New Levels of Excitement: the Library

This post's original title ideas were "I Hate the Library" and "My Frenemy the Library," but then I thought I'd stick with a familiar title I'd already started this month - "New Levels of Excitement" - and it would apply just as well. These titles aren't meshing are they? Let me explain.

I've always loved libraries. When I was two my grandmother told my mom she didn't know what to do with me, I just wanted to sit and "read" my little books. My high school librarian told me once she loved that I took books out - not just books, but classics. I paid for lifetime alumni status at my undergrad university so I would have access to their library forever. I helped fundraise to establish the newer library in my community after spending a childhood walking to and perusing the smaller, out-of-date one. My longest standing car window sticker reads "I ❤️ my library."

Given my history of love affairs with libraries, where can the words hate and frenemy possibly fit? On a Saturday night, 9:30pm, the cold seventh floor of Kent State's library. On hour 12 of work, with only a 45-ish minute interruption around dinnertime to drive from Youngstown State's closing library to Kent's open late library. Nose running from the cold and the one thing my backpack the size and weight of a small child doesn't have is tissues. McDonald's for dinner, again, and feeling like it's been one McDonald's meal too many. Confusing books scattered around while I alternate between my document and another confusing reference guide online. My right hand is freezing from using the mouse; hours plugging away at my laptop.

In that moment the words came unbidden to my mind: I hate the library.

I think I physically flinched from the blow to my mind. What a grievous sin for a lover of everything a library represents. Surely I could let the concussion subside and no one would ever be privy to the thought? And yet, the feeling lingered, demanding to be felt. So, I'm breaking the first rule of this fight club; I'm talking about it.

Life, and everything in it, is multifaceted. Think of the people and passions you live for. I love my husband and kids dearly, but they can also drive me crazy (and I them). I have some of the best people on earth for friends, but they can disappoint (as I disappoint them). I live my passion teaching high school English, luckier than most people get in a career, but it's hard to roll out of that warm bed every morning. I love books, learning, education, searching and finding, but I loathe heading to the library as of late.

Do I deny the crazy of my people, the difficulties of my job, the challenge of my current dream just because I love them? No. I can't. Everyone and everything has multiple sides, the good and the bad. How can we truly claim love when we only want to accept half of the person or the easy side of the situation? This life and world are not perfect and we set ourselves up for disappointment and despair when we sweep hard feelings under the rug in the name of a pretentious peace and contentment. The hard feelings demand to be felt and allowing the feeling to come and go is the only way they will resolve. Once resolved, what's left? Love. Real love, as it should be, for everything a person, passion, or dream really is, not just what we want it to be.

I left soon after my hard thoughts in the library that night, unable to understand why I felt so wronged by something I'd faithfully devoted myself to for so long. It wasn't half an hour later that I took the nighttime photo of the library posted here, texting it to a friend in my sudden awe. Twelve stories of wondrous humanity, with the school's beautiful blue colors streaking up the front, lighting the darkness. And just like that, I'm in love again, for better or worse.

New Levels of Excitement

New things bring new and different excitement...marriage, babies, cars, jobs, houses. Up til now my new excitements were identifiable by most people because most people have shared similar experiences in their lives. And if they haven't, the experiences are understood by people in general. My PhD adventure has turned that on its head. The things I get excited about now, well, I'm not sure what to say about it. Imagining the conversations makes me want to laugh.


Friend 1: My daughter lost her first tooth and my son made the travel soccer team!

Me: Oh wow, that's awesome!

Friend 2: Nice. Hey, that new restaurant opened, we should try it out.

Me: Good idea. Oh, guess what?!

Friends: What?!

Me: I found a copy of the Cambridge edition of The Great Gatsby online for $11!

Crickets.


Hyperbole, yes. My friends would likely smile and nod at least. Haha, but that's my life right now, full of weirdly exciting moments here and there, but with whom to share them? You think I'm kidding? Here is my list of personal excitement for the past week or so:

*One professor told me I read very well (it was poetry, Wordsworth, and chock full of crazy punctuation...I impressed myself)!

*I had a less than ten minute conversation with a professor whose focus is in the same time period as my studies, discussing American canon and F. Scott Fitzgerald, and it was among the best minutes of my week.

*I didn't cry once on the way home from my Thursday class last week (this could change; I have nine weeks to go).

*I found and bought the Cambridge edition of The Great Gatsby online for $11 (yes, that was true. Yes, it's a very good thing. No, I didn't try to put it into conversation with my friends).

*Purdue Owl's site has literary theory definitions AND help to form your thesis!

My husband is crazy supportive with all of this. I've told him all of these excitements and more and he is excited with me. He sees behind the scenes and understands a little better how these things could be exciting. I have a couple of extra supportive friends I tell some things to, but these kinds of things don't always communicate well via text message. And I do have the blog. So, here they are, my new excitements for the week! You have been great cheerleaders from the time I thought about doing this til now. Thank you for your nerdy willingness to read and comment and cheer me on! Maybe we'll make a meme of it:

"New Levels of Excitement - Things Only a Nerd Could Love"

So Much for the Afterglow

The shiny newness is fading. Gritted teeth and long hours will do that. So will challenges to my time, family, friends, house, church, and work management. Challenges to my skills and whatever natural talent is hiding out in my brain. Challenges to my hobbies, eating, and sleeping habits. Challenges to my joy, peace, patience, and self control. Challenges to my eucharisteo. Everclear stated it best, as 90's music does: "I guess the honeymoon is over. So much for the afterglow." Is a dream still a dream even as it turns into something you didn't expect; something you can envision quitting now that it's here?

Of course. Not the direction you thought I was headed, huh? Blame the click bait title (red herring, as the English teacher in me prefers to call it) or just typical human assumption. We humans have dreams and set goals and strive to reach them, only to find out when we get there that it's going to take hard work and determination to carry the dream out. And we have the audacity to be surprised! Why do we think after the hard work it took to get to the dream, that the dream itself would be easy peasy?

Think of people who have done big things: famous, semi-famous, or not at all. People you know personally and those you don't. My parents had a dream to put three kids through college working jobs that didn't necessarily pay that kind of money, but they sacrificed every place possible financially and did it. Martin Luther King, Jr clearly had a dream. He died for it. If God's ultimate goal in sending his son Jesus to earth was for him to die innocently on a cross, why we do we think our dreams and goals shouldn't cost us?

Your dream is your dream for reasons unique to you. Your dream will take you places you may not have thought possible and will change you in ways you could never foresee. Your dream will do this because dreams have a tendency to seem or become bigger than life, and when you face Goliath and triumph, you can't help but be a different person because of it. It's always about more than the dream itself.

So what dreams are on your horizon? What dream are you living out right now? Is it crazy hard and making you desperate to quit? Then it's doing its job. Keep on swimming. You are right where you need to be.

Truth in the Text: Beginnings

Or what you're made of!
Am I the only one this scares to death?
(Source: theroadtopeace.net)

Hoping to start a new meme here on My Life in Books, related to my PhD experience and called Truth in the Text. I've noticed in my assigned college readings that a few lines here and there will stand out as true to life in ways other than to what the text is referring. I was inspired again by a piece in an assigned reading for this week and thought, hey maybe more will show up along the way. It may or may not replace Begin the Week with Words, or they may both come and go as I find good stuff and the time to post. Time will tell.

This piece comes from Edward Said's Beginnings: Intention and Method, of which I read chapter 2 "A Meditation on Beginnings." The chapter discusses how something can be considered "the beginning." Look at the two points below, the topic of literary criticism, and how true to life they are way outside the realm of literature:


"First of all, there must be the desire, the will, and the true freedom to reverse oneself, to accept thereby the risks of rupture and discontinuity; for whether one looks to see where and when he began, or whether he looks in order to begin now, he cannot continue as he is" (34).

"Finally, and almost inevitably...the beginning will emerge reflectively and, perhaps, unhappily, already engaging him in an awareness of its difficulty" (35).

Things in daily and weekly life have
changed/ended that I can only hope and
assume are part of the process.

Whoa, blew me away. Two sentences that could not describe my life more right now. I feel as if my life has been ruptured and discontinuity has ensued...and the problem is my mind is trying to continue on as I was, which the quote quite correctly states is not possible. I am having a hard time giving over to the rupture needed to allow my new beginning to gain momentum. Starting this degree means giving up other hobbies and missing out on events and time spent with people. It's hard to do that just because, but also because those things go on without you.

This making the second quote true too. Although I am where I've aimed to be for twenty years now (getting my PhD) and am glad to be there, it is only upon entering into and looking back on the short few weeks that I really see this is truly a new beginning, more than the "change of pace" I thought it would be. And difficult it is, mixing unhappy and hard moments in with the happy and good, and altering other parts of life in the process, the new beginning transforming everything around it simply because I had a dream. It's strange to think something you wanted so bad, for so long, could be so hard and bring such physical, mental, and emotional conflict. Do I overplay it? I don't think so. Anyone who's ever dreamed desperately only to find themselves in over their heads upon arrival would understand.

Just keeping it real people. Beginnings are hard.

2016: The Year for Dreams

I've had a small set of big dreams/goals for awhile. Things just bidding their time until an inkling of possibility showed itself. A dream my husband and I have shared since we had our family was to own a bigger house on a little bit of land. We'd really given up looking because we didn't want to leave our area and houses with our criteria were out of the price range around here. But, in January we found a foreclosure in truly good shape that is fixable and stays in budget! It's not all final, it could still fall through, but it's been pretty exciting and we are currently in waiting mode. So we will see.

More exciting news from the past couple weeks is that I will be teaching a college writing class in my high school to Seniors next year. The program is offered by my Alma Mater, Youngstown State University. Students literally pay next to nothing, the school purchases the books, and the credit is highly transferable. I have always dreamed of teaching for YSU, a gem in our community and the place where I really fell in love with learning. Technically, I have to be employed by YSU to teach this class within my high school and that application finalized this past fall. It's not on campus and technically not college students, but it's a step closer people, it's a step. I'm on the radar.

And the whole reason for this post?! Today a personal goal I set almost twenty years ago at YSU became a reality. I received an acceptance letter into the PhD Literature program from Kent State University. Last fall I applied on a whim. Life has settled quite a bit over the past year. My kids seem more independent than they were even the year before, their schedules have settled, and I find myself at a loss in some ways. What better timing to shoot for it? It was a long, multi-step process I started in August and finished in October, knowing I had to wait until March for results. And just like that, I'm in. Wow. It hasn't quite settled in my mind yet.


So it seems 2016 is the year of dreams for me. It's crazy that all at once my biggest goals have come to fruition. I am going to enjoy it all as much as possible.