Hungry Monsters Suddenly Appear
Over the past few weeks, I've been reading Kierkegaard for the first time, a short book called "Repetition: an Essay in Experimental Psychology." It's funny and weird and has led to more than a few very nerdy jokes between me and Adam, my in-house philosopher. I've also been continuing to dip into Wittgenstein, which is much less fun than Kierkegaard, though his biography is very compelling.
I'm transitioning out of life as an MA student with a thesis to finish and all of the support that entails. I got a part-time job here at a library, and I have many projects on the go, as well as a new writing community through a workshop I'm taking at Chapman University with Richard Bausch and the MFA program here in Riverside. We have a wonderful independent bookstore, here, and though I complain too much--there have been so many things to get used to--really, Riverside is full of smart, interesting people and there's plenty to do.
The difficulty is mainly trying to manage the things I've always been managing: ambition vs. motherhood, the dictates of the academic life, which are exciting but lead one to feel helpless. Finding time to read and write while the house falls apart around me, and the selfishness of that.
"When a girl becomes unhappy, hungry monsters suddenly appear, monsters that want to satisfy their psychological hunger and thirst by writing novels" (from "Repetition", Soren Kierkegaard)I'm reading the Kierkegaard for a personal essay I'm working on to do with forms of rewatching, and I'm reading the Wittgenstein (reading AROUND the Wittgenstein, anyway), for a short story I'm writing, the first one to be set in Southern California.
I'm transitioning out of life as an MA student with a thesis to finish and all of the support that entails. I got a part-time job here at a library, and I have many projects on the go, as well as a new writing community through a workshop I'm taking at Chapman University with Richard Bausch and the MFA program here in Riverside. We have a wonderful independent bookstore, here, and though I complain too much--there have been so many things to get used to--really, Riverside is full of smart, interesting people and there's plenty to do.
The difficulty is mainly trying to manage the things I've always been managing: ambition vs. motherhood, the dictates of the academic life, which are exciting but lead one to feel helpless. Finding time to read and write while the house falls apart around me, and the selfishness of that.
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