I triumphed in the face of adversity
And I became the man I never thought I’d be
And now my biggest challenge a thing called love
I guess I’m not as tough as I thought I was

In May of this year, I took the worst beating of my academic life. A savage, intense affair that resembled an extra scene from some literary version of Fight Club. No, I didn’t get to meet Brad Pitt. Instead, I got worked over by a smallish, youngish woman named Helen.  In fairness, this wasn’t an entirely unexpected development. I had spent the bulk of that academic year reworking, and reinventing, my quasi-stable thesis, and so the finished product was somewhat… well, unfinished.  The draft did, however, attack some of the sacred cows in my sort-of field, and I was rebuffed with extreme prejudice by the guardians of that field.  You see, originally, I signed on to do a project on early-modern drama and I ended up in printing. These things happen. The muse takes you where it will, and you have to roll with it.  Unfortunately, these changes can have rather severe consequences when they come too late.  The beating ended with an ultimatum: “give us something good in the next draft or go home.” { Phrased, of course, in very diplomatic language. This is Britain, after all.} My heart sunk. In a state of utter disappointment, and perpetual anxiety, I began to plan for my trip to Dublin. And, then, for the long, American summer that would somehow pull me through everything. And as luck would have it, it finally did. But the journey, as these things usually work, was far more complicated than I had ever imagined it would be. And here, as a sort of “what I did this summer” that will hopefully make up for a long absence, is that story…

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