I am a Gaff Rigged Dinghy

Because of course I have red sails.

The end of my second semester is on the horizon. I feel like a dinghy that has been out to sea for a very long time, a vessel that is creaky and tired, barely floating with tattered sails. And a sputtering Evinrude. This week so far has had its ups and downs. For now, I'll just focus on the ups. I've been able to connect to some people around campus, and it's been exciting because it is familiar ground, and also provides opportunities. The familiar ground is that I used to do a lot of meetings with new people, to talk shop, share ideas, and get acquainted. For lack of a better word, I networked a lot. So it's been nice to have a chance to do that again here at MSU. The second part about meeting new people is that, since they know I'm a first year PhD student, I often leave these meetings with new dissertation topics. The ideas that these new friends toss out to me are not completely unwelcome, and one woman in particular had some really great ideas that connect back to my interests. (Sometimes folks toss out dissertation ideas and I have to keep from screwing up my face and blurting out, "Why would I ever do that?" and instead say, "Oh, that could be interesting! Lots of research on that topic!") So I'm going to go on a little dig for myself and see if in the next few months I can't clarify some of her ideas. The brainstorming and talking shop and asking questions part of having these kinds of meetings is energizing for me. It bails the water in my hull so that by the end of the semester I can make it back to land. And there is some chance, that after a few patches and a new paint job, and new outboard and stitches in the sails, I'll make it back out to sea for summer semester.