redux: experiment

okay. so i have had a couple days of chilling & am ready to report that is do seem to have grown a bit paler (thank you, andover library) & maybe lost a couple of pounds (who needs weight watchers when stress will do the job just fine!). but, all in all, i do seem to have made it through january in one piece.

and only one or two of the papers are embarrassing!

that's right, team...i'm bbbbbaaaaaaaaaaaaccccccccckkk!

DONE!

DONE!!!

berenstein bears & too much trident

its true. i've been chewing a lot of gum.

picking my head less, though. nervous habits; gotta love 'em.

gum & bananas.

ah, the diet of champions.

my paper is going down the drain & greg is sick.

dreamin'

let's go here, huh?

screw the last paper & just get on a plane & go to ireland.

how worthwhile is a masters, really? does anyone even know what a master of theological studies is? c'mon...none of you kind of want to ask "what are you going to do with that? all of my farmer winegrowers in the gorge did.

it snowed a teeny tiny bit this morning...just enough to tease me into thinking it might actually snow. but no, it's already stoped. there's something odd about writing papers in the greyness. some people argue its motivational because they don't want to be outside & so they just dig into their work. valid. but i kind of think there's something nice about an hour of two of sun-shininess (not hot, mind you, just crisp & bright) to lift the spirits.

i'm too much of a perfectionist to blow off this last paper & hop a plane. too bad, really. someday, maybe i won't be like that. any bets on the chances?

three down, loves, three down. one left. one more to go.

countdown

okay, so the irony of being in finals in january at hds hit me as i sat in a class at boston college this afternoon. for all of the rangling and bashing of catholics i have done, i definitely thing the catholics trump the uus (hds is a long-time hotbed of unitarian universalists) on this one. finals before the birth of christ, before the celebration of lights, before everyone goes to mecca, before the macabbees beat the bad guys.

now that that's clear....

six days left. well, seven if i count today, but that doesn't seem necessary. i have already been quite dramatic enough this month. somewhere around 144 hrs. but who is counting? well, greg probably is. he may be the only one who hates january at harvard with the same intensity i do.

burtsbees

it is with a sense of pride over having not lost my burt's bees that i reach the metallic bottom of a tin of the ol' beeswax lip balm.

when i reach the edges, i know its time to get some more.

today, pals, was that day.

with a tinge of sadness, i throw away the old guy & take the wrapper off the new. its been real, old tinny. thanks for the ride.

signs of too much

i've been, basically, writing papers since the middle of november. with the exception of 8 or 9 days off at christmas, its been nonstop. with 9 days left until my last paper of the semester is due, here are signs that i have been writing for too many days in a row:

1. the other night i dreamt that greg & were having a conversation and i kept trying to catch the words that came out of our mouths & organize them into a more coherent order.
2. everywhere i look, i see little pieces of papers with my handwriting scribbling some brilliant thing that came to me while running or falling asleep or driving to school.
3. some kid saw me in the cafeteria and told me he was surprised to see me out of my office on the 2nd floor of the library.
4. am seriously wondering if they'd forward my mail here.
5. keep finding myself cheering to myself: "go, self! c'mon! just give it an hour of good effort." sad, friends, sad.

three cheers to the end of january 07,
k

adieu a freud & aristotle

its true...i will never again formally compare the work of freud & aristotle. never again compare & contrast their startlingly different, yet oddly similar, worldviews. i will never again try to understand what freud's interpretation of dreams mean for an aristotilean virtue ethic.

done with one!

three more to go....january 23, here i come!

a different kind of blog...

if this were not the squeaky clean blog of a so-called "goody two-shoes" (1), i would show you the wonderful bras that finally arrived at my house after quite an ordeal with u.p.s. there are rare moments in life when it is somewhat better to pay $10 than fight with a multi-million dollar corporation.

but do let it be known: i will never ever again, intentionally choose to ship anything with the united postal service. the guys & gals of the big brown trucks will never see another dollar of mine. ever.

and i encourage you all to do the same. SAY NO TO UPS. and why not? the steady-eddy united states postal service does just fine, thank you VERY much, guys & gals of the red, white & blue.

(1) Skinner, Greg. 9 January 2007.

friends & strangers

so i am relatively convinced that part of what makes us care for humans writ large (or qua human, as the academics seem to like it) are the experiences of encounters with individuals that come into our experiences and surprise us with their likenesses--we are surprised to realize that that the woman who doesn't look like us shares some of the same fears and dreams. all those spring break trippers, all those jesuit volunteers--that was part of the goal. without these face-to-face encounters, it seems to me, there is a shallowness in our general care for the Other. we need to be shaken at our corp by that which is different from us (but startlingly similar) in order to move toward care for the planet, people in general, etc.

but when is it too much? is mother teresa too much? was she even really human? was she able to have close friends? or did she actually live the pre-1963 model of catholic nuns: no particular friends because they had to be prepard to care for the world, not for each other. Its a compelling argument, but so unrealistic because its disconnected from the relationality that makes us human. but still, we don't think a good person is one who only cares for their friends--we expect more than that from each other, from the so-called human community. so what's the balance? how do we maintain the integrity of our personal relationships (with the implied care that comes with being in communion with another) and care for our non-personal relationships?

sheesh, oh sheesh. i don't know, but i need to come up with something in the next two weeks!

i'm off to mire around some more.

oh, also: its like 60 degrees in boston. almost 70 yesterday. what the hell is going on?

k.

day 5

wow. i look my sister.

five (kind of 6) days in....17 to go.

update:
2 papers quasi-drafted
1 paper in the early stages
1 paper i have a murky idea for

number of bagels eaten in last 6 days: 13
number of bananas: 7
number of mini-packages of ritzbits peanut butter: 5
number of yummy xmas dinners with fiance: 1!

how to move into the library

a few tips should you, like me, ever move into your grad school's library:

1. water bottle, of course. hydration is the key to happiness & coherent papers.

2. chapstick. its winter folks, dry lips are endemic

3. bananas or other mind-fortifying foods. avoid york peppermint patties.





what not to bring? a computer that has a both a camera and a wireless card.
(are you at all nervous that i appear to be wearing the EXACT same clothing in each picture for the last three days of posts? do be.)

york & nuns.

hmmm...i seem to have lost of the scant motivation i found in me this morning. i'm writing what is supposed to be my most interesting paper this month & keep getting stuck.

i want to think about catholicism in the 1960s through the lens of young nuns. so, i've chosen my three (ita ford, an old gal from small town, minnesota and a nun-turned-novelist from st. paul...long live the roots of liberal catholicism in the midwest!) and keep picking at their comments on theology, bodies & women's possibilities. the more i pick, the more disparate their experiences seem. i guess that's okay. just makes for a rather disjointing paper. but i s'pose it would be bad scholarship to try to flatten them into each other. its too bad; i don't think any of them actually knew each other (2 are dead...the novelist lives happily non-catholic life in pennsylvania). they would have had interesting conversations.

so i ate a york peppermint patty to try to make myself feel better.
am loving the new camera:).

peaceout, k.

on a more positive note...

okay, so its not that bad. i'm being overdramatic about january.

anyhow, i'm leaving freud behind for a few days & turning to my favorite class: the catholic 60s. yes!

i'm also in somewhat of a fight with the evening librarian, but she doesn't probably realize it. its probably better that way, but if she knew all of the snappy, snide remarks i have ready for her, she might be surprised:).

in other news: my sister is recalling her 2004 vote for bush. friends, the tide is turning. if kelly is no longer happy with her republican vote, there may be a real cause for believing the election in 2008 will be something to enjoy!

in another positive line of thought: my mom subscribed me to orion for the year. wahoo, beautiful magazine!

hating freud

me. at the library. bored with freud. uninspired by aristotle. hating my professor's final paper topics. no more snacks left. all is not well, friends, not well.

saddam? gerald ford? plane crashes in indonesia? no idea, pals, none. the world has shrunk to my papers, my dietary needs and the drive from home to the library.

long live january 2007.

experiment

its january. for most students, teacher & other folks affiliated with academia, that means a fresh start with a new semester. ah, the thrill of new syllabi, new books, new students, new ideas. gone is the drudgery of last semester. all seems possible, all seems good.

not at harvard.

its finals here at one of america's biggest over-rated istitutions. four papers. 20 days. and i'm at the beginning.

so this is the experiment: if i remember correctly from last year, i looked pretty horrible after the stress-induction that was january 2006. this picture is me at the beginning. i'm one day in, approximately 22 to go (my last paper is due january 23rd). i'll take a picture at the end & compare notes.

here's hoping i don't get much paler!
kd.

oh...and of course! happy 2007. stay tuned for the wonderful world of "kate turns 27" countdown to begin in just a month:).