Sunday, April 29, 2007

Schleiermacher hell

My paper on Schleiermacher has put me in a special level of academic hell. I know my teacher is on Facebook (to which this blog now feeds), and I kind of hope he reads this because I kind ofhate him right now. I mean, I don't hate him, I like him a lot, but I hate him too.

So far I am at 10 single spaced pages of notes (which are largely just me trying to explain to myself what I've read) for an eventual 5-page double paced paper. Yikes. It's not that I don't understand him, it's just that it takes a really really long time to get out what he means - gee, about as long as it takes him. Only I'm trying not to use such run-on sentences.

I have put in 4 hours today, 4 hours yesterday, plus about 6 hours to read it (maybe 8), and I think I'm at the halfway point. My last paper was "good enough" so this one needs to be "good". Not for the grade. For my sanity.

It's not bad, really - it's a good challenge, it really gives me that nerdy academic excitement that makes school worth going to. I just wish I didn't have also 20 papers to grade and Augustine's "Trinity" and Pseudo-Dionysius to read (all of these by Wednesday - well, the papers by Tuesday, but that's negotiable). If it were the only thing hanging over my head, I'd be coolio. But I can't thoroughly enjoy myself at it b/c there's other stuff to get through as well. Bummer.

Oh, to be writing nothing but a dissertation, like my husband! I don't understand why he never works on it. Oh yeah, he's teaching to feed us.

Anyway, Schleiermacher's fine theologically, he's just a pain in my ass at the moment because there's too much good stuff in there that I want to be sure I both understand (very tall order) and can communicate (more like a venti order).

I think I'm going to say good night to him now and go to grading. At least use a different part of the brain for a while. Oh, this paper is really just the suckfest.

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