For this week I presented my thesis!
Sadly, this does not quite mean I'm finished, but it does mean I gabbed about my favorite things -- love, sex, friendship, and early modern literature -- and was blessed with a cheering section more thunderous and sublime than Lear's storm.
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| The (in)famous Penguin Pants made their maiden voyage! |
These months of rigorous, intentional study have required many the late night in the library -- sweater-clad, slumped shoulders hidden by a tower of dusty tomes -- but I'm grateful that junior-year Lauren chose to take this journey. Together, Bard Bill and I traveled to Scotland to revisit his old manuscripts, made a whole slew of new bookish friends in the honors colloquium, and have had the inestimable honor of working closely with my advisor, who is as kind as she is brilliant and insightful as she is hilarious.
Sometimes Bill is a bit lily-livered during our discussions of sex-radical feminism, but we're learning to compromise.
Becoming an "expert" in an academic discipline has been a process deeply satisfying, oftentimes challenging, and ultimately enlightening.
The biggest lesson I've learned this year, though, is how to love. I've met people who have profoundly, fundamentally changed my life -- not merely with belly-bursting laughter -- and have graciously discussed and enacted friendship with me. So, if nothing else, I've learned a new language by which I can appreciate the souls whose lives have intersected with mine, and the love we've cultivated together.
To all those to whom I speak, who have brought meaning and joy and wisdom to my world --
"I would not wish
Any companion in the world but you."
L
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