A Thousand Candles

When I was a child, the city library was within walking distance, located down the street, across the golf course, and around the city pool and grounds of Meadowbrook Park. It was an old white two-story building constructed in 1923 and located on the west end of the park. It was perched on the high bank of Johnston Creek beside the tennis courts. As a child, walking and exploring was a normal activity, and my parents never asked where we were going or where we had been, but more often than not, I was in the library. I loved the library, for everything I wanted to know was somewhere to be found on the shelf, and when I found a book, I would spend hours in the alcove in the back where it was quiet, and I was unseen and read for hours, turning page upon page, and absorbing. Often, I was escorted out when it closed at four in the afternoon, usually carrying out three or four books to be returned the next day. The library was closed when the city built a newer and modern building, and the structure was given to the Arlington Women’s Club in 1962. It burned down in 1998.  

 High school was not too different, nor college for that matter, for I grew to love the smell of old books and the catacombs of dark, scary pathways looking for a volume. Today, the smell and dankness of the library are gone, and now the writings and questions of curiosity are answered with a mundane, sterile disinterest to this reader. When you stand in the halls of a great library, you know that what is contained therein is more than you will ever get to know and experience. That is its sadness. One such book I had checked out had an “ex libris” bookplate picturing a candle in a candle holder burning and sending its light into the darkness, with the book dimly lit upon a desk. The inscription read, “A thousand candles have burned themselves out, but still I read on.”

Thus, it is today, still reading, still buying candles. Reviewing the literature required for this type of research is an endless task, for every paper reviewed has a bibliography of endless reference works, each of which has another endless list of referenced works. As a mathematics expression, one paper could be seen as an geometrically exponential equaling tens upon thousands of potential documents worthy of review. Thus, being daunted by the mountain of literature, one resigns oneself to prudence over valor and builds an understanding from the bits and pieces of an abstract and conclusion, molded to form a narrative that, over time, is presented as a literature review. Nevertheless, the sin and the lie of it is knowing that one has barely reviewed anything comprising the body of literature available.  

In so far as expressing an opinion of one’s peer review, I would call it a worthless activity, where the wisp of a moment and lack of caring by the reviewer generally turns into false but satisfactory praise and warm fuzzies. My experience and the comments suggested are worthless on most occasions.  

Portfolio, oh portfolio. Where art thou portfolio? The state of the portfolio is similar to the state of the Union or the annual Board of Directors meeting; the general outline of such presentations proclaims that progress is being made and that much needs to be done, but with hard work and dedication, given enough time and money, success will be forthcoming. The portfolio is a work in progress. It is not complete but started. When it is complete and scheduled, it will be news to me when it is news to the department. I have bones and some components, but I am waiting to flesh out the carcass.  

“If wishes were horses, all men would ride.” “If wishes were a method section, all doc students would write.” Currently, and for the most part it is a mental activity, developing and forming within the cerebral cortex and frontal lobe of my brain. It has not yet reached my fingers, nor do I expect it to until I have fully processed the depth and scope of a cogent expression of my ultimate research design blueprint. I do know that participants will be required; how many and of what demographics are undecided. I do know that it will be based on an instrument used to collect data from said subjects; however, I have not fully designed or tested the instrument. I am absorbing literature and evaluating the scope and depth required to answer my research questions and the development of a hypothesis. That is where I stand and how I feel about my methods section. Now, and still. When it is time to write, I will write.