If life were a carnival, then the role of the juggler would be played by graduates. Each of our juggling balls representing the many projects we manage, our theses, our jobs, our relationships ... projects moving from hand to hand in a balancing act that sees the neglect of one, or the unequal focus of another, send those balls bouncing to the dirt. For the juggler, those balls are kept in the air by constant movement. It’s the classic case of the juggling act. For this post we pause for just a second on one of those balls, for me, it’s a musical one.
On my recent travels I came across Mikhail Bakhtin’s medieval carnival, and found myself wishing I lived there, or ate there at least. At a feast hostile to all that is immortalised and complete, where norms are playfully inverted. Not that I want things to be incomplete. With the beginning of June, the end of coursework and the ushering in of “thesis writing time” I find myself at the pointy, project end of my degree and wishing only for completeness. But I don't want things to finish, which is perhaps why I long for the carnival feast. Because I always want to be questioning, always to be challenging and to be challenged. I guess this comes from being at that part of my thesis that I like best, that point where I write. Where I look at everything I’ve read, disarrange and then rearrange it into sense. This is the part where I leave my mark.
I like that, the idea that for the past six months I’ve been laying out pieces of a puzzle, grouping them into corners and sides, sky and sand, even clicking some together around the edges to form an outline of a problem I’m so determined to solve. That now is the time to start putting those joints together — filling in the gaps and eventually, seeing the picture that for so long has existed only in parts — will be the biggest reward.
But this isn’t my only puzzle, nor my only reward. What I love most about Honours is that it’s a challenge among challenges ... albeit the most important 'among them' right now. I thought I’d take this chance to share with you another challenge, another puzzle, another one of the balls thrown up between my juggling hands.
It was my 21st birthday. To mark it I held a recital and called it Sunrise Sunset — a collection of memories and music that changed my life. I’m project driven, that’s my secret to a fulfilled life, projects. And at the time, I was in need of one. All I really had was a back burning book, with so many pieces yet to be found, and an undergraduate degree still in its early days. In many ways Honours is like that recital. It has a deadline, it has an audience, it has a problem — endurance mostly, but problem no less — and it has a purpose. Whether for the greater good — of slashers everywhere — or my greater enlightenment, a purpose, too, no less. And that’s why I recommend Honours, because it’s a puzzle, it’s a race against time, it’s a challenge and it’s a project. And the best part, you’ve got something to show for it.
Hope you enjoy the entertainment from your very own juggling carnival goer.
Until next time, practice juggling.
Joe.
Camille Saint-Saëns Was wracked with pains, When people addressed him, As Saint Sanes. He held the human race to blame, Because it could not pronounce his name, So, he turned with metronome and fife, To glorify other kinds of life, Be quiet please — for here begins His salute to feathers, fur and fins. Carnival of the Animals Poems by Ogden Nash
The swan can swim while sitting down, For pure conceit he takes the crown, He looks in the mirror over and ovea, And claims to have never heard of Pavlova. —Carnival of the Animals Poems by Ogden Nash