Graduation

I have been quite remiss in updating this. Sorry. Lots of things have happened since March 23: in a frantic push at the end of the semester, I somehow managed to finish up all my classes. April flew by, and so has May. I graduated from Illinois Wesleyan on May 6, 2007. The ceremony was nice, the keynote speaker was interesting, and the weather was decent, so all in all, a great outdoor graduation. I got an aisle seat :), which meant I smiled at friends passing by during the announcement of diplomas.

Yay for diplomas!

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I thought I wasn't ready to graduate, but it turns out I was. Obviously, I didn't want to go to class anymore or write another paper, but up until graduation day, I did not feel ready to leave college.

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But the day of graduation, I was ready. It felt right and good and perfect. I'm done with my undergraduate career. The hardest part has been saying goodbye to roommates and friends.

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What I am not ready for is the real world and a real job. I will be. Eventually.

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Right now I'm reading several books at once. At the beginning of the semester, I read half of The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai before I had to shelve it in favor of school reading, but to be honest, it was somewhat slow going anyway. Then once classes ended, I picked up Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children and got through over a third of the book before I got distracted with re-reads. I was genuinely angry at myself when I spilled water on part of the book and proceeded to carefully place paper towels in between pages to prevent the words from bleeding. After all, I haven't gotten to the end yet and need those words to be completely intact. Damage to a book that I caused, even by accident, makes me a little sick. Most recently, I started reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon. It makes me want to know the history of comic books and I am thoroughly enjoying the novel so far. I want the next book to be an easy summer read, something breezing and engaging. I'm on the look-out, despite the fact that I have three books-in-progress!

HDM

For that large senior seminar capstone paper, I bought a lovely set of His Dark Materials trilogy in paperback. There is no way I can bring myself to write in my hardcover editions, particularly as The Golden Compass was a gift :) When I went to the bookstore (yes, it is one of those dreaded chain stores, but I can't help that we don't have lovely little options close to home), I was surprised to discover that the books were definitely not in the teen/young adult section. So I had to ask for help, which I rarely ever do in a store or otherwise, and found that the trilogy was located in the children's section as well as the adult science fiction section. Slightly odd locations in my opinion, since they weren't also in the middle YA shelves. And because I am a nerd, I was very interested in the different editions: the kids' books had the original US cover illustrations, but in the adult section there were two main options: mass market paperback (they had boring cover desings and I shunned these books for the small, smearable print and the tiny margins) and my final choice of the nicer, cleaner, crisper paperback. After doing a bit of reading on Pullman's website, the selling point for me was that this new edition had all the original British-edition illustrations and epitaphs. Although, now the dilemma is that I won't want to write in these books either :)

Wednesday

I have been woefully neglectful of this blog. But that's because I overcommitted myself this semester and it has been flying by.

For my English senior seminar class, we are currently reading all of Dante's Divine Comedy. And we have to come up with topics for our final papers, which I might actually be excited about if my idea works out. I've been talking to my professor about writing on Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials Trilogy (The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass). This would enable me to do something substantial with my interest in children's literature. I'm just worried that I won't be able to write a 25-30 page paper on it. Considering this as my final paper topic was a good excuse to buy a book of critical essays on the trilogy that I've been eyeing for a while now: His Dark Materials Illuminated.

This semester is also exciting because I am presenting papers and chairing sessions at two conferences. The first one is at St. Francis University in the Chicago area March 16-17. But the most exciting conference is the Sigma Tau Delta (English honor society) International Convention in Pittsburgh, March 28-31. It should be an amazing experience, especially since Illinois Wesleyan's chapter of Sigma Tau Delta was named an Outstanding Chapter (a big award). The preliminary program is 37 pages long! Which means that there will be tons of people there and an impossible amount of things to do. :) www.english.org

I can't believe tomorrow is already March; it seems like just yesterday that it was the beginning of February, even January. I'm at the point where if I don't write down what I have to do, there is absolutely no way I will remember it later. So now is the time for a bzillion lists. Crossing off what I have completed is the best part. On to the list, or perhaps something fun like watching The Office.

Knitting

I just recently started knitting (thanks to the encouragement from wonderful aunties), and I have two scarves to my name. The first one was really for practice and it's not long enough to wear, but I love the colors. The second scarf I used big needles, bulky yarn, and so it's big and warm. I've been wearing it everyday in this bitter cold weather.

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detail of my first-ever scarf

My next project is with Debbie Bliss orange alpaca silk that really is blissfully soft. I started making a k2 p2 scarf, but it's not very wide. So I think I might make a mistake rib scarf (and possibly a matching hat) once I frog what I have and decide how many stitches to cast on. I'm not sure how wide I want it and I don't know how many stitches I'll need to achieve that desired (and elusive) width.

I should really get to reading before class tonight, but W.J.T. Mitchell's Iconology just isn't calling out to me to read it. In fact, I think he prefers to confuse his readers to prove his own astounding intellect surpasses theirs. I need to get off this computer before it sucks away my entire day.

Literary Odyssey

I wrote this "Literary Odyssey" four years ago in my senior high school English class (2002!). I still like it for the most part, and so I decided I would begin my blogger with it as sort of an introduction to me, "Reading Rachel."


I was reading before I knew how to sound out the words: I memorized them. I made my mother read The Four Little Kittens to me so often I simply began to recognize the words as she spoke them, both of us curled up in my parents' bed for story time. I'm sure by the point I was reciting that classic Little Golden book, she knew all the words by heart several times over. I sped through picture books, a sight-reader who had (and still has) little use for phonics or actually saying the words in my head. Goodnight Moon lulled me to sleep and Jan Brett's realistic illustrations captured my eye.

The stories simply soaked in, absorbed into my memory, feeding my imagination. My make-believe world included wild horses, pure white unicorns, and young heroines (who tended to possess curly brown hair---astonishingly similar to my own). Before I moved on to idolizing the horsewoman who breathed and drank in the equine life, I fervently wished that I was the wild black stallion, free to follow the direction of the wind and choose which humans to grace with my companionship and trust. Model horses became my characters, each with a name that suited the personality I developed. My family consisted of Misty, Midnight, Mischief, and Miracle. They bonded together in traditional (human) family units, inspiring me to transform my room into a racetrack for legendary Man O' War and a steeplechase course for Velvet Brown and her piebald jumper. I could become lost in their world, visualizing the stable, with the fresh scent of hay (and maybe on an overcast day the less pleasant smells that accompany a barn). But books would always make my day brighter and sweet-scented.

Fantasy and science fiction raised me up from my days spent on all four limbs in my attempt to emulate my animal heroes. I didn't have to be as wild a spirit as the mustang; I could instead uncover magical talents. An entire universe of dragons, talking rodents, and tesseracts was awaiting my discovery. In the fourth grade A Wrinkle in Time transported me to a place where the strength of one's mind and love for others would prevail over the hateful evil. I strove to prove to myself that I possessed an advanced intellect like Charles Wallace and other characters I idealized. Who wouldn't want to have the powers of Mathilda? This meant reading faster, longer, harder. I would become the best reader in the world, and if I immersed myself in fictitious lore, perhaps I could discover my own supernatural power. I was destined to save all creatures and mankind from the enemies I encountered in books, every villain compiled together to form the greatest threat anyone had ever faced!

What a sad letdown to find that I was a mere human, with no ability to talk to animals or communicate telepathically. I was ordinary. Slowly I understood that I was not the only child who experienced this discontent with everyday life. Literature saturated the imagination with desires and hopes beyond what could be attained. We children are not born heroes, destined to live through miraculous adventures that always ended happily ever after. We discovered that in the real world we would have to become heroes and heroines; we would have to struggle to overcome the villains, human and nonhuman, who crossed our paths. I was in denial---there must be some hidden magic in life my ignorance concealed from me. I felt the enchantment from words I read, strung together just right to reverberate through my mind. I sensed the truth of Arnold Bennett's declarations: "the makers of literature are those who have seen and felt the miraculous interestingness of the universe. If you have formed . . . literary taste . . . your life will be one long ecstasy of denying that the world is a dull place." I waited in vain for a sign that what I read was reality.

The way to escape that ordinariness was to sink into fiction, to become the characters. I went into spurts of reading specific genres or authors. During my historical fiction kick, I read Ann Rinaldi regularly, thinking that perhaps one day I would be immortalized in a novel; someone would collect the bare facts and transform me into a heroine. Of course, I would need to accomplish something first, or so I dreamed. I could change the path of history, improve the lives of thousands or millions, synthesize theories, save a world leader, or overcome great adversity to rise above the masses. But I was simply a suburban kid from Vernon Hills with potential and a desire to live a storybook life. As Gustave Flaubert asserted, "The one way of tolerating existence is to lose oneself in literature."

So I constantly reread, shifting between Ursula Le Guin, Madeleine L'Engle, Dune, and other favorites from years gone by. I search for the characteristics I love in the novels I read, desperately wishing that I could combine their stories to create a life I want to live, one with an infinite number of variations. With every book, I find a new detail to add to my personal fantasy. All the while I know I have to find my own reality and a unique voice. I only wish I had the creative genius to write a fantasy, my own fiction to which I could return and every aspect of it would belong utterly to me, from plot, to style, to characters. Perhaps, someday, I will write the perfect life for me.

For now, reading is my passion, my solace. My mother occasionally threatens to ground me from reading---the penalty she knows could potentially be the most difficult for me to adhere to. Germaine Greer succinctly said, "Reading was my first solitary vice (and led to all others). I read while I ate, I read in the loo, I read in the bath. When I was supposed to be sleeping, I was reading." To unwind, I read. When I should be doing homework, I read. I suspend everything and let myself fall into the words. Lyrical works sweep me along, a finely tuned symphony orchestra performing just for me in that moment. If I find the piece worthy, I can close my eyes and conjure the images long after the physical portals are closed. Reading opens my life to original ideas, allows me to find connections between myself and others, and still feed my imagination. Because literature becomes a part of me forever, I can shelve a memory, but I will never forget a reading experience. It is what prompts me to strive for greatness among the stars of thinkers. It is what makes me complete.