of speed bumps and dance parties

Earning a PhD is a two steps forward one step back process.  As long as the project is moving steadily, if perhaps slowly, forward, it is heading in the right direction; hence the reason many refer to it as a four year marathon.  The problem for me is that I don’t like going backwards.  Ever.  If you know me, you know I think in terms of efficiency, in a the-straightest-distance-between-two-points… way of thinking, in a do-it-the-right-way-the-first-time-so-you-don’t-have-to-do-it-again way of thinking.  So every time I submit a piece of writing to my supervisor, having spent hour after, day after day pouring over it, praying about it, dreaming about it, I hope beyond hope that it will be a two steps forward and zero steps back submission.  As of yet, that hasn’t happened.  Instead, after submitting my what I foolishly think is brilliant first draft of any piece of writing and having a subsequent meeting with him I feel discouraged, because inevitably, in the midst of the accolades for the new insights and arguments offered, there is always some level of critique that pushes me one blasted step backwards.  ‘This needs restructuring’.  ‘I don’t follow you here…’.  ‘What does this add to your argument’?  ‘Split infinitive’!!  For two years now I’ve despised that backwards step, no matter how many leaps forward accompany it.

But I’m beginning to learn something and, in learning, to appreciate.  I’m learning that these speed bumps are the reason I agreed to pay an ungodly amount for education, the reason for why I decided to study here in Scotland and under this supervisor.  And as frustrating as those steps backward are, I’m learning to appreciate them as opportunities in themselves.  Every exercise enthusiast (not me) knows that a forward lunge primarily strengthens your quads but a reverse lunge primarily works the glutes and hamstrings.  One’s easier but both are good.  It’s in the reverse lunge that I learn how to construct a sentence, how to give direction, how to use a hyphen, how to build an argument, how to engage my reader, and how to do it all clearly, precisely, and persuasively.  It’s in these backward steps in which I’m sent back to the drawing board that my skills as a researcher and a biblical scholar are refined, and they’re done so under the guidance of someone known not only as an expert in the field of New Testament studies but equally as much for his elegant and engaging writing.  In these steps backwards, I am the apprentice—a position many people would love to have.  So rather than begrudge that speed bump in the road I am learning to hit it fast enough to enjoy it.  I might hit my head on the roof of the car but at least it will be accompanied by that wonderful feeling of a soaring stomach!

Anyway.  Excluding the 30+ photo’s I’ve posted over the last month, I realize that I’ve hardly communicated with most of you otherwise.  Some of you have patiently waited for email responses for several weeks now.  My apologies.  October was a month of writing a draft of a beloved chapter and, having hit a speed bump yesterday, November will be about taking it beyond being beloved to actually being good, i.e. another very intense month ahead.  Three and a half weeks are left between now and November 30th, which is not only the end of the month and my finish line goal for this chapter but is also St Andrew’s Day, a day on which the Edinburgh Castle offer free entrance and my anticipated reward for finishing.  That said, you probably won’t hear from me for another three and a half weeks, other than a photo a day, but do know that all is well here in Scotland, a land growing darker and colder by the day but nevertheless failing to diminish the spirit of this student.    

One more thing before I go. 

Last month wasn’t all work and no play.  Well, October was, but November 1 brought entertainment relief in the form of a University-sponsored Halloween dance party… thing.  It’s called ‘The Bop’, it happens every Friday night, is primarily attended by people at least ten years younger undergraduate students, and doesn’t even begin until 10:30—over an hour past my bedtime.  As it was on my list of must-see’s and do’s before leaving, as well as on my friend Hauna’s list, we decided to make it official.  To ‘The Bop’ we went… in our superb and wonderfully free Halloween costumes.

A fierce lion and a nun.

Here the nun is either blessing the lion or performing an exorcism… in her Under Armor shirt and with a skirt on her head.  Nice.

Fierce, right?

And the lesson learned from that experience: don’t stay up dancing until 1am unless you have no need of a functioning brain for the next three days. 

Staying up late is now as bad as jet lag, indicating only one thing: 

I am getting old!