The seminar was a Spanish lit seminar, and she spoke up in class often. That wasn't me—I talked the bare minimum in seminar. It's bad enough trying to find something intelligent to say about narrativity, try saying it in Spanish. So I never said anything. When Sarah spoke she spoke like a train with no brakes—words just kept falling out of her mouth. Sometimes she mixed English with Spanish. She gesticulated. A lot. And sometimes, I was pretty sure her grammar was off. But the funny thing was, I always understood what she was saying. Maybe it was because she, like me, first formed her thoughts in English, and then translated them into Spanish as she spoke. And maybe for that reason, I liked listening to her talk.
Sometimes Sarah would say things that made me think, "Either I'm an idiot, or this girl really is nuts." Like the time she said she was going to qualify during her second year. Yeah, good luck with that one. Or when she said that she'd already taken a lit theory sequence before and that she didn't need to take another one here. I don't think I could ever feel comfortable talking about theory, especially not with having taken just one year's worth of classes on it. So again I thought, "OK, either I'm..." But then maybe there was a third option: that she was smart and confident. And again, that wasn't me.
We ended up going to the same conference during spring break of that year. The funny thing is, I don't even remember much about the conference. What I do remember is that she came to hear my presentation—and participated more actively during the Q&A than any of the actual seminar participants. She listened. She asked questions. She pushed. But honestly, what surprised me was that she came. I've been to conferences where I knew, or were friends with, some of the people presenting papers—but I didn't always go hear them. Maybe there was another presentation I wanted to hear during the same time slot. Maybe it wasn't in my field. Maybe I was too tired. Or too busy sightseeing. Or too lazy. But Sarah came. She didn't know me that well, who knows if the seminar theme was of interest to her, but I'm pretty sure my paper topic had little to do with her research. But she came. And I do remember that.
Afterwards we went to grab a bite to eat together, I'm pretty sure. Except I don't recall exactly what we ate. Or even what we talked about during the meal. And even though I may be mixing things up with another memory, I have this feeling that we went to eat pho together. And if I stick to the story, I'm going to tell that Sarah pronounced it as "foe", and every time she said it, I wasn't sure whether to point it out to her or not. I think I decided not to. I think I thought it fit her character. And I'm pretty sure I thought it was pretty funny.
The last time I spoke with you was in late October. We ran into each other in the stairwell, when I was leaving the building and you were going up to your office. I'd been away from campus for a year, and I couldn't even remember what year you were in. But I did remember that you were going to qualify early and defend early and be all-around brilliant early. So I asked, "You're...qualified?" And you responded, "Oh yeah. I'm dissertating". Dissertating. I'd heard people use that word, and I may even have used it a few times myself. But it wasn't really a word I felt I could use to describe what I was doing. I was just writing bits and pieces of things, cobbling things together, wondering whether they fit and made sense. I wasn't sure if what I was putting down on paper counted as an argument. So I couldn't bring myself to say that I was "dissertating".
But you could. And you did. In that same way you spoke up in the Spanish lit seminar, the same way you said you would qualify early and you certainly did not need to be taking theory any more, you gave life to that neologism and owned it. You did. And dammit Sarah, it's people like you who should be getting their ideas out there, teaching great classes, inspiring their colleagues and students. There are people who sit around whining about not getting a job, not getting a fellowship, not getting a paper accepted. And some of those people might be me. But what little I know of you, it has been of a person who knows what she's aiming for, and who actually works her butt off to get it, and announces so, with neither apologies nor hesitation. And maybe, just maybe, that can be me some day.
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