You know all of those "study hard" montages you see in really bad teen movies? If I don't blog for awhile, you should imagine me in one of those montages (because it's true).

I am working on trying to find a place for a slow session. Once I find a place, I really hope someone shows up.....but I guess I'll worry more about that when I get to it.

I've been thinking a lot. The program out here is, by it's very nature, a rather solitary one. Classes meet once, maybe twice a week, and since reading and writing are not generally group activities there's quite a bit of time at my apartment. I'm sure there will be more outings once I get to know people in the program a bit better (the other two entering musicology grad students are in most of my other classes), and I'm going to the wushu meeting (again....no Soo Bahk, but free martial arts are good), but right now there's a lot of sitting in my apartment and thinking.

A PhD program is a time to learn to do for yourself what teachers have previously done for you. It's a time to realize that (hopefully) at some point in the not too distant future, you're going to be the musicologist at the university, the mentor in the mentor/mentee relationship. And I find myself wondering how I'm going to step into those shoes. In addition, I've been thinking about what I want done when I go out on the job search. So that I can point and say, "See, I've done that." And I also wonder if I'll be able to do that. A PhD program is a time for self-doubt you learn to dispel yourself, and it's a time to learn to create for yourself and your students the community that has supported you, and the love and holiness inherent in your art (even if you can't feel it sometimes).

Here's hoping I'm up to the challenge.

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.