Something Has Changed Within Me. . .
Mar. 7th, 2005 05:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qos. . . Something is not the same
My wedding at Cana paper is going very slowly.
I should be able to write this in my sleep, but between my home life (cleaning house, helping my daughter with her first book report, cooking dinner, enjoying downtime with her) and my dwindling patience with academia, it's been very hard to give it the time.
I think the fact that I should be able to write it in my sleep is part of the problem. I have always hated feeling like I am being made to jump through hoops that someone else thinks are necessary. The fact is, I've taken New Testament studies before, TA'd the class twice after that, and taken an advanced class in the gospels. Is there more for me to learn? Of course. But not in this class. The whole thing has been a waste of time and money, and I powerfully resent both.
And now my resentment is vying with my pride. I don't want to write the damn paper at all, but since I have to, I want to do a good job. I need to stop caring so much and simply grind it out. I haven't received anything less than an A on any paper I've done here at seminary, no matter how much or little effort I've put into it, and there's no reason why this won't be the same.
Why do I keep going to school? Why am I pursuing a second Masters degree?
Because I'm good at it. I know what most profs want, and it's almost effortless for me to give it to them. Even when I feel like I'm being risky and moving outside the lines, I write well enough, and my insights are good enough, that I'm rewarded not punished.
For most of my life, academia has given me tremendous satisfaction.
I'm tired of playing by the rules of someone else's game. . .
But my patience is wearing thin with the formal academic structure of required classes and assignments. I'm ready - finally - to go to the next level. To take more charge of my own learning. To throw myself into a different kind of learning, one which I have avoided before: the kind which demands more intimacy with the subject matter than simple book-learnin'. I want the guidance of a teacher, yes, but I want a program which is personal, flexible, and designed to foster my strengths and challenge my particular weaknesses, not one which assigns me a standard checklist and tells me that only by following it can I succeed.
If I was heading for a traditional vocation, that might be the case.
But I'm not.
Not anymore.
Which is why, day by day, I'm becoming more and more convinced that I don't belong where I am.
There are a lot of powerful voices in my head shouting at me to stay inside the box where it's safe, where I can make sure what I do will be "acceptable" to the Powers That Be who will either grant or deny me success.
But if I can't succeed on my own terms, being who and what I am, is that success?
Once upon a time, it wasn't an issue. I was comfortable and content inside those boxes. They defined me, and I considered myself lucky that I fit so well, with so little effort.
Except that I wasn't rewarded, except in school. I came to seminary in the first place because I finally realized that the reason I'd never had conventional career ambitions was that I had a previously unrecognized spiritual vocation. That vocation has been taking shape slowly, as the layers of convention continue to be peeled away, and now I'm nowhere I ever expected to be.
I have two choices: trust my gut, trust my deepest self, trust Mystery -- or stay in the box of tradition, hoping that I will be rewarded for my compliance.
Glinda:
You can still be with The Wizard
What you've worked and waited for
You can have all you ever wanted -
Elphaba:
I know
But I don't want it - No!
I can't want it anymore
My wedding at Cana paper is going very slowly.
I should be able to write this in my sleep, but between my home life (cleaning house, helping my daughter with her first book report, cooking dinner, enjoying downtime with her) and my dwindling patience with academia, it's been very hard to give it the time.
I think the fact that I should be able to write it in my sleep is part of the problem. I have always hated feeling like I am being made to jump through hoops that someone else thinks are necessary. The fact is, I've taken New Testament studies before, TA'd the class twice after that, and taken an advanced class in the gospels. Is there more for me to learn? Of course. But not in this class. The whole thing has been a waste of time and money, and I powerfully resent both.
And now my resentment is vying with my pride. I don't want to write the damn paper at all, but since I have to, I want to do a good job. I need to stop caring so much and simply grind it out. I haven't received anything less than an A on any paper I've done here at seminary, no matter how much or little effort I've put into it, and there's no reason why this won't be the same.
Why do I keep going to school? Why am I pursuing a second Masters degree?
Because I'm good at it. I know what most profs want, and it's almost effortless for me to give it to them. Even when I feel like I'm being risky and moving outside the lines, I write well enough, and my insights are good enough, that I'm rewarded not punished.
For most of my life, academia has given me tremendous satisfaction.
I'm tired of playing by the rules of someone else's game. . .
But my patience is wearing thin with the formal academic structure of required classes and assignments. I'm ready - finally - to go to the next level. To take more charge of my own learning. To throw myself into a different kind of learning, one which I have avoided before: the kind which demands more intimacy with the subject matter than simple book-learnin'. I want the guidance of a teacher, yes, but I want a program which is personal, flexible, and designed to foster my strengths and challenge my particular weaknesses, not one which assigns me a standard checklist and tells me that only by following it can I succeed.
If I was heading for a traditional vocation, that might be the case.
But I'm not.
Not anymore.
Which is why, day by day, I'm becoming more and more convinced that I don't belong where I am.
There are a lot of powerful voices in my head shouting at me to stay inside the box where it's safe, where I can make sure what I do will be "acceptable" to the Powers That Be who will either grant or deny me success.
But if I can't succeed on my own terms, being who and what I am, is that success?
Once upon a time, it wasn't an issue. I was comfortable and content inside those boxes. They defined me, and I considered myself lucky that I fit so well, with so little effort.
Except that I wasn't rewarded, except in school. I came to seminary in the first place because I finally realized that the reason I'd never had conventional career ambitions was that I had a previously unrecognized spiritual vocation. That vocation has been taking shape slowly, as the layers of convention continue to be peeled away, and now I'm nowhere I ever expected to be.
I have two choices: trust my gut, trust my deepest self, trust Mystery -- or stay in the box of tradition, hoping that I will be rewarded for my compliance.
Glinda:
You can still be with The Wizard
What you've worked and waited for
You can have all you ever wanted -
Elphaba:
I know
But I don't want it - No!
I can't want it anymore
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-08 04:26 pm (UTC)As much as I empathize about redundant coursework and stupid assignments, I have to admit to a certain amount of amusement to find a divinity student describing a missive upon a religous subject as a "damned paper".
(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-09 05:54 am (UTC)