proposing!

I haven't been writing any riddles lately because I've been trying to formulate a proposal for my thesis so the Honours/Grad committee can approve it and I can continue writing riddles.

I know how backwards writing proposals can be. In order to write a "good" proposal you usually have to have all the research completed first... which kind of defeats the purpose of proposing a project in the first place. For my sshrc, I proposed the project I did for my honours. And now I'm doing something different. But as much as I've begrudged the process of proposing I can recognize a) there's more leeway with a creative project and b) forcing myself to think critically about what I'm doing is probably a good thing.

I have a love/hate with academia right now. Probably doesn't help that I tend to paint it in broad brushstrokes (even using the word "academia" says it all). Every few days I change my mind between never wanting to write an essay again on the one hand and wanting to go on and do my phd and never leave the library on the other hand (and mfa on the third hand).

I'm not sure what I'll do this fall when it comes time to write MORE proposals for MORE funding and MORE degrees. Right now researching for a professor, I keep getting distracted by all the interesting dissertations I find. I found one about Emily Dickinson's fascicle books she bound and how in the last stages of her life when she ceased binding the loose pages it was related to the unravelling of her life (or something).

And another one about women and portraiture in the renaissance. And face painting and masques.

Lately I'm realizing that I'd much rather read other people's essays than write my own. I like learning and I like researching and thinking and that's all I really want to do right now. Unless my thesis statement for every essay can be something like: "umm well I'm not really sure but I'm going to think about these things out loud and you, dear reader, can follow along and meet me perhaps someplace different at the end but probably at the same place."