Wow. I came home last night from RW1 and didn't feel like s&^&&*t.
I don't want to jinx myself here, and may soon be caterwauling as usual - but today was the first day of RW1 since early August that I haven't gone home feeling like a compleat failure. Not that the story I got back, from Stacy, wasn't justly chopped up; not that I didn't flee screaming from the Boston Globe guy calmly outlining how their famed summer internship was only available to people who'd put in time at a college newspaper. and anyway had odds that make Ph.D. programs in literature look welcoming. Not that i didn't sweat the drill.
But actually - the drill was using data from a homeless survey and details of a case study. It may be 17 years or so since I shilled for the Maryland Food Committee, but if I couldn't write a quick sketch of the kind of story I once tried so hard to get others to write, I really would have been a sorry excuse for a writer.
And I was irrationally happy to be a B student, for once.
Of course, next week we get our mid-term evaluations (and with them, the likely stake in the heart of any new scholarship allocation. I won't let myself talk personal finance here, as that's the easiest path to immobility..). God knows how I'll feel after those.
But this second I'm making phone calls about a death penalty case for my Covering Courts and Trials class, and veterans groups for my masters' project, and running off to Astoria in the rain. And I can't stop a smile from sneaking around the edges.
This bubble will burst too. But it would sure be nice to take a break from the kind of gasping, racking sobs that have been my unfortunate companion of late.
If fear is an indispensable aspect of courage and courage is an acquired taste, like caviar, then these weeks have been a festival of acquiring a taste for your own whiny tears. Here's to hoping that that phase is in a waning point (at least until I become completely convinced my masters' project is a failure).
God what would I do in real basic training, busting bones as well as ego?
Hooray for you! Yay! Can't wait to see the story--or bits of it--here!
Posted by: Liz | October 12, 2005 at 06:48 PM
But I'll need to fix it first, ne?
Posted by: Chris | October 13, 2005 at 04:58 PM