But now — not last week, nor the week before, nor any week before that since December– I have time off to take things to Kinko’s, to pick things up at Kinko’s, to deliver them at the university when it is open.

And I’ll admit that, despite the Incredible Inconvenience of this process, I am glad that here is a situation when paper– actual paper– must be delivered in person, by hand, rather than shot electronically through the ether to invisible persons at the other end. I respect the page.

So, yes, I called Kinko’s. How long does it take you to spiral bind things, I wanted to know?

How many pages is it, he wanted to know.

About seventy, I told him.

He paused. You need it copied, too? he asked.

And the answer to this is yes, as the laptop on which my thesis is saved is not yet compatibilitied with our Very Annoying home printer. I’ll be saving the thesis to one of those little memory key things that connect with the laptop and then taking that oh so carefully to Kinko’s.

Yes, I told him. I’ll need it copied, too.

Pause.

I should be able to have that for you by Tuesday, he said.

Oh. No.

Because the thesis needed to be in at the office weeks ago and I haven’t time during the course of a regular day to go over to Kinko’s and pick something up and then take it to Duke while it is open which would mean I’d have to do this over the course of two days if you see what I mean and an isolated errand on any given day after a full day of teaching is enough to exhaust me as it is without having to do Two Separate Errands on Two Separate Days and a visit to Duke would definitely be two errands anyway because I do so want to see my professor.

Tuesday? Really?

No, he said. I’m kidding. We could have that for you, he said, in about half an hour.

Oh. Ha ha. I see. It was a joke. Just a little joke.

(laughing)

But maybe making jokes is his method for survival, or for helping customers cope. I mean, he probably never has stressed-out, time-pressured people coming to see him on a regular basis. Almost never, anyway.

(phew)

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It’s been a long time coming.

Emma Grace asked me on our way to school the other day, “Mom, how long did you work on your thesis?”

As with most of the questions my children ask me, this one didn’t have a simple answer. It all depends, you see, on when I actually “began.”

Can I safely say I started on the project in the early spring of 2006? That’s when I, fairly nervous and even terrified, asked my brilliant professor — and he is, hands-down, one of the Smartest People Ever–if he would be willing to supervise my thesis project. I was delighted when he agreed and actually seemed pleased to have been asked.

But that wasn’t really the Real beginning, because I hadn’t decided (rather, We hadn’t decided) what the project itself would be. I had already abandoned submitting my novel as my final project, a decision that Seriously Complicated my life and was simultaneously Very Wise. But in the absence of that possibility, I Had No Idea what I would do.

So perhaps the start of the thesis project came in late spring 2006 when I met my professor in his spare and pleasant office, the one with the mullioned windows that give onto views of Duke Chapel. That’s when we decided that I would write about Joseph and His Brothers, a terrifically long and intimidating novel whose author I knew well from other studies with this same professor but which, at that point, I had never laid eyes on but which, as luck or Providence would have it, had just been newly translated into English by the venerable John E. Woods. (And I realize that that sentence is also terrifically long but that’s what reading German novelists can do to you).

Or maybe it started here, with plans to read the book during the summer of 2006. In the end I wasn’t able to manage that: the curriculum I was simultaneously writing in preparation for my return to teaching that fall took A Lot of my time and mental energy. Which meant that I did most of my Mann reading over the course of last school year, with doubled and tripled efforts during the later spring.

So I guess that I really started my Master’s thesis in the middle of May. That’s when I wrote and submitted and had approved my thesis proposal. It was right before the end of school (May 31st) and our trip to Kenya and Tanzania (June 1-16), and it launched the project in earnest.

Research started later in the summer, after we’d returned from Africa and after (finally) I recovered from the trip. But what with erratic travel schedules and other commitments, my professor and I couldn’t begin our regular bi-weekly meetings until August. And of course the start of a new school year always has its own consuming aspects, which meant that I didn’t really begin the actual writing until sometime in September.

So that’s when I started the thesis: September. That’s when I began spending Every Saturday and Almost All My Evenings working on research and writing. That’s when, unwilling to be separated mentally from the thesis project, I carried the 3+ pound book with me in my backpack up Mt. Mitchell. You can think that was stupid if you want to.

But somehow, even with all those Saturdays and weeknights committed to this project, I still needed more time. And this took the shape of two days off of work, during which I read and wrote and read and wrote some more. It also took the shape of the entire fall break from school, during which my family went to the mountains and I stayed home and read and wrote and read and wrote– you guessed it– some more. And when, the weekend before Thanksgiving, I finished the Last Chapter, I thought I was Nearly Done.

It was not to be. I worked most of the day on Wednesday and most of the day on Thanksgiving (thanking God for a husband who Loves To Cook!). And after our guests left on Thanksgiving night, I returned to work at ten p.m. and worked until four a.m. I got up at 8 a.m. and worked until 10:30, at which time I e-mailed it to my professor. We had a last meeting on Saturday and I worked on the thesis until 2 a.m. on Sunday morning. And then, Finally, I made last edits on Monday afternoon, printed it out, and hand-delivered it to the program office at Duke.

So I think, when Emma Grace asked me “How long did you work on your thesis?” my answer should, in fact, be Very Simple: A Long Time.

I loved the project. Loved it. I did not love it All The Time, but I Loved it. And I’m not entirely glad it’s over.

Crazy, huh?

Patience is all– an equanimity that, should a man not possess it by nature, must be wrested from a nervous constitution given to despair. Endurance, stamina, perseverance is all, and every hope bears the name “time.” “Give me time” is one’s prayer to the eternal gods “and it will all be done.” — Thomas Mann, from the Introduction to Joseph and His Brothers

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The post All the Miles appeared first on Rebecca Brewster Stevenson.

Some of these words, like “sacerdotal” and “truculence” are words I have come across before, and have even looked up, and am slowly finding room to accomodate in my brain.

Many, many, many are awaiting time for me to look them up and define them, to apply meaning to them and to apply them to active use in my vocabulary.

And one of them– this is something I have Just Discovered– is Not Defined in my dictionary.

The word is “epagonemal.”

I have looked it up in the bible of English dictionaries, the Merriam-Webster Collegiate, my favorite, the one that lists, among others, my younger sister’s name among its editors. Webster has “epact” and then “eparchy,” with no “epag-” anywhere in between.

I’m not sure what to do about this, although I could, I guess, start with a quick e-mail to my sister.

Meanwhile, here is the sentence in which this word appears: “Besides which, this quota had a certain spiritual beauty and mythical appeal, since it was wisely and deliberately based on the sacred epagomenal number: the five extra days added to the year’s three hundred and sixty.” (Joseph, p. 1227)

Contextually speaking, one might derive several possible definitions for this word. Or one might know Greek (that’s what it appears to be rooted in) and so could figure it out.

But there is No Time for this now. I must move on, consigning this word’s meaning to the Unknown category in my mind, leaving it in the list at the back of the book but knowing that its definition is, for now, inaccessible to me. Yes, I must move on, for today I am Writing.

Funny thought, isn’t it?, to be writing a Master’s thesis on a book that was originally written in German and then (thank you, John E. Woods) translated masterfully into English, a book whose command of Idea and Language is so powerful that it must make use of words that I don’t even know. To be writing a Master’s thesis on a book that I Do Not Fully Understand, and to know that my thesis holds water, that it is strong, and well-supported and, even, New.

I guess it makes me feel as though my grey matter is functioning pretty well. I mean, I’m no idiot, anyway. I guess you couldn’t call me stupid.

I’m not a little relieved.

The post One appeared first on Rebecca Brewster Stevenson.

We had a great conversation, and as we sat there grinning over Thomas Mann’s text and profound genius, I remembered again why it is that I’m writing this thesis at all, why I went to grad school in the first place, what it is to truly love and analyze rich and dense and intelligent literature.

The conversation went well and, as usual, included a few more references I should peruse. Then the meeting ended. My professor went his way, I went mine.

My way was to the library.

I find the library intimidating. It’s not the books in their stacks that bothers me; it’s the computer monitors that stand between me and them: the need to know the code that will allow me to access the information I need, namely, the call numbers on the binding of the books.

Card catalogs are dinosaurs, I know. But at least I knew how to use them.

Now you have to do searches through vast databases on the library’s system. And you can’t just enter book titles and author’s names (though I do and it works), no. You are supposed to enter “key words” so that, presumably, the system can justify its existence and feel good about itself.

Problem is, it’s never cut and dried. Never. Ever. And though I try to find the information I need, it doesn’t always come to me when I call it, and I (sometimes) have to call a librarian to help me.

The librarians at Duke are Incredibly Helpful. Incredibly. And so friendly. And kind. I love this. But they are also, by and large, loud.

This should not be the case. We are in a library.

And I don’t mind loud, except that they are loud about my needing help, and there I am in a quiet library, and all the students working around and near me were born after the birth of the internet, and they know what they are doing, and they can’t for a moment imagine why anyone would need help with an electronic card catalog.

The librarians understand my problems, my confusions, my dilemmas. But they don’t understand my embarrassment. So today, when I politely and quietly asked a librarian to help me (when, it should be noted, I had already pursued finding help on my own and found, for my efforts, a Dead End), I was only a little mortified when the librarian sang out: “Oh, sure, I’ll be happy to help you. Let me just run this over there and I’ll be right back.” And she sends these words to me over her shoulder, as she’s walking away, so that she has to raise her voice to be sure that I’ll hear her.

No discretion. No lowered voice. None. Just me standing by the monitor, feeling sheepish. All in the name of scholarship.

The librarian helped me (they always do), and soon I was off to yet another library and then another (because Duke has two campuses and multiple libraries) to find my books.

I found the first one without much trouble (though I will note that it was in the sub-basement of Perkins library and also inside one of those collapsible shelves which are operated by a Certain Button (and of course the first button I pushed, the one that made sense to push, didn’t work at first because first I had to push a Different Button– but I figured this out without help, thank you very much), and when I pushed the button I did have that thought that I think anyone with any imagination at all would have: that if you’re not careful or if someone Very Diabolical were in the library, you could be compressed between the shelves (and do you suppose that if you were to knock the books off the shelves and then lie down on one of them you might be saved??) and that would Not Be Good).

Yes, I found the first book and it was two volumes (not one) and then I was off to the Divinity School library.

I already had the call numbers for this book, but I thought I would be wise just to check and be sure and confirm those numbers, so I did this on the monitor Right There.

Then I dutifully consulted the map to discover where a book with this call number might be found.

Then I asked the librarian.

And then I went looking for my book.

I Love looking for books on the shelves (collapsible shelves or no), and I wrote an essay about that once, but I won’t go into it here. I will say instead that I looked for this book that the computer told me was on the shelf, and It Was Not There.

So I went back to the librarian. What’s a girl to do?

And he checked the database and found that I was right: there was the book and there was the call number and I probably looked in the right place.

Still, he descended the stairs with me to make sure (and I wasn’t a little bit afraid that he would find it and then I would be embarrassed again), but it was not there. So I felt justified.

He showed me how to go on-line and find the special form and request that a special search be made for the book. This sounded good to me. I would request the search, because I Need This Book.

So I went once again to a monitor and found the form all on my own and then found the reference to the book and cut and pasted the information into the form and entered my name and my i.d. number and wondered how long it would take them to hunt up this book that I so desperately needed.

And when I entered my form, I got a little thank you note. It read “Thank you for reporting a missing book.”

Which made me wonder: what was the name of the form I filled out? I wasn’t trying to report a missing book; I was trying to light a fire under the librarians to find a book that I Need.

And here they are, thanking me, as if I went looking for this book and confirmed it was missing out of the goodness of my heart.

Well, Duke’s librarians are Very Helpful. Maybe they think I am, too.

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The post Writing appeared first on Rebecca Brewster Stevenson.

Yes. An empty house.

The plan was to go to church and then hurry home and back to work on the thesis again. That was the purpose of the family going away in the first place: give mom some peace and quiet to get some Real Work done on the thesis.

And so off they went on Friday afternoon, leaving me to my silence, my books, and the yawning blankness of the computer screen.

I decided I would just go to Sunday school this morning and then come home. I had to make good use of the time. I knew it would be lonely to return again to the empty house, but I had to be Good.

Then I entered the Sunday school class, and there was Emily and her gentle lord Byron sitting in the front row. When I went to join them, Byron moved over and made a space for me between him and Emily, and Emily smiled at me in that Most Delighted way she has– the way that makes me think I might be one of her Favorite People Ever.

That wasn’t lonely at all.

After Sunday school I found Rachel, and explained that I wouldn’t sit with her in church after all because I just needed to go home and work on my thesis, and she just looked So Deflated (and who wouldn’t be Walking Deflation when your husband was out of town for most of last week and then had the wretched misfortune of coming down with strep throat this week and it’s all you can do to take care of the boys By Yourself?), and I realized that I really wanted to go to church with Rachel instead of working on the thesis Just Now.

We ended up sitting with Emily and her gentle lord Byron, so that was nice. And we didn’t laugh only one time during the service. No. It was definitely More Than One Time.

That wasn’t lonely, either.

And after church I saw that guy Brent, the guy who is married to my friend Cindy, and he asked whether I wanted to go to lunch with them. And I Most Decidedly Did. So the three of us went to lunch together and missed Bill and caught up on All Kinds of Things.

Not even a little bit lonely.

When I got home, I wrote and wrote and wrote, so that the sum total of my writing efforts for the weekend was eight (8) pages in all. And when you figure that it took me two weeks to produce the first ten pages and only two and half days to produce the next eight, then this definitely feels like a lot.

And it wasn’t as lonely as I thought it would be.

The post Day appeared first on Rebecca Brewster Stevenson.

It was 6:37 when I came downstairs.

“How are you?” I asked, sitting next to him on the sofa’s edge.

“Tired,” he said, and smiled sleepily at me.

“Mondays are hard,” I said.

“Tuesdays are better,” he replied, still smiling.

We talked briefly about soccer. He has a game today, but missed all games and practices last week because he was sick. In fact last week– our first full week of school– saw William at school only two days, and on each of those days he had to go home early due to sickness.

“I could have used another day this weekend,” I said, thinking of the five hours I spent in Bostock Library at Duke on Saturday. It was good time and well spent, but it didn’t feel like enough.

“Only four more weeks until fall break,” he reminded me, and I knew that this is the sort of thing many people are keeping their eye on. In fact, I am keeping my eye on it too, a wary eye. Four weeks from now, I’ll have only one month left.

“When you think of it,” I said, “I need you to pray for me. I have two months to finish my thesis.”

“How many pages does it have to be?” he asked, the perpetual question of every writing student.

“Sixty,” I said.

“How many have you written?”

“About four.”

He didn’t say anything then. He just gave me a hug.

Give us this day our daily bread.

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