Voices

I realized my voice is so different from my bosses' voices. I think I can identify their styles. They write so differently. I can't even inject my voice into theirs in because I interpret differently from them. 

I actually can't imagine how someone would want to steal another person's voice. I can't imagine why someone would want to plagiarize. When we can be masters of our own voice. Isn't that so much better. To have something your very own? 

Lessons learnt from grad school so far

1. No one is perfect and we all need help. 

We usually see the finished product. The completed thesis. The published article. But my time at grad school, I work on a dissertation that seems to morph with every new insight gained, new article read. My boss gave me the privilege to edit her work and other scholars work and we critique one another's work in this way. There was once I praised one of  my professor's student thesis and she told me what I saw was the finished product and it took many drafts to get there and she had scolded him a lot because he was biased and wrote like a junior college student. My pencil dropped when I heard it. So it's true that we are all working on revising works. The one who succeeds is not the one who gets it right the first time but the one who through preservering through unproductive moments and criticism from different places, hones his or her skills in the meantime and doesn't give up.