Sitting in my Monday afternoon spot, in the Astronomy building, like I do every Monday at this time. Thankfully, this will be the last time. I haven't finished my lab because I just realized I need a scientific calculator... but besides that the day is going rather well. Today begins my real push on finals. On December 16th I have my Architecture final from 8:30-10:20am. In the same room, I have my Astronomy final directly following, from 10:30-12:20am. Then I have an hour and a half to turn in my Final Research paper for my Honors English, as well as the 2 analytical rewrites (each about 3-4 pages double spaced). This is going to be fun. And when I say 'fun' I mean it strictly in the Mrs. Gilbert-way.

This is going to require me getting some of these done (like completely ready) in the next couple days. I'm having a hard time determining what order to tackle this in though. I'd like to just start with studying for architecture because it's strictly memorization and seems most straight-forward. But all that memorization means I should probably do it closer to the test so its fresh. My paper is probably what I should do first, and I have been trying to (I've already selected my research question/topic, met with my professor about it, met with a librarian, and scanned the 5 books I came home with). However, the books I found in our hour together researching.... aren't really helpful.

I've decided to look into the common trope in two of the books I read in this class, childbirth. As the course focuses on 'aesthetics in times of political crisis' (we specifically focused on South Africa), my research paper will be considering what the stakes are behind closing one novel with a nameless birth, and another novel which subtely constrasts a white couple not conceiving and a black south african couple conceiving. I like it. I'm sincerely curious about this, and it allows me to deeply consider politics, childbirth, national identity, and crisis. Since my freshmen year I've been toying with the idea of writing a book on abortion, from an ethnographic approach. I can't help but get a bit giddy at the idea of how the Lord is bringing me back to that original passion... and I think it is this grandeur idea of this piece of writing which I have been fiddling with, and trying to determine how to touch for the past 4 years that is ultimately making it SO hard for me to try to write this research paper which is ultimately not THAT big of a deal for this one class. Yes, it is %50 of my grade, but it is only 7-10 pages I believe. I wrote a 19-page research paper last spring, quite easily.

This paper will not be about abortion, but it is leading me into the greater discussion of childbirth as a political event, a personal freedom, and individual decision... childbirth and its erovacable connection to a nation. What does it mean to say 'It is not the time for childbirth' as Serote's character speaks. What does it mean to end a book with the both the pain and hope of a child's birth? What does it mean for a writer to create a potential future, in which the previously powerful race becomes barren, and those once held down, overcome, and remain fruitful?

What does it mean when a nation becomes more concerned with convenience than protecting innocence? What does it mean when a nation sees childbirth as an individual choice, and entirely forgets that it is also a political, national statement?

I think I've prayed more over this paper already then any other piece I have written in college. THIS is what I am passionate about ultimately writing, and while I don't believe this piece is it, I do think what I am supposed to search out right now is a part of the knowledge I am supposed to get for what I someday will write. It is both exciting and terrifying when you step into a moment that you know is a training ground for your destiny. Its no more games, its no more neutral, unobserved mindsets, theologies, philosophies or filler sentences. What I write here is not just a part I am playing, but it is my lines to speak in this grand story unfolding, and they need to be cohesive with the part I'll play in its climax.... the part I know has been written for me, the climax I know is coming, and the resolution I may give my life for.


"The birth of a child is a political event. So is the absence..."
-Births and Power: Social Change and the Politics of Reproduction