doctoral candidate in rhetoric and scientific and technical communication
Archive for May, 2007
some thoughts on graduating
0
I know, I know. I may kill this dead horse. As much as I say it’s not a big deal, it is.
I work among people who have their Master’s and Doctorates. Every single day, I’m around people who have higher degrees. So I often belittle my acquisition of one because I think — well, it’s no big deal. Everyone else around me has one.
But you know what? It is.
Several people in my life have pointed out that I came from a place where getting a Master’s degree probably wouldn’t have been attainable for many other people. I joked in one class that I’ve lived a life of trauma: poverty, homelessness, domestic violence, and rape. People aren’t supposed to bounce back from those kinds of things and do better than anyone expects them to.
I have. And I’m pushing myself further.
But I think that I push myself for that validation. I *am* someone. I am someone who is motivated and intelligent and worthy of that validation.
And then things happen that cause me to question myself. My mother, of course, didn’t come to my graduation (or my brother’s, for that matter). Our own mother couldn’t come out of her house to join in our celebration. Yes, she sent a card and a gift to each of us. But those are things. She lives in the same town and couldn’t even come — even though my Dad and all of my siblings came.
We had a party and not one of the people I invited came. While I work around a lot of introverts and I’m probably the worst of them, it still hurt. I understand it logically. I totally get it. But it hurt my feelings that none of them came. So this big celebration that was for both my brother and me became more about him because all of his guests showed up and few of them realized that I got my degree, as well.
He told me, though, that in the end, the people that really matter were there: my brothers and their families, my sister and her family, and my dad. And he was right.
I’ve accomplished something. I know I shouldn’t look outside of myself for validation but sometimes — just sometimes — it’s nice.  You know?
catching the moles
05 years ago
american life in poetry: column 106
by ted kooser, u.s. poet laureate, 2004-2006
By describing the relocation of the moles which ravaged her yard, Washington poet Judith Kitchen presents an experience that resonates beyond the simple details, and suggests that children can learn important lessons through observation of the natural world.
Catching the Moles
First we tamp down the ridges
that criss-cross the yardthen wait for the ground
to move again.I hold the shoe box,
you, the trowel.When I give you the signal
you dig in behindand flip forward.
Out he pops into daylight,blind velvet.
We nudge him into the box,
carry him down the hill.Four times we’ve done it.
The children worry.Have we let them all go
at the very same spot?Will they find each other?
We can’t be sure ourselves,only just beginning to learn
the fragile rules of uprooting.
Poem copyright (c) 1986 by Judith Kitchen, whose most recent book is the novel, “The House on Eccles Road,” Graywolf Press, 2004. Reprinted from “Perennials,” Anhinga Press, 1986, with permission of the author. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.
laundry
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american life in poetry: column 105
by ted kooser, u.s. poet laureate, 2004-2006
I’ve talked often in this column about how poetry can hold a mirror up to life, and I’m especially fond of poems that hold those mirrors up to our most ordinary activities, showing them at their best and brightest. Here Ruth Moose hangs out some laundry and, in an instant, an everyday chore that might have seemed to us to be quite plain is fresh and lovely.
Laundry
All our life
so much laundry;
each day’s doing or not
comes clean,
flows off and away
to blend with other sins
of this world. Each day
begins in new skin,
blessed by the elements
charged to take us
out again to do or undo
what’s been assigned.
From socks to shirts
the selves we shed
lift off the line
as if they own
a life apart
from the one we offer.
There is joy in clean laundry.
All is forgiven in water, sun
and air. We offer our day’s deeds
to the blue-eyed sky, with soap and prayer,
our arms up, then lowered in supplication.
Reprinted from “Making the Bed,” Main Street Rag Press, 2004, by permission of the author. Copyright (c) 1995 by Ruth Moose, whose latest book of poetry, “The Sleepwalker,” Main Street Rag, due out in 2007. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.
graduation
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Whew. I’m exhausted. It has been a very long semester. Seriously.
I walked through my graduation process today. I still need to finish up and defend my thesis but that is all. I will be completely done by this summer.
The ceremony was funny. I was text messaging through it with my siblings and sister-in-law. They were sending me silly things. I don’t think I’ve ever been at such a short ceremony. They pushed us through like cattle.
Moooooo.
I’m proud of my brother. He has worked very hard to get his doctorate and he is hooded at graduation tomorrow. He already is a doctor but tomorrow is the ceremony to celebrate that.
Then we’re having a party. :-)
where they lived
05 years ago
american life in poetry: column 104
by ted kooser, u.s. poet laureate, 2004-2006
At some time many of us will have to make a last visit to a house where aged parents lived out their days. Here Marge Saiser beautifully compresses one such farewell.
Where They Lived
One last time I unlock
the house where they livedand fought and tried again:
the air of the place,carpet with its unchanging green,
chair with its back to me.On the TV set, the Christmas cactus
has bloomed, has spilled its pink flowersdown its scraggly arms
and died, drying into paper.At the round oak table,
ghosts lean toward one another,almost a bow, before rising,
before ambling away.
Reprinted by permission of Marjorie Saiser, whose most recent book of poems is “Lost in Seward County,” Backwaters Press, 2001. Copyright (c) 2006 by Marjorie Saiser. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.
final stretch
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I’ve finished one class and have two more official classes to go — which ultimately means two papers. Those will be done by next Tuesday.
I still have my thesis to finish up but one of the papers for another class is the precursor to that.
I walk through my graduation on Friday, May 11th. Yay!
I am looking at several doctoral programs for fall 2008:
Michigan State
Clemson
North Carolina State
Rensselaer
Miami University – Ohio
University of Arizona
University of Minnesota
If you have any information about any of these programs, I’d love your feedback. I have talked to someone at most of these universities and they all sound good. I’m going to try to visit them in the early fall and then send in my applications during the fall.