched voice
Suggests the answer is to plant more trees
The scrawl on the wall says what about the workers
And the voice of the people says more salt please
Mother shakes her head and reads aloud from the newspaper
And Father puts another lock on the door
And reflects upon the violent times that we are living in
While chatting to the wife beater next door
If paradise to you is cheap beer and overtime
Home truths are easily missed
Something that every football fan knows
It only takes five fingers to form a fist
And when it rains here, it rains so hard
But never hard enough to wash away the sorrow
I'll trade my love today for a greater love tomorrow
The lonely child looks out and dreams of independence
From this family life sentence
Mother sees but does not read the peeling posters
And can't believe that there's a world to be won
But in the public schools and in the public houses
The Battle of Britian goes on
The constant promise of jam tomorrow
Is the New Breeds litany and verse
If it takes another war to fill the churches of England
Then the world the meek inherit, what will it be worth
Mother fights the tears and father, his sense of outrage
And attempts to justify the sacrifice
To pass their creed down to another generation
Anything for the quite life
In the Land of a Thousand Doses
Where nostalgia is the opium of the age
Our place in history is as clock watchers
Old timers, window shoppers
Which is to say, I'm frustrated and tired and brain-sore. I've already consigned myself to not doing many of the other things I was supposed to do this weekend, I'm behind on my other two classes, TA'ing is a time-suck, and I can't let myself stop. And even so, I can't fathom how I'll have finished two ten-page papers by Wednesday.
I don't know how much of this is that this class is just plain HARD, how much is my own stubbornness and insistence on solving the problem right, and how much is an indication that I haven't really learned some of the lessons I thought I had. And if I keep down that line of reasoning, I wonder---for the first time since returning---if I'm really cut out for this, if I have the smarts, the guts, the resolve to make it here in grad school.
There's an upside to this, though. I'm slowly, slowly getting the sense that I know my way around this material, and I do realize genuine bits of insight when I manage to evolve them. If I could keep on like this for a week or two more, I think I might have something.
Part of this is a hidden curriculum of grad school---there's never enough time to fully master everything, so it's essential to learn to skim, and make complete, well thought-out arguments on the basis of fragmentary knowledge. You never read, or write, so quickly as when you've got a gun to your head. And even though that reading or writing might not be so good as what you could do given unlimited time, it might well be better than what you actually *would* do.
If I can make it through this, I might have a decent chance of making it through comps. Might.
That said, here's the one thing tonight that has been both a) a piece of procrastination that I actually can feel good about and b) actually related to the broader project at hand, in some vague sense.
Father mows the lawn and Mother peels potatoes
Grandma lays the table alone
And adjusts a photograph of the unknown soldier
In this Holy of Holies the Home
And from the TV an unwatched voice
Suggests the answer is to plant more trees
The scrawl on the wall says what about the workers
And the voice of the people says more salt please
Mother shakes her head and reads aloud from the newspaper
And Father puts another lock on the door
And reflects upon the violent times that we are living in
While chatting to the wife beater next door
If paradise to you is cheap beer and overtime
Home truths are easily missed
Something that every football fan knows
It only takes five fingers to form a fist
And when it rains here, it rains so hard
But never hard enough to wash away the sorrow
I'll trade my love today for a greater love tomorrow
The lonely child looks out and dreams of independence
From this family life sentence
Mother sees but does not read the peeling posters
And can't believe that there's a world to be won
But in the public schools and in the public houses
The Battle of Britian goes on
The constant promise of jam tomorrow
Is the New Breeds litany and verse
If it takes another war to fill the churches of England
Then the world the meek inherit, what will it be worth
Mother fights the tears and father, his sense of outrage
And attempts to justify the sacrifice
To pass their creed down to another generation
Anything for the quite life
In the Land of a Thousand Doses
Where nostalgia is the opium of the age
Our place in history is as clock watchers
Old timers, window shoppers