Sometimes you just need to let go . . .

Sometimes you just need to let go, but I keep hanging on. To the grad school dream, that is. I have all but decided that the best thing in the world for me is to wait a year or so until I really know what I want to go to grad school for. Right now, I am full of enthusiasm and idealism but have very little academic direction. I'm currently tied up in three different disciplines and am not ready to commit to any one of them for the rest of my academic career.

Right now, if I had my way, I would just keep learning and studying, in the classroom and out, until I die. Not formally, per se, though I do want that elusive Ph.D. most days so that I might teach others.

I'm not interested in education for education's sake, however. I really want to learn as much about the world around me so that I can thank my Creator for it. I feel like the more I learn, the more in awe I am, and the more I just step back and say, "Thank you, Lord, for making this beautiful world and letting me inhabit it if even for a short while." The more I see reflections of the God who made this reality, the more I long to be united to Him. Sounds corny, yes, but it's true. That's the real reason I'm so drawn to learning.

Just when you thought it was safe to give up . . .

I had completely written off medieval musicology as grad work, and then out of nowhere, I receive an e-mail from Western Michigan University informing me that I haven't missed the deadlines. I have until the summer to get all my documents in. I gave up on music! I was convinced I was going to study rhetoric, and I was all excited about it, even as I was disappointed about not being able to go save the world as a musician. Now I suppose I've got nothing to do except go full speed at both of them and see what happens in the end.

A fellow blogger on art

If you aren't already a regular reader of Anchorite's work, I highly recommend that you go read this post on the question of art, creativity, and modernism. I found it thought-provoking and definitely worth consideration.

Of Soups, Grad Schools, Stories, and Tagging

I ended up going with the St. Basil soup, as it seemed more prudent to begin soup making with the humbler of my two options. To my surprise and delight, it came out very well--smells heavenly (ha ha!) and tastes just as good. I'm quite pleased, which is a good thing, as I now have enough soup to feed me for a week!

I began working on my new round of graduate school applications this evening, with greater fervor and more determination than the last batch. So hopefully I will have more success with this endeavor than with the last. Maybe St. Augustine can pull a few strings for me on that score.

It's been a while since I did any kind of shameless promotion, so here's a new one. Go to Writers Untie! and add to our strange, wonderful little story. Or at least read it, so that we feel like our work isn't in vain.

And now the real reason for this post: to answer the tagging of Anchorite. I actually had to put some serious thought into this!

Seven things to do before I die:

1. Learn to sight-sing (it’s just one of those things . . . )
2. Play in a professional symphony (regional level, like Harrisburg)
3. Get a Ph.D. (either rhetoric or music, I’m not fussy)
4. Have something published in a widely-read publication
5. Travel to Europe
6. Learn to dance
7. Create a knitting project all the way from raw wool to finished scarf (or blanket or mittens)

Seven things I cannot do:

1. Listen to rap (ugh)
2. Stay focused for long periods of time
3. Not have long hair ;)
4. Drive a manual transmission
5. Walk out of an office supply store without buying something
6. Not listen to/play music
7. Stop writing

Seven things I say:

1. Fie
2. You know what Augustine said? . . .
3. Remember in rhet theory . . .
4. Hey, where’s my *fill in the blank with a random object*; oh. (usually all run together)
5. Grad school! (when my friend Katie or I gets outsmarted by a lock, can of soup, pencil sharpener, etc. It’s a long story.)
6. I can’t think of anything to write about.
7. Will someone teach this moron how to use a bloody comma??

Seven books I love:

1. Augustine’s Confessions
2. The Lord of the Rings trilogy
3. Kat James’ The Truth about Beauty
4. Regine Perhoud’s Women in the Days of the Cathedrals
5. William Jurgens’ The Faith of the Early Fathers
6. G.K. Chesterton’s Orthodoxy
7. Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations

Seven movies I love:

1. Sense and Sensibility
2. Shrek 2 (shh, no comments!)
3. The original Star Wars trilogy
4. The LOTR trilogy
5. Beauty and the Beast (again, no comments!)
6. Sweet Home Alabama (come on, it’s a good chick flick)
7. Dracula (the old one, but with the Philip Glass/Kronos Quartet score)

I tag Linny Jane and Sober Sophomore!

Winter Soups

I think that tomorrow I will be making ventures into soup making for the first time, with either "St. Basil's Soup" or "Soupe Sainte Scholastique." St. Basil's is easier, but St. Scholastica's looks cooler.

I heard back from Notre Dame's graduate school; I wasn't accepted into their program. It was a rather large blow to my ego and my ambition both, but I wasn't totally suprised, for a variety of reasons. I'm currently in the process of regrouping: I still have one (maybe two) schools that I can apply to for early liturgical music-type things, and I'm also looking at applying to three schools for rhet/comp studies, as that has long been a rival passion.

We'll see where I end up. Onward and upward, as always!!