"When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.” -Helen Keller"It's life," she said. These were the words my dissertation adviser offered me when, in our final meeting of the semester (of my…
While the world at large seems as unstable as ever, in my little microcosm, life has been relatively calm these past few weeks. In part, this is because I found out shortly after spring break that I received the grant that I had applied for, which will allow me to finish my dissertation in the…
I'll be the first to admit that, when it comes to food, I'm terribly susceptible to kicks. In my third year of graduate school, when I taught the horrible 8-9 a.m. section of a reading and writing class, I used to get up at 5:54 a.m. everyday to make myself stove-top oatmeal with banana and…
'Homesick,' said Edith finally. 'Yes.' But she thought of her little house as if it had existed in another life, another dimension. She thought of it as something to which she might never return. The seasons had changed since she last saw it; she was no longer the person who could sit up in bed…
If it is your nature to be happyyou will swim away along the soft trailsfor hours, your imagination alighting everywhere. And if you spiritcarries within itthe thorn that is heavier than lead-if it's all you can do to keep on trudging...-Mary Oliver ("Morning Poem")Spring break came and went like the blink of an eye. I had all of these…
Dining with Dostoevsky 