historiblogography

Cheers! Here's to a new year!

Time is winding down and my stomach is winding up. I feel that school officially starts on Monday – with our TA conference – even though classes proper start on Thursday. This is the last day of summer, and it’s just a little sad.

Some new years goals:

I have decided I am a person riddled with insecurities, about my personality, my intelligence, and almost every other thing under the sun. Not that this is any revelation to anyone that knows me. Grad school does not help these insecurities – period. The environment isn’t designed for someone like me and I have decided I must consciously adapt. So goal one, all important, is to work against my insecure tendencies. I made it here and I can do this, and it will work out simply splendidly - period. Goal two is to start thinking of myself as a historian. (This goes hand-in-hand with goal one, I guess.) There is a third goal: I will no longer mentally make excuses for myself. Excuses are for wusses. Michael Benson’s recent post has reminded me exactly why I’m here. When I get bogged down in the millions of things and mini-stresses, I forget that I love this. This is fun – I laugh out loud at times, or my forehead will get all creased, when I'm reading books. What a good life, to be able to read these books as a living. The trees are tall, but on those rare occasions when I manage to climb one, I can see the forest.

Coffee will be my medicine – pulling me through.

I also reconfigured my room to start fresh. Last year I over-read in my room, hit a breaking point, and could not concentrate there anymore. Now I have it configured in a fabulous way that is colorful and bright, saturated and partitioned, and simply perfect. My friend Kristi said it looks like all it needs is a harem. I got more pillows (now I have six, and yes, I use all of them). The television has been officially banished to the living room. And the refrigerator is stocked full of raw ingredients, bell peppers to tofu to tortillas to cilantro, and cooking will be the name of the game. Anindita has agreed to teach me to cook Indian food once every two weeks (my mom is sending spices) and I have put myself on a strict financial budget of $50 a month for frivolities like eating out, going to the movies, and buying snacks.

Coffee purchases have an unlimited slush fund to draw from.

To end I would like to quote a very wise movie, because it just seems appropriate – and keeps me going through the worst of times: tomorrow is a new day… with no mistakes in it… yet.

Good luck everyone on getting psyched for the new school year.

Sam.

posted by Sameer @ 9:54 AM