Advice for the first years

As I am completing this blog at the very dregs of punctuality, it must be brief.  I'll post a sequel later:

Many things that I would like to say have been admirably covered by others (beware the messiah complex, etc.).  I want to individually stress these two points:

1. prepare to be miserable.  Eventually your misery will buy you back some happiness, but be prepared to wait six or eight months before you can start purhcasing any.  You will have a lot of work to do, and you will not know how to do it all.  The Summer School will prepare you as best we can, but this profession in this area is a sink-or-swim proposition.  In the end it's up to you: keep you head above water in the fall, and learn how to swim in the spring.  By the second year, you'll be diving for pearls.

2.  Find a hobby that involves what Mississippi does well.  If you have joined MTC because you wanted to find traditional high culture, you will quit.  If you joined MTC because you wanted to find traditionally liberally-minded people, you will quit.  If you joined MTC because you wanted to find an enlightned public school system, you will quit.  Many things Mississippi does poorly.  If the things we do poorly are the things that get your rocks off, you won't make it.  What you need to do is find a reason to love the state: do you like to hunt? do you like the outdoors? do you like Civil War history?  do you like to fish?  do you like to gamble in riverboat casinos?

If you can find a reason to love the state--and if your reason to love the state will also help relieve stress--then your time here will be much more enjoyable.  Mississippi is rural; don't come here with a city-slicker carpet-bagger mentality.  If you want to stay sane and have fun, you'll have to accept the state (and its people) on their own terms.