Getting a PhDoctorate

I've been away from this blog because I've been in the process of studying for and taking my comprehensive exams, the exams for which one reads about three hundred books over the course of the year and then is tested on all knowledge.  There is a written portion and an oral portion.  I took and passed the written portion last week.  It was horrible and exhausting.  And the orals are tomorrow.  So clearly, I needed to go out and take pictures of the eggplant and the baby garden and post them here.  I am so ready to get back to "normal" life, whatever that is.  I know exactly what it isn't:  reading hundreds of books and being examined on my knowledge of them.  Gross.

Apparently I signed up for this.

But I also signed up for GARDENING.

And because of comps, I was/am late on planting the fall garden, but as you can see, I've got some baby greens coming up, and I'm hoping to construct some sort of cold frame over them so we can have greens and turnips and such all winter long, yay.  Yay kale!  Nutrients!

And I never over plant (see bottom picture).  Wish me luck on my orals tomorrow.  I'm gonna go study. Thpt.

ps:  Aren't those eggplants sexy?  I know.

You do not have to be good.

I could/should say the first five lines of this poem to myself every day.

"Wild Geese" by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.