Thesis Progress

It's slow going right now.

That stack to the left of my computer keeps getting taller, no matter how much I read.

When I was in Richmond doing original research, one of the librarians said, "Research is a slog. Like trench warfare." Best analogy ever. I'm up to my elbows in mud, fighting to keep my head above the muck, dodging distraction shots from every direction. Some days are really productive, but most are underwhelming at best.

I moved onto a desk in the family room, and the light and the location and the view have helped. The best part is that Eve wants to be next to me, doing her scripture study or homework or her planner (every Sunday after church, without fail).

I charted out my research and proposal--I should have it ready to present to a thesis director in May.

As hard as this is, I love every second of it, and I'm already sad that this experience is reaching the end.

Boston, Part 2

Sunday was General Conference, and we stayed home and watched. It’s weird because with the time difference, it doesn’t start till noon. In AZ, we’re accustomed to finishing the last session by 3, not waiting till 6 pm for the closing remarks. Micah commented that “Conference is an all-day thing here on the East Coast.”

Lucky for us, there was a park 300 feet from our apartment, and we took advantage of it almost every day. I forget that traveling with younger people requires down time and play time and food time and snack time and not walking 14,000 a day time.

 Sometimes little sisters just need big brothers, right?

But I figured it out. I did miss my regular traveling buddy who runs from thing to thing with me every day. Brad had a trial back at home and couldn’t make it.

Monday was our biggest day. So much crammed in, but the kids didn’t want to leave too early, so I had to amend my plans. BTW, I recommend the Boston City Go Pass to see the sights. It was really convenient and easy to use. And we didn’t have to wait in lines for admission.

We started out at the Old State House, where they kindly conceded to learn a little history—but only because it focused on the Boston Massacre, which is cool, right? Luckily, Hyrum and Eve just finished their units on the Revolution, so they had a little context and background for what we saw.

Then it was time for the New England Aquarium. Micah’s spirit animal is a turtle, and the aquarium has a giant 540-pound 95-year-old giant named Myrtle that he couldn’t get enough of.

Halfway through we took a break to have lunch at Legal Sea Food.

Micah had his first taste of lobster roll (which I think he barely enjoyed because he ate it so quickly), Hyrum had his favorite food of all time (clam chowder), and Eve cautiously ordered . . . a cheeseburger. Oh well.

Can lead a horse to water but can’t force feed him fish. The aquarium is really amazing, and we went behind the scenes to see how they take care of the seals and sea lions.

I had class that night, so I took them back to the apartment and rented a bike for the 1.4 mile-ride to Harvard.

Non-partisan war protest in Cambridge.

Books on hold is still exciting for me—they’re gonna be perfect for my thesis.

And what did Eve do that night?

She caught a cleaning bug and straightened the entire apartment, including the dishes! She was my favorite that night for sure!

Class—learned more than I ever imagined about Candide. Want to know more? You’re welcome to ask me, but I’m sure no one will ever care.

Late Summer in Cambridge

One of the hidden joys in traveling to Boston almost every week is AirBnB. I get acquainted with a new neighborhood, its stores and quirks, very quickly in those 36 hours. And I love it.

A few weeks ago, I stayed across the street from the Belmont city cemetery--the week after 9/11. Everything was decked out to remember those who lost their lives for our country. I spent 30 minutes wandering and reading and wondering who these people were and how they lived their lives.

The second bonus surprise of this trip was Fresh Pond. I mean, look at it.

I chose to run the trail around the pond on Monday morning, and I couldn't have been happier. These are not your typical AZ Valley of the Sun running views.

I was so caught up in the water and the trees that I missed my turnoff and ended up running five miles instead of three. It was glorious.

Then, to top joy with gladness, I spent the entire day in Widener Library doing research.

With this view of Memorial Church out the window.

Well, not the entire day. I did have lunch outside in the beautiful late summer weather.

See that stack of books above? I still can't believe I really live this life where I get to check books out of Harvard Library and they let me bring them home with me!

And I get to study them at my own kitchen table in AZ. Four trips down. Three or four left until the semester ends.

Living the nerdy dream over here.

Best Semester Yet

Brad gave me the greatest gift ever (besides the crazy awesome birthday bash last month).

For my last class (before my thesis) at Harvard, Brad and I planned for me to take a class on Satire. . . on campus.

Yes, I know we live in AZ. 

Yes, I know how far it is to Cambridge, MA.

The class meets every Monday night 6-8 pm. 

And I fly out of Phoenix on Sunday afternoon, roll into Boston around midnight.

Get a taxi to an AirBnB. 

Sleep for a few hours.

Then I hit the ground running for the next 24 hours.

Look how beautiful Cambridge is in the summer. 

I'm simultaneously working on my thesis research, so those coincide seredipitously. I research at home in AZ, reserve books at the library, then when I get to Harvard I hole up at a desk (and meet with research librarians) while looking up random stuff.

I take a break for lunch, and the weather has been so spectacular that I've found tables outside. 

Crazy thing--the next day after this picture was taken, a lady was killed right at this corner just as I was leaving Cambridge. Kinda freaky, right?

I love every moment I get to spend in Cambridge. I walk and bike miles through the neighborhoods, soaking in the weather and the season and the people and the food and the place itself. Here's Annenberg Hall as the sun went down on my way home from my class.

And after another quick night's sleep, I'm out the door by 7 am or so, headed back to the train and then the plane to AZ--home before the kids get back from school Tuesday afternoon. FYI--if you want a personal selfie with the John Harvard statue, 7 am is your best time to do it.

I can't express how happy this makes me. I am truly living a dream that I never thought possible. Attending classes on campus while still living in AZ.

I live the best life.

I'm Off on an Adventure!

Toto, we're not in Arizona any more!

Guess where I am?

I am one of the very lucky few that beat the bomb cyclone along the East Coast and made it to Boston without a flight cancellation! I arrived Wednesday, just as the first flakes were hitting Florida. I got snug in my AirBnB apartment Wednesday night and woke up to snow! It's been years since I was in a big snowstorm, and I would guess this is the biggest I've ever seen in my entire life. I chronicled the increasing depth on the garbage cans outside my window.

Up to fifteen inches in certain places in Boston, the reports say. My unscientific measurements would have to agree.

Yesterday was glorious. I took three stomps through the snow to get food and and to get my bearings, and I felt like a little kid living an adventure story. Ok. It wasn't that exciting, but for an AZ girl, it was pretty close. There were few cars (and even fewer people) out, and those that were brave enough were generally stuck (one car was being dug out by a skinny young guy in a Santa onesie and hat). Snow plows cleared the roads in groups of three, efficiently and regularly keeping the roads accessible. Sidewalks were a different story, and I had to blaze my own trails with my trusty waterproof duck boots and Siri. I may have grinned like a ten-year-old boy out with his first BB gun as I plodded knee deep through the snow.

I had to buy a new coat for such an adventure, since I've lived in AZ way too long to have leftovers from our law school years in Chicago. Who knew that a $54 coat from Amazon would be just as toasty as a high-end coat from The North Face? Temperatures yesterday were beautiful--hovering around 30 degrees with only a few (albeit strong) gusts of wind. The weather made the adventure even better. I was cold, but not miserable. I loved it all.

Today the weather is brutal but clear, and I have yet to venture outside, even though it's almost 2 pm. I can hear the wind howl and I watch the flakes swirl across the plowed streets and now-shoveled walks, knowing that a different experience awaits me today. I've been cocooned with a cup of herbal tea, a blanket across my lap, preparing lesson plans for school next week. It's been a good morning, but this afternoon begins the real adventure and the real reason I'm in Boston--I'm taking a class on the Constitution, preparing for a new seminar I'm teaching. On Monday. Yeah, I cut this one a little close, but I'm excited, and a little bit nervous, to be honest. I haven't been a student inside a regular classroom in almost three decades. Here's hoping I survive the Arctic blast as I walk outside!

So . . . I Got a Job

That seems weird to even type.

After successfully avoiding the paid workforce for most of the last 26 years, I am once again gainfully employed. And today is my first day.

I've been hired to tutor one 9th-grade student in English and World History, twice a week for two hours each time--plus an almost two-hour round-trip commute. I'm breaking my working self in slowly, you might say.

I wasn't actively looking for a job, but the school called me and asked if I would be available to help them in this extenuating circumstance. After thinking about the time commitment and after talking it over with Brad, I decided to accept. I had to fill out some paperwork, get fingerprinted, and take a not-so-grueling three-hour English-teaching competency test, and that was it. I was hired.

It's crazy how happy this small job opportunity has made me. It's brought priorities into focus and dormant passions to the surface. What it's really done is this--

It's reminded me that my heart is in the classroom. I love teenagers and their energy. I love sharing what I know with others. I love History and English. Mostly, I love learning--just about anything. And I love watching the lightbulb turn on in others.

I don't know if this will lead to a permanent position or if it's a one-time shot at this point. What I do know is that if ASU accepts me into their doctoral program and I get extended a contract to teach, my heart may no longer be in academia but in academics.

It's going to be a tough call.

Bit of a Rough Patch

I don't remember the last time my blog was silent for an entire week.

Sorry about that. This post may shed a little light on what has created the dearth of posts.

We've had a bit of a rough patch around here lately.

It began with Eve and a fever that would not break.

When the ibuprofen was working, she would do puzzles

or watch TV

 or read stories.

But most of the time, she looked like this:

 or like this

 or like this.

It was a really rough five days. She spiked a fever so high that it burned your lips to kiss her forehead (my favorite thermometer). Her eyes were bloodshot and raw. She slept fitfully, ending up on our bedroom floor most nights in a pile of pillows and blankets and crying that she felt sick. She hardly ate anything and would complain that her stomach hurt (because it was empty) and beg for cool water.

On the morning of the sixth day, she wandered downstairs for scriptures, half dressed and handing me a wrong-side-out shirt to right for her. When I asked her to raise her hands over her head so I could help her, Lily let out a gasp. "She looks like a Holocaust victim!" I sent her upstairs to weigh herself, and she had lost 10% of her body weight in five days (four pounds). It stunk.

But it got worse from there.

This is what an emergency room looks like at 3:30 am when it's not flu/RSV season.

 3 am on Wednesday morning, Brad nudged me awake and said that he needed to go to the emergency room, and that he could drive himself.

What?

A few years ago, he was in a motorcycle accident where he landed on his head. He walked away with a crumpled bike, a sore neck, and not much more thought about it. A few months ago, his neck had begun to bother him, and an MRI revealed a lot more about that accident than he knew at the time of the crash. His C5-C6 vertebrae had crushed together, and the doctor reading his MRI (Dr. P, a family friend) seriously explained that he could have/should have been paralyzed from that accident, but his vertebrae had served their purpose and cushioned the impact as much as possible. However, he bears injuries that will never heal. Dr. P explained that if he ever felt extreme nerve pain or numbness in his hand, he needed to drive to Barrow's emergency room in Phoenix immediately.

When he awakened me, he had been feeling the pain and numbness for over an hour, and it was time to go to the hospital. And there was no way I was letting him drive himself.

The 30-minute drive to Phoenix was deserted. So was the parking lot. And the hospital. Brad has never been one to complain when he's sick, but this was different. I've never seen him like this. He described his pain level as "If ten is boiling in a pot of oil--then I'm a nine," and it never dipped below a five no matter what the ER staff tried.

After twelve hours in the ER, we were no closer to answers than we were when we arrived. Two X-rays, an MRI, two EKGs, two shots, and one oral dose of Percocet later, we drove home. I still had mom responsibilities--carpool, dinner, tutoring, piano practicing--but I threw in a quick trip to Walgreen's to fill his five prescriptions.

By this time, I was bone tired. I could barely think, and I was worried.

I've always been grateful to count these two men as our family friends and neighbors as well as our family physicians who stitch kids and diagnose croup and prescribe for pink eye at odd hours of the day and night, but never have I been more grateful than I did that Wednesday night when they both showed up at our house.

They read the test results and listened to the events of the night and day. They offered advice, comfort, and a much needed priesthood blessing. I will never forget them that evening.

Wednesday was a fitful night's sleep, with Hyrum waking up Thursday morning feeling ill. I gave him some ibuprofen, sat him in front of PBS when the other three left for school, and I headed back to bed to sleep a little. Somewhere in the fog of my late-morning nap, I recall Hyrum tapping my arm and saying, "I'm good, headed to school. Bye, Mom." I couldn't tell if it was real or imagined, but when I woke up 20 minutes later he was gone. (We live within sight of the school, and he had decided to head out the door just after the tardy bell rang.)

His whole world was different when he got home.
The characteristic blistering fever and bloodshot eyes from Eve's virus were evident now in Hyrum's face.

 Poor guy. I kept telling him that the best way to feel better was to eat healthy food and drink water to flush out the bugs.

So . . . that was Thursday. All he wanted that night was to sleep on our bedroom floor.

And I had to tell him no.

Months ago, I scheduled an appointment to take the GRE on Friday, October 2. I hired a tutor to reteach me math that I hadn't used since 1986. I spent countless hours doing problems and consulting answer keys. I did batch after batch of flash cards and dissected text passages for hours. I couldn't reschedule on such late notice.

So what did I do?

I got up at 5 am Friday morning, showered and ate, practiced a few problems, then headed out the door to ASU to take my test with sick Hyrum and sick Brad at home.

Much to no one's surprise, I bombed it.

And when I say I bombed it, I mean it.

The verbal section was fine, and I was happy with the score that immediately flashed on the screen when I clicked the final "submit" button. The math section, however, was not so good. Really bad, as a matter of fact. I think a monkey could have done better. My brain was just too tired and too emotionally taxed to apply all the math I had just relearned. I guess I'm slightly cheered when I remember that I wouldn't have been able to complete more than 4 or 5 problems before I'd begun studying, but I was disappointed. Still am. I'm waiting for the writing prompt grades, but I'm less than hopeful. My brain froze on the first section, and I couldn't pull words out of my brain that made cogent sentences of any kind. Writing? Really? That's what I do. And I couldn't do it that day. The second prompt was better, but I don't hold any hope for a good score on that section either.

It's taken me some time to get my bearings again after such a difficult few days. The kids all seem to be better for now, and I'm grateful. But Brad is still in much pain, with no answers or possible solutions. We are hoping he can get into a pain management specialist and a neurosurgeon soon.

As for me, I guess it's time to fill out that grad school application and see what the ramifications of that devastating score will be. I just don't know. I did find a slight ray of joy when I could use the word prescient correctly in a text to a friend. That made the whole GRE worth it, right?

Thanks for listening. Here's hoping things get back to normal around here soon.