I'd like to thank...

As of today, I am done with class indefinitely. 

Ah!! 

While there will be many, many more end-of-grad school posts, today I wanted to share the acknowledgments for my thesis: "Its Own Sense of Verisimilitude": The Lizzie Bennet Diaries As a Transhistorical Adaptation of the Semipublic. 

* * * * *

I would like to thank the professors and faculty at Oregon State for their guidance and support.  I am also grateful to the MA Symposium, the PAMLA and PCA/ACA Conferences where I got to try out many of these ideas.  Thank you to my committee: Bradley Boovy, Jillian St. Jacques, Jon Lewis, and especially to Megan Ward, who so often offered me the vocabulary for what I was trying to articulate.

To the creators whose work inspired this process, I cannot fully express my gratitude. To everyone at Pemberley Digital, who pursued this passion project with excellence and care, and to show runner Bernie Su for your vision, commentary, and responses to my Twitter inquiries.  Most importantly, to Jane Austen whose quietly subversive and effervescently witty work has shaped my life in a myriad of ways.

To all the artists and creators that became a part of my graduate school experience, thank you for making art.  Your work has sustained, invigorated, and fueled me.

To the friends who have supported my work whether in person or hypermediated forms. To my friends and colleagues at Oregon State, and specifically Hannah, Rita, Ethan, Hayley, the Emily’s, Melissa, and more.  To the graduate students from other fields who encouraged me and served as editors: Stephanie Downing and Jordan Cox—I could not have made it through grad school without you.  Thank you to Lois who introduced me to Lizzie Bennet, my kindred spirit Kristina, and dear friend Julia.  My thanks to Hannah Green for her endless enthusiasm about my work.  

I would like to thank my family for all their support.  Mom and dad, thanks for having me read aloud to you at night as a child.  To both of my “squads”…  Jeremiah and Melissa, your humor, encouragement, and love have meant the world to me.  And to my closest friends—Rebekah Gilley and Cami Morrill—thank you for the times you have literally held my hand through this process: you are my stars. 

My sincere gratitude to each of you!

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I know I've been a bit neglectful on here.  I'm sorry - I really do miss it.  Due to the pace of the next few weeks, I probably won't be here as much as I'd like.  But I'm determined not to turn this space into a complaint over how much I have to do.  It is a lot.  But I had a good conversation with a colleague about how we may be stressed out, but over things we actually care about.  We chose school over a million other things we could have done.  And we aren't stressing over a bosses concerns.  For the most part, these are our own passions and instead of performing for someone else, our job is simply to make other people care.  So, as I go off and try to be productive, I'm trying to keep that mentality.  I may have a lot to do, but I chose this and I love this.  And for that, I count myself lucky.

5

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Today is my blog's 5th birthday!

5 years ago, in my "Introduction," I shared,

"words help me process things - and this will be where i'll place the words

that don't seem to have any other home."

Through many phases and changes and far more page views than I ever imagined,

that still remains a pretty accurate description of my blog.

I apologize for the times it feels scattered, but it's not a niche blog.

It's just a space for the homeless words in my head.

When I created this, I really didn't think I would be able to keep it up.

I was like that with pen-pals as a kid.  I would be all enthusiastic... but then

get behind after 2 or 3 letters and be too ashamed to finally write back 6 months later.

So I was more shocked than anyone that 1 year, 2 years in I was still blogging.

Now, it's a rare day I don't get on to check the blog or start another draft.

And though it took me 4 years of blogging to actually admit that just maybe I was a writer...

I am more enthusiastic about it than ever.

I hope to continue to expand and develop both this space and my writing

[keep an eye out in the future - wink, wink]

I want to thank everyone who has followed my blog at any point these past 5 years.

Writing and crafting this has helped me become more of who I am supposed to be,

and your encouragement of that means the world to me!

So, merci beaucoup, my friends.  Merci.

* Interesting fact - I didn't put this together till yesterday, but, though done unwittingly, I think it was Fate that I created this blog on January 28th, as it just happens to be the date Pride and Prejudice was originally published.  And I'd like to think that is a good omen :)

Because this wouldn't fit in the card...

Dear Mom,

You are the BEST!! I am so, so grateful for you and all that you have helped me accomplish.

[Immediate family + Miss Ida at Jer's MC graduation]

Thank you for giving up your everything for us. I know raising us was rowdy, dirty, awkward, and sometimes down-right traumatic. But despite appendicitis, swallowed quarters, and cancer, you stuck with this crazy family. I can't tell you how grateful I am for the choices and the sacrifices you've made when the normal human reaction would be to bolt. You put up with so much and I'm so glad to see you now reaping such amazing blessings.



[Four generations of ladies: Granny holding Miss Ida, Melissa, myself, Sarah, and my mom being funny in the back =]

Thank you for representing what it means to be a woman. It's kind of funny that your three daughters are such different people, but you set such a good example that, despite our differences, we each learned what it means to be feminine. Seriously, thank you for forcing us to wear a dress to church every Sunday. Thank you for teaching us that a woman's clothes don't have to be from Nordstrom to look good. Thank you for the time at the Christmas party a few years back when you pulled me aside just to say, "Samara, you look gorgeous. Enjoy yourself tonight." Thank you for affirming womanhood in this crazy, confused world.

[Mom and I in Oxford]

I cannot even begin to express how much your encouragement means has meant over the years!! You may not have known what to do with your little, over-achiever, but I just want to say, I'm partly your fault. You have such an incredible enthusiasm--especially for learning--which I inherited. And then of course, there was all the reading you did when you were on bed-rest with me [silly me, always trying to get a head-start on things]. But in all seriousness, your encouragement to train at the A Level has made me who I am today. Thank you for supporting my interest in FBLA. You stuck with me in the high's--placing at Nationals in Chicago--to the low's--like when I was puking the morning of my first public speaking experience--and everything in between. Thank you for not letting me quit University after the first year. You and Dad heard God when I couldn't and now, about to graduate, I can't say it enough: "You were right!!" You knew me better than I did and I'm so grateful that you twisted my arm when you knew that staying in college was part of my calling. Thank you thank you thank you!



[Mom and I in Paris]

Thank you for helping me dream bigger! I know that you're more of a cautious person by tendency, but you have been so instrumental in pushing me to all that God has. When I was either too afraid or too weak to commit to something big, you have been the one to release me. You were the one to say "Go for it" when I wanted to skip a grade. You were the one to say "Samara, don't settle" when I got distracted. You were the one to encourage me to study abroad. You were the one to suggest applying to Oxford when I was way too scared to consider that option. And more recently, you were the one to pick me back up and say, "Samara, re-apply." Thanks for be willing to listen to, pray about, and join in on some of my crazy ideas (from serious considerations like job-hunts to fun adventures like when I drug you up to the top of the Arc de Triomphe). I couldn't have taken this incredible journey without you (literally and figuratively ;), and I'm so grateful for all you've done.



[Sarah, Mom, myself, and Granny]



Love you so, so much!! Happy Mother's Day!

Samara

 

A psalm of love...

A reflection from my journal, a year ago today:

I could pour myself out

Paint my life on these pages

I could sing forever

To let others know my heart

But none could ever love me

The beautiful way you do!

You are my lover

And my bestest friend

You know my heart,

Its calms and its storms.

And I know you'll never leave

Because your love knows no end.