Small things

So maybe being a graduate student isn’t that bad.Suspended somewhere between undergrad/first degree and a real job, people can alternately treat you like somebody whose life is pretty much on track to “grander” things whatever that may mean, or somebody whose life has careened to a halt and sought the safety bubble of a university.

Despite the fluctuating anxiety brought about by this ambivalence, every once in awhile I am reminded of the things I like about being a student. (My list has about twenty but it definitely shrinks as time goes by)  Like going to nice libraries for instance. Really nice ones. For some reason, they amaze me. It makes me feel thankfully small. There is a universe to discover. It makes me feel that I am at the center of the world. Okay, that might sound like a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the picture.

I went to Houghton library today, the rare books and manuscript library here at Harvard. I actually thought nothing at Harvard could amaze me anymore, after all, this is going to be my fourth year of residency here. But thank God, Harvard is not yet done with its treasures. A glass-paneled bookcase surrounds the reading room while portraits of famous (I assume) persons adorns the upper walls. The Edison and Newman Room, located across the reading room, with elegant blue wallpapering and chandeliers, is often a venue of public events. Security is a bit tight – you have to leave your belongings in a locker, for which you have to drop in a quarter to lock, and register at the reference desk with two different photo IDs. But that is only befitting the contents within its walls, e.g. the papers of T.S. Eliot, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Theodore Roosevelt, to name a few.

Anyhow I will definitely come back since they have some useful stuff for my project. For now, I take all the sources of inspiration that I can get.