Reification

I’m reading Frederic Jameson, a Marxist critic, for a presentation for lit theory tonight. This guy is complicated and brilliant and fascinating, but I have to stop at the end of every sentence and break down what he says (and sometimes those sentences go on and on and on and on…).

As a result of his brilliance, I keep stumbling across words I’ve never seen before. Right now, I’m puzzling over the word “reification.”

The root word is “reify,” a verb meaning to make an abstract concept more concrete (something I’ve been doing with every sentence of Jameson’s that I’ve read).

But when I first read the word, I thought, “Who decided that we could ‘if’ again?” Yeah, that’s weird, I know, but Jameson is making up words, so maybe.

The word is actually derived from the Latin root re-, which means “thing.” So…”reify” essentially means to “thing-ify.”

And this is a scholarly word.  Who are these people who make these words? And how can I be one of them?

Musings

1. Just moments ago, I finished a complete, though unedited, draft of the final project for my Caribbean women’s writing class. At 5,052 words and 16+ pages, it’s the longest paper I’ve written in three years (though still quite short when compared to my lit theory paper and honors project). At the beginning of the semester, I felt overwhelmed looking at the syllabus. A 15-20 page essay due on the same night as a 5-7 page theory paper (which is actually 8.5 right now)? Plus a ton of reading–both primary works and secondary, critical essay. Overwhelming doesn’t actually come close to what I felt thinking about getting all this work done while working full-time and teaching. But I’ve done it! The end is here. The semester ends tomorrow night, after an informal 10-15 minute presentation on my final project and turning my essays in. Then…an almost two-week break before summer school begins. Once I push through that, I’ll have about six weeks of a summer break. And it’s gonna be awesome.

2. I bought the Doctor Who soundtrack. The theme song is epic, in case you didn’t realize. Epic music (without lyrics) is perfect for paper writing.

3. Speaking of Doctor Who, I found an awesome pick-up line/knock-knock joke on a Facebook group this afternoon:

Knock, knock?
Who’s there?
Doctor.
Doctor Who?
That’s right, baby.

It’s so cheesy, but I giggled. And I keep giggling (at least internally) every time I think about it. If a guy ever said that to me, I’m pretty sure I’d at least go to dinner with him. Maybe marry him.

That is all. Happy Wednesday!

The First Day of School

I got a call around 4:50 last Thursday from my admissions counselor at Gardner-Webb, asking if I was coming to class that evening.

“Have I been accepted?” I asked.

Yep. Sure had. The committee had approved my application just that afternoon, three days after classes started.

I registered the next morning for a World Lit class specializing in Caribbean Women’s Writing. I’m behind because I missed the first night of class, but my professor (who is also my advisor) told me not to worry about catching up. She’s been incredibly wonderful, and I’ve communicated with her many times now on the phone and in email trying to figure out what class to take and such.

I’m heading to Gardner-Webb tonight for my first class. It’s a long drive (aobut 50 miles from G-W to my apartment), but at least I only have to make the trip once a week. I’m already intimidated by the syllabus, but in a good way. We have three major projects: a 7-10 page lit review, a 15-20 page final project on a novel not covered in class, and a 5-7 page theory/definition paper on Caribbean writing. That’s a major step up from Converse, where my biggest project was an 8 page research paper with a 20-entry annotated bibliography. This is real grad school. Thank God I did this kind of work at NGU.

I’m excited, but a little anxious. The perfectionist in me is a little antsy at the reading load (lots of novels plus extra essays each week) and the projects. Also, G-W is apparently on the 8 point grading scale (where a 93-100 is an A), so what would qualify as an A (at NGU) or an A- (at Converse) would be a solid B. I don’t like B’s.

But…I’m excited by the reading list. I’m excited that I’m enrolled at a new school (in another state, even!). I’m excited by the challenge.

Also, I’m excited about my notebook. Last night, I covered an ordinary composition notebook with fun scrapbook paper and pictures from islands in the Caribbean. It’s pretty much awesome. My classmates will be jealous, and they’ll all want to be friends with me. I’m sure.

At any rate, I’ll find out tonight! Yay for the first day of school!

Get excited.

A list of things that I’m super excited about right now:

1) I applied to the M.A. in English program at Gardner-Webb University…to start in January (hopefully, with Coa!). It seems like such a sudden change, but I’ve known for months now that the M.A.T. program isn’t right for me. I don’t want to teach high school, and the student teaching and certification progress to do that would be a waste of my time and energy. With the M.A., I can take just English classes (yay!), write a thesis, begin teaching full-time at the college level (hopefully!), and eventually decide where and in what concentration to get my Ph.D. I applied to G-W last week, and I’m working on getting the rest of my documentation in. Then, I’ll work on financial aid. With the peace I feel about this decision, I’ll be shocked if everything doesn’t work out perfectly.

2) Next week is Thanksgiving Break! It’s going to be wonderful to have a few days off from work and school. I’m going to Sullivan’s Island with Chris on Wednesday (and eating at Poe’s Tavern!); Thursday is Thanksgiving Day with my family; Friday, my family is going shopping in Charleston; and Sunday is a surprise for my mom (that you’ll all hear about soon)!

3) On Tuesday, I got my tickets to see Switchfoot at the Orange Peel on December 4! They’ll be playing the entire Hello Hurricane album from start to finish, plus some “old favorites” and “a few surprises”! YAY!

4) The end of the semester fast approaches. I’m finishing up final projects, grading my students’ final essays, and looking to Dec. 7 with mixed feelings. I’ll give my last final exam that day and take my last final exam at Converse. On that day, I’ll officially finish my first semester of teaching college English, which has been marvelous and challenging, and I’ll also officially end my academic career at Converse after a year and a half. I’ll definitely miss my very first students, and I’ll also probably miss the people and experiences I’ve had at Converse. But, alas, life continues on.

5) This morning, Michele, Harvin, and I had a discussion about Christmas. Right now, we’re planning a little trip. We’ll all drive up to Pennsylvania the weekend before Christmas, stay a few days, take a day-trip into New York City, and then we’ll leave Michele up there for Christmas with her family while we drive back home in time to get back to our families for Christmas. It looks like I’ll be heading back up north for the second time this year! I’ll see new states, and I’ll be in NYC at Christmastime! It’s gonna be amazing, and I hope we can make it work.

So there we are. Changes, adventures, life.

What’s Happening Here?

Yesterday morning, I finished then emailed a paper to my human growth & development professor. The paper was 12 days late, which is fine, I’m sure, as he told us specifically that turning it in late wasn’t a big deal. We’re adults, after all, and sometimes stuff happens that’s more important than school.

I’m sure he meant work, family, emergencies, things of that nature. But over the past few weeks, I’ve realized something about myself. A significant change, in fact. I’ve struggled to force myself to do homework–write this paper, study for finals, finish up a slew of journals for my world lit class. I’ve sat in front of the computer and found that I have absolutely not been motivated to work at all.

Two separate times, I specifically made plans to go home and work on my paper (this was the week before the paper was actually due). Both times, I turned down invitations from friends . . . once, to go to a class at church, and the other time to go to dinner after church. Both times, I still never made it home to work on my paper. I ended up having really great, and needed, conversations with two separate friends. Significant conversations, even.

Other times, I knew I needed to work on my paper and made other plans anyway. Dinner with friends after church (no, I didn’t turn that invitation down a second time), hanging out at the Silver Chair, crafting with the Leisters. And other than the occassional twinge of guilt at not having finished my paper yet, I regret none of those times.

I’m at the end of my first semester of graduate school, and I’m finding that school has dropped really low on my list of important things. That’s never happened to me before. Ever. I’ve always managed to find a balance before, and only in rare moments before have I chosen friends over homework. Not anymore.

Thinking about this, I realize that I could have two responses to this situation:

A) I could repent and remind myself that it’s okay to say “no” to people; after all, we can always go to dinner in a few days when my homework is finished. School should be more important. And I need to be more focused.

B) I could thank God that I have so many people in my life whom I deeply love and want to spend time with. And obviously, those people are in my life for a reason, and if I truly desire community and relationships, then I need to remember that people are more important.

Obviously, there has to be a balance here, but I’m definitely swinging more toward option 2. Fortunately, my semester ends tomorrow with my human growth & development final exam. Then, I’ll have a month off from school (and two of those weeks, I’ll be off work). And when classes start again in January, maybe my motivation will have returned.

Still, I have to wonder what happened. For 17 years (kindergarten through college), school was my life. My raison d’etre. The year I took off between college and grad school was rough. I even took New England Writers last spring, partially because I missed school so much. So, truthfully, in the past 18 1/2 years, I’ve had one semester off from school, where I took no classes. All that to say–why don’t I care anymore? It doesn’t seem to be some kind of early senioritis or anything. More like my values have shifted, and when I have so much more . . .

Total revelation just now, in the middle of blogging: for the first time in a long time, I don’t need school to feel validated, to be fulfilled. My identity has moved beyond just being the smart girl. I no longer feel like I’m just the girl everyone hangs out with so they can get MLA or grammar help. Maybe, for the first time, I’ve accepted that there’s so much more to me than just good grades. And maybe everyone else realized it all along, and I’m just the last person to catch on.