The Good
Following my friend torkwit, a list of Five Good Things:
1) In two days, all the persistent ambivalence about grad school has been shattered. At Chicago, I revisited the best moments of being an undergraduate, eager exchanges that drink up hours and spit you out exhausted and elated on the other side of the night. Someone said, it's like college only you get to devote yourself to bigger projects and there's no PE requirement!--and I thought, oh, that can't be right, that's just what every road-weary academic warns you that grad school *isn't.* (Later that night, I cautiously dredged up CVs and confirmed that these brilliant people, for all their lack of misery, nevertheless have all the lines and entries they're supposed to.) I never forgot that I love linguistics or why, but I am reminded that loving something this way needn't be a lonely pursuit.
2) I will be paid to do this for 5+ years (an annual sum greater than what I will have made this entire year in my windowless box).
3) A visit to a different program last weekend had the opposite effect on my enthusiasm, but did end up pairing me with a roommate who lives in my city and wants to be knitting partners AND will teach me to crochet and has promised to attend Swap-O-Rama-Rama next month.
4) It was almost 60 degrees on Sunday and G. and I walked 7.5 miles around the west side of town talking about architecture and vegetarianism and India and irony as a political stance and ideas about what our lives could look like in a week or 10 years or 50. My legs are still a little sore and each ache reminds me of how warm that afternoon was.
5) The nice people in my office agreed to let me come in only two or three times a week and increase my hourly rate, starting next week. I cannot conceive of what I will do with all the free hours (that's the best part).
1) In two days, all the persistent ambivalence about grad school has been shattered. At Chicago, I revisited the best moments of being an undergraduate, eager exchanges that drink up hours and spit you out exhausted and elated on the other side of the night. Someone said, it's like college only you get to devote yourself to bigger projects and there's no PE requirement!--and I thought, oh, that can't be right, that's just what every road-weary academic warns you that grad school *isn't.* (Later that night, I cautiously dredged up CVs and confirmed that these brilliant people, for all their lack of misery, nevertheless have all the lines and entries they're supposed to.) I never forgot that I love linguistics or why, but I am reminded that loving something this way needn't be a lonely pursuit.
2) I will be paid to do this for 5+ years (an annual sum greater than what I will have made this entire year in my windowless box).
3) A visit to a different program last weekend had the opposite effect on my enthusiasm, but did end up pairing me with a roommate who lives in my city and wants to be knitting partners AND will teach me to crochet and has promised to attend Swap-O-Rama-Rama next month.
4) It was almost 60 degrees on Sunday and G. and I walked 7.5 miles around the west side of town talking about architecture and vegetarianism and India and irony as a political stance and ideas about what our lives could look like in a week or 10 years or 50. My legs are still a little sore and each ache reminds me of how warm that afternoon was.
5) The nice people in my office agreed to let me come in only two or three times a week and increase my hourly rate, starting next week. I cannot conceive of what I will do with all the free hours (that's the best part).