Some Thoughts While I Was At the Library

I am sitting on a stiff little couch in the grad lounge of the UNLV library, facing the broad panel of windows which looks across to the stairway and the third floor stacks, where along with books are students hunched over them or typing on a computer. It is strange to think how near I am to being totally an "other" here, totally unattached and unconnected with academia. All around me are students working hard, carrying the heavy burden of unfinished assignments. Even if they stayed here for many hours it would probably not be enough to lift that burden completely. Most will leave here still heavy and stressed out. But me, I am reading a book. For fun. No one told me to. The only reason I am even in the library is because the AC in my apartment is broken. I am so glad I am not one of the burdened. I am so glad to have finished my thesis, to only be waiting on my diploma. Over my years of study I have grown very discontent with the university as an institution and I step away from it eagerly.

But my discontent is not really what I want to write about now. Instead I want to consider and remember the good things about academic life.

On the bulletin board to my right is written this quote: "If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called Research." --A. Einstein. Research-- that plunging into darkness and chaos, that stretching of the borders of our minds, reaching up like a child who can't get the cereal down from the shelf-- that is one of the things that I love about academia.

Next to that quote is a white board where someone has drawn a picture of a droopy-eyed girl with two thought bubbles extending from her pig-tailed head. One bubble has a stack of books and a notebook, the other an island sprouting palm trees. The picture is labeled: "The Common Mid-Semester Malady." It must have been up for several weeks now. It reminds me that there is a rhythm to academic life. Like seasons, semesters come and pass with their mid-terms and their finals and their new beginnings. These semester-seasons are common to all the students and teachers at the university. You can turn to the stranger next to you during finals week and sigh and that stranger will second your sigh and add: "It's almost over."

I no longer share in that sigh. I am out of place here, removed from the rhymths that defined my life for so long. I am like a ghost inhabiting this library.

What Is a Palo Santo tree?

Literally, palo santo means 'holy stick' in Spanish. It is the name of the skinny, white trees that grow on the Galapagos Islands. Annie Dillard writes of them in her essay "Teaching a Stone to Talk." She says, "I see us all as palo santo trees, holy sticks, together watching all that we watch, and growing in silence." "Teaching a Stone to Talk" is about witnessing, about waving our arms at the world, which is exactly what I am trying to do in this blog. I want to share the way I see the island of the world that surrounds me. I hope you enjoy it.