{"id":381,"date":"2017-06-28T12:02:06","date_gmt":"2017-06-28T19:02:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/gradwriters\/?p=381"},"modified":"2017-06-28T12:06:03","modified_gmt":"2017-06-28T19:06:03","slug":"first-diary-entry-of-the-little-prince-who-just-arrived-in-victoria-from-his-far-home-planet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/gradwriters\/2017\/06\/28\/first-diary-entry-of-the-little-prince-who-just-arrived-in-victoria-from-his-far-home-planet\/","title":{"rendered":"First diary entry of \u201cThe Little Prince\u201d who just arrived in Victoria from his far home planet"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Arash Isapour<\/p>\n

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New Ph.D. student Arash Isapour arrived in Victoria only six months ago.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The moment I received my admission letter from UVic, I experienced a weird feeling of anxiety, which was a combination of happiness and stress. Right off the bat, I can continue my educational career at the Ph.D. level, but at the same time, this Ph.D. fella felt the duty to come to grips with his academic flaws which are gathered under one title: language<\/em>.<\/p>\n

As a Theatre History student, I am aware that everything I\u2019m dealing with is under the shadow of my English language abilities, including academic and literary writing, reading (not just journals or mathematical articles), speaking (not just at parties or for dating but for being a part of the interaction in a methodology class), and listening (not to Roger Waters\u2019 new album but to a fast speaking English professor whose tongue takes you to the 18th century). And by the way, language is not just language, it is considered as a conveyor of culture<\/em>.<\/p>\n

As you can see, during my first days at UVic, I encountered all the aforementioned challenges at the same time with not even an epsilon of exaggeration. It was not just at the university but everywhere else I went. The neighborhood I am living in looks like a Hobbit village (Oak Bay). Not only were the people smiling at me but also the dogs. In public places, from groceries to banks, from standing at bus stops to sitting in non-stopping buses, people started conversations, and what I gave back was a smile, pretending as if I deeply got what they said, but I did not. The interesting thing was that they were not surprised by seeing me speak like a Martian, in other words like E.T. So, unexpectedly, I saw myself plunged into all these states. My first class was a methodology course in which the sweet, energetic professor wanted us to read books and essays by critical thinkers from Frye to Nietzsche, from Freud to Kristeva, from Hegel to Marx (my beloved), from McLuhan to Fredric Jameson (The reader killer, even for English speaking folks). I not only had to read and grasp all these frameworks but also had to discuss my opinions on them in class, each session. For the first days, the phrase \u201cHOLY SMOKES\u201d kept playing in my mind. I started recording the prof\u2019s voice in class and tried to talk during class, despite the fact that I knew most of my words would make no damn sense, and those people were really looking at me as if they were saying \u201cWhat in heaven\u2019s name is he talking about!?\u201d My self-esteem started to tremble as \u201cThe Earth Trembles\u201d (My favorite Italian Movie).<\/p>\n

In this dilemma, I had to choose either the easy way\u2014let it go to any direction it wants to like the \u00a0wind\u2014or the hard and better way\u2014stand still and choose my own path even if it is against the stream. I might still be a successful Ph.D. student in the arts and humanities if I select the first, but I would definitely be a prosperous and industrious scholar from the beginning if I choose the second. In other words, when you find yourself in the uncomfortable zone<\/em>, you either choose to surrender and pull back or challenge whatever jams you up. The first would be like a boring love story movie, and the second would be like an unpredictable romantic movie, such as \u201cLa La Land.\u201d<\/p>\n

So what I did was a bunch of silly sounding stuff that works:<\/p>\n