Liberal use of capitals
I feel very weirdly in and out of my element at the same time. The books are good. I like thinking about things in terms of engagement and metaphor and structure. I like the enormous amount of writing. The enormous amount of reading is a little overwhelming. Five hundred odd pages a week. Hm. I don't quite remember how to do this.
I am engaging with these works and classes in a very different way than I used to three years ago. When the professor of the only lecture class I'm taking laid out his plan to read these three Victorian novels in terms of finance -- this is the sort of thing I would have scribbled down avidly three or four years ago. "Connection: finance." With finality. This time, I said, "Hm." Certainly this is one way of looking at it, but he's going to have to convince me that Finance is the Overarching Theme here. He may, or he may not. My personal inclination is toward Social Upheaval. (Best use of train as villain?)
I like this New Me, who has opinions. I just need to be not afraid to voice them. (This, too, is improving, but slowly, slowly. I read a whole section of text aloud today without my voice quivering!) New goal I set about an hour ago: volunteer one thing in every class. I was just about to several times today, just need a little more coaxing. To be fair, this is the first time (including all those years at UVa) that I have been around people who identify themselves as writers (as in, "Hi, my name is Jane and I'm a writer" -- which sounds a little like AA, but you know what I mean; it's an addiction anyway), which makes me feel a little more comfortable about opening up about that part of me.
(Being a writer is, for me, a little bit like what I imagine being in the closet might be. I talk about it anonymously, and to people I am very close to. But tonight might be the first time in my life that I've personally acknowledged my being a writer as a part of me, in the way that being a medical student is a part of me, or being a daughter is a part of me. Not really different hats, but all mixed up together, so that being one does not preclude me from being another. But then I am very conscious of a shift of mind when I am in my "medical mode." So maybe the metaphor doesn't quite work. I am still thinking it out.)
Aside from Issues in my head, then, things are mostly alright.
I am engaging with these works and classes in a very different way than I used to three years ago. When the professor of the only lecture class I'm taking laid out his plan to read these three Victorian novels in terms of finance -- this is the sort of thing I would have scribbled down avidly three or four years ago. "Connection: finance." With finality. This time, I said, "Hm." Certainly this is one way of looking at it, but he's going to have to convince me that Finance is the Overarching Theme here. He may, or he may not. My personal inclination is toward Social Upheaval. (Best use of train as villain?)
I like this New Me, who has opinions. I just need to be not afraid to voice them. (This, too, is improving, but slowly, slowly. I read a whole section of text aloud today without my voice quivering!) New goal I set about an hour ago: volunteer one thing in every class. I was just about to several times today, just need a little more coaxing. To be fair, this is the first time (including all those years at UVa) that I have been around people who identify themselves as writers (as in, "Hi, my name is Jane and I'm a writer" -- which sounds a little like AA, but you know what I mean; it's an addiction anyway), which makes me feel a little more comfortable about opening up about that part of me.
(Being a writer is, for me, a little bit like what I imagine being in the closet might be. I talk about it anonymously, and to people I am very close to. But tonight might be the first time in my life that I've personally acknowledged my being a writer as a part of me, in the way that being a medical student is a part of me, or being a daughter is a part of me. Not really different hats, but all mixed up together, so that being one does not preclude me from being another. But then I am very conscious of a shift of mind when I am in my "medical mode." So maybe the metaphor doesn't quite work. I am still thinking it out.)
Aside from Issues in my head, then, things are mostly alright.