Since last month, Weldon and I have moved into a new apartment in Kanagawa Prefecture. We've slowly been accumulating furniture and rearranging said furniture around the two-floor end-unit apartment we have. It reminds me more of a condo or a townhouse with only one shared wall. So far, we've loved it. It is a 2LDK in Japanese apartment terms, which stands for 2-bedroom, Living room, Dining room, and Kitchen. There is also 1 Bathroom which is standard and from what I can tell from searching apartment listings, the bathroom is usually not listed in the title of the description.
And now, this post will derail into what I like to call, Ode to Our Bathroom. Enjoy... The bathroom might be my favorite room in the house because it is so different from what I am accustomed to in the U.S. Firstly, when you open the door to the restroom, you see a sink and vanity and our washing machine next to it on the left. To your right, you see a wooden door and next to that you see a frosted plastic door that is clearly a shower. The door is deceptively small, because once you open it and take a small step up onto the raised floor, you're in a nice big shower room with a soaking tub - although the tub is too short to stretch your legs out very far, it is deep. The shower and tub room is specifically my favorite. When you go back out into the main part of the bathroom with the vanity and washing machine and return to that small wooden door, behind it is the room with the toilet. As large as the shower room is, the toilet room is small to make up for it. It is only slightly bigger than a stall at a public restroom in the U.S. But, this doesn't bother us because of the heated toilet seat that my husband installed for me. Because, really, what is the point of living in Japan if you're not going to have a heated toilet seat? The heated commodes were one of the unexpected perks we found on our honeymoon when we first visited Japan. While they are not everywhere, they are present in most mid-range hotels and above, modern restaurants, department stores, and even some train station restrooms. When Weldon and I decided to move here, I was determined to have one in our home. It makes the entire experience much more pleasant - especially when waking up to use the restroom in the middle of the night, sometimes on multiple occasions, due to your child playing "Bringing in da noise, bringing in da funk" on your bladder (thank you, Phoebe Buffay for what is still the most accurate description of this particular pregnancy sensation).
Anyway, at the end of March, my mom arrived to stay with us through mid-May to help us set up the house and get ready for the baby's arrival! We've ordered baby furniture and gone shopping for clothes, though we will be doing more of that at a later date, since Babies 'R Us did not have the selection we were hoping to find. Next we will shop the Miki House brand (a Japanese kids clothing brand) at a nearby department store (called depato in Japanese), as well as visit some nice second hand shops in the Kanagawa and Tokyo areas. Japanese second hand goods, in general, are meticulously maintained making them a great inexpensive choice. We wouldn't purchase a secondhand crib or anything like that due to safety standards being constantly updated, but I think we'll be able to find some great clothes for baby.
As mom reminded me yesterday, nesting can be a sign of imminent labor. I am about a week away from my due date now, so everyone is excited and preparing for the big day. The baby is due during Japan's Golden Week, a week of national holidays including The Emperor's Birthday, Greenery Day, Constitutional Memorial Day, and Children's Day, among others. This year, the new Emperor is being coronated on May 1, extending the Golden Week celebrations to be a record 10-day long affair (including weekends). So, from Saturday, April 27 - Monday, May 6, Weldon and most of Japan's workforce have time off. Mom, Weldon, and I have also been doing some sightseeing, about which I will post soon. As we countdown to baby, I'm getting more and more excited and also, more and more exhausted. For now, we are mostly resting and nesting. :-) As always, thank you for reading and I can't wait to share our next adventure with you!
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© Meghan Tompkins and Meghan Tompkins.Writer., 2019. Nezu ShrineNezu-jinja (jinja means shrine in Japanese) is hidden away in one of my favorite parts of Tokyo, a tri-neighborhood area known colloquially as YaNeSen. This name comes from the abbreviation of the three neighborhoods: Yanaka, Nezu, and Sendagi. This area is rich with temples, shrines, shopping streets (called ginza), alleyways with tiny bars and eateries (yokocho), and so much more that affords a look at Old Tokyo. Unlike much of Tokyo, these neighborhoods were largely left untouched by the bombing of World War II, which makes them incredibly unique. There are many great websites dedicated to singing the praises of this area. Some of my favorites are listed at the end of this post if you'd like to learn more. Considering the awesome experiences this area has to offer, it is remarkably unpopular with tourists. Locals still own these streets, which allowed for a peaceful, reflective visit. When my husband and I visited Nezu-jinja on a Saturday afternoon this March, there were a few foreign tourists along with Japanese visitors, but as you can probably tell by the photos we took, it was not crowded by any stretch of the imagination. I am told this changes in April during the shrine's annual Azalea festival when the hundreds of bushes seen in one of the photos above come alive with color. At this time, entrance to the shrine remains free as it is all year round, but to walk through the azalea garden costs ¥200 (around $2.00 USD, give or take). We are looking forward to visiting during the festival to experience the garden in full bloom and eat some delicious festival food. I'm sure it will be worth braving the crowds. It might be unfair to compare this experience to Fushimi Inari-jinja in Kyoto, but that's life. The similarities between the two begin and end with the tunnel of red torii gates donated by Japanese businesses and individuals who hope their donation will bring good fortune upon them. While the sheer number of torii gates at Fushimi Inari vastly surpasses that at Nezu, the overall experience as a visitor is wildly more sacred and enjoyable at Nezu. There is no rushing through the tunnel to keep the line of tourists and photographers moving; no accidentally sabotaging someone's photo only to have someone else do the same to you exactly four minutes later; no one shouting to lost members of their groups; and no one spitting (shudder) in the communal purification fountain near the shrine's entrance (yep, saw it happen at Fushimi Inari right after we had poured that water over our hands and onto the ground, like one is supposed to do). Fushimi Inari is a beautiful place that is simply overrun with crowds during most of the day. To visit any time after 9:00 AM is closer to visiting Disneyland than a sacred space of prayer and reflection. If you do find yourself in Kyoto, I highly recommend visiting Fushimi Inari either around sunrise or just before sunset, taking advantage of the fact that the shrine is open from dawn to dusk. If you visit at peak times (again, after 9:00 AM every day), do not expect a peaceful visit. At Nezu-jinja, this is not a problem. Everyone at this shrine, even the children, was quiet and respectful. The line to pray at the offering hall was short and sweet, the line to get the calligraphy custom to each shrine and temple (goshuin) that we and many other visitors collect in special notebooks purchased at these houses of worship (called goshuin-chou) was non-existent, and the trip through the torii tunnel was absolutely painless. We and everyone else who was interested in doing so, were able to take an abundance of photographs in and around these beautiful cultural artifacts without haste or the risk of being rude to other visitors. The feeling that permeated this shrine was a sacred one. It felt like a place of worship with the occasional, respectful tourist sharing the space rather than a theme park. I would highly recommend it to anyone visiting the YaNeSen area and encourage you to contribute to the peaceful vibes this place sends out. Leave no footprint, or spit in the fountain, as it were. My Recommended Sources for Visiting YaNeSen and Temples & Shrines in GeneralYaNeSen Sources
Exploring Old Tokyo Truly Tokyo Savvy Tokyo Visiting Temples & Shrines in General How to Visit a Temple or Shrine from Japan-Guide.com Fushimi Inari Information Culture Trip Inside Kyoto Goshuin Information Tokyo Weekender My husband, Weldon and I have recently packed up most of our earthly belongings and moved out to Kawasaki, Kanagawa, Japan. The city of Kawasaki neighbors both the Tokyo and Yokohama metropolitan areas. We fell in love with Japan on our honeymoon in December 2017. We toured all over the island of Honshu - Tokyo, Hakone, Kamakura, Himeji, Matsue, Kurashiki, Kyoto, Osaka, Koya-san, Nara, and others I am sure I am missing. It took us 21 days to cover the areas highlighted red on the map below and we still had so much left to see. We had barely scratched the surface. So, we made it our mission to move here within the next two years and experience life in Japan, traveling all over the main islands whenever possible, and building a community in which to raise our family. To be fair, at the time we made the commitment to move within two years from December 2017, we were not expecting to have a family of our own, outside of those from home who would visit us and the new friends we hoped to make. But, soon after we got the news that we would be moving to Japan in early 2019, we discovered I was pregnant with our first child, who is due April 2019.
Now, well before our self-imposed deadline of December 2019, we are living in Japan and on top of that are expecting to welcome our little one very soon. These major life changes will (obviously) affect my perspective on life in a significant way and I hope that this blog will reflect that in a thoughtful and meaningful manner. Since 2016, I have completed my Master's degree in English and pretty much ceased literary research for the time being, focusing my professional energy on the field of proposal writing. This move to Japan has meant a change in job status as well. As the wife of a highly skilled worker (the type of visa my husband has), I am eligible to reside in the country for 5 years and I have the option of finding a Japanese company to sponsor my own work visa if I wish. Because my due date is so soon, we are taking the job search slow. In the meantime, I'll have plenty to prepare for the baby and adjust to living in this brand new place. As such, this blog will focus on these preparations for the time being, as well as the occasional jaunt to restaurants, temples & shrines, shopping districts, museums, Important Cultural Properties, and once our little one has joined us, more kid-centric destinations as well. Weldon and I are already enjoying the adventure of living here and are thrilled to be welcoming our fellow explorer this spring. Thanks for reading! From September 2014 to July 2015, I acted as a research assistant to Professor Alan Cheuse of George Mason University. On July 29, 2015, Alan died of injuries sustained in a car accident. I was unable to take any of Alan’s classes, as much as I wanted to. But as Alan’s Research Assistant I still learned so much from him. It was my unique privilege to proofread the manuscript for his book, Prayers for the Living, which in turn was a revision of a novel he first published in the 1980s, The Grandmother’s Club. In working with him on this project, Alan taught me about writing, and about revising, which in itself can be, and should be, as complicated as writing an original piece. But Alan also gave me access to his insight into the human soul, which was something profound. I got to glimpse humanity, that tender, reactive, soothing, and violent thing, through Alan’s wise eyes. Just for a few moments, Alan made me feel wise, too. Many professors are great at passing on knowledge, but it takes a special kind of person to pass on wisdom. And Alan did that for so many people in his smart, soft spoken, brave, and funny way. I am so grateful that he shared that with me. I hope to build on what he has taught me throughout my career as a proposal and creative writer. Greetings! It has been two years since my last post (shame on me) and in that time I have:
Hopefully, I will post more often than every two years. But I make no promises at this time. Thanks for reading! Please note, this post was originally published on February 7, 2015 on my old blog Meghan Cantwell. Writer. on Wordpress. As I have stated before, I created this blog for the purpose of tracking my research. Currently I am enrolled in a workshop class at GMU meant to develop research papers into publishable journal articles. Here is a more detailed description of the class: “In this course students develop and revise work initially written for another course into a potentially publishable article or discipline-relevant written project while reinforcing and developing research and writing skills central to their concentration and long-term interests.” My long-term interests include Modernist literature, literature written by women, Latin American literature, and British & American literature from the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries. The current project I am working on is editing a paper I wrote about Rebecca West’s The Return of the Soldier, published in 1918 and written during World War I. West (pictured above) experienced the bombardments of London and other parts of England and wrote funny, precocious letters about her experiences. She was incredibly young, still a teenager really, when she became an accomplished journalist. And The Return of the Soldier, her first novel, was published when she was 26. I find West’s life and writings fascinating. My professor assigned a workbook by Wendy Belcher called Writing Your Journal Article in Twelve Weeks: A Guide to Academic Publishing Success and so far I have worked through the first three weeks of the workbook. I have made pretty good progress, and hope to have 5 pages written next week. I will post my argument as it stands here now, and as I write more and more I will post snippets of my close readings as well as posts about the research I am doing. My argument thus far: In this article I assert that although many Rebecca West critics have labeled The Return of the Soldier as a fictionalization of the psychoanalytic method, I think this lens of reading the novel detracts from the other important literary and cultural contributions it makes. The novel wrestles with questions of “place” in society and geography. I assert that West uses geographic place, societal “place”, and the immaterial place of memory to (1) illustrate the gender and class divides present in Britain during World War I, and (2) to argue that class “place” and gender “place” are to blame for WWI and similar conflicts in the world. My assertion is supported by West’s narrator, Jenny’s descriptions of geographic place and social “place” in the novel. This is significant because questions of place are a common occurrence in the human mind and this reading of Rebecca West’s literature can make important contributions to the Western literary canon if enough students are exposed to it throughout their higher education. Please note, this post was originally published on February 7, 2015 on my old blog Meghan Cantwell. Writer. on Wordpress. I want to talk about choices. In November 2014 I sat down with the president of the company I currently work for as an intern. I asked him, basically, where this internship was leading. I knew that (a) I loved my current job and all of my coworkers and (b) that I had made a positive impact on the business. So I asked a few questions along the lines of: Is the company interested in hiring me on full time? Do we even need a full time professional writer? When, if ever, could I expect to be offered a full time position here? The president acknowledged my contributions and recognized their value, and told me that answers to my questions were not something he could provide at that time. I told him that I was eager to have those answers but that I did not necessarily expect a full time position to be created, essentially for me. So I also informed him that I intended to start a job search come January or February of 2015. He was very supportive of me doing what I needed to do to advance my career, though he expressed doubt that the question of whether the company could create a full time writing position would be anywhere close to answered by that time. As much as I love this company and as grateful as I am for the training and experience all of my supervisors and coworkers have given me, I could not wait any longer for full time employment. So in January I applied to several job opening that fit my criteria. These criteria were (1) small to medium sized business; (2) full time, permanent, salaried position; (3) a proposal writing or technical writing position that would have the ability to impact the company significantly and in a positive way. Well, as of Friday, January 23, 2015 I had gone through five interviews with three different companies and had been made a formal offer by one of them (Option 1) and another informal offer (Option 2) with an official offer pending my decision on Option 1’s offer. I struggled to make a decision over the weekend. Both positions had comparable tasks and duties:
Here were the key differences between Option 1 (the formal offer) and Option 2 (the informal offer): Option 1 had a 90 day training period in place and a firm plan for giving me the guidance I needed to learn about proposal writing in general and about writing proposals specifically tailored to this company. In that 90 period I would be expected to edit, review, and polish proposals written by other members of the proposal shop; then write my own sections; then around the one year mark be the primary author on one or more whole proposals. This structure appealed to me because it meant I could make mistakes and there would be people in place poised to correct them. It also meant that I had pretty firm expectations that I could exceed by leaps and bounds. The metrics for success would be readily available to me and therefore manageable. The work environment and challenges that this company faces are very similar to Option 2’s. The opportunity for growth here was evident. I met several people who had been with the company for 5 years or less and who had experienced promotions based on their merit and were very happy with the opportunities afforded them with this company. One person I met had been with the company for five years and was already a senior vice president. Option 2 was more of a start-up. While the company itself was several years old, the proposal shop would be brand new. And I would be the only member for the better part of a year, if not for longer. The CEO made it very clear that he was open to providing me with the training I would need through another company that has very strong relations with his company. The expectations for me would be to set my own pace (to a certain extent) and perform all of the critical steps to prepare this company for cranking out winning proposals within the first few months of my employment. Once the company won several proposals, I would be able to build my proposal shop up and my input in who was selected to join the team would be significant. This method would involve a lot of trial and error before I figured out (1) a proposal shop structure that works and (2) the type of team I would need to keep it working like a well-oiled machine. The work environment and challenges that this company faces are very similar to Option 1’s. The benefits of my being a one-woman proposal shop are directly linked to the opportunity for growth with this company. I would be solely responsible for the proposals this company submits and thus the success of these proposals would be attributed directly to me. The impact of my performance as the sole member of the proposal shop would be undeniably clear and I would recognized for my contributions and promoted or otherwise rewarded appropriately. The CEO keeps people he really likes on for many years and they reap huge benefits from staying with his companies as they move from $0M per year to over $100M per year. This would be an utterly satisfying experience unlike anything else. Again, the decision was an incredibly difficult one to make, but it ultimately came down to which job would suit my personality the best and thus which job would make me happier on a constant basis. After I had made my Pro’s and Con’s list for both options, I had to stop thinking about the choice in such linear terms. I laid down on my couch, popped a piece of chewing gum in my mouth, and meditated on what I imagined my daily experiences at work would be like during the first 3 months, the first 6 months, the first year, and the second year of working with each of these companies. I already know myself pretty well, but I am still young (24) and I know some of my future goals will change. But one goal I know will not change is my 5-10 year career plan. In 5-10 years from now I want to be a proposal manager and this timeline for my goal contributed to my decision. I am a really good leader and I am, and always have been, a creative person. So right now, at the age of 24, I would make a good independent proposal writer. At 25 or 26 I would be a good proposal team lead…But I don’t want to be good. I want to be great, I want to thrive. I thrive with structure. When there are outside factors motivating me to succeed, such as meeting deadlines imposed on me by professors or supervisors, I am an unstoppable train of productivity. The more structure there is to begin with, the better I perform, because I have something against which to compare my expectations when it comes to draft completion deadlines, quality assurance deadlines, and final review and submission deadlines. And if there is too much structure I work incredibly hard to alter the limitations in place so that I can be as productive as super-humanly possible. I am great with structure. So I chose Option 1 because it is the best option for me at this time. As I mature I know my leadership skills and my ability to set my pace at the optimal speed for (1) productivity and (2) results will be spot on, making me the perfect fit for Option 2. Right now, I am confident that I would bite off more than I could chew, which would result in sub-par proposals. I am also positive that these “sub-par” proposals would still be excellent and have a great chance at winning contracts, but I would be unhappy with them nonetheless because I would know that I could do better and my attempts at getting better would be a slow and painful process for me. So, to sum up this already lengthy blog post I will say that my decision, like stand-up comedy, boiled down to the timing. I am confident that with my work ethic I will surpass even my expectations in the coming year, which will build my confidence and along with it my ambition. I am really looking forward to growing with the company I have chosen and I may choose to continue to grow with them since they have made it perfectly clear that they try to create a workplace which fosters long-term commitments. However it is comforting and exciting at the same time to know that after this year I will have so many other doors open to me and so many chances to make a big impact on the world. Sorry, my idealist showed a bit there. More posts to come about my research on The Return of the Soldier. Please note, this post was originally published on December 16, 2014 on my old blog Meghan Cantwell. Writer. on Wordpress. As 2014 draws to a close I have found that I am not immune to the reflective bug that seems to be passed around every year around this same time. Since I started three new professional adventures this year: (1) as a technical writing intern, (2) as a research assistant, and (3) as a memoir ghostwriter, most of my reflecting has been spent on my career. This Thanksgiving, a family member, who has her master’s degree in clinical psychology from the Citadel and works as a counselor, told me this about artists: “Artists, whether they are painters or writers or whatever, need to forge their own path” when it comes to career and lifestyle. The perfect job doesn’t exist for a lot of people–for others it does, and that is wonderful. But for many of us, our career must be supplemented by other hobbies or tasks to really make us feel like we are meeting our potential. With that in mind, my recent transition from being a graduate student who worked in retail to being a professional writer creating many different types of texts and doing all sorts of other tasks makes much more sense to me. My relative is right; I feel the most satisfied with my work when I am using many different writing skills that I have acquired through my experiences. What this reflection has yielded for me is renewed energy to keep looking for new steps in my career path. I am not looking for the perfect job that fits me exactly and will satisfy my goals and aspirations for the rest of time. That job is a fantasy…and not a very good one when you get right down to it. The digital age allows job seekers and career builders to forge their paths with more ease than ever before. I have been taking full advantage of that and I have been rewarded with some trinkets that inspire my search. The first is the discovery of Catchafire.org and similar organizations. Catchafire is an organization that connects professionals working in many different fields: applied chemistry, education, financial management, systems engineering, technical writing, etc. with charities or nonprofits that need volunteers to complete tasks in those fields. This allows professionals, who work 40 hours a week and cherish their weekends, to volunteer their services to a cause they care about without having to devote either physical labor or their precious weekends. I have yet to use Catchafire to connect to a volunteer opportunity, but plan to do so in early 2015. I am really looking forward to gaining practical experience in a field that interests me and using that experience to further a good cause. When I set up my profile, I chose three skills I have that I am willing to volunteer for charities, and then I chose the causes that really interest me. Catchafire then supplied me with postings made by charities looking for professionals with my skills. I suggest everyone sign up for a profile with Catchafire or a similar organization right now. The second trinket I found on my search for opportunities was the blog LinkedIn Pulse. I really love the articles that get posted there, like this one:https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/eight-life-changing-promises-jeff-haden Reading Pulse has helped me to keep my head on straight when it comes to building my career. I don’t worry about things that are outside of my control nearly as much as I used to, in part because Pulse reminds me that at any time I have the ability to change my situation with enough effort and enough self knowledge. The articles are quick, easy to read, and written in blogger language–no jargon. I highly recommend anyone who is wondering what to do next on their career path to get on LinkedIn and start reading Pulse. I realize my enthusiasm for these two sites might seem suspicious. I can assure anyone reading this that neither Catchafire nor LinkedIn paid me to write this…though I would be willing to contemplate any offers that these companies might have for me. In all seriousness, what I write is genuine, as I hope those who chance upon this blog will find. That concludes my musings for now. This winter I will be researching and re-writing an old paper I wrote on Rebecca West’s The Return of the Soldier and hopefully come March I will be presenting said paper at one or several graduate conferences. Fingers crossed. Please check back for new posts about that research project and others. Please note, this post was originally published on October 2, 2014 on my old blog Meghan Cantwell. Writer. on Wordpress.
WARNING: This post contains the following: hindsight (it’s a bitch); a small dose of regret; and an extreme helping of unsolicited advice aimed at people who already know everything, thank you very much. I am attending George Mason University pursuing the M.A. in English with a Literature concentration. I love the program and the school. I love the English Department so much that I decided to add a secondary graduate certificate in Professional Writing & Rhetoric (PWR). Taking both types of classes, I have to say, has been the most positive experience I could have hoped for. I have learned with this Department that the more you put into it, the more you get out of it–and that is a truly beautiful thing. That being said, I now find myself in an administrative pickle, and want to post my story as a sort of cautionary tale to any other intrepid early graduate students who are plotting their course through their program and may not recognize the pitfalls until too late. It boils down to something we have all heard before, but that I did not apply to my situation: READ THE FINE PRINT. My goals when I entered the program were pretty straightforward: Get my degree in Literature; write something publishable; get out of the program a.s.a.p. and move onto a great PhD program. The lovely people I spoke with when being admitted to the graduate program told me that in order to do this I would need to read the fine print, and I thought I had. I read up on certain requirements; such as the rules for applying to graduate, the time limit to the program, and everything else I thought I would need to complete my degree in the shortest time possible. And, in truth, the research I had done on the classes in the Literature concentration did serve me well. And had I not decided rather late in my course of study to add the PWR certificate, I would have graduate in exactly two years. I took an inspiring class in the PWR program that showed me I could be a professional writer NOW and use those skills to my advantage further down the line when applying to PhD programs. I decided then and there to add the certificate. Great. I got the forms signed by the director of the PWR program, put the forms in my bag…and promptly plagued myself with doubts about whether or not I really wanted to add another semester to my program. I wrestled with those questions, going back and forth, for the rest of the semester. That was in the Spring of 2014. Come Fall 2014, I still hadn’t turned in the application forms for the certificate program. And, for all the reading I did about the great classes I could take for the certificate, I forgot the golden rule and I didn’t READ THE FINE PRINT. Instead, I spoke with the head of the PWR program again, and spoke with the graduate coordinator, and spoke with the professor who would teach my Capstone project course and decided I was going to go all in, just like I had wanted to in the Spring of 2014. Final decision was made. I felt great. I applied to the certificate program-no problem there. I learned that I would need to take two required classes the next Spring to graduate by Fall 2015. Also no problem…until the class schedule was posted for Spring 2015. Both of the classes I needed (not wanted), Needed to take in the Spring of 2015 were scheduled for exactly the same time slot. Here is the fine print I should have read back in the Spring of 2014 when I first decided that the PWR certificate was of interest to me: The PWR and LIT programs both have certain classes that are: (1) required to get the degree/certificate; and (2) are only offered once a year (for anyone just tuning in, that’s the Spring semester). The two classes I needed that were scheduled at exactly the same time, were two such classes. This is a worst case scenario that I could have avoided had I done more research earlier in my course of study. Now I find myself doggy-paddling towards the shore I should be hurtling towards in a freestyle stroke. All of the information I needed was available to me. When I was debating whether or not to add on another semester, I should have been concerned with the FINE PRINTthat could have guided me to the right decision sooner. Instead here I am, enrolled in two awesome programs that will help me reach new heights in my career; but due to my poor planning will also delay my career plans by at least one year. That’s my cautionary tale. I hope it helps someone. I realize now that this post marks the first in what will probably be a whole slew of “hindsight” stories I will come to tell in my life. To quote Blink 182: “I guess this is growing up.” Please note, this post was originally published on November 12, 2014 on my old blog Meghan Cantwell. Writer. on Wordpress.
As the title of this blog post suggests, I am a fan of musicals. However, that is less pertinent to this blog than the rest of the information below. Here is the dry background info: I graduated from Christopher Newport University with a B.A. in English in 2012. I am currently a graduate student at George Mason University pursuing my M.A., studying both literature and professional writing and rhetoric (PWR). I am a technical writing intern with a small government contractor as well as a research assistant for a professor at GMU. Now here is why the dry bits are important: These experiences have been absolutely wonderful. I entered graduate school with a very vague idea of what I wanted to do with my career. The idea was: “Get Masters, Get PhD. Teach at UT-Austin. Rule the World.” See what I mean about vague? I had no real concept about what graduate research was really like. Now that I have been in the program for nearly two years, I understand the mental and physical toll academia can take on people. And while I still want to get my PhD and teach somewhere, preferably in southeast or southwest U.S.A. I don’t want to do that right now. I want to take the theories and practices of professional writing, rhetoric, and literature into a career in technical writing. I hope I will have a job or several jobs that allow me to experience various forms of documents and research. Later in my career, when the academic wheels in my head have not turned for a while, I’ll grease those up again and attempt to attain a PhD at which point I will thoroughly enjoy lecturing, writing, and reading (SO much reading) about the discipline of English. Another rather vague goal I’ve had since the fifth grade when I read a personal essay in front of my homeroom and a student, who rarely ever spoke to me, said “Your diary is like Anne Frank’s,” is to publish my creative fiction and non-fiction works. I am currently working on a collection of short stories (something Annie Dillard says is a waste of time in The Writing Life, but I will persevere nonetheless) and personal essays that I am prepared to shove in publishers’ mailboxes, inboxes, outboxes, shoeboxes until someone puts my writing out there… Writing of all sorts satisfies not only my career ambitions, but also my desire to express myself in a productive and (hopefully) beautiful way. I look forward to writing professionally and creatively for many years to come. |
AuthorI use this blog to record my thoughts on my life in Kanagawa, Japan, continuing creative projects, and career as a professional writer. ArchivesCategories© Meghan Tompkins and Meghan Tompkins.Writer., 2019. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Meghan Tompkins and Meghan Tompkins.Writer. with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
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