...I just left a meeting at the Mckeldin library with Tim, one of the librarians for English literature and such. He took me along a virtual tour of research ports and databases and I confessed to him that I felt like a preschooler sitting in high school math; all this bibliographic work feels tedious and a little overwhelming. I tell him, I'd much rather read and write. But, I'm excited for the prospect of growing and I realize that my resistance to this new avenue is only a natural bucking at the impetus of growth and progression. Without a little struggle, there is neither growth nor progression. Still, I don't do it with an ear-to-ear smile.
Outside, it's raining and the tips of my boots still hold soggy socked feet. In an hour or so, I will be meeting with Dr. Ray, the graduate advisor. This meeting has no formal insinuations, but I'm taking the advice we received at orientation and making myself known.
The free coffee in my system was the perfect compliment to this rainy Thursday and I'm beginning to realize that I made the right choice. Often, I spend too much time doubting my decisions rather than relishing them. Like my dad says, it's your life, baby girl; only you know what you want, so do it.
I find myself unaccustomed to this new schedule. The mornings are the most confusing. Do I wake up with an alarm as the nine-to-fivers do? Or do I wake up to a soundless room, no alarm to pull me from my dreams? Do I work at home or head to campus? Shall I become nocturnal, burning midnight oils and closing my eyes during the sunshine of the day? Yeah, I already know...first-world problems. In the backdrop of my over-analysis are the thoughts of my students at Dwight Englewood. I think of them everyday. I think of their boundless energy, their morning commutes, their heads bobbing in the lunch line, their school supplies in abundance. And I think of my old classroom and its new teacher's decorations. All of this makes me smile. This first year has given me new liberties, of this I'm we'll aware. My teaching career presented visible limitations to intellectual and creative thought in many ways, although not entirely. Conversely, my studies here at Maryland have pulled away all reigns. Essentially, people now want to know what I deem important and wait to hear my contributions. This is a challenge for me to step into confidence. As Cheryl used to say, "Abbey, girl your biggest weakness is that you don't believe in yourself. You have to have confidence." In a sluggish attempt to take her advice, I'll declare that I do have confidence.
......
On the small table before me sits Toni Morrison's Playing in the Dark and Virginia Woolf’s The Common Reader. I've read the Morrison text, but almost three years ago now, so it's a bit fuzzy. For class, Martha has asked us to think about marginalized viewpoints and their significance as well as consider an article she assigned on literary history. The article, by Robert Hans Jauss, challenges Marxist and Formalist literary theory, suggesting through an outlining of seven theses that it is the reader's dialogic relationship with a text that harnesses an inherent understanding of the way we read and theorize. It is the reader's relationship to genre, to personal literary history, and to social postures, that determine a "horizon of expectation," ultimately establishing new ways to approach literary theory and historicism. I tend to agree. His ideas converge quite well with the concepts Morrison lays out. Both argue for the centralization of readership in literary theory. For Morrison, she specifically calls into attention the white literary imagination and its inherent dependence on the black presence in America, which she terms American Africanism. It is impossible, she contends, to critically approach American literature without the acknowledgement of this black presence and to do so, would deny an implicit veracity...
I am rereading both works to get a tighter grip on the arguments. It is time for lunch says my stomach and so it is time to eat my granola bar.
I think that is enough rambling for now.
