as the days go by i'm losing faith in myself and my place in grad school. what is it i can do exactly? i can see patterns and structures, i can weave a great many different things together into an essay and make them illuminating, i can build models to read with, i can do wormhole writing - that is, putting two completely things together and coming up with something unusual and useful and interesting.

is that enough? is that what is wanted? (maybe, no.) and so the next question: is that enough to compensate for the utter lack of the traditional skills and tools of the profession? no.