Almost There!

My last paper, the one I was killing myself over, is due Tuesday evening. I can't wait to have it out of my hands. I stayed up late Friday night to finish a draft, set it aside all day yesterday to enjoy a day of absolute nothing, and am now in the revision stage. After rereading the first few pages I am actually happy with it. My thesis is much, much clearer than I originally thought. I, once again, psyched myself out. It happens a lot.

I am extremely excited about this summer. I will be taking language courses all summer, in preparation for my thesis proposal. Additionally, reading a bunch of my TJ stuff and compiling a bibliography, reading a bunch of historical fictions I purchased over the semester in anticipation of the summer, enjoying my first summer in my grad school town, and playing softball. The end is SO near, I can smell it. It's good motivation, but also causes me to want to start it early. Boo papers.

Lessons from TJ

So, I love Thomas Jefferson. I have written many papers about him, read about him, read his papers, and he will be my thesis topic. I am slightly obsessed, I will admit that. Everybody I know, knows that. I have a big fat crush on TJ. Every now and again, I am able to apply something I found in his papers to my life and I just had this experience.

While in France, Jefferson fell in love with Maria Cosway, a married artist. There is no proof at all that anything aside from a deep friendship developed between the two, but when Maria went with her husband to England TJ was heartbroken and wrote his famous "Dialogue Between My Head and My Heart." In this his head is cursing his heart for causing him despair once more. The heart always makes him hurt and never learns not to grow close to people. The heart then accuses the head of avoiding relationships and sentiments. That the head has often kept TJ from helping others, due to its rationality, etc. The heart ends up victorious, but says there are times in which the head should prevail.

On to my life example of this in action. I was having a conversation with a friend and they said something about assessing their feelings before being able to realize if they really were upset about a situation. I then said that when you start trying to rationalize your feelings or assessing the situation, or talk yourself out of feeling a certain way, it's your head trying to alter the original emotion felt by the situation. Once that begins the feeling isn't true emotion, but rationalized emotion. I granted that this was necessary in order to live in society, because people couldn't run around acting out their true emotions all of the time.

I suppose I just enjoyed that it was halfway through this conversation that I realized I had internalized one of Jefferson's writings. You can totally tell I've been reading about his view of people and government and human nature haha.

P.S. On a completely unrelated sidenote....I watched Kick-Ass tonight and it was a very entertaining film. If you like to laugh, like super heroes, or like Nicholas Cage, you should see the film :)

Writer's Block

This semester I had two big research papers. The first was my historiography paper, regarding the historical interpretations of Samuel Adams. I turned that paper in on Tuesday and I feel like I pretty much rocked it out. I really enjoyed writing that paper and acquainting myself with over 200 years of Adams scholarship. My second project, which is due next Tuesday, is about Thomas Jefferson's reasons for joining the Revolutionary movement. All semester I have been reading Jefferson's papers and reporting weekly on what he was up to during the week's given years. I then gave a presentation on my argument. My professor and the class gave me some pointers on my argument and then I could begin going through secondary sources (which I had been banned from for over half of the semester) and put all of it into a paper. I know what I think and I know what I want to argue, but I have spent hours in front of my computer and have seven pages! That is all! Something just isn't happening and I'm not sure what. I have decided to skip ahead and begin working on his post-Declaration life and then come back to the first third, because maybe in writing the rest I will be able to better set it up and put forward his actual call for independence.

It's so incredibly frustrating to have all of the information before but to be unable to express your argument coherently. Even when I try explaining it to people I end up jumping all over. All of the pieces go together, but they are all slightly different. After so long I just want to push my computer off the table, or rip up my notes, or quit. I feel like a sixteen year old could have expressed my thoughts more eloquently. It's ridiculous! This is all I have to work on until Tuesday at 6:30, so it will get done and in the end I will probably be happy with it all, but right now I'm at my wits end! Geesh!

Fiction

Last night I watched The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus and it got me thinking about one of my favorite subjects; fiction. Everybody who knows me, knows that I enjoy stories of faraway places, dreamed up in the imaginations of brilliant authors. I like movies that involve imaginary worlds. I am a fan of Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, the Narnia series, the Golden Compass, and this Doctor Parnassus movie touched on this topic. I like them for two reasons. 1) I enjoy escaping the woes of the real world and jumping into these make believe lands and 2) I am in awe when it comes to the minds that have worked ever so hard to create these lands, with new creatures, languages, histories, customs, etc. I love writing, but I could only dream of creating pieces as epic as these. Perhaps that is why I'm drawn to history. Although the stories involved do not contain house elves, centaurs, or a magic mirror that takes into a land based upon your own imagination, I do meet new characters, languages, customs, and beliefs. History is an escape and perhaps by writing it I can recreate a land, although not purely fiction, far different than any in existence today.

As a sidenote I urge everyone to watch The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. It was a fabulous film, filled with fabulous acting, amazing scenery and costumes, and a great story line. The characters were extremely well developed and the plot was anything but predictable. And it is the last film that poor Heath Ledger was part of. If you get the chance, watch it!

Why So Misplaced, You Ask?

This is something new I've decided to try. I've been journaling for some time and decided that perhaps my ideas are worth posting from time to time.

As a graduate student of history I often feel that I am misplaced in this current age. I sit with friends and they break out their iPhones and iPads and drool over the technological gadgets of the others and I don't get. I get the need for a cell phone and I get the need for a laptop, but I don't know why you need to carry your laptop with you in mini-form. I have a great appreciation for old items, such as art, books, films, and other antiques. The availability of one to pull up a book on an electronic gizmo lessens the effort the author put into creating every word, the ideas inherent not only in the words on the page, but in their reception. Additionally, the fact that people worship these pieces of technology and have never heard of Gericault, David, Delacroix, and Carravaggio is absurd. I just really don't understand. I truly feel as though I am misplaced in this time.