Thesis (Again) and Tutoring

I may actually have a thesis topic. For real this time. I think I've become almost embarrassed to state that at this point. However, I have reason to believe that this time, it might really stick. Why? Because it's not my idea. I finally gave up my own intellectual ramblings which were leading nowhere; the only topics which I could have come up with that were any good would have required a reader who will be on sabbatical next Fall. So, taking the advice of Uncle Win (I believe I did this for my senior paper too), I simply asked my adviser for something that he was interested in. He said that he didn't have any specific research projects of his own going on right now, but that a thesis on D. T. Suzuki may be interesting. He then proceeded to email me a bunch of resources for the topic. Given that someone who knows more about the topic than I do thinks that it would work, and it sounds interesting, I think I'll stick with it. I really have no reason not to at this point.

Some of you may be asking who D. T. Suzuki is. He's the guy who is more or less responsible for bringing Zen to the West. As such, he's also been a pretty important influence on American conceptions of religion and spirituality in general. The thesis would focus on Suzuki's contextualization of Zen (though I don't know yet what specific angle to take, whether Suzuki's own historical context and how that influenced him, the modifications he made, or differences with mainstream Japanese and Chinese Zen/Chan Buddhism). There have even been some scholars who have questioned the status of Zen as a form of Buddhism, which runs directly counter to Suzuki's claims that Zen is going right back to the founder himself. So there's a lot of material to work with.

In other news, I have been signed up with my first student to tutor. I'm slightly apprehensive; I've always been a bit shy, and this job will force me to go out and have to deal with people. On the phone, even (I despise phones). Oh well; it's good money doing something that I generally like doing which will be of use to someone, and who can ask for more from a job than that?