I haven't posted much this week because the pressure of the paper deadline looming over all of us has reduced the number of "fun" activities we've been able to do. My essay is on Shakespeare's sonnets and how they are a form of tragicomedy, one in which the poet presents and never resolves two conflicted selves. My conclusion is that the sonnets are then on one level disatisfying because they never reach an intellectual truth and on another level successful becuase they acurately capture the speaker's emotional truth. Hopefully, when I meet with my professor from GMU today to go over the draft, she'll like it - and I'll just have to do some touching up before tomorrow's deadline.
Honestly though, I've enjoyed this week a lot too, even with its more academic focus. It's nice because everyone's busy thinking and writing. The last few nights the crew of us has gone to the computer lab - which, conveniently also is one of the few air conditioned places in Cambridge - to work for a few hours, and then afterwards, we'll stop at a pub for a drink and some conversation on the way home.
I know I've said it before, but I really do just love the relational nature of things here, how all aspects of life - studying, eating, socializing - are shared with the same group of people. It makes even the academic work more meaningful as it's done in a context of community, rather than one of isolation. Before coming here, I'd conceived of this summer as a sort of independent and perhaps lonely adventure, but ironically, it's become the most communal experience I've had in a long time.