Closer, closer

(gasp! gasp!)

This climb is quite steep - but it's going pretty well. As of last night, I'm well into my Children's Lit PLA essay . I'll probably finish it today.

And now I've got the news and a few pictures from the leg of the route that's just up ahead! I mean to say, hooray, hooray, calloo, callay, I have figured out what I'm taking this winter! Climbing this degree via the Marylhurst Route makes for a very unusual experience, I think. But it suits me down to the ground. On this route it's possible for me to change what I'm doing as I do it.

What started as an Art Therapy Counseling preparatory degree morphed first into a Human Studies degree. This fall, Human Studies morphed into Interdisciplinary Studies to include Humans Studies and Writing as my concentrations.

And now, as I head into winter term, the morphing continues. Since Human Studies entails a very specific backbone of core courses, and since I want to head toward the Writers Peak, and because taking the Human Studies side path, means missing out on a few other things I will want when I get to the Writers Peak ... I made a phone call. I talked to the Human Science chair, and she just asked me straight out, "What do you want?" "I don't know how your degree has morphed," she said, "Do you still want to do Human Studies for your concentration? Or do you want to do Human Sciences?"

Every time she does this, I suddenly know. All at once, just like that, I know exactly what I want. I want Human Sciences and English Lit & Writing. Apparently it's morphed again.

The weirdest thing about all of this is that I'm not at all chagrined about these frequent changes in plan - this constant checking of the map and the course and redefining of the goal. Doing a degree without a path already set out, without its being handed to me so that I just do what I'm told - it feels odd, but it feels really really good. I doubt I could have done it this way 30 years ago, but at this point in my life it's okay to figure it out as I go. Weird. But I like it.

So this winter I will continue (hopefully finish) my PLA writing while taking not just one, but TWO online courses from the amazing "What do you want?" Dr. Jennifer Sasser. I'll take:

History and Philosophy of the Human Sciences

a rich and comprehensive survey of the historical and intellectual contexts out of which the central theories, methodologies, and practices in the Human Sciences developed.

(skippity do dah ... skippidy-aaaay...)

and I'll take Qualitative Inquiry

an approach to inquiry in the Human Sciences that is predicated not only on a significant reframing of what it means to do theorizing and researching, but on a radical shift in how we think about what it means to be a human being.

(my oh my, what a wonderful day)

And from the English Lit and Writing department, I'll be online for Modernist Literature and Culture from Perrin Kerns, another of Marylhurst's amazingly insightful instructors. At least, I do know for sure that she's amazingly insightful during short personal meetings in which a fuddled student asks for clarity and insight. Now I'll find out about her online teaching style too.

(plenty of sunshine coming my way,
skippity do dah, skippity day!)