Year 2, Day 258: Shakespeare Institute -- Editing Myself.

This past Thursday I went through my (first) Progression Panel of being a PhD student, and they actually let me pass.  It was a relatively painless process discussing my work, and my place working at the Institute.  I met with three very nice people from the University who seemed interested in what I had to say, and also interested in getting me out of there as soon as possible because they had fifteen other people to see that day and didn't want to get behind schedule so early.  I had turned in some work earlier this year so that 'readers' from the Institute could critique it, and then I'd have something to talk about in the Progression Panel.  We touched on it during our brief conversation, with them saying, "well, it seems as though your readers have said it is okay, so we'll let you go through." So, since then, I have scrapped all the work I've done in the last month and started again.  Why?  Well, that's a dangerous question.

My readers, two professors I know and respect at the Institute, trashed me.  Well, no, they didn't trash me, but they had lots of negative things... no, well, maybe not exactly negative things, let's say criticisms.  Yeah, there were a bunch, maybe five or six, criticisms about my paper.  A paper that was 6,000 words long, at the beginning of my entire PhD process, and one that has already been scrapped in lieu of a brand spankin' new research focus.  So, why did I decide to go back and rewrite the outline that I had been working on all month long?  Because I edit myself, ALL-THE-TIME.

It is very likely that I will go back and read, re-read, post, and then delete this blog entry because statistically speaking, I've deleted maybe half of what I've written in this text square over the past two years.  Only the least offensive material gets through... I hope.  Maybe I need to go back a re-read my blog entries from a year ago and see if I should delete or edit any of them?

I edit myself in conversations, and even then, I'm pretty offensive.  I haven't been let off the chain in years.  I haven't said what I've actually thought about things in a decade... maybe five years... it's possible I said something offensive two years ago, but wait, let me revisit that moment in time again in my head... (pause)... Yep.  I was offensive then too.  (A space where I go on a rant and am once again edited two minutes, maybe hours, later to reflect what I want no one to know I think about, talk about, or bitch about... because in my rants, I complain a lot.)  So, that's me, it feels good to get all that out (it no longer feels good, because writing it down and then erasing it is almost as if I've acknowledged these impulses and then shoved them back down again.)

If I could, I would write about swing dancing (another passion in my life), but I've read blogs where they do that and most of them sing praises to the professionals and crap all over everyone else (if only somehow to make themselves closer to the people they worship.)  If I could, I'd write about Technical Theatre and Design, and try and convince (or educate) the theatre and dance practitioners of the benefits to doing it right, and what exactly that means... for some reason y'all think that to do it right means a lot of money, and a lot of preparations, when I've seen it done with two clip-on lamps and some ingenuity.  If I could, I'd write about American politics and see if I could affect change just once, and see if there was a politician actually interested in what I had to say (but then I realize I don't have any money to spend on a Super-Pac... so, that'd be a "no" right there.  And then there are the political internet trolls who find you, trash and ruin you, all because you wanted to speak up, and I'm tired of fighting those people.)  If I could, I'd write about all the problems with this world and how you and I can fix them (but then I remember how many people read blogs anymore and the people who do visit this page, most would not have made it this far into a post.)  Then I remember, that I can post about being a PhD student at the Shakespeare Institute, because I don't think that I'm offending anyone when I do that.

So, why do I edit myself?  I'm scared.  I feel as if everything I say is simultaneously ignored and catalogued.  (edited for content.)  I should listen more.  The sad part is that I cannot get back all that I have edited out of my brain.  I might have written a novel somewhere in there and never have known it.

I must not pretend to have restor'd

this Work to the Exactness of the

Author's Original Manuscripts.

These are lost, or, at least, are gone

beyond any Inquiry I could make;

so that there was nothing left, but

to compare the several Editions,

and give the true Reading as

well as I could from thence. -- Nicholas Rowe, Shakespeare's 1st Editor.

Year 2, Day 258 - Words Written: (Edited for content.)