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August 31, 2007
I AM A MILTONIST
For those who know me, you know that the last two weeks have not necessarily been the most joyous of times for the old A-Bomb. Not that I was rocking myself to tears in a corner while holding a whiskey bottle and a gun with one bullet in the chamber; but the impending, ominous workload of my Masters, coupled with another piece of crap news (email me for the boring detailsl i don't want this blog to be a forum for my boring-ass pathos), left me in a bit of a funk.
All this was cured, of course, by the fact that I get to hang out at Middle Tennessee State with a bunch of John Milton scholars for a weekend in October.
Seriously! As dedicated blog-readers know, I took a class on Milton this summer and wrote a paper called Encomium To Eve: A Gorgianic Reading of Paradise Lost. My teacher encouraged me to submit it to a conference in Murfreesboro this fall - the 2007 Southeastern John Milton Conference. Despite her optimistic thoughts, I was pretty sure the experience would only afford a rejection letter that I could file: a learning experience. Graduate Students usually aren't accepted to conferences like this, except as observers. Imagine my surprise when . . .
I GOT IN!!!!!!
Not to be to melodramatic or womanish about this, but I feel like Jennifer Beals the end of FLASHDANCE. What a feeling!
Seriously, this acceptance validates everything I have done in Academia for the last year and a half, a journey I embarked on with a great degree of trepidation and confusion, and only a half-hearted trust in my own abilities. As of now, I am 1 for 1 on the conference paper circuit. But I'm not going to downplay this: this is huge.
This is one of the best things that has ever happened to me, and it is a huge affirmation that I am doing what I need to be doing.
Just thought you'd all like to know.
I'll embark on my project soon. And I'm sure you'll want to know about my teaching experience... it's coming.
| By Andytown | 02:28 PM
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