A Pupil of English: Grad Student Paper Panic

My last post was near the term paper I wrote for my Milton class. It was a wonderful old idea for a paper (so I thought), but it tumbled out of my hands pretty quickly. I'd never written on Milton alone (though I'd focused on him for a fem crit paper or two in undergrad), and I presently saw how big he truly is. The paper, to be complete, would induce to traverse time back to Virgil's day, nay, back to the origin of time itself.

To sing about the pastoral, to make any complete sense of what it is, one would take a thorough training in classics, along with concordances to Milton, Romantic poetry, metaphysical poetry (what are we supposed to claim it nowadays?), etc, and the power to see all these things happening at once. Only God (or Milton) could do justice to a paper on Milton. So it seemed.

Have you ever turned in a newspaper and been completely embarrassed by the act? Not only the act of composition such a steaming pile, but the act of placing something so putrid on the desk of a learned professor who you live will see right through the pages of your crap to your genuine self, the trembling, ignorant student! Or maybe he'll just think you're a hack. And which would be the more shameful? you go to question as you scurry out of the classroom. You waiting for an email where he demands to love what you thinking you were trying to get by with, putting that matter on his desk that way. Nothing comes. You fear the following class session. Next week, you avoid eye contact during lecture. "If he sees me, he'll know!" You're still not certain if you're a lazy jerk trying to get away with something, or if you only get no thought what you're doing. "Here it comes! Oh God! Oh God!"

A MINUS.

Do all grad students do this to themselves? I mean, I did get a "minus" after my "A," but as I said, I did fumble a bit below the burden of Milton's hefty pastoral legacy. But I suppose I didn't really swing the ball.

Next day, in my bibliography class, the board was filled with prattle of the last short report we were turning in. A girl behind me, a smart cookie, a teaching assistant with two days of freshman wrangling under her belt, was having Grad Student Paper Panic (GSPP). "I live I say all my papers are bad.but this one is Very BAD!" Her fears were echoed by the relief of the class, half of them Ph. D. candidates. I'm sure she will also get an A minus. Or perhaps even an A. (Bibliography class is nowhere near as good as Milton class. I actually thought I was near to get kicked out of school.)

My newest blogger associate over at Girl on a Deal with a Chicken blog recently wrote about GSPP in her program. It is real!

Before he handed back the Milton papers, the professor handed each of us a "certificate" printed on marbly parchment paper: "PERITUS MILTONI" it proclaimed. I guess I'll put it.