First Day Jitters

Hablo espanol.

Soy estudiante graduada.  That’s what I learned to say my first day of intermediate Spanish class as I was sweating bullets (being on the other side of the foreign language class experience—as a student, not a teacher—sucks).  This class made me more nervous than any of my graduate-level seminars.  An archaeologist and the only other grad student in the undergrad class, locked eyes with me as the professor put a huge “X” through “English” on the white board.   

Dios mio. 

Later I went to ask the professor a logistical question about the class text, and she insisted that we continue to speak in Spanish.  I struggled to express myself. 

“Soy nervosa—” 

“NerVIosa.”

“—nerviosa porque tomo clase de espanol cinco anos pasado . . .”

I later typed what I was trying to say to her in Google Translator.  Not even close.  The instructor was nice not correct my every error.

Standing Out

This week of long orientations and the start of classes has not been much of a shock in terms of disrupting my habitual way of life considering that I am lacking a habitual way of life.    Explaining my interest in the field also hasn’t been as tedious as expected.  I’ve settled on saying that I am into postcolonialism because, well, I am, and it distinguishes me from the handful that are into 20^th-cent. Lit. (although, one person tried to stand out by persistently saying post-WWII).  Other people’s names and interests slip from my mind too quickly.  I do, however, always remember the names and interests of the people for whom I immediately have an aversion.

Before arriving on campus, some of the students introduced themselves via email.  This precursory activity made me nervous—everyone circulating tidbits about their academic accomplishments made me think that I was in an aquarium of bubble-brain goldfish.  A particular character in this correspondence came across as so completely egotistical that I picked him out of the group of newbies before we introduced ourselves and put names to faces.    He might serve as my nemesis for the next couple of years.  We will see if this first, strong impression I have makes a fool of me later.  Until then, I will have to inform the PhD student, with an interest in heroes and villains, about these live subjects of study.  (I think I am the villain).  (I hope so).  (It is, in turn, egotistical for me to assume the part of the villain because we all know, especially after seeing the Dark Knight, that the villain is a million times more interesting than the husky-voiced hero).

Discourse on Aesthetics

Discussing the liaisons between philosophy and literature made for a muddled conversation that I struggled to comprehend.  My notes reflect a confusion for me to sort through:  “productive in historicism and moving to politics/social justice . . . to domesticate the pleasure of art in order to moderate it and lead people to reason . . . objectifies aesthetics . . .”  The instructor noted that the focus of this class looked at intellectual history and it was up to us, the students, depending on our interests, to bring in issues of justice and power.  We were then overwhelmed by a concise but dense array of excerpts ranging from Parmenides to Sontag.  Altieri:  “We are what we will most intensely, whether that be our investment in reason or our investments in what provides material for reason to work upon.”  Nietzche:  “Art reminds us of states of animal vigor; it’s on the one hand a surplus and overflow of flourishing corporeality into the world of images and wishes . . .”  This course was a publicly admitted mess that will, apparently, be worthwhile and fun to put into some kind of order. 

Postcolonial theory, in a different class, actually made more sense.  The definition of postcolonial we were given glowed in its brevity:  colonialism still matters.  “Yes,” I kept saying in my head to the brilliant moderator, “yes.  This is what I wanted—what I have been waiting for.”  An effort will be made in this class to talk coherently about the theory and to apply it to the world around us.  It was noted that a different way of talking about aesthetics would take place:  one that is necessarily political (no need to make an effort to bring this aspect to class and help fill in the gaps).  Beauty is not just beauty:  it is a scorching alloy of contentions that will be cooled by the relishing in differences.