Scaredy Cat.

You know that nagging feeling that tells you you could be doing so much more with your life? That little voice that’s always in the back of your head? I’ve been trying to kill mine for a while now. I thought I’d succeeded, and maybe I did…. maybe more likely I just scared it away for a little while.

However, I think he sent in his evil twin brother as backup – that nagging little feeling that tells me maybe the reason I’m not doing more with my life is that I can’t, that I’m not good enough, that I can try, but I’ll only fail.

I want my old voice back. Old nagging “you’re being lazy; do something worthwhile and stop procrastinating” voice, please come back to me. I’d take you over crippling self-doubt any day.

William Shakespeare wrote: ”Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt” (Measure for Measure). This simple idea rings so true, especially for me, a girl afraid of everything, even my own dreams.

I recently started a book that I’m hoping will change my life (or at least inspire me to change it myself), and I came across this passage:

They liked to talk about their dreams, but in the end, they left them just as dreams. They didn’t know …. that dreams are in fact realities waiting to happen. But they don’t wait forever.At some point you have to help them make the transition. Or eventually, they just fade away.

– John Strelecky, Life Safari

Again, true words. And they made me realize that being scared is silly, that I may fail, but failing would be so much better than sitting by and letting my dreams “just fade away.” I can deal with failure; I’m tried and true on that front. I’m not so sure I’d ever be able to cope with allowing my dreams to die. I don’t want to find out the answer to Langston Hughes’ age-old question.

It won’t happen overnight, and I’ll probably still be scared a lot. But, at least I won’t have to say I never tried.

It happens to us all.

In my Shakespeare Seminar class on Tuesday, we discussed Macbeth, and the conversation inevitably wound around to the Weird Sisters. How could it not? I mean, come on, they’re weird. We talked about them as possible agents of evil, possible projections of Macbeth’s Calvinistic reprobate soul, and as simply ladies who can perform magic. During our discussion, my professor asked which of us, if any, believed in the supernatural. She was shocked that we were so ready to dismiss the last idea that the witches might just be witches, that they might actually have been there on the heath, doing magic, brewing potions, and conjuring ghosts. She said that she often likes to imagine her former students sitting in class with us, filling the spaces and the air with their presences. She even told us a story of her encounter with ghosts in the very building in which we have class.

Apparently, just after Seton Hall opened its doors to women, she began teaching here. Her first night on campus, she got stuck an elevator between floors and had to be hoisted out of the shaft by emergency personnel. According to my professor, the ghosts were trying to keep women off the campus. Guess I better watch my back.

Anyway, she concluded her story with “I guess it’s just the life of the English majors. We believe in the craziness. Must be why we all go crazy in the end.”

The whole class chuckled, and I couldn’t help but remember a comment on of my new friends made at Target the other night. She and I and a third were making our way through the hats, gloves, and scarves. Realizing how many strange items Target carries this time of year, we began to take turns picking out the funniest, most outlandish hats and scarves (and hats with attached scarves and scarves with attached hoods) we could find. I started to try a couple on just for  some fun, and as they got more and more ridiculous, my new friend commented that I seemed able to get away with many of them. “For some reason they don’t look so crazy on you,” she said. “Must be the English major thing. I feel like you guys can get away with anything.”

I suppose it’s true. We English folk have a history of craziness. We push the limits of societal norms, and many of us spend our last days in the looney bin.

But isn’t that what makes life fun? I say embrace the crazy.

More transitions.

I’ve been making the transition from my old Windows PC (Henry) to my new MacBook Air over the past week or so. So far, I’ve been loving everything. There are a couple little things that have stopped me up and frustrated me, but overall, I’m very happy with my decision to make the change to an Apple computer.

The thing I love most about my new MacBook is its size. I’ve decided to name her Heidi because she’s so skinny. I can carry her all the way to campus, around campus all day, and all the way home without my shoulder cramping even once. It’s glorious. Anyway, I’ve also run into some problems. For instance, my blog updates no longer automatically appear on my Facebook. I’ve read a few suggestions about fixing this issue, but nothing seems to work. Boo. Also, my iCal app keeps giving me an error code when it tries to sync with my google calendar. Second boo. In the long run, these are minor issues, but if anyone has any ideas about how to fix these problems, I’d greatly appreciate the help.

It amazes me how far technology has come over the last several years – even just in my own lifetime. The fact that I have this tiny computer that weighs maybe 2 pounds that can access the Internet from anywhere, sync with all of my other devices, and still look super streamlined and beautiful amazes me. I’ve really been missing all of my friends from Orlando and my family and friends from back home in South Florida recently, but with e-mail, Facebook, and my phone, I can talk to them whenever I want. Yesterday, I was working on a paper for my Shakespeare class and was sorely missing one of my best friend’s input. We used to spend hours in the library (or the Starbucks, depending on how late we’d been studying the night before) bouncing ideas off each other. I’ve been missing that. Most of my friends here in NJ are Diplomacy students and not very much help when it comes to analyzing Shakespeare. Through a Facebook message, an email, and a text, we were able to recreate our study session technologically. How great is that?

I’ve also had friends who hate the idea that new technology enables us to be accessed at any moment, that we can’t stop the deluge of information and demands on our time. I see their point, and remember one friend in particular who decided to give up on Facebook for a while to see how many people would actually in keep in touch with her via phone only. It’s an interesting idea, but I’m not sure I 100% buy the idea that Facebook, email, and other avenues of social media remove all personal connection from our interactions with others. Sure, I can’t hear my friends’ voices when I talk to them via Facebook messages or texts, but I still share my thoughts, feelings, and emotions with them. Yes, I miss seeing my boyfriend in person every day, but I also smile every time his name pops up on my phone because he’s sent me a text message. I still have a connection to the person behind the technology. Rather than a telephone as the vessel for communication, I have a computer. Is that so bad?

Transitions are a natural part of life. That’s what I’ve learned. Embrace the change.

A lamp and a plan.

In an effort to keep myself busy over the past few days I’ve spent at my parents’ house, I’ve once again taken up my crafting habit.  I also had several in-the-works projects I needed to finish before they were ready to be packed away for the big move.  I finally finished up two of the four throw pillows I was making and also made a lamp just for fun. I’m quite impressed with the outcome of all three items and can’t wait to try my hand at a few more one-step-above-basic projects.

My dad also helped me plan out the arrangement of my new apartment.  I feel like I should explain that my father and I have been fascinated with architecture for years.  One of the best memories I have of growing up is drawing floor plans on graph paper with my dad.  I have a whole binder full of dream houses from different stages of my life.  Needless to say, we had both the materials and basic skills to make a rather detailed plan.

I’m pretty excited about the way it turned it out.  I was starting to become a little terrified of the move, but now that I can see something tangible and I can feel like I’ve worked out at least one tiny part of the puzzle, my excitement is beating out the terror.  Things will work out okay after all.  The other day I heard that Andy Grammer song “Keep Your Head Up” on the radio, and a few lyrics stuck out to me as I was driving home:

I’m buyin in the skeptics,
Skeptics mess with the confidence in my eyes.
I’m seeing all the angles start to get tangled
I start to compromise
My life and the purpose.
Is it all worth it?
Am I gonna turn out fine?

The other day these lyrics resonated with me, and I gave in once again to my fears.  I started to wonder if this crazy path I’ve chosen, pursuing an esoteric field and a position in academia that may be hitting its expiration point soon, is worth it.  Then tonight after dinner with some old family friends who asked me all about my new school and campus and my crazy, wacky love for what I study, I realized that I could talk to them about my passion all night.  They just answer with blank stares and nods most of the time as I go off on some tangent about an obscure poem I read or about an idea I had for my Master’s thesis.  Everyone tells me that they can see how happy I am and how much I love what I do all the time.  I guess I never realize because I never feel like I’m working when I’m doing what I love.  I feel like society has taught me that work is supposed to feel onerous and painful, but I’ve never felt like that while dissecting the use of medieval motifs in Harry Potter or while reading Shakespeare or while learning Middle English.  I’ve never felt like I’m working or killing myself to get a paycheck.  I find myself going back to it, reading articles, finding new books and authors to investigate, during my down time.  And that, right there, is when the rest of the song’s lyrics hit me:

This is just a journey
Drop your worries
You are gonna turn out fine.
Oh, you’ll turn out fine.
Fine, oh, you’ll turn out fine.

Sometimes a t-shirt is all you need.

Because I have nothing else to occupy my mind and idle fingers while at work from 8am-12pm every Monday through Thursday, I’ve taken to perusing online shops.  This is a dangerous game I’m playing.  I know that, but I have chosen to tempt fate.  I must give myself credit, though, because I never turn to online nerd shopping until after reading at least a section in my Shakespeare book and completing both the Daily Jigsaw and the USA Today crossword.  That’s will power right there.

Anyway, some of the things I’ve found are simply too great to keep to myself, so I once again will be sharing a collection of delightfully dorky t-shirts for your viewing pleasure.

<– That, but on a shirt.  Fantastic.  Books and magic: two of my favorite things.

Courtesy of woot.com.

We all know that a closet of nerdy t-shirts wouldn’t be complete without a Monty Python reference.  The fact that this happens one of my favorite movies is just a bonus.  I think I can even get over the fact that I’d be wearing math on my shirt.

To shift themes a little bit, here are two t-shirts that explain my last year of undergrad studies perfectly.  One can only hope it goes up from here and that my Master’s thesis turns out to be just as fun a project as my Honors undergrad one was.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Make that three because I just found this one:

Here’s something I tell my boyfriend on a daily basis.  Perhaps displaying it in mathematical concepts will help him understand.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  And last but not least, in case you didn’t know already that I’m a nerd: 

While none of these shirts can beat the glory of the JSTOR t-shirt I found a few weeks ago, they all certainly made me chuckle while counting down the minutes I was stuck in the office yesterday.

Diversion

I have diverted from my original reading list for the summer.  After finishing Eat, Pray, Love, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and Wuthering Heights, I was supposed to begin rereading The Catcher in the Rye, one of my all-time favorite books, but I, instead, opted for a new read.  I figured now is my chance to read the books that have been sitting on my shelf forever waiting and wishing to be opened.  Although Catcher will have to wait for me to revisit its pages, The Truth Will Out: Unmasking the Real Shakespeare has finally felt some love.  This book has been sitting on my shelf for a while now, and after registering for a Shakespeare seminar in the Fall, I figured there was no better time than the present to crack it open.  I’m about halfway through and am 100% happy with my decision.

As an English major, bibliophile, and anglophile, I have, of course, always been a fan of Shakespeare.  I think it’s a graduation requirement for all English majors, especially those looking to pursue a career in academia, and even more especially those wishing to pursue a career in academia focused on Medieval and Renaissance British literature.  For the previous sentence, read: I’ve done my fair share of reading about Shakespeare.  This book, however, offers a whole new perspective.  The authors posit that Sir Henry Neville is in fact that “real” Shakespeare and set out to prove (quite convincingly, I might add) that he wrote the many plays attributed to the world-famous, Stratford-born William Shakespeare.  Their research and hypothesis has introduced me to a whole new facet of Shakespeare’s plays and has made me revisit some of my favorites in a new light.  Repeat: I am 100% happy with my choice to venture into the unfamiliar “I’m reading nonfiction for fun” waters.

I also can’t wait for next year.