Just what I needed

For me, the difficult thing about comps reading is that it's so broad. Seriously, I still haven't adjusted back from my thesis work, where I got to focus on my own particular research all the time. And then I took coursework, and felt disconnected. And then I started comps reading, and I felt even more disconnected, because now I'm hardly even around other grad students. Just me, my books, and my students in my seminars.

There are books in my comps lists that are related to my particular scholarly interests, but usually I'm working on filling in the gaps in my knowledge, studying everything but my specific scholarly interests.

I didn't realise how disconnected I was feeling until this week. You know, this past week has caused a lot of simmering feelings to rise to the surface. Everything's been magnified, as I've been trying to sort through and confront my own emotions. (Is it odd to discuss my scholarly work in terms of emotions? It's the only way I know how to do it. Have I mentioned that I'm extremely off-the-charts INFP?) The other day, I hit a point of frustration with my work. I complained to Chris that it felt like I didn't care about what I did anymore. I just kept working because I didn't want to get a real job and I didn't know anything else that I could do. And because I couldn't picture myself outside of academia. When I looked at things honestly, I knew that what I'd said wasn't entirely true. But it was true that I was having a lot of trouble caring.

And then, this afternoon I went to the website of the major scholarly association in my field, to look up next fall's conference. (One of the other grad students mention that their Call For Papers was up, and that it's on the West Coast this year. I'm not going to submit a paper this time, but I wanted to look up the previous conferences, to see who would be there and how much it would cost.) And I got giddy, just looking over all of it. Titles and names jumped out at me, and I got all excited about different people's research. On that website, I also found a fellowship for which I want to apply. That gives me two different funding possibilities for getting me to Germany.

And, just like that, I cared again.