To Paris or not to Paris?
Achievement, n. The death of endeavor and the birth of disgust.
-- Ambrose Bierce, Devil's Dictionary
Today, I unceremoniously replaced the display of my degrees with a lovely black and white view of Paris. I needed the poster display I'd hung my A.A., B.A., and M.A. in (along with a few of my honors certificates) and I didn't feel bad about putting the vaunted papers aside. If anything, it made me consciously aware of the antipathy I've developed toward those symbols of my education - an antipathy I never expected to feel.
But then, there are so many things in the last few years that I never expected to feel.
Accepting my A.A. was a glorious occasion. Robed in red, I felt a sense of pride not only from the living but from the dead. My mother said she felt my grandmother's presence strongly that day; she's rarely talked like that before or since. What's more, I felt that spritely older woman's presence fussing happily with my sleeves and hair. It wasn't just the sun beaming down on me.
When my B.A. came round, I was ecstatic. Not only had I reached another plateau, but I saw that there was more to do. I missed the rehearsal for the Bachelor's candidates due to a crazed man on a freeway overpass but I arrived just in time to see the jubilant Master's candidates all but dance their way to the stage. They were covered in flowers and other bright bits, surrounded by family that dressed for the rehearsal the way they would for the real thing. I knew on that day that I would pursue my M.A. The doubt that existed before melted away.
I enjoyed a great deal of my education. I have felt an instant and natural sense of belonging in few places: libraries, bookstores, and museums, mostly. But from the first time I set foot on a college campus of any kind, I felt like the pathways through higher education were already worn with my footsteps. When I was twelve years old, I received a scholarship to attend a summer writing class at UCLA. It was by far the largest school I had ever seen and I quickly sensed it had a different air and make than other places. It was its own world. I drifted through it like an enchanted tourist who had found a new home.
And for the better part of a decade, higher education was my home. It was my job, my passion, and my primary interest. School was the focal point of my whole life; I kept no friend or man who would interfere with my education. When paper writing time came around, everything else was set aside - social engagements, household chores, even sex, if need be. And it was so natural an arrangement that I didn't realize how deeply it wore on me.
I stopped reading for pleasure, except in a few instances. I loved the advanced ideas I was learning, but I came to loathe the research that only brought a preponderance of evidence, never conclusions. Producing papers felt like a kind of mental childbirth. My early papers were bouncing bundles of joy and wonder, but after a time, I could feel the nutrients being sapped out of my very bones. I wanted it over with, and eventually, I was unable to stop and enjoy the results. I had my eyes on the next paper, the next class, the next hurdle.
I thought I would be in class forever. Part of me was soothed and comforted by that thought, despite the increased difficulty. I knew what was expected of me and how to succeed. I didn't know what to expect, entirely, from leaving school. Graduating didn't bring a sense of closure or fulfillment. Being home for some time off didn't make me feel content. If anything, all of the things I'd sacrificed and put off haunted me. I tried to wave the specters of my own discontent away; I told myself that they didn't signify anything but being overworked.
By the time my Master's degree arrived, I didn't even want to look at it. Everyone else, however, had made it clear that it was a really big deal. My friends talked to me differently. My mom insisted that I show at least my last degree off at home. I threw it up with my other degrees in a poster display I already had lying around but was never content with the look of it.
My degrees are cheap reminders of an expensive and expansive undertaking. They indicate that I succeeded at what I was good at all along: words, persistence, sacrifice and all. They prove that I had the requisite doses of Shakespeare and major critics, and that I learned to maneuver through the labyrinthine demands of the counselors and financial aid. They hint at how my thoughts have changed. They give you the idea that I can think.
But they don't show the most important things. You will learn more about what really matters to me from the pictures I share and the books on my shelves, from the art I adore and the cities I long to visit. Paris. You will learn more about me from the black and white view of Paris that now hangs in my bedroom where my degrees used to reside.
My degrees and I are displaced symbols in search of new meanings to make sense of the old ones. In that, I have found a new pity for them, and perhaps a new place.
-- Ambrose Bierce, Devil's Dictionary
Today, I unceremoniously replaced the display of my degrees with a lovely black and white view of Paris. I needed the poster display I'd hung my A.A., B.A., and M.A. in (along with a few of my honors certificates) and I didn't feel bad about putting the vaunted papers aside. If anything, it made me consciously aware of the antipathy I've developed toward those symbols of my education - an antipathy I never expected to feel.
But then, there are so many things in the last few years that I never expected to feel.
Accepting my A.A. was a glorious occasion. Robed in red, I felt a sense of pride not only from the living but from the dead. My mother said she felt my grandmother's presence strongly that day; she's rarely talked like that before or since. What's more, I felt that spritely older woman's presence fussing happily with my sleeves and hair. It wasn't just the sun beaming down on me.
When my B.A. came round, I was ecstatic. Not only had I reached another plateau, but I saw that there was more to do. I missed the rehearsal for the Bachelor's candidates due to a crazed man on a freeway overpass but I arrived just in time to see the jubilant Master's candidates all but dance their way to the stage. They were covered in flowers and other bright bits, surrounded by family that dressed for the rehearsal the way they would for the real thing. I knew on that day that I would pursue my M.A. The doubt that existed before melted away.
I enjoyed a great deal of my education. I have felt an instant and natural sense of belonging in few places: libraries, bookstores, and museums, mostly. But from the first time I set foot on a college campus of any kind, I felt like the pathways through higher education were already worn with my footsteps. When I was twelve years old, I received a scholarship to attend a summer writing class at UCLA. It was by far the largest school I had ever seen and I quickly sensed it had a different air and make than other places. It was its own world. I drifted through it like an enchanted tourist who had found a new home.
And for the better part of a decade, higher education was my home. It was my job, my passion, and my primary interest. School was the focal point of my whole life; I kept no friend or man who would interfere with my education. When paper writing time came around, everything else was set aside - social engagements, household chores, even sex, if need be. And it was so natural an arrangement that I didn't realize how deeply it wore on me.
I stopped reading for pleasure, except in a few instances. I loved the advanced ideas I was learning, but I came to loathe the research that only brought a preponderance of evidence, never conclusions. Producing papers felt like a kind of mental childbirth. My early papers were bouncing bundles of joy and wonder, but after a time, I could feel the nutrients being sapped out of my very bones. I wanted it over with, and eventually, I was unable to stop and enjoy the results. I had my eyes on the next paper, the next class, the next hurdle.
I thought I would be in class forever. Part of me was soothed and comforted by that thought, despite the increased difficulty. I knew what was expected of me and how to succeed. I didn't know what to expect, entirely, from leaving school. Graduating didn't bring a sense of closure or fulfillment. Being home for some time off didn't make me feel content. If anything, all of the things I'd sacrificed and put off haunted me. I tried to wave the specters of my own discontent away; I told myself that they didn't signify anything but being overworked.
By the time my Master's degree arrived, I didn't even want to look at it. Everyone else, however, had made it clear that it was a really big deal. My friends talked to me differently. My mom insisted that I show at least my last degree off at home. I threw it up with my other degrees in a poster display I already had lying around but was never content with the look of it.
My degrees are cheap reminders of an expensive and expansive undertaking. They indicate that I succeeded at what I was good at all along: words, persistence, sacrifice and all. They prove that I had the requisite doses of Shakespeare and major critics, and that I learned to maneuver through the labyrinthine demands of the counselors and financial aid. They hint at how my thoughts have changed. They give you the idea that I can think.
But they don't show the most important things. You will learn more about what really matters to me from the pictures I share and the books on my shelves, from the art I adore and the cities I long to visit. Paris. You will learn more about me from the black and white view of Paris that now hangs in my bedroom where my degrees used to reside.
My degrees and I are displaced symbols in search of new meanings to make sense of the old ones. In that, I have found a new pity for them, and perhaps a new place.