Friday, January 28, 2011

news

Lots has happened this past week. Procrastination and/or laziness (aside from just being busy) has kept me from posting about them till now, but here you go:

1. I heard back from the Fulbright committee. I didn't get it. Feelings? Initial disappointment, followed by a whole lot of relief. At least I can finally make some plans! Simply not knowing was the hardest part. Now I can begin researching other scholarship options and who knows, maybe an even better opportunity will present itself!

2. I found out that my Great Works Responses for my honors portfolio passed. Hallelujah! First hurdle cleared, I now *just* have to pass my defense and pose for my senior portrait. :)

3. I found out that I got another undergraduate research grant. BLESSING!

4. I LOVE MY POSTCOLONIAL LITERATURE CLASS. That has to be in capital letters because I'm serious about it. Love. It.

5. BYU Rugby won their first two games. The first one was against Claremont Colleges, 86-0. Painful. The second, USD, 25-10. Wish I could have seen the games, but don't worry, I've read all the news articles and almost feel like I was there anyway. :)

6. I get to do a poster about my research for the annual Honors Thesis Symposium. fun fun. Creativity and inspiration, please come to me.

7. I was assigned a chair for my honors thesis defense. ... haha, this last piece of news is actually very humorous, but in order for you to understand why I have to delve into a little story: Last March I presented at a conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming with a group of other honors students from BYU. While we were traveling there we talked about honors program stuff and one student asked one of the administrators who was there chaperoning us exactly how Thesis Defense Chairs are chosen. The adminstrator explained how, after you turn in your thesis and portfolio an email is sent to all of the professors who do honors thesis chair work and they pick (based on topic, educational genre,  how long the thesis is, etc.) who they want to chair. The student then asked who the most difficult chair was, from a student perspective. The administrator laughed and then named an English professor who is already infamous for her intense and intensely difficult classes. I had heard of this professor before, and although I've never taken a class from her, I have heard from many friends how difficult she is, especially when it comes to what you write for her. The honors admin explained that she is the most difficult because she really picks the thesis and the portfolio apart and gets the student to examine and defend every part of it. I started shaking in my shoes that day in the bus, and silently prayed that she wouldn't pick me to chair. I really worried about it for awhile but then realized that my fear was probably irrational; out of all the students who wrote theses, what was the likelihood that she would choose a random thesis about Germans in Tonga to chair?
 
haha.

You guessed it. Today I opened my email and there, sitting in my inbox, was a notification that my defense chair will be none other than, that's right, the very same English professor. After the initial punch-to-the-stomach kind of fear/shock, I started laughing uncontrollably. Oh, the irony. Needless to say, I'm a little bit more nervous now, but actually, I realized that I'm stoked! What better way to prepare myself for graduate school and really show that I know what I'm talking about than getting into a situation where I REALLY have to be at the top of my game? I know that any other professor would be challenging, but I have a suspicion that Heavenly Father gave me this one so that I could really stretch and humble and prepare myself. It's going to be AWESOME!!!

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