2010 Feb: Robertson

I'm feeling productive...

Well we slacked off a bit in writing last month, so we will do better in making up for it this month. School started with a bang for me in January. I hit the ground running and haven’t stopped since. All of January, I was gearing up to take my comprehensive exam. This single test determined whether or not I could graduate with my Master’s. If I failed, it would have almost been like I just wasted the last two years of my life – probably not that dramatic, but you get the idea. I was constantly reading some book or article trying to get all the information I could into my head and keep it there. I as giving presentations to others taking the exam in the hopes that I would remember even more. Morgan would quiz me on dates and events that surrounded the authors that I had to study. I had 17 different works that I had to know inside and out and be ready to write an essay explicating any of them.

The day of the exam came, and I went to the library. For my first question, I had to explicate the Declaration of Independence. I ended up writing a 9 page essay in three hours explicating the philosophical ideas and rhetorical devices used in the first two paragraphs of the document. There was then a hour break for lunch and then back to the library for part two. The second question I ended up using a Marxist reading of literary history to show how Frankenstein was able to maintain a continuity with the Gothic tradition (ideology) while at the same time begin a discontinuity (antithesis) which resulted in the Science Fiction genre. Again I had three hours and wrote another 9 page essay. All in all, 18 pages written without any books or notes in six hours is respectable, I think. After that I started to sweat bullets because I started to second guess myself almost constantly. Luckily, I didn’t have to wait too long to hear back from the grading committee. I ended up receiving a “high pass” on my Frankenstein essay and passing my other essay with flying colors. I was the only one out of the graduates this year to receive a high passing score. Now hopefully a Ph.D. program will take me.

The rest of February has been spent trying to get caught up with all of the work that I didn’t do in January. I have been getting caught up in all of my classes that I am taking and the one that I am teaching. I feel sort of bad for the class I am teaching since I wasn’t able to focus on them as much during the first month of class, but I hear what some other graduate students have been doing and don’t feel quite so bad…

Other than that, we have been busy fighting off sickness here. The cold has laid everyone here low. It hit the girls twice. The first round was bad enough that we ended up buying a nebulizer to give them breathing treatments. We have only had it for a month, but it has since become an entrenched member of the family. Kyla and Daria also started a pre-preschool class that they get to go to once a week where they play games and make crafts. They love their class, and Morgan loves it too since she can go and socialize with adults while the girls are in class. It becomes a highlight of the week for everyone except me since I don’t get to go. The girls also celebrated their third birthday in January. They were really excited to learn that this time the birthday cake was for them. They have been asking for birthday cake on and off since then. They point out the birthday cakes at the grocery store and tell us that we need to get them. They are becoming quite the independent little thinkers, and the things they say, most of the time, are really cute. The other day I told Kyla that I would get her a treat if she cleaned up the living room. She started running around the room yelling, “Treats! I love treats! I’m so excited!”

Morgan has been busy trying to keep everyone healthy and keep me in line (not too easy). Other than that, she has had even more frustrations with her calling as the branch presidency keeps taking away the people that she calls. So she has lost a nursery leader and a cub scout den leader. The problem is with our size of branch, there is no one left to call. Hopefully things can be figured out soon. On the plus side, she and her 1st counselor were able to go and have a girls night out and go to the movies. She really enjoyed that. Morgan has also been busy researching possible places for us to live after we leave Winona depending on where we get accepted. She is ready to leave this town and move on to the next chapter of our life. Can’t say that I blame her. I should be getting back any responses to Ph.D. programs here in March, so we will know soon if we will be allowed to advance to that chapter or not. Oh, the wait is horrible. Anyway, I think that brings everyone up to speed on how we are doing. We wish everyone the best and keep you in our prayers daily.

God Bless,

The Robertsons