icarus | Oh... my god. Honors.

I have a feeling that I'm going to be very busy soon.

Dear [Icarus]:

On behalf of the Honors Committee, I am pleased to inform you that you have been admitted to the first phase of the Jackson School Honors Program. Your honors work will begin with the Junior Honors Seminar, SIS 397, in Spring Quarter.This seminar is required of all students before they proceed to the Senior Seminar and the writing of the senior thesis.

If you accept this invitation, you will be taking on an ambitious project that requires intellectual ability, strong preparation, and a major commitment of time and energy. In recent years a number of students have dropped out of the program because of its extra demands. Occasionally, a student who completes the Junior Seminar is unable to manage the demands of the thesis itself. Accordingly, you will be reviewed by the Committee at the end of the Junior Seminar. On the basis of your thesis prospectus, grades, and the recommendation both of the instructor and the Honors Committee, a decision will be made during the summer about whether you will be offered formal college admission to the program.

Students may take a year off to study abroad after completing the Junior Seminar. The program allows for postponement upon written application, but once you begin the Senior Honors Seminar, you must complete the thesis by the spring deadline of the same academic year.

If you have questions about the program, please feel free to come and talk to me or [the other honors committee member]. We urge you to continue to think about your thesis topic and to obtain all the background coursework you can as soon as possible.

Welcome to the program! We hope you enjoy the challenge.

*cue happy dancing in circles!*

As soon as I read it, I put on Welcome to the Jungle. And there was actual dancing involved.

wildernessguru listened to me, watched me dance around, and then said, "Honey, that's great. You're going to have to cut down on Livejournal."

I said, "I have people on my flist who are working on their thesis. I think they'll understand."

"Because you spend way too much time on LJ answering every little comment."

I stuck my tongue firmly in cheek, because in my opinion I'm not all that good about keeping up with comments. "My friend

enname is working on her thesis. I just have to communicate with people what's going on and it'll be fine. I think I'll probably still complain in LJ, 'air out my brain' as she puts it. Just, when I don't have time to reply, I need to tell people, that's all. And when I post stories, I'll post them to my website and just link them to LJ."

He and I have set a deadline for the completion of the rough draft of Out Of Bounds. Because that's a major project I want to finish before I get deeply involved in my thesis.

I'm really serious about this. I've been collecting the books as if I were going to be accepted for the last month. Reading list so far:

Indian roots of Tantric Buddhism
Early India: From the Origins to AD 1300 by Thapar
Indian Esoteric Buddhism: A Social History of the Tantric Movement by Davidson

The movement of Tantric Buddhism to Tibet: History
Tibetan Buddhist Literature and Praxis: Studies in its Formative Period 900-1400 by Davidson
The Tibetan Empire in Central Asia by Beckwith
Tibetan Tantric Buddhism in the Renaissance by Davidson
The Tibetan Assimilation of Buddhism by Kapstein

Still classifying, but appear to be oriented to specific textual traditions in, or affecting, Tantric Buddhism. Possibly useful, possibly not:
The Buddhist Tantras by Wayman
The Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism by Dudjom Rinpoche
Drung, Deu and Bon by Namkai Norbu
The Presence of Light: Divine Radiance and Religious Experience by Kapstein
Studies in Asian History by Prakash
The Dzam-Thang Edition of the Collected Works of Kun-mKyen Dolpopa Shes-rab rGyal-mTshan by Kapstein

More books are coming down the pike.

I'm reading but I haven't truly started yet. I'll have a better idea of what I'm getting into during the spring quarter when I take SIS 397.

ETA: I have a feeling the boyfriend is going to complain even more about the books. But, but -- I have no bookshelf space. They have to go on the floor. We can make little towers and use them for blanket forts -- it'll be great.

I'm sure I can sell him on it.

Son of ETA: I'm not in the honors program yet. This is the preliminary class that culls the herd and weeds out those that they don't think can make it. They'll decide once they see how I do when confronted with the actual work involved.

Current Mood: jubilant!
Current Music: Tchaikovsky - Arabian Dance