Red Right Hand

(The title refers to the soreness of my--get it?!--right hand after filling a bluebook for Dr. Dorn's HST 485 exam with horseshit about the Puritans, the Great Awakening, and that lovable German rabble-rouser Theodore Frelinghuysen that proabably has the merit of a low-B; also the Nick Cave song.)

Well, having been told as recently as yesterday (right before the elevator doors shut poor Dr. Dorn away) that I'm "well on your way to a PhD," I thought it might be time to update this blog (for the first time in a month!).

I don't want to sound as though I'm blowing my own Wise Wesley or anything (those not in the know will have to figure that one out for themselves), but it's sometimes nice to hear something that stems (however briefly) the perennial tide of my self-doubt.

And lord knows I do doubt myself on all self-related subjects, but especially (for some reason I hate that word, but am using it anyway; sounds like a Judy Blume word, or something--not that I hate Judy Blume or anything, I mean come on; Romana Forever!) those subjects involving my decision and ability not only to eneter a PhD program, but to successfully complete it.

Indeed, much like the tall, grey-haired woman in the khaki pants and blazer who keeps walking by my computer, I sometimes feel utterly incapable of the task to which I've set myself. It's bad enough that I judge every paper I write from the benchmark of writing by the greatest work of historians well out of the PhDs (and often well into their graves; RIP Perry Miller, you drunken contrarian you...). This is, of course, far too high a standard by which to evaluate the work of an undergrad almost two academic years from his fucking BA. Certainly my professors don't use that benchmark, and even the most demanding of them rarely give me anything less than ringing praise.

That praise is one of the few salves I have, school-wise. My grades mean little to me; I've seen people in secondary school and college who maintain grades while posessing less true intelligence than god gave R.L. Stein (not sure what the YA authors kick is all about, though I am more comfortable insulting the author of the Night of the Living Dummy Saga). And even the true (enough) joy I get from the praise is tempered by the nagging surmise that I'm only being judged by the benchmark of the shitty papers they endure from students in Gen-Ed horrorshows like HST 212. Pity the boy who can't take a compliment, right?

I do have to admit that (much like Billy, the jackass defender of all things Augustinian, and would-be skinny jeans wearing theologian, who just walked by my computer) I do have bouts of an almost Stuff White People Like level of intellectual arrogance, at which times I believe myself to be superior not only to all engineers, but to anyone not getting (at least!) two liberal arts degrees. I am a Great Historian in Training, I tell myself; one who will rewrite the face of early American historiography with the grace of his prose and the sheer depth of his accumen.

Even less-often, I find a mean between those extremes, in which I imagine myself to be an intelligent and capable young person, still in the earliest stages of the training that will result in a rewarding career. This, of course, should be my prevalent attitude.

As much as I hate to admit it (as I hate to admit to any change for the better), I think I'm getting there; and while I understand the need for self-reliance in this sort of thing, having a seasoned old professor tell me how bright I am, or ask me what I would have added to his lecture never hurts. Plus I should always be thankful that, apparently like that tall woman in the khaki, I've found what I need.