Compos Mentis

Fear and Trembling

I had my first secondary tutorial on Friday, and it was intense. My tutor is one of the foremost scholars in his field; if you want to verify this statement, go to a decent bookstore and look for books by C.F. Robinson in the Middle Eastern History section. Our interaction was a little one sided. He obviously knew far more than I would ever on the subject. I was under prepared, having concentrated more towards the end of the time period I was assigned to write an essay on, where he was more concerned with the origin of the situation. It was early in the morning, and I was only half awake and sometimes trembling because my muscles didn't like being used at the ungodly hour of 9 a.m. Further, I was distracted by all of his books, especially the ones in Arabic. (Why do professors have to tease me so?) I came away thinking, but with some difficulty; having had to come up with answers on the spot for an hour, I had a somewhat severe headache.

Still, I could walk out of his office with a smile. I knew that I would learn more from this approach in the course of four tutorials than I would in a traditional class, even one that was every day. Merely being prepared to take the onslaught of brilliance is preparation; fear of being caught in a wrong answer and wanting his approval as a carrot-and-stick approach to studying seems to work for me.

The way my mind works, I was tempted to then think about the nature of fear, how fear on the one hand kept me frozen while I was in the arena, but when it comes as a goad it can be helpful and a prompt for work. Instead, I sat back and tried to relax by reading Sartre and Heidegger.

Today, I got word of the deadline for Reflection, the literary magazine at Gonzaga. I had already been told about the deadline for Charter, the academic literary magazine. (The difference is that Reflection leans towards poetry and fiction, Charter essays and non-fiction) Both are in early February, which doesn't give me very much time to write for them. Now, I submitted to Charter last term, but I wasn't particularly pleased with what I sent them. As it is, I don't even know if it got in. As for Reflection, well, I've been writing a little poetry here, but I haven't had much time to revise them, and it takes a long time for me to be satisfied with my poems. I could write a quick short story, I suppose, but the thing is, I want to be able to submit things to both that I'm happy with. At the same time, I'm here in Oxford and I have one or two prior commitments to keep, as well as books I want to read. Oh, and I'm still trying to learn Greek, as well.

All of a sudden, I wish some of that fear that inspired me on Friday to go and get reading done on Saturday could come and hit me over these new assignments. Once, I would have jumped on them immediately. Now, I think work is catching up to me at last, and I can't produce on the same broad range that I used to. It's not that I'm really complaining; it's just I've fallen into the state which I hate the worst when I see it in other people; I want things both ways. It goes along with change, I expect.

Soon, I know I'll get over this slightly self-pitying moment and get to work. I can cut back on my outside reading, and some of the sillier things I spend time on. I'll get to writing, which always helps me write more. Once I get on a roll, I'm sure I'll come up with something half-way decent. And if someone lets me know how things go in February, I'll pass it along here.

posted by Emmett @ 03:17