On my way

My third and final quarter officially commenced this week, and after much deliberation I think I've finally nailed down my last courses! Due to limits on the size of the seminar, I'll find out at noon today if the prof will let me in "Death, Mourning, and the Politics of Self-Sacrifice in the Middle East"--a class I'm really excited for and hoping I can take. Also, I decided to take "The Just War Tradition," a political philosophy course on Just War theory that considers early influences and writings like that of Augustine! I think it will be very interesting. My third course will be a thesis reading course, which basically suggests I take only two courses and focus the remainder of my time on my thesis. This also means, I only have one class on Tuesdays and another on Wednesdays... that's it! While that sounds like a slacker's schedule, I'm sure to need every minute of spare time for my thesis to have a rough draft completed in two-and-a-half weeks and a final draft in just over a month from now! Nine more weeks and I have my M.A.!!!

Don't ask, "then what?" I haven't the foggiest right now. But I do know I'm not going to Cairo for the Arabic program. I just got the e-mail last week. In fact no one who applied from my program was accepted. I was disappointed, but also relieved a bit to know something definite and have more space to see friends, family, find a job, participate in weddings, and transition out of graduate school a bit less abruptly.

In other news, I'm considering participating in Chicago's 10-mile Lake run along Lake Michigan at the end of April. I only just started "training" this week, so we'll see how that goes before I commit.

Also, I feel an apology is in order. My hope was that this blog would be a means to develop more illuminating thoughts and observations that serve relevant cultural discussions at some level. Hopefully I'll find time to write less schedule-type, life event lists and contribute more meaningful postings. But for now, back to thesis work.