The Best Gift for a Bibliophile is...

...a book, of course.

And, within the last few days, I've had several people give me UK or other English-themed books in congratulations. From some beautiful and very appropriate hardcover copies of two of my favorite novels to a humorous travel guide to the UK and to British, shall we say, oddities, such gifts really couldn't mean more to me than they do at this point. I feel so blessed to have so many wonderful people in my life.

I also feel blessed, even if overwhelmed, to have received this kind of recognition. Instead of reading or writing about other things and people, I'm now the one being written about - or to. As I wrote earlier on this blog, ever since the news surfaced about the Rhodes I've gotten more congratulatory emails, texts, Facebook messages, hugs, face-to-face remarks, and so on than at any other point in my life. The entire world, or at least the entirety of my world, indeed seems to know. While part of me remains bemused by the celebrity, which I keep expecting to die down faster than it does, another part simply feels very honored. It's ranged from:

A cover story in my home newspaper, the Albuquerque Journal

News coverage through the Stanford News Report and the Stanford Daily, as well as Stanford magazine

A feature article in the biweekly newspaper for the company I worked for this past summer (and where my parents also work)

An admittedly rather hilarious (in my opinion) news release by the Intercollegiate Horse Show Association

Emails from people I hadn't expected or had forgotten were in my life: freshman year advisors, family friends from when I was very small, teachers from long ago, distant acquaintances, people I met once through the academic or extracurricular setting at Stanford, total strangers, my team strength coach (IN ALL CAPS PER USUAL; STRENGTH TRAINING HAS SERVED YOU WELL!)

The above list isn't intended to be boastful; if I could express how unreal and absurd it seems to me, I would. Inexplicably, more interviews are upcoming, including those for more equestrian and academic alumni magazines, and I've learned the importance of poise, grace, and giving thanks to those who have helped my journeys at various points of my life. (I also didn't realize I interviewed so well. I suppose I didn't realize that until before the Rhodes itself, either.) I've never experienced this kind of spotlight before, and while it (again) bewilders me that I could be a subject of such interest I've also felt a strange obligation to give small parts of myself back to communities that have been so important to me: New Mexico, my high school, Stanford, the horse world, the writing world, the deaf world, et cetera. All of the attention has been positive, but it's also been an opportunity to learn.

For example, one common trend has been how these publications (in particular) address the topic of my deafness. They're often not sure what language to use, and they sometimes (in my opinion) want to fall back on a standard narrative trope of victory against all odds. (It's not that I oppose this narrative; it's that I think it risks becoming flat or overly simplistic.) The initial Rhodes press release referred to me as "hearing impaired" until I asked them to change that to "deaf," which they gladly did. I've learned since to clarify exactly what kind of language I want used to describe me, and learned that that is my right. I've also tried to speak honestly to the challenges I've faced due to my deafness while I also deflect a certain preoccupation on that topic as my most defining characteristic. It's a balance, and suffice it to say I've been fascinated (from a textual analysis perspective) to read the words other people choose to write about me, in their various attempts to "denote me truly." Yet I also feel empowered that I have the savvy and the skill to define my own narrative as my life moves forward. Story after all is everything.

More later. This is turning out to be quite a ride.

Colleges, Degree Programs, Oh My!

As I've mentioned before, I thought that once the Rhodes interview process was over, voila! Everything else would fall into place and I'd return to real life, ready to go to Oxford in the not-so-distant future. Sure, I'd need to get a visa at some point, plus arrange interpreters and some academic details and things like that, but what else could there be?

Magdalen college's quad (of course, you can't walk on the impeccable grass)

This exposes, once again, the extent to which I focused on getting the scholarship while sparing little thought for what would happen afterward. Now, as it turns out, I (and all the other Rhodes scholars) need to prepare and submit an actual application to Oxford, as well as pick an Oxford college to attend/be affiliated with. Some of my previous Rhodes application materials will suffice for the Oxford application, but I need to prepare a whole new statement of purpose while verifying to myself that what I told the Rhodes scholarship committee I wanted to study is, indeed, what I want to study. The committee gives you full permission to change your plans as much or as little as you want, as long as not after you've landed a spot in a program at Oxford. (I had no idea - what, I can switch now? I can study astrophysics and not English? I mean, not literally in that case...)

As the initial shock of getting the scholarship wears off, I've spent some time over the last few days thinking about all things Oxford. The university doesn't function in the same way as public and private universities in the U.S.; instead, it's a collection of independent and unique colleges that cluster together in the city of Oxford and look to the University for some general administrative things but, mostly, operate as separate entities with separate facilities, buildings, programs, accommodations, extracurriculars, traditions, cultures, etc. Colleges in Oxford vary widely - as I found during my last time in Oxford, some are large and others small, some ancient and others more recently founded (though "recent" in Oxford-speak is different than "recent" in U.S.-speak; "New" College was founded in 1379, University College in 1249). Some are richer than others, grander than others, or have different intellectual reputations. Some host only graduate students; most are home to both graduate and undergraduate students. The notorious All Souls college has neither, but offers only a select number of fellowships each year. But all share a high standard of academics and a tight-knit community; it doesn't seem to matter, in the grand scheme of things, which college a Rhodes scholar attends. The Oxford experience will be unique and enriching anyway. My program in English lit, which seems to be offered by most if not all colleges at Oxford, won't limit my choices, and graduate programs seem to be administered at the overall university level anyway (whereas individual colleges are much more responsible for the tutorial system that composes an Oxford undergrad education).

Christ Church quad; Christ Church is one of the more "aristocratic" colleges

At least, this is what I gathered after talking to the American Secretary of the Rhodes Trust this past Friday. All the newly elected Rhodes scholars need to converse with him to discuss academic plans and college choice sometime within the first two or three weeks; I was thrilled I made a Skype call work instead of IMing/emailing/using an interpreter. My college plans remain up in the air (there are 30 of them! what!), but right now it's looking like a M.Sc. in English literature from 1900-present is in my future for my first year at Oxford. (Side note: I looked up the prospectus for this program and was stunned by how much reading is involved in an Oxford graduate program. Up to seven or eight hefty books per week! No wonder they give students six weeks off between terms to recover/get ahead on the next term's reading.) I don't need to set my plans yet beyond the first year of study, and as I'm currently feeling a little iffy on my proposed second program in comparative social policy, I may put off making that decision until this time next year. A M.Sc. in English could lead into the longer D.Phil program, which would mean I'd walk out of Oxford with a Ph.D. sometime in the next three or four years, or I may decide to study something completely different. At least that's only one personal statement to write and one Oxford application to prepare in the next few weeks, as I'm also writing final papers...

The gate to the very selective All Souls College

The last thing that came up while talking to the American Rhodes secretary this past week was sign language interpreters. I'm rather happy to say that the Rhodes Trust is being far more proactive about interpreters than my Stanford office ever was when I decided to study abroad; I know I'll be taken care of one way or another. Though having the UK's rather limited supply of ASL interpreters work out long-distance commutes to Oxford from London like last time might not be my preference... Also, I was told that I am quite possibly the first deaf person to get a Rhodes scholarship, at least from the U.S. In the last 15 to 20 years, the Rhodes secretary can remember one or two people with mild or moderate hearing loss getting a Rhodes, but no one with a profound hearing loss - and certainly no one with sign language interpreters. I've long grown used to being "the first deaf person to do X" or "the first deaf person to do Y," and long accepted that part of that is the fact that the population of deaf people out there is so small; of course I would find myself being a "first" at something. But this instance puts my current Rhodes opportunity into new perspective. I feel beyond lucky, beyond blessed to have gotten to this point in my academic and personal career. The fact that perhaps no one else has done exactly what I've done thus far makes me more determined to succeed - and, hopefully, to assure that I will not be the last.

This thing gets more humbling and overwhelming the more I think about it - but here's to the future.

The Pier-Glass

An eminent philosopher among my friends, who can dignify even your ugly furniture by lifting it into the serene light of science, has shown me this pregnant little fact. Your pier-glass or extensive surface of polished steel made to be rubbed by a housemaid, will be minutely and multitudinously scratched in all directions; but place now against it a lighted candle as a centre of illumination, and lo! the scratches will seem to arrange themselves in a fine series of concentric circles round that little sun. It is demonstrable that the scratches are going everywhere impartially and it is only your candle which produces the flattering illusion of a concentric arrangement, its light falling with an exclusive optical selection. These things are a parable. The scratches are events, and the candle is the egoism of any person now absent... 

(Middlemarch, chapter XXVII)

George Eliot's fine pier-glass metaphor is said to be one of the most famous in all literature. It's arguably the most famous passage in the novel (the one I mentioned in my previous post aside). Eliot, in short, extrapolates upon Middlemarch's driving theory of egoism, or the fact that each person's reality is illuminated as well as limited by his or her personal "lighted candle," slash world outlook. Our impressions of order, sense, or "concentric circles" in the world often derive from our own limitation of perspective; we can see only what our past and present experiences show us, and not the full arrangement of interactions, conversations, thoughts, hopes, and dreams that compose the events around us and the minds of the people we meet. In fact, the unknowability of other people's minds is one of Eliot's major themes and something that continually fascinates me.

Though this could arguably be a very troubling, atheistic outlook (and though, in Eliot's view, it certainly was), this image of the pier-glass has still resonated with me since the first time I read it during spring quarter of my freshman year. Since then, in several ways, I've seen how perspective is everything and how we really cannot escape from the light of our own egoism. Whole, composite reality is unknowable to us as a result of our human condition, though we often fool ourselves into believing that our immediate perceptions and beliefs are all there is. Not to toss too much literature into the mix, but this last sentence makes me think of a line from Robert Frost's poem "Two Look at Two":

One last look the way they must not go,
On up the failing path, where, if a stone
Or earthslide moved at night, it moved itself;
No footstep moved it. 'This is all,' they sighed,
Good-night to woods.' But not so; there was more...

"This, then, is all," we might say, but we continue to wander through dark spaces as we seek to illuminate them with the candle of our understanding (however imperfect). Of course it is never all. There is more ahead, on up the path, in our learning, or in the people we meet, and such a mindset of self-aware and self-critical exploration is one that I hope to embrace during my time at Oxford. I hold my own candle, with all its inherent quirks and limitations, yet I seek to use it to grasp the way of things as well as I can. Combined with the role Middlemarch played in my Rhodes interview, its standing in the English canon I plan to study, and (of course) its setting in England, this image of the pier-glass compels me to find and then write about whatever I see on the surface of my time abroad, with the awareness that I write thoroughly as myself and as only one mind among many.

(The above: my rough effort at articulating my blog's perhaps ridiculously allusive title.)

Inside the Interviews

One thing I never considered (or, at least, didn't consider very deeply) when applying for the Rhodes is what the public attention would be like if I got it. Apply; hope for the best; go to Oxford if it all worked out. That's all I thought about. The odds of getting the scholarship were so small that it wasn't worth lingering on what the morning-after feeling would be like. Of course, I knew about the prestige of the Rhodes scholarships, but I failed to imagine that it would be much different from the other awards I'd won before: get some congratulatory messages from friends and family, be gracious, move on after a day or two. Instead, it's been a media and recognition flurry incomparable to anything I've ever experienced.

More on that later, but for now I'm truly humbled. One big piece of advice that the Stanford Overseas Resource Center kept giving, throughout the entire application process, was to try to forget about the name of the scholarship I was applying for and focus only on what I wanted to do. It's a little impossible to forget the "Rhodes" specter, at least completely, but I did succeed in putting aside any thought of accolades as I wrote my application. Which I wrote almost entirely in a tank top and shorts on my kitchen table in the New Mexico summer heat. I wasn't worried about expressing my personal aspirations through writing; it's where I feel most comfortable. What I fretted about most were the interviews.

I was convinced that the Rhodes interviews, notoriously tough and demanding at all levels, would be my downfall. Committees in the past have been known to ask everything from relevant personal questions to random trivia, ethical questions, and baffling gems such as "Name five reasons why manhole covers are round." It's often said that there's no surefire way to prepare. I've never been very confident in my ability to win over people in person, mainly due to my deafness and continuing worries about my speech and my eloquence in thinking on my feet. My confidence drops when I make the transition from the page ( = freedom, robustness, and wordplay) to my physical body (when I sometimes put so much energy into keeping up with my world that I cannot think of what to say). It was too bad, I thought, that I could be one person in writing and stumble over myself in the flesh. I think life has had a different message for me, though, because all of the interviews went very well.

The first was the campus interview in September, before the fall quarter started. (The campus panel, which must endorse each candidate's application to the national competition, requires all application materials and almost half the letters of recommendation by early September.) I'd enrolled in a one-week intensive graduate seminar and rushed over that day to meet the panel at my assigned time after being in class nonstop from 8am to 5:30pm. A professor had suggested that I go for a hike or ride a horse earlier on to unwind. Unfortunately that hadn't been possible, but I calmed myself as best as I could. The campus panelists were a combination of Rhodes and Marshall scholars; at that time I was shooting for the Marshall as well as the Rhodes, so some of their questions aimed at my proposed course of study for the former, which was slightly different from my proposed degree program at Oxford, as well as some more general UK/ambassadorship topics. (Example: describe trends of British political thought within the last 100 years. I was flummoxed.) Despite tripping over myself a few times, their feedback was generally positive. I needed to engage more with my personal story, they said, and remember to smile instead of looking so serious. Over the next 24 hours, I waited to hear whether the campus committee would endorse my application. Compared to the national selection process, this hurdle isn't as difficult to jump, but it's still an important one! The next day I heard. Check. Time to summon my last few references, polish up my application one last time, and let it be what it would be.

I hadn't revised my personal statement much beyond the second or third draft (despite being told to prepare for 10 or 15 drafts). This is fairly common for me, so I submitted and proceeded to forget about it for the next several weeks. I could have spent those weeks obsessing over Oxford and my prospects, but though the scholarship always lingered in the back of my mind and my everyday reading habits, my focus turned to living. Reading. Riding. Enjoying what Stanford had to offer. By early November, I heard. I'd gotten the interview. I was shaking. Colorado Springs, November 17. Had I prepared enough? Could I sound smart? Did I even deserve this? I turned to Wikipedia-ing the most outrageous things over the following two weeks, reading a wider range of news than I have in the last year, poring over my transcripts and preparing to talk about any obscure corner of my life. Anything could have been fair game,  but as it turned out none of it was necessary.

The Rhodes interview process is, I believe, designed to be arduous in the way that Oxford is arduous. It begins with a two-hour reception on Friday night to allow candidates and panelists to meet each other, then continues with a half-hour interview at some point on Saturday. The committee members convene on Saturday afternoon/evening and then announce the two scholars a few hours later. I'd had a practice interview at Stanford the previous week with some favorite professors and had, surprisingly, enjoyed the foray into discussing the world of literature; however, I was warned that the real thing would be much more difficult. Prepare to be challenged on a range of ethical, philosophical, and political issues, and do not back down.

The reception was, as someone described it to me earlier in the week, a very nineteenth-century Oxford kind of event. We turned up in formal attire, attempted to remember the names of all the candidates and committee members, and made conversation over food and refreshments for two hours. Just relax, smile, take the opportunity to meet new people, and don't look like an idiot were my only goals going into the evening. Actually, forgetting about the reception as a Rhodes event and approaching it as an opportunity to converse with other very intelligent people wound up being what saved me. I stayed relaxed and was surprised to find how much I enjoyed myself. The committee members were kind and engaging, and many of them asked me about horses. (It was my most-asked question of the evening, a good way to feel positive about the next day.)

My interview had been scheduled for 11am on Saturday morning, so I took the chance beforehand to go out for breakfast in Colorado Springs (yes, in jeans) before changing into a business suit for my interview. I'd been nervous about meeting and working with unfamiliar interpreters, but it wasn't any different from the norm, really. They made small talk in the few minutes beforehand and I tried my best not to be nauseous. My palms were sweating instead of shaking, though, which was a good sign.

The entire thing was over before I expected. The committee members, instead of being as aggressive and nearly hostile as I'd heard Rhodes panelists could be, seemed interested in what made me tick, though they pushed me several times to clarify or reconsider my thinking. I wasn't completely sure if their interest was genuine, if I was winning them over, or if I sounded like a fool and they were just being nice, but I kept talking anyway. We spent ten minutes talking about Middlemarch, after I mentioned it as a novel I'd recommend to one of the committee members. Then the questions turned to other topics. A sample of the questions is as follows:

You say all those things about the omniscient narrator in Middlemarch, but don't you think the novel is ultimately tragic? Why on earth would you want her to read it?
Who was George Eliot, anyway?
What do you think about the novel's most famous line? (and here the committee member, himself an English professor, quoted to me a line I knew by heart: "If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we would die of that roar that lies on the other side of silence." I couldn't help it; I love that line, and I started grinning.)
Taking the idea that we will never completely understand other minds and are bound to fail, what role does literature have in the world?
What about the gender roles in Middlemarch? Mary Anne Evans was a woman, but how about how she perceived men?
Tell me about that famous line in Jane Eyre, "Reader, I married him." Who is the novel's reader? (Here I started grinning again.)
What if the reader doesn't buy into the premise or narrative style that the novel presents?
Why should we care about disability or about including those who are on the outskirts of society?
Who's your favorite essayist and why?
Here's an ethical question. If there were suddenly a miracle cure or technology to cure deafness, would you take it? And why?
You told me last night that, while riding a horse for the first time, you were not afraid. What are you afraid of?
Your writing is remarkable for being beautiful, in the aesthetic sense. What connection do you find between riding a horse and achieving that aesthetic beauty on the page?

There were a few others, but the last one listed above was by far my favorite. No lie, I had been hoping I would get that question. I'd been asked the same thing in my practice interview, as well as the same kinds of questions about Middlemarch (however inexplicably). As for how I answered these questions... I won't elaborate here, but suffice it to say I was astonished by how well the panel understood me and how relevant all the questions were. Not one of them came out of left field like I'd been fearing. The committee challenged me and my views and opinions, but from a place of intellectual curiosity and respect. This was supposed to be terrifying or difficult? I found it enjoyable, even fun. I'd heard beforehand that Rhodes interviews, when going well, could be fun, but I don't think I'd believed it. In truth, I was almost disappointed when it was over. The greatest relief was that I'd felt thoroughly like myself, down to being able to articulate and assemble my thoughts and engage with the committee members. Having each interpreter stand on opposite sides of the table and behind each committee member as he/she spoke helped, too. Whatever happened, I couldn't be disappointed in my performance.

The rest of the afternoon felt like it was designed to make us squirm. The Rhodes Trust provided lunch at a local restaurant, then I caught a few hours of down time at the hotel before heading back to the main conference rooms in case the committee wanted second-round interviews. I, and the other candidates, proceeded to sit in a tiny conference room for two hours, alternately making nervous small talk and sinking into dead silence. I kept sweating, and even Cervantes's Don Quixote couldn't hold my attention. Finally, in a moment of levity, someone pulled out a DVD of Beauty and the Beast and started playing it on her laptop. That's how we Rhodes candidates spend our time, I say! Around 5pm, as dusk was settling, the committee called back two candidates (not me) for eleventh-hour second round interviews, and the atmosphere became much more tense. The Beast had just rescued Belle from the wolves in the forest when they reached their decision. We packed up, shuffled back into the main lobby, and met all the committee members waiting there for us. The secretary made some remarks about the day and the high quality of all the candidates this year, and then she said the first scholar's name. And then she said mine.

Cue everything surreal.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Maybe it’s telling that my first impulse is to write. After a final round district interview this past weekend, which itself followed a summer and fall (and, actually, a much longer time than that) of contemplating and planning, the District 13 committee of the American Rhodes Trust has elected to award me one of its Rhodes Scholarships for 2013. Along with 32 other Americans and up to 80 young scholars from around the world, I’ll be heading to Oxford next October to pursue my dream of becoming a writer, public intellectual and disability advocate, and (perhaps) academic.

Fresh off this news, I still have no words to describe this opportunity and what it will mean for me, much less what an enormous honor it is. Maybe my best attempt is this:

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Which was, in fact, the initial response of many of my friends upon receiving the news on Saturday night! (As an English major and someone who will study English literature at Oxford, it astounds me how our language stumbles over expressing the deepest sentiments of joy, incomprehension, and excitement. I won’t attempt to use any clichés to flesh out the !!!!! above. Suffice it to say, I’m reaching for sentiments like disbelief, gratitude, relief, anticipation, elation, and absurd hilarity.)

Up until I got the final interview, I had told very few people – outside of close friends, professors and other mentors, and family members – that I was applying for the Rhodes and the Marshall. Simply put, it seemed too pretentious to say so. Should I make it to the end of the process, which I knew was statistically unlikely, I would leave it up to the district panel to decide. No sense for me to derive talking points from the fact that I was daring to apply for the scholarship; it would work out in its own way. Now, though, I’m confronting the strange fact that, overnight, the whole world seems to know. And, besides that, the potential conceit of writing, of autobiography and disclosure, strikes me.

I first thought about applying for the Rhodes after studying abroad at Oxford two years ago, during my junior year at Stanford. I’ve always been drawn toward literature and the UK, and my library-stuffed, paper-writing, tutorial-taking experience at Oxford left me wondering what it would be like to return, for a solid chunk of time instead of an unbelievably short eight-week term. What I loved most about my time at Oxford, despite all the time spent alone in libraries, was my tutorial, a weekly session in which I would sit down with a professor to discuss a ten-page paper I’d just written on some nineteenth-century novel or another. I’d had independent study experiences before in high school (taking AP Latin and working on a creative writing/novel project for credit), and looking back on those – just as I now look back on my Oxford tutorial – it’s clear to me that I am never happier in the classroom than when I am sitting down with a knowledgeable, demanding, yet sympathetic teacher who demands that I give my utmost, right there in our conversation as much as elsewhere. I anticipate I’ll write about this more down the road – I see it as no coincidence that, since I was born with a profound hearing loss and always feel inherently uncomfortable in groups, the joy of such an individually rigorous, self-driven education system appeals to me. After encountering a similar setup while writing a honors thesis at Stanford during my senior year, and after coming to terms with the fact that I LOVE school and cannot see myself as anything besides a student for the next few years, I decided to give the Rhodes a shot.

It did seem a bit improbable that I could make it – as a bookish kid from New Mexico who grew up riding horses and mucking stalls when not writing stories or pursuing her perpetual goal of being “well read” (whatever THAT actually means). Despite the fact that I’d gotten into Stanford, and been to Oxford once before, I hadn’t grown up visualizing anything like this. I hadn’t started my own company or spent three summers in Africa or visited 50 countries, or any of the fairy tales of personal achievement that seem to accompany the bios of some Rhodes scholars. As a friend told me while considering the Rhodes herself, the act of applying seemed like contriving a star-kissed tale of destiny. All roads lead to Oxford, so to speak, and pun almost not intended. (Yet, more encouraging were my words of advice from the Stanford Overseas Resource Center: there is no such thing as a perfect application or a perfect applicant. Be yourself. Why not try.) The application process, which I’ve found to be much storied and even much mystifying since starting it in June, requires a conglomeration of recommendation letters, a personal statement in which one tries to express one’s history/passions/background/aspirations/fit at Oxford in an impossible 1000 words, an activities list, and a transcript. That’s it. Getting over the initial trepidation was the first step before obsessing over this my entire summer. Shout-out to my family for putting up with me. And then, of course, there are the interviews.

More on those later. For now, once again, I turn to writing in an attempt to understand and record the ways in which my life is about to change. I kept a blog during my first stint in Oxford (http://anglobibliophile.blogspot.com - strange that it still exists), and I intend this one to serve a similar function. I won’t be going abroad until next October, but there are several hurdles to clear before then. Not least, actually applying to a college and committing to a set program of study, and wrapping up my last few months in sunny California before heading to the cold and rainy UK for two years. That is, after I make it through this Thanksgiving week of disbelief, celebration, and the shock of seeing my face in print in all these Rhodes press releases around the country. (Again: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And, what am I doing here?) Many thanks to all my friends, family, professors, dormmates, teammates, interpreters, advisors, etc. for being wonderful. And for almost blowing up my phone and email and Facebook feeds. Until later, and on to this grand adventure!

Oh, and the blog title? It’s a Middlemarch reference. As it turns out, this novel figures into my interest in 19^th and 20^th century literature, and also took center stage in my final Rhodes interview for a good several minutes’ conversation on George Eliot. Again, more later…