Thinking about how much writing I’ve been doing lately makes me want to crawl in a hole and not come out until the sun is shining sort of weakly through my living room windows so I can only see it through the branches of a monstrous indoor pine tree – preferably one with lots of presents under it.  Yep, I think I’ll probably develop an ulcer before Christmas.  Ulcus pepticum aside, it’s got me thinking about both the readings we’ve been doing recently and just how prepared we’ve got to be as consultants.

 Though I found Severino’s battlefield argument a little too much to handle at times, (blood and gore? Not in MSU’s writing center, I would hope. Let’s have some respect for the delicate condition of my stomach here), I do think her concept of the writing center as a borderland, liminal space is valid.  A range of cultures clash here, and so do a range of disciplines; take my own schedule for example.  I’ve got anthropology, English, psychology, political science, and our very own dear WRA 395 to negotiate.  They all require (too much!) writing, and the expectations vary from discipline to discipline.  We as consultants must be prepared to meet a student from a land as foreign as CHEMISTRY as we would be a student from Korea. 

We’ve also got to be ready for students of all levels.  I co-consulted on a master’s thesis the other day and let me tell you, I definitely could have panicked a lot less.  Luckily John was there to bail me out though, and I guess it was a learning experience.  Everything is, be it brainstorming ideas for a paper on Peter Pan with my neighbour, proofreading a newspaper article for a friend in Bristol, or writing this very blog.  My suggestion is that the writing center stock up on the Pepto.