Tag Archives: grad school

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Grad School Update: My Ishiro Honda Independent Study

Honda on the set of 1962’s King Kong vs. Godzilla.

One unique and unusual aspect of my current semester of grad school is I’m doing my first ever independent study. Specifically, a study on several films directed by Ishiro Honda, the lauded director of many Godzilla films. It took a little work to convince my university’s resident film professor (and most reclusive man in the English department) to do this with me, but he agreed. Not only that, but he actually liked the first film I wrote about in this study, 1955’s Half Human, and said the cinematography reminded him of Akira Kurosawa! I’m excited to be introducing him to films he isn’t familiar with.

One fun thing about this is I got to write my own syllabus for it. Here’s an excerpt:

Objective: The goal of this study is examine six films directed by Ishiro Honda and connect their stories to contemporaneous cultural and historical events in Japan. Films are never made in a vacuum, and knowing and understanding their original contexts is vital to appreciating them.

There will be a special focus on discriminated people groups in this study since half of the films being covered will involve such groups.

While Honda is best known for his Godzilla films, I will be focusing on several of his non-Godzilla genre pictures spanning a ten-year period that included what’s considered the “golden age” of Toho tokusatsu (special effects) filmmaking. Honda also directed dramas, war epics, and light comedies, but these films are sadly unavailable in the U.S. currently.

The films and related topics I’ll be examining are Half Human/The Ainu; The Mysterians/Japan and the U.N.; Varan the Unbelievable/The Burakumin; Atragon/Japanese WWII holdovers and the resurgence of Japanese nationalism; Matango/Japan’s newfound opulence;and Frankenstein Conquers the World/The Hibakusha.

This came about because I wanted to fill a few credit hours and make the research I’m doing for my new podcast, The Monster Island Film Vault, count as school credit. Because why not?

There are reasons why grad school might be the best thing in my life right now. J

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Living with Imposter Syndrome

Last weekend I saw the trailer for the upcoming film Yesterday, which spins the yarn of a down-on-his-luck musician who wakes up in world that doesn’t remember the Beatles, so he takes credit for their songs to get rich and famous. In other words, he’s an imposter.

While he is an intentional deceiver, I discovered at the end of my first year as a graduate student that I, too, am an imposter. Or at the very least I feel like one.

To see the full comic strip, go here:
http://www.collegehumor.com/post/7054961/what-it-feels-like-to-have-imposter-syndrome .

This is called Imposter Syndrome. In a nutshell, it’s the fear that one doesn’t deserve their accolades and accomplishments and will exposed as a “fraud.” That’s how I felt after getting A’s on both of my final papers this past semester—which were about kaiju and superheroes—because I thought they either weren’t written well or that their ideas were faulty. Along with that, I maintained a 4.0 GPA (something I hesitate to say for fear of jinxing myself), which is better than what I had as an undergrad. Not only that, but several professors have been advocating for me to get either a PhD. or an MFA. Apparently, I make connections in my schoolwork only PhD. caliber students make. Some of the same professors have said I’m an “excellent teacher” given my success as a graduate teaching assistant.

You’d think I’d read/hear all of this and say, “I must be good at this school thing,” but instead I make excuses for why it’s not that impressive. Those include 1) my aforementioned inferior grades in undergrad, 2) people saying the university I’m attending isn’t that hard (there was once a joke that said its acronym stood for “I Paid For What?!”), and 3) feeling like I’m not as well-read as others and have to hide the fact that I haven’t read/seen/played certain media that supposedly everyone has. This is true of me not only as a grad student, but as a writer, a dancer, a son, a friend, a (potential) boyfriend, and everything else.

The truth is—if I may take the risk of being a little vulnerable—I’ve struggled with self-confidence most of my life. Even if my performance and/or ability was exceptional, I felt like it didn’t measure up to people’s expectations. I could and would still be rejected, and I frequently was. As I grew older, I started playing the “comparison game,” and since I tended to befriend really intelligent people, I felt like I was the “dumb one” in the “smart group” (not realizing that this still made me smarter than most people). I mean, when you hang out with Nick Hayden, who I’ve described as an intellectual One-Punch Man (he got a nearly perfect score in two years of Greek classes—and he took it for fun!), it’s hard to think your knowledge and writing is up to snuff. (What’s crazy is Nick is too humble to admit any of this). Paradoxically, whenever I would, for example, get a bad assessment or a rejection letter, I would say I deserved it but still get angry and think nobody recognized my talent. I, like all human beings, am full of contradictions.

Sadly, imposter syndrome isn’t recognized as a mental illness, although many of its symptoms, like depression, are seen as such. Those can be treated, but that won’t cure it. A pill can’t magic this away. In order to do that, I have to dig deep within myself, identify my anxieties, face them, and surround myself with supportive and truthful people. Ultimately, though, it’s up to me accept the fact as imperfect as I am, I am worthy of their praise.

Do you struggle with imposter syndrome? How do you deal with it? Why do you suffer from it?

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Moving to the Fortress of Solitude

Once again I’ve neglected my website. My apologies, True Believers. To make up for it, I’ll be giving you two blogs a week for at least two weeks on Thursdays and Saturdays.

Caprice?

Good.

Moving on….

Image taken from www.baruch.cuny.edu.

Speaking of moving (see what I did there?), I just made a major move. If you’ve been following my blog, you know I just started grad school. I’m studying for an M.A. in English with a writing concentration. Along with that, I moved. To Fort Wayne, Indiana, to be specific. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. Call me weird (most people do), but I like this city. I have a lot of connections here thanks to family, college, and growing up nearby. Unlike when I moved to Bluffton, Indiana, in 2007, I have a built-in support network. Plus, this city is the perfect size for me: not too big to overwhelm the rural/small town kid in me, and not too small that it lacks amenities.

It was tough the first two weeks of school. I was commuting or staying with friends while balancing classes, teaching (I’m a graduate teaching assistant), and a part-time job on the side. I survived, obviously.

Then came the move.

I spent all of Labor Day weekend moving into an apartment in a nice little community next door to the university. Unfortunately, I learned again that transitions are messy. Packing was laborious. My parents said they’d help me and not to rent a moving truck. We’d just caravan everything to Fort Wayne. Well, that didn’t work out as well as we’d hoped. It required several trips over the entire weekend. There was miscommunication over whether I needed to drive back every day to help move furniture and transport more boxes. There was even some drama over from who I would get some of my furniture (most of which were “hand-me-downs,” but I feel no shame). This ramped up tensions and led to some…spirited discussions, shall we say? But when it was all said and done, I managed to get 95% of my stuff here.

Moving will make you want to become a minimalist. I never realized how much stuff I own—or how I managed to cram most of it into one room—until I moved. My increased space-consciousness combined with a need for some extra spending cash has inspired me to start selling some things on eBay. (Check out my auctions here). I was inspired to do this by a podcast I listened to recently that interviewed a toy collector who said he would sell pieces he wasn’t in love with to make room for stuff he did love (and to earn what he called “toy karma,” i.e. good standings with other collectors who could help him get other items).

Unfortunately, I still haven’t unpacked or fully decorated my place yet. I want to make it my own.

The Fortress of Solitude. (Image taken from www.Screenrant.com).

Admittedly, while I believe God led to me this community (that’s a story in and of itself), I have a two-bedroom two-bathroom apartment all to myself, so it’s lonely oftentimes. I went on Facebook and asked my friends to suggest names for my apartment. I got many good ones—“Darf’s Lair” and “The Nate Cave” among my favorite runners-up—but I ended up going with “The Fortress of Solitude.” For those who don’t know, this is the name of Superman’s Antarctic “hideout.” It’s essentially the ultimate man-cave (“Superman-cave”?). While it sounds kinda depressing, I thought it fit because Superman usually goes to there alone to get away from things, and it’s full of awesomely cool stuff.

At some point soon, I hope to have an overdue housewarming party. But I want to finish unpacking and decorating first. It doesn’t feel…uniquely me yet. That will be remedied soon, though.

What was the biggest move you’ve made? How did it go? What advice would you offer someone as he settles into a new place?

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My Life: The Reboot

My life is not unlike this film right now.

It’s been a crazy few weeks. I’ve had two book signings. My website was shut down to transfer it to a new host (thanks, Nick! [My apologies if his site is still being transferred]). Sadly, I did lose the short blog I wrote at Gen-Con, but all it said was that I was at the convention, wouldn’t be writing a blog, and that you all should come see me at my table.

As for other changes, I gave one day job a letter of resignation. I start grad school at a local university next week, as well as working as a graduate teaching assistant and writing center consultant for said university. I’m moving to be closer to the school. And these are just the changes I can talk about right now.

It’s…overwhelming at times.

My pastor told me Sunday that this isn’t so much starting a new chapter as it is opening a new volume. I said it might be more apt to call it a “reboot.” And why not? Reboots are all the rage in Hollywood right now. Most of them suck (I’m looking at you, Ghostbusters 2016), but then you have that handful that are amazing (like Batman Begins). Perhaps it’s more of a “soft reboot” like the 2009 Star Trek: it’s starting fresh, but it wouldn’t have happened if not for the events of the previous movies/series. I’m embarking on a new adventure where most everything is different, but there were many things in my life that led to this point.

But with change comes grief.

A coworker (at a business named Reboot, ironically), who also works as a pro-bono pastor, told me that grief is more about change than it is loss. Even positive change requires losing something, whether that be singleness for marriage or freedom for parenthood, among other things. I’m going to miss where I was because it was comfortable and predictable. I was used to it. It was safe. But where’s the adventure in safety?

A lot of things, both good and bad, related to my past have fallen away. I had to get a new car six months ago after an accident. My writing mentor retired in disgrace. That’s a few I can name. I still have plenty of constants (my friends, my family), but everything is changing.

Perhaps it’s appropriate then that Eric Anderson and I are working on a sequel to 42: Discovering Faith Through Fandom, and its central theme is how God changes things. I’ll be writing from experience.

What are some big changes you’ve navigated? How did you go about it? What did you have to “grieve” in the process?