I finally finished my seminar paper on William Blake's Jerusalem. So now I can blog again!
I have to confess: I really like writing papers, but only if they seem like they might kick my ass. That is, I tend to get big-time ambitious. If you want to see what I mean, read the next entry (chances are you already have--it's the entry that appears above this one).
I guess it's good I'm becoming a scholar. I can actually make a living at writing papers (OK, and other things, like teaching...).
I still remember with fondness working on a paper my freshman year of college. It was spring, it was lovely outside the library, and someone opened the door, so I could see the sunshine and feel a breeze and hear birds sing, and that was enough for me. I was content to stay in the library and read dusty books and make my notes and (this was pre-computer, certainly pre-laptop--I date myself) write my paper.
It was on the Albigensian Crusade, and I was totally into it, believe it or not. I got a perverse frisson attacking the Catholic Church for its violent methods of combating heresy--did I mention I was in my first year in seminary, studying to be a Catholic priest? It wasn't my last paper attacking the Catholic Church--I also remember papers about the California mission system and an anti-Jewish pogrom in 1096 in which I was critical of the Church. I felt I could criticize the Church because I was going to be a priest. Of course, those papers probably led later to my leaving seminary, and then, years later, leaving the Church.
Anyway, my prof, a Catholic priest, really liked my paper on the Albigensian Crusade. A couple years later, at my graduation, he compared it to a dissertation.
So I guess I'm in the right place, studying to be a perennial studier, a scholar. After my fifteen-year detour following seminary of course, doing very unscholarly things, such as activism, taking care of AIDS patients, office manager, web stuff.
I'm not sure if I approve of the autobiographical turn this entry has taken.
Posted by jeb at January 1, 2005 7:28 PM | TrackBack