Ex Am In Nation

Secretly, I’m glad that Pulcheria asked me to post this information up. It’s a great pretext to letting you all know, not only what’s going on in my life lately, but also that I’m starting to get my bearings. It’s about time, too.

For me, one of the greatest feelings in the world is to set a goal, then work my tail off to achieve it. This is how I lost 70 pounds in roughly 8 months. It's also, coincidentally, how I got into my MA program here in Missouri (my top choice of schools). Complementary to that great feeling is the panicked frustration when I am in over my head. I was feeling fairly pathetic here, questioning my ability, my intelligence, and my sanity. Things are starting to change - slowly - but that's enough for now. So, every MA history student at SLU must pass a foreign language competency exam before receiving their degree. This is usually taken the last semester before graduating. For students of medieval history, this test must be in Latin, and has a surprisingly high failure rate. Well, as I mentioned, I was feeling fairly inadequate to the program since my knowledge of medieval Europe isn’t nearly as strong as everyone else’s (my BA was primarily in Classics) but I needed to feel like I was actually working toward something: moving toward a goal. Therefore, in order to feel like I was making some form of progress I took the test on my second Friday here.

So, today I’m sitting in class and I ask my advisor how soon I would hear back about my test, and he said, “Oh, you aced it. Sorry, I forgot to tell you. I graded it that weekend.” Nearly two years ahead of schedule, too. So, I guess that’s one thing I can check off my list, right?

On that euphoric high, I went on to present my research into the obscure little event I’m looking into and my thoughts and interpretations of the primary documents. The class seems more interested than they have been, probably because I finally feel that I have some sort of rudimentary grip on the material, now. My advisor even said that it sounds like I’ve put my finger on something that could change the way historians of the fourth crusade view my event (i.e. the “crusade” of Walter of Brienne), which is high praise, indeed, seeing as he’s generally recognized as the authority on the fourth crusade.

So, all in all, a pretty darn good day in graduate school for me. Hopefully this meteoric trajectory will continue.