Back at the U

By nature I must be an optimist because I always enjoy beginnings. Whether it’s first moving somewhere, starting a new job or kicking off a new school year, the beginning of any of these transitions always charges me with energy to fill a slate of newness with positive vision. Unfortunately I’m not the kind of optimist who is able to remain ever hopeful and optimistic about any situation once routines have set in and the horizon of possibility is more clearly defined by the land mass of actuality.

I’m aware of this pattern, and the unrealistic expectations that go along with fresh starts for me generally, but still my optimism is in full force for the beginning of this school year. Last year, admittedly, I became quite frustrated with my school progress. Was I really pushing my potential to learn, stretching my mind as calastenically as I thought I should be during a time of intensive education? I didn’t think so, and this isn’t a criticism of my graduate institution but rather it was just a fact that I hadn’t found the intellectual focus or inspiration I had hoped to find. I hadn’t kept up with the exercises I had designed for myself (such as the metaphor-a-day), hadn’t written anything for alternative press as I had wanted to do, nor had I could I be sure I had found that ever elusive writing voice any more clearly than I had in the past . I was living to the tempo of the steady mundane almost all of last year when I had been craving a more blustery rhythm. My vision of scholarship was of something more engaged, maybe even more mystical, than what I found myself able to access.

Now, I haven’t done much to reconcile the split between aspiration and reality. Still, all these good feelings of freshness are making me see a rosy semester once again.