I tell people that my education was a deeply humbling and respectful experience all the time because all of us need to hear it. My friends, my students, everyone.

During my time in college, I caught a glimpse of how much I'll never know, despite my best efforts (and I learned to work prodigiously) and I realized that that's precisely what it was ( Read more... )

My mom called me this morning and played a round of "guess that tune" with me, until it was clear that I was hearing a pattering of the graduation march in the background. It turned out that she was watching the DVD of my MA graduation ceremony on her new, bigger screen - and then she started getting teary-eyed about it ( Read more... )

Dear Dr. Montante,

As near as I can tell, I entered your philosophy class in the Fall semester of 1999 at Glendale Community College.  Up until that point, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my education or my life - I just knew that I didn't want to be stuck in the typical 9 to 5.  I lived with a real dread of losing years of labor in pushing ( Read more... )

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 ( Read more... )

A college education involves being thrust into a crowded room full of conversations that have been going on for decades, centuries, in some cases millennia.  At first, you don't know anybody and you hardly know which circle to enter, and it's difficult to insert yourself into a debate for which you feel utterly unprepared.

( Read more... )

Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water.

I took my comprehensive exam for my MA in English on May 10. I didn't get the results in until this week. I would have been even more on pins and needles if a kindly staff member hadn't clued me in to the fact that I passed. As it was, I didn't get my letter until Thursday.

I actually graduated on ( Read more... )

It's 7:00 AM, I'm up nursing coffee and preparing for the biggest test I've ever faced.  I never took the SATs or any of the other acronymed tests, but I've taken a good number of essay exams.  None of them were six hours long, required me to know as many works, or to get up as early in the morning.  And none of the tests I've taken thus far would ( Read more... )

 I've been studying like mad for a while now, since my big test is on Saturday.  I've been reading between 150 to 250 pages a day most days, striving to read carefully and taking notes all the while.  I've been having mishmash dreams in which my brain plays with all of the information I've shoved into it during the day, turning images around like ( Read more... )

Okay, here's the situation ( Read more... )

Well, I'm so congested that I can't smell or taste.  My ears haven't popped yet but when they do, it'll be a relief ( Read more... )