where i'm going from here
After making edits and adding a multitude of footnotes, I sent the draft of chapter one off to my advisor. While I wish I coudl now pat myself on the back and relax, I've got two more chapters to go and god only knows how many re-writes I can get in between now and the end of the month. Slowly but surely, I am understanding more and more about Islamic Aristotelianism and I am gladder than ever that I decided to not pursue it as a discipline. Life is too short to spend it quibbling about whether or not because you equate the Active Intellect with angels you are mis-interpreting religion and therefore are speaking of heresy. For me, the bottom line still is: you are still less than God and are going to die anyway; better make your life a bit more worthwhile. Good thing I'm getting out of academia, right?
Not surprisingly, what little brain energy I have left has been devoted to figuring out what I'm going to do come September, providing I can somehow afford to get home on not much cash.
I went down to London expressly for seeing the Sacred exhibit currently on at the British Library and found myself casting a criticle eye over its production, organization, presentation, etc. As such, I can honestly say that it was one of the best exhibits I've ever see, blending various media in order to showcase the cultures and backgrounds that resulted in the textual production of religious scriptures and writings. Careful arranging and showcasing was done in order to highlight similarities and differences in manuscript layout and composition, textual properties, and the use (or absence) of design, illustration, and illumination, all of which really helped you to understand the links between Jewish, Christian, and Muslim textual traditions. Of course, there were those who only showed interest in any illustrations (and who I wanted to punch in the head for neglecting the imporance of the Dead Sea Scrolls or a polygot Bible) but then again, there are always people who choose to read a text in a different way than you. At any rate, the whole thing made me wonder if I could do something like that, designing, organizing and mounting an exhibit for a museum or foundation. I'd certianly have to know what i was talking about in a sales pitch(re: it's time to use my history degrees), and my two years of Hampshire theatre certainly was a crash course in working on a project from start to finish; whether or not Mod 71 gallery experience (?) would count is still unknown. More importantly, the field itself holds my interest and with the ever changing nature of exhibits, would fit well with my attention span. Of course, much more research into the various fields associated with museum work needs to be done, so i'm not going to put any money down upon this present fixation, yet suffice to say, it does sound pretty good and, i'm sure, looks okay on paper too.
I would tie this entry up with a more reflective conclusion about all of this but it's 2:20 and i'm starving; time to feed the andi.