Moot Thoughts & Musings

I'm in love with this department. I knew I liked it. I knew that there were a lot of things that I found attractive. But after sitting in faculty offices, chilling with the students, and going to class (yea, a pretty straightforward visit), I've gone from like to love. This is where I belong! The environment is perfect. But I'm still on the waiting list. The DGS was very positive about my application, and it sounds like they really want me to be there. But I must still wait.

Wow. What a journey this has been. I was remembering the fear and trepidation with which I began the whole grad school process four years ago (yes, four. ugh). How inadequate I felt. Then shock at how overadequate I was for my dept. Then gleaning the strengths and trying to ameliorate the weaknesses. The loneliness of being nearly the only grad student in my field. And then, this epiphanic moment last fall that I could start new somewhere else. Even though I was only comps and a diss proposal away from being ABD. Definitely a gutsy leap. I'm glad I made it, though. Even if the waiting list doesn't turn up with a position for me, I'm glad I made that leap. I think I had gotten what I could from my dept. And much as I dearly love and miss the people there, I think it was time to move on.

I sat in the office of an older scholar this morning--one whose name is a fixture in the field, who is beginning to think retirement before too many more years, who has seen this discipline grow. The kind who still wears a tie and jacket and offers to take my coat (yes, I'm wearing a coat in March. :P) and hang it on a hanger. He is, by no means, old-fashioned. The love for his work and for his students exudes from his demeanor and every word. His screen saver had the simple command scrolling across, "Haydn: Finish!" I asked him what one of his favorite courses to teach was, and he said that it was the one that sort of introduces the discipline. He talked about helping his students find their individual scholarly voice, how his role was merely facilitator, how satisfying it is to see each students speaking with their own voice.

Behind my eyes I could feel the sting of tears starting to form, and my face ached from my beaming smile. He articulated something that has been the struggle of my past few years. I'm struggling to find that voice. I have sat in my professor's offices and talked about historiographical angst, and they tell me not to think too hard about it. But what I've been meaning is that very thing. I don't know what my voice is, and I don't have the vocabulary to articulate that. I see shadows of direction and am unsure how to get there. This, I think, has been the source of my angst in recent years, and it never occurred to me! Even though I believe that historical writing is essentially subjective, I never thought what it might mean for me to be the subject through which it is siphoned. It was a beautiful conversation, and had I stayed in his office much longer, I think I really would have cried.

I could go on about all the things I liked. But I think I want that conversation to be the lasting image I carry away from the day. In short, I hope I have a place here someday. If not next fall, perhaps sometime in the future.