The Honors College had a professor from University of North Carolina down to do a lecture here last night, and because he’s the mentor of one of my professors, he taught my British lit class today on Joyce. That was pretty cool, but even cooler is that my professor invited a few graduate students to dinner tonight at a NICE restaurant with this UNC professor. And I was one of them! How awesome is that? I’m here only two months and he invites me…the other three graduate students were like second or third year. It was great. We got to talk academic and non-academic stuff, I got to meet my professor’s wife for the first time (she’s really fun), I didn’t make a complete ignorant fool of myself…<\/p>\n
I decided I like the part of grad school where I get to hang out with smart people, and people who will actually talk about good books in a deeper way than “Yeah, I liked it” or “It sucked.” Yesterday the Bibliography class (aka “bane of first year grad students’ existence”) went down to the Ransom Center, the huge research library at UT-Austin, and so I got to ride in a bus with smart grad students for like four hours. Of course, all first years, so we all feel really dumb and overwhelmed at this point. But compared with, you know, the average undergrad. Smart. And they talk about interesting things. The part of grad school I don’t like is when we have such a short amount of time to do things that we don’t know how to do. And when it feels like trade school in the sense that I feel like I’m not learning literature, I’m learning how to do things–how to edit manuscripts, how to publish papers, how to present at conferences… And when everyone assumes that you want to get a PhD and be a professor for the rest of your life, and when you hint that you don’t, no one understands.<\/p>\n
But yeah. I love being around the intellectual stimulation, and the general milieu of the grad student experience, I just don’t like having to, you know, participate when I feel so inadequate to the task. I’m somewhere between “academic” and “layperson” on a sliding scale, and I don’t know exactly where that means I fit.<\/p>\n
However, if I get invited to one of these things again, I’m DEFINITELY going, because I had a great time, great food, and great conversation. And if you ever happen to be in Waco, check out the restaurant 1424. (It’s at 1424 Washington Ave…apparently naming isn’t all it used to be.) It’s a bit pricey, but really worth it for a special occasion. Mom, Dad, next time you’re down. You’ll love it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Honors College had a professor from University of North Carolina down to do a lecture here last night, and because he’s the mentor of one of my professors, he taught my British lit class today on Joyce. That was pretty cool, but even cooler is that my professor invited a few graduate students to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1372,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2008\/09\/fbtop100-93-the-blue-angel\/","url_meta":{"origin":122,"position":0},"title":"FBTop100 #93: The Blue Angel","author":"Jandy","date":"September 24, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"This post is part of a project to watch the Film Bloggers' 100 Favorite Non-English Films. Der Blaue Engel (The Blue Angel) Germany 1931; dir: Josef von Sternberg starring: Emil Jannings, Marlene Dietrich screened 7\/5\/08; New Beverly Cinema Previous Viewing Experience: Never seen it, nor anything else directed by von\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Film"","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":92,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2006\/09\/ruf-welcome\/","url_meta":{"origin":122,"position":1},"title":"RUF welcome","author":"Jandy","date":"September 3, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Redeemer had a sort of a welcoming party for the RUF students today--various Redeemer families brought sandwiches and sides and gave lunch to all the students. I stayed for free lunch (hey, you don't get that all the time!) and got to meet a lot more people, both Redeemer families\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Personal"","block_context":{"text":"Personal","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/personal\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":227,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2007\/02\/my-new-perspective\/","url_meta":{"origin":122,"position":2},"title":"My new perspective","author":"Jandy","date":"February 19, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Okay, it isn't really a NEW perspective. I've been utilizing this perspective on and off since I started grad school, but I'm now embracing it even more fully. The perspective is this: School is for learning. That's it. Simple, right? But oh-so-helpful when most of the people around you are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "School"","block_context":{"text":"School","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/school\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":114,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2006\/10\/grad-student-grunts\/","url_meta":{"origin":122,"position":3},"title":"Grad Student Grunts","author":"Jandy","date":"October 4, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I have figured something out. Something that I should have, in retrospect, already known. Graduate students are the grunts of the academic world. You need some extra help with registration for that conference you're putting on? Call the grad students. You'd like to unload some of those old texts you've\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "School"","block_context":{"text":"School","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/school\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":154,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2006\/11\/brrr\/","url_meta":{"origin":122,"position":4},"title":"Brrr","author":"Jandy","date":"November 30, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Well, November finally hit Waco. Walking a half-mile to school in freezing rain really isn't all it's cracked up to be. After our last Bibliography and Research class last night, several of us students had a mini-party, which was well-deserved in my opinion. Sangria, chips and salsa, and good conversation.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "School"","block_context":{"text":"School","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/school\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":88,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2006\/08\/academic-elitism\/","url_meta":{"origin":122,"position":5},"title":"Academic Elitism","author":"Jandy","date":"August 31, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I don't think I'm going to make a very good academic. Good thing I already suspected that and didn't sign up for the PhD program. There's an elitism that just about falls off the page of even the small amount of scholarly writing I've read, and especially from the introductory\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books and Reading"","block_context":{"text":"Books and Reading","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}