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ladyancilla
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Name: Lady Ancilla
Interests: Reading, Quilting, Contra-Dancing, Singing, Listening to smart people talk, Ancient to Medieval History, Regency (Jane Austin type) novels, verbal warfare, writing poetry, and Sci-Fi Novels, Ancient Roman Authors, Cicero, Seranading friends, walking in the rain, funky socks, Plutarch and Latin.
Expertise: Interesting turns of phrase, spinning confusion, and trudging. Odd blog posts. Mischief.
Occupation: Student
Industry: Education/Research
Message: message me
Member Since:
1/29/2005
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| One man's low-stress, low-key, and non-demanding job is one woman's emotional inferno, and perpetual treadmill set at 60 mph.
Moral--never believe your coworker's assessment of their job until you've spent a month in their cubicle.
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| I am decently well educated. I generally enjoy learning. I am respectably intelligent. I even can claim to be a hardworking self starter. And unless God performs a miracle and matrimonially diverts my career path I intend to set my intellectual gifts to pursuing several graduate degrees, teaching, and maybe even writing/publishing a few of the books rattling around in my cerebral cortex.
So why is it so impossible to actually apply to these grad schools?
I've tried. I've submitted most of the paperwork requirements, I've submitted the money. I even took the both GRE's. Yet, I can't seem to bring myself to the last step.
I think I know why I can't finish. It's because if I finish I am first trusting only on my written talents to get me into grad school, and if I don't make it, there is very little of my left that is special. Somehow, now, I have more pity for the guys that refuse to ask a girl to a dance because they fear rejection. Trusting everything on a single throw of the dice is scary.
The other reason is even scarier. What if I make it? What if by some miracle Notre Dame gives me a bunch of money and admits me into their hallowed halls and I can commit to the life of a professional academic? Now that thought is terrifying. 3 years to a Masters, 5 for a Ph.D. if I am one of the committed few. Then, trying to convince underfunded liberal arts colleges 1) that the humanities are important, and 2) I am the best person to teach them. It isn't an easy life. And I am not even sure knowledge is worth it.
I love learning, but what is the point of learning besides the fun of the thing? Sure, I like reading City of God, and the Divine Comedy but, blast it, does it have any value? Will learning and loving Dante make anyone's life better? Will it help them? Will it help them love their neighbors, love their families, and love God? As a student of medieval literature am I actually helping and loving anyone or am I just one of those annoying intellectual elite types that is just in total denial of measly things like "reality."
I don't know what the point of learning is. I don't know what the point of my learning is. And that lack of certainty scares me into frenetic stillness. Yet being still for the sake of not screwing up seems to be its own trap. Fear is very much a d----- if you do, d----- if you don't sort of sin. The cure is simple--you just have to be prepared for it.
St. Augustine was the one that said it most simply I think...."sin boldly." Do what you think God is calling you to and if you are wrong, trust that he will correct you. Hah. Easy to say, harder to do. First step, pray a lot, second step, pray harder, third step. Finish the freakin' applications.
Mission set. Objective Defined. Go!
Lord have mercy....
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| In all, it was a quite felicitous natal day.
24 is kind of weird. I associate the number with too many times tables, a psychotic Fox T.V. show, a countdown to spinsterhood, and an increasingly decreasingly set of hours in the day. Now, it is the number of my years, and I associate it, much more pleasantly, with the murder of Henry the VIII.
Now, I wish I could say that Mary Boleyn did it, but, as there is no justice in the universe, someone else got their first.
For my birthday, my friends decided to surprise me with a murder.
I go, unsuspecting to the Tower, where I am met by a host of suspicious literary characters: Sherlock Holmes is my fellow investigator, the Mad Hatter is my informant, and Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Aladdin, Pinocchio, Huck Finn, Sleeping Beauty, and Peter Pan, to name just a few, were the suspects. I was Miss Marple, complete with costume, courtesy of my amazing housemate. An ironically accurate choice. 
Questions, laughter, hilarity, double entendres, guesswork, sarcasm, irony, and good fun, resulted in the unfortunate conviction of Cinderella, who did in Henry VIII with Sherlock's lighter.
It was easily one of my most memorable birthdays and one of the most fun.
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| 1. Each year we are expected to learn many new things. 2. We build on previous experience and the learning experiences of today. 3. Learn to read well, read fast, understand and remember what you read. 4. Every year you will face serious questions that demand a lot of study to find correct answers. 5. Truth you learned yesterday and today should never be discarded by the questions and challenges of tomorrow. 6. Ask questions of your teachers when you do not understand. Ask until you do understand. 7. High school and college students may have some teachers with ridiculous ideas about common things. They are not the final word except possibly for answers to their exam questions. 8. My faith in God was never shattered or shaken by what I was taught in science, chemistry, history, psychology and philosophy. Darwin's theories never bothered me. A theory is just that. Theories deal with speculation, conjecture, supposition, ideas and hunches that could be a million miles from the truth. J. A. Carter, wisely commented when he called a theory, "A hunch with a college education." 9. Be the very best student you can possibly be. Learn all you can about as many things as you can. Some day you will be glad you did. 10. Learn to write and speak clearly, concisely, cleanly, correctly, convincingly, considerately, conclusively and confidently. 11. Be computer literate and savvy. Learn to control and use the internet to your advantage rather than letting it control you. Spending too much time in front of a computer may be hard on your hands, eyes, back and brain. 12. Understanding one book helped me to understand all the other books, the thousands I have been exposed to. We call it the book of Genesis, the book of beginnings. Here is the key verse to all educational possibilities: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (1:1). Read the book of Genesis until you are thoroughly acquainted with it and believe it. If you do, your worries about life will be greatly diminished. No person can ever be truly educated who does not have a complete understanding of the Word of God - the word we will all be judged by and should live by. Millions, along with me, are as strongly convinced as I am that this is the right educational path to walk for maximum success in life. | | |
| I came up with the single thing that makes me most happy I am now graduated.
Not having to hear three times a week that I am the hope of the future and am supposed to lead the nation and shape the culture.
Life is a lot more low-pressure when you are just doing simple things like making ends meet, dealing with interpersonal diplomacy, and housekeeping. You have space to realize that the entire hope of America is not based on your personal performance. YAY!
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