For once, the title of this post is a wee bit relevant. I got back from grades for the Fall: two A's and one A minus. 3.925 GPA. My younger brother chided me in that I was only taking 10 credits, and who wouldn't be able to pull A's with only three classes.
Well graduate courses are much different than an undergraduate curriculum. Basically, they are preparing you to be a professor. Ever think about what it takes to make someone a professor, especially with regards to the arcane-weird-madness that is early medieval history? It's a tough nuggie, but its also the richest area of Western Civilization.
Here is my spiel I though of in the shower this morning, after I was awoken to the sound of my middle brother trying to spit out his stomach from drinking too much that night..make it that year. Who am I to judge? I don't drink much, I guess, grew out of it? No more kicks? Whatever I can guarantee you all I will be on the wagon at some point – but I'm fucking digressing for no reason here.
The point is, is……consider the time of day in the early morning where there is light out, but the sun has not risen. It's kind of the meeting of two different worlds, right? – night and day. I suggest that we consider a same parallel between the classical and medieval worlds. Forget the analogy of classical = night, and medieval = day…if anything it was probably the reverse…perhaps the analogy should be at dusk.
But, that would not work – and here is why.
That brief measure of time; the cusp where the night breaks into daylight but before the sun has risen – that is a world all unto itself. And that's exactly what I mean when I say that I study “Late Antiquity” – it's the meeting of two different world-views, economies, whatever lens you want to view it through. But we often forget that when two cultures, or eras meet, like the ocean meeting the land, that there is a new culture, or era born.
We obviously know that it was not the classical world at 7:59 PM on August 28th, 430 AD and the medieval world at 8:00 PM.
But extend the argument…for that brief moment of time before the curtain closed on the ancient world, there was a kind of “interzone” I believe where not only was it NOT only-classical and NOT only-medieval and NOT-EVEN a meeting of the two cultures…..
BUT SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. LIKE WHEN Na gives up one of its valence electrons to Cl, and they fuse into their own creature.
Why, my dear, you've become the nutty professor. Not there yet, and that's where the title of this post debuts its significance. I decided that my energies from now until 2009 will be focused on being accepted to Princeton's Ph.D program. Like Babe Ruth pointing his bat to the fences. And let's look at the odds here.
Graduate programs in the humanities are sui generis in comparison to other similar profession programs, for whereas an incoming cohort of a law school could ostensibly number up to 500 per annum, there is AT MOST 1 or 2 students accepted. Admittedly, there are significantly less applicants, but those who are applying have very specific goals and are basically vying for one seat.
So, here is where finance will be handy.
“It's all about relationships” – C.R.
Which sadly, is true.
In any case, the title, AD ASTRA PER ASPERA means “to the stars through toil [work]”
aspera is the same root where english uses “aspersions”
So, I figure with an A.B in Ancient History, and a M.A in Medieval Studies, that I will hopefully be a ready candidate on paper. Good GRE scores too. 99% percentile on writing.
That's it.
THE NAME IS MALLON:
WE
ARE
ALL
HERE
TO
GO.
We are all here to go.
Late For Antiquity! 