hump-day musings

Time has become ever illusive. I mean, it never felt like a low cloud hovering aimlessly, but now, now it's a hurried wind. I keep meaning to come here, to rekindle a dedication to writing, though it seems that I'm only tapping on my keyboard when everything else feels so dire and fragile that I have no other choice than to relieve my mind [here].

I'm making a point this morning to be different.

I'm taking a break from Tracks [which absolutely HAS to be finished today] to write something more attached to sanity than the last post. That conflict has yet to be resolved, but at least we are searching for a direction. Both of us are pulling out our compasses and watching the dials spin over personal capabilities and the ecstasies and trials of love. Beyond my ungluing over love in the time of army-ness, school pushes me onward.

I turned in my first graduate paper yesterday and as I slid it under my pedagogy prof's door I was nearly trembling. I think this must be what it feels like to be a little fish. These papers aren't about business content anymore. Not only am I submitting them to the grammar sticklers but also to the English scholars, which I might remind you, I am most certainly not. I'm in Composition Theory and Pedagogy because once upon a time I started a MySpace blog that a couple of people gave a thumbs-up. I may never feel like I truly earned my spot at the conference table where our classes are held. So frankly, I may have a stroke writing the 10-page essay due on Wednesday. I can't recall ever feeling intimidated by a professor like I do in my 20th C. American Lit. course. I am accustomed to research papers, where a number of secondary sources are required. No question. And cited throughout. This particular assignment is to be 8-12 pages made up 75% of content I pull out of a pool of three novels. Ok, it looks easy. It even looks easy to me, just now, reading over the previous sentence. I'm just not sure how to summon my own opinion on some parallel that worms through all three books and then how to support it with only fictional text.

I'm thinking that something church inspired would be interesting and relatively easy. The symbolism in Erdrich's characters strikes me, a possible other direction. There is also the socio-cultural nature of Erdrich's white characters compared with her Native American Indians. The white characters are always weak and mad and petty. Pauline and Sita and Karl all lose their minds in various ways; Lynette is pretty well straight trash, and the nuns tend to be corrupted. I suppose an answer will come to me.

Back to the books.