and back

almost a week ago, prelims were suddenly over. finished. behind me.

it's a weird feeling. for so much of the year, prelims loomed like this thing beyond which nothing at all could exist. like death, almost. but I'm on the other side now and there is all this open space and crazy playground equipment.

okay, I don't mean playground equipment. I mean more phd-land. a prospectus proposal and a dissertation plan and all that. (sometimes it's like a playground. other times it's like a hamster wheel.)

but at least prelims are finished.

on the unfinished side of things are... well, almost everything else. 

these coloring pages, for example.

dear friends Trinity and Patti separately sent coloring accoutrements in their pre-prelim care packages. Patti even sent shimmery crayons.

theses tools were marvelous for giving the back burner of my brain time to simmer away with whatever problem/question/hurdle I was stuck on.

I didn't finish any of the coloring, but that's okay. there will be more stressful days when I'll want to do something semi-mindless, creative, and calming. there are plenty of pages left, and the crayons will surely last a while too.

so thanks to everyone who cheered me on and/or left me alone throughout the prelim madness. I'm glad I have you. don't go away, okay? the whole dissertation thing is not going to be a coloring book, I'm pretty sure.

up

today (thismorning at 9am precisely) is the beginning of prelim exams. I've heard people compare these exams (9 days of writing your brains out in response to prompts on all the things your phd has supposed to have taught you thus far) to climbing a very tall and arduous staircase. it's not easy, but it isn't going to kill you if you can just keep going. you've learned all this stuff, and you wouldn't be here if you weren't brilliant enough to write these exams.

hopefully this will be a metaphorical staircase with some curve to it, and neat art hanging along the way. hopefully it doesn't get dark. hopefully there are not cobwebs.

I'm going to make myself an awesome breakfast, put my hair up for good luck, log out of all my email accounts and all the social media places, make sure I have notebooks and pens for scribbly brainstorming sessions, and get to campus early. I'll be climbing this prelim staircase til next Thursday, so please pardon my absence from all the other staircases and rooms and hallways of life for now. I'll come back down when it's over.

let's go

it is the season of fireflies. the intermittent glinting of those little bugs is one of the most marvelous parts of living in this sticky, expansive midwest land. a few nights ago we went walking around the celery bog in West Lafayette at sunset, and before long the whole wooded area around the marsh was sparkling. fireflies everywhere.

I don't have any pictures of that night. photographs of such a night wouldn't look real. they wouldn't be satisfying or magical in the same way being there was. if I were good at and/or patient with photography in general, maybe I could end up with something like this. but I'm not. and as cool as that photo is, that's not what walking through the woods watching fireflies wink at each other is like. maybe a video would get closer, but even then I'd expect it to be way unsatisfying.

I do have some pictures of Turkey Run State Park, where friend Lena and I hiked last week. are they more real-looking?

do they capture the dance of stream-reflected light, gently speckling up against the rocks? not quite. nor do they capture the feeling of moss-scented breezes or semi-slippery stones along the trail or thick June sunshine settling through all the tall, tall trees.

let's go back and hike some more. let's go every week this summer and memorize the trail maps. let's kayak Sugar Creek again once or twice (remembering sunscreen this time) and let's bring picnic things and stay all evening if they'll let us, watching fireflies and stars come out. we can take more photographs. or not.

thirteen: unlucky

not even the heady scent of fresh-mown grass or the sweep of springtime clouds and breezes--not even a strawberry ice cream cone--none of it, nothing--has succeeded in lifting me up out of this well (deep, deepening, deeper than yesterday) of what if why not when where how not why which who why why not but why. I am choking on feelings. smothering.


there are no stories in this. no sense. the universe is sinking me.

answerless

puzzles make very neat metaphors. much like black boxes, the concept could be hiding almost anywhere. and like so, so many other words (wave, pencil, etc.) it is both a noun and a verb.

you don't exactly puzzle a puzzle though. you solve it, if you can.

most of the time we puzzle over other stuff: puzzling, bewildering things that may or not literally be puzzles.

this week I am puzzling over the syllabus I'm supposed to be polishing up and the worthiness of owning this or that sort of gas-powered vehicle.

literal puzzles are more fun. they have such low stakes and predetermined answers. the crossword kind might be my favourite. mm.

{ photo via this kind soul on flickr. }

I think words are more interesting than paintings... but jigsaws can be just the thing if you've got the space and a few uninterrupted weekends with family.

so many kinds of puzzles, there are. once upon a time ten years ago friend Wilson introduced me to this infamously most difficult of all internet riddles. I didn't finish it.

a few days ago I ran across this maddening puzzle via twitter. I spent a few stop-and-go days getting up to level 31. I have been there for ages now. please, if anyone gets past this one... tell me the secret.

it must be solvable. I just can't figure it out yet.

regular life is not a jigsaw or a game, I don't think. definitely not one with neat, pre-cut, smooth-edged pieces. no... life is more like this image from a poem I read recently:

When the wind comes, and the snow repeats us,
 / how like our warped lives it is,
Melting objects, disappearing sounds,
Like lichen on gnarled rocks.
For we have lived in the wind, and loosened ourselves like ice
 / melt.
Nothing can hold us, I've come to know. 

it's from "My Old Clinch Mountain Home" by Charles Wright. his book Caribou was on the new books shelf (how I love new books shelves) at the library and I brought it home, not expecting much. I like it though. I didn't get the line spacing quite right in my excerpt, but hopefully the language conjures something poignant for you anyway. as I was thinking about puzzles and their solutions, this poem countered with its un-polished un-clear scenery. wind and water melting and eating away at everything, transforming and being transformed. all of that seems very, very beyond a puzzle.

we like puzzles so much because they have answers and we can hold those answers in our heads and hands and figure them out. this Vsauce video on games gets at this idea, comparing/contrasting life and play. we can win at Poker or Chess or Tennis... but how can we tell if anyone ever wins at Justice or Teenagerhood or Making A Difference? games and life don't work the same. unless they do...

unless it's only that nobody's figured out exactly how yet.

new place, new rules?

the rain has welcomed me most wonderfully to the land of Indiana. for example, see these several photographs of the house I am now living in. slick front porch, dripping ivy, neatly-arrayed post boxes and all.

and now orientation has me in its throes and I am collecting moments of glee and nervousness about the impending fall semester.

on my way to this new place from dry, dusty Texas, I had plenty of empty driving time to ponder just how different Indiana would be from anywhere else I have ever lived. not counting adventures in other countries via airports in New York, this little mid-west state is the furthest east I've ever been. there are no roommates. there was no convenient furniture. I have my own space and only my own dishes to wash. I live very close to a muddy but picturesque river. and closer than ever before to a semi-lively, eclectically cute, shop-filled, pedestrian-friendly downtown. my academic experience seems on the verge of quadrupling in intensity.

four years back, when I unboxed the machine upon which I am typing these very words now, I felt faced with questions about how it would change my life and my work. I determined on that occasion that a new laptop needn't revolutionize my life so very drastically. I would be the same person with it. the same rules would suffice. right?

and so they did.

but this time it is not me unboxing new possessions--it's more like I am being unboxed. everything with which I go about my days has been reshuffled and unleashed into almost completely uncharted environs. what new rules and new contexts might I be presented with in this brand-new-but-still-mine life?

in thinking about all this during my drive across the more western side of the great midwest, I remembered a podcast I heard earlier this year. Roman Mars's 99% Invisible had an episode about the one small, simple rule that revolutionized the game of basketball. go listen and/or read about it--I promise it's interesting even if you have no positive opinion of athletic events generally.

I'm also reminded of John Green's ramblings about the value of rules, even arbitrary ones. the video is a bit whiny and strange-ish, but it's the thought I'm getting at. rules can be awesome. (limits are possibilities, you know?)

so I have all these decisions to make. who do I want to be? what kind of scholar and instructor and friend do I want to be? how early do I want to wake up and how much time do I want to spend on this or that or the other?

there are thankfully a few built-in rules that come with my new life. I have classes at these times and these times, and buses run on a certain schedule. sleep is important and food is important.

but then so much of it is left up to me. there's nobody else to expect any certain kind of behavior. I don't have to schedule my showers around any other person or wait while anyone else uses the oven. I can almost do whatever I want.

so what is that going to be? what is the stuff I want to be doing? and when? and how often? to what level of intensity?

it might take me some time to figure all this out. feel free to offer your suggestions.

some very official mail

not the greatest picture, I know. but there they are. my actually official on-paper GRE scores. 710 on the verbal, an identical 710 on the quantitative, and a lovely 4.5 for the writing.

so:

if...

unless...

as long as...

some days this plan B seems pretty close. I can see the lofty edges of it against the bright, unreachable sky, and I can almost touch the smooth and flawless ivory stones at the base of the tower.

other days, I can't see anything. I could blame the weather. or my smudged spectacles. but it doesn't really matter the reasons. it's plan B. and the future is inscrutable.

in my very first post about grad school (not counting this ancient one, anyway), I said:

this all might be very pointless.
I'm going to do it anyway.

with every might, there is also a might not. I just have to swallow them both and keep walking. there will be stars to shine on whichever path I end up taking.

back and forth, up and down

I am going to ace the GRE on thursday.

yes, that is the story I'm telling myself. I'll adjust the definition of 'ace' later on if I must. cross your fingers that I won't need to.

and once that gargantuan standardized test is overwith, I'll be facing a slew of other things to check off this disorganized list of mine. I've been waiting and waiting and waiting so long for so many of these things. and it's hard to tell which things I can do more than wait for and which things I can't. none of it's easy. every week there are things you've learned to count on and suddenly those things change. or they disappear. or get complicated. or stop making sense. or move out from under you. or just get forgotten.

{ image by this kind soul on flickr. }

it's easy to get scared. anger and fear can drag themselves through you as if you were nothing. doubts can carve holes in you like you were made of soap. and what can you do? there are a million things you can't anticipate. a million things that won't be anything like what you expect (even if you were once exceedingly sure about them). and a million things that you just don't know. and maybe it's impossible for you to know them.

my dad told me this weekend that those million things should be exciting. they are a million things you get to find out. a million things you get to learn.

{ image by another kind soul on flickr. }

I resolved back in January to be a little more excited about life. I guess I wanted to hold on to the sense of optimism I'd come across so unexpectedly last summer, and I figured that filling my head with things to be excited about (even the smallest of things: yoga class. the brilliant view from this quiet little library. learning the lyrics to an awesome new song.) would do something to keep it alive, even if just barely. has it worked? maybe.

the word optimism is related to the word optimum, which means the best possible. to see the best possible world in the world that you're living in... that's quite a skill. sometimes it takes a lot of patience to find bright, happy things in this dreary world. sometimes it takes effort to change your perspective and refocus on all the good things instead of the things that are missing or lost. it takes patience, and determination, and faith, before you can take the brutally unchangeable circumstances you're given and envision something wonderful and worthwhile happening in spite of them, or even because of them.

{ and this one is also from yet another kind soul on flickr. }

almost everything is temporary. so even if right now you can't see anything at all anywhere that could be called the best possible, you can imagine a moment in the future where everything is different, can't you? a future where you've found some answers and made some decisions and vanquished some demons. even if nothing else changes, you can change. you can keep looking up. you can say something. you can move. you can pray. you can write. you can give. you can turn around. you can run. you can adjust a few definitions, adjust a few expectations. you can wait. just don't ever give up on finding the best possible.

I know it's out there. I just hope I recognize it when it gets here.

practice tests

yes, I'm talking about the GRE again. how boring.

this whole grad school thing is still a big if. a plan B. or at least a plan A.2... but still, it's an if I'm trying to happily work toward. so that means studying. it means filling my head with mathematical tricks and memorizing lots of vocabulary. and it means practice tests.

the verbal reasoning section doesn't worry me. I'm good at those.

and the analytical writing sections don't worry me. I'm good at those too, aren't I?

what worries me is the quantitative reasoning. math! I used to be good at math. really, I was once quite capable of doing math. but the last math class I was in was a tiny little 7 a.m. calculus III, way back in 2002. since then, my understanding of percentages and fractions and exponents has suffered severely damaging oxidation.

I have three and a half weeks to prepare for this silly exam. is that long enough? it will just have to be. I really don't want to pay another $50 to reschedule.

my plan is to study mainly math problems and vocabulary words, and take a full practice test every week before the actual test. somebody out there needs to be really proud of the thought that I--a person who never usually has to study for anything ever--have put into this schedule. I hope it all makes a difference.

the part I haven't really practiced at all yet--not even once in the whole year and a half I've been "studying for the GRE"--is the writing. I've been a bit lazy about that because... well, it's writing. it's what I love. but I should still practice. so here's where I ask you, my lovely little audience, for a little external motivation. here are the links to a bunch of sample questions which may appear on the analytical writing section of the GRE: first the Issues, and second the Arguments. I just need you to give me three of each. please? pick your favourites. scroll randomly and pick a few with your eyes closed. either way. let me know in the comments, and maybe I'll post some of my practice essays on the blog. we'll see.

don't psychoanalyze the elf

I'm studying for the GRE.

yeah.

I never study for anything, usually. I'm one of those people.

But my new goal in life is to get a perfect score on this test. all possible points, all the best answers--all of it. I've always been good at taking tests, so I figure it won't be that much of a stretch.

we found a practice book at the library. one of those Princeton Review things, highly recommended. I like it lots. if I end up writing books like that someday, I hope I can make them as funny as whoever wrote that one did (example: the title of this post, copied straight from one of this book's section headings. isn't that great?).

I'm beginning to realize that this goal of mine is a fairly pointless one. most graduate programs won't care a ton whether or not I have a perfect score on this silly test. but it's just something I want to try. and I'm just cocky enough to think I actually have a chance. seriously.

learning all the vocabulary and things is great fun. it's the math that's gonna be hard.

I'm thinking I'll register to take the test sometime in November. that means I have until then to be deciding on schools to attend, programs to apply for...

again, this all might be very pointless.

I'm going to do it anyway.

compromise and radiation

my dad once told me that if we could see every single radio transmission that went trailing through the air around us, the world would be blackened and dark by them.

if you want something done right, do it yourself, eh?

was it Gandhi who said that you should 'be the change you wish to see in the world'? on sunday one of the speakers at church read a quote about the radiation each human being gives out every day without thinking. the point was that we should all become responsible for that radiation, and train ourselves to think about it.

but we can't see it.

we can't see a lot of things. china. the bottom of the ocean. tomorrow. yesterday. proof is for mathemeticians.

to trade truth for easy assumptions and unchanging memories.

to trade tomorrow for right now and dreams for money and far away for someday.

to trade. give. slack. push. pull. this and that.

all sticks have two ends.

in The Screwtape Letters C. S. Lewis reminds us in a roundabaout way, through the voice of a demon, that everything we do affects our spirit. the cracking of our knuckles. the rolling of our eyes. whether we kneel to say that prayer or simply think it laying in bed as we fall asleep. everything.

does it affect the next guy just as well? how we carry ourselves as we walk into the office? the expression on our face as we silently walk across the street? the three minutes of fidgety silence there is before we make up our mind for the waitress?

i've been taught that everyone gets their share of light. and then they give it oil or let it flicker as they will for the rest of their life, throwing shadows carelessly as they go.

so you pull over to the side of the canyon road and hike up a smooth and awesome rock face. you don't notice how steep it is at all until you stop and your worn sneakers slide a little on the sandstone. you keep climbing, defying gravity with momentum and traction. you stop, turn around, and look down. there is far more of the smooth stone sloping away from you there than you ever saw as you ran up. it all spreads out around and down, yards and yards, to the little snowbank you crossed when you first started. you've left no footprints you can see. but you know you only came up one way out of millions of ways. one narrow path out of all the other ways you didn't come. all the millions of ways connected to this single spot.

what difference does it make? you see no footprints. the rock is too smooth and too hard to take them.

you can't change the past. but in the next second you can learn something new. you can say something you've never said before. you can walk a different way.

yeah, and what difference will it make?

it'll be different, silly. that's what. whether or not it means anything is up to you.