Year One Done

Year 1 of grad school is done. 

(okay, minus one presentation and a couple hours of paper revisions).

Years 2-5/6/hopefully-not-longer-than-that are up and coming.

It feels soooooo good to have a year behind me.
A year of knowing what grad school is like and a year of knowledge in a field I'm theoretically going to spend the rest of my working years discovering.


This is how it looked.


first semester: 
I sat in classes writing down words I didn't understand.
And looking up those words.
And still not completely understanding.
But laughing with everyone else all the same when someone would make a comment like "Wow, that's so Hegelian!"
Which happened at least once a week.

Here are some other expressions you might have missed while you were busy studying history as an undergrad but can throw into your speech to sound more intelligent:

• metaphysical 
• phenomonology
• aesthetic consciousness
• hermeneutics
• philology
• fragmentation
• coherences
• ontological
• millieu
• cogito
• diegetic integrity
• paranoiac 

This is what came next.

second semester:
I sat in too many classes not noticing when I didn't understand because I was working through 600-800 pages a week, so what was understanding if not devouring new narratives and words and ideas each day?
#sohegelian?

I actually wrote less this past year than I did as an undergrad, which sounds heretical even as I write it down, but I read a ton. I felt a little more restless in general, especially during the first few months in the abyss of jargon with not as much to read and write and little direction as to what I wanted to and what I could study in the realm of Germanic studies. But jumping from a jargon abyss to a too-much-to-do abyss helped a lot and I'm feeling much better about my future after finishing this second semester.

Reflecting on my move across the country, I spent a lot of time questioning if I had made the right choice in coming to Bloomington, Indiana and starting a Germanic Studies PhD program (since my prior dreams had included going to the coast and studying history and change is hard for everyone for of course I need to reevaluate my decisions).

Regardless of whether or not it was the best choice for me in the end, I have been amazingly blessed during my time here.


I moved into a townhouse I'd never seen before but purchased anyways (because #tryingtobeagrownup?) and found it less than satisfactory in smell and appearance.


Three strangers became my friends and two amazing parents helped me paint and improve the smoke-scented structure that has since become my beautiful little home and sanctuary. 

One bubbly stranger became my roommate in this home and one of my closest friends. She spent the year giving me bad dating advice from trashy buzzfeed articles, helping me throw parties featuring avocados and groundhogs, and ensuring our house always smelled like baked goods.


A random decision to learn Yiddish introduced me to a Jewish Studies minor for my PhD program. 


Five friendly Jewish studies grad students in particular welcomed me wholeheartedly, inviting me to activities (often with free food), asking about my interests and sharing their own academic insights, and catching me up on all the Jewish holidays I should have already known about.


A welcoming LDS branch took me in with open arms, providing opportunities to serve, feel a greater connection with God, foster my faith, and develop deep friendships.

One of my first weekends here, an ambitious stranger from that branch took me to Bloomington's Farmer's Market and on a "hike" (Hoosiers refer to anything in nature as hike, whereas I equate hiking with scaling great heights). She ensured I got enough Afghan food with monthly lunch dates and helped me fulfill my dreams of seeing Hamilton by driving me to Chicago for the happiest three hours of my life.


One exceptional, brilliant friend from my Provo days called me every other week to make sure I was doing okay and listened to me mope when I wasn't.


An adorable blonde agreed to be my friend upon meeting because we both had curly hair. She comforted me as I cried in her car right before Christmas and again as I sobbed in my room after a breakup.


20 bright Germanic Studies grad students invited me to activities and laughed at my terrible puns and pretended that this single contribution to the German department was sufficient for right now. Four of them went out of their way to ask about my personal life, to see if I'd run any races recently, what my weekend plans were, what my life in Utah had been like.


My first-year advisor always asked about my emotional well-being before anything else.




My future advisor gave me an unexpected job in the digital humanities lab I've loved working in.


Two kind and funny neighbors made sure I knew they were also family, singing made up songs with me, setting up a tea party with balloon people for my birthday, and playing middle school games like Truth or Dare into the wee hours of the morning just to humor me.




Friends reached out across multiple time zones with texts, videos, google hangout sessions, phone calls, and even snail mail to stay in touch from California to Utah to Washington to Illinois to Indiana.

A fun brunette became dear and taught me how to play chess and take advantage of the plethora of opera, jazz, and other musical performances in Bloomington, as well as making sure I made time to be silly.

I tripped while running one dark, autumn morning and as I lay face down on the concrete cursing my folly, a random human stopped on her way to work and drove my twisted-ankle-and-bleeding-self two miles back to my house.

A compassionate stranger helped me reattach my storm door after it fell off during a wind storm (before it broke during the second storm...).

An LDS missionary was sunshine personified and made me and everyone he met feel like the world wasn't so dark.

My aunt and uncle in Terre Haute helped furnish my little house and provide other support.

My grandma's spirit never seemed far and I know she's proud I ended up here.

A friend was joking that he was a table top with only two legs. 

As I spent my first night by myself in Bloomington, lying on a foam pad in a house that still smelled a little like smoke and felt like stranger's, I had never felt further from my mountain home of the west and I worried that I would have no legs here for my table top. 

But at the end of my first year here, I believe I have at least 72 legs, many of them in caring human form. This year has been hard: I have felt inadequate, uncertain, ashamed, frustrated, impatient, lost, and peasant-ish.

I have also experienced joy, triumph, confidence, forgiveness, growth, beauty, and love. 

God did not leave me alone when I made this decision to move across the country and start this program. He didn't tell me that strangers would become some of the most important people in my life and that old friends would continue to care for me, but it's been the best surprise.



My heart is full.
My brain is continuing to fill.

And I look forward to the coming years of blooming in Bloomington.