Hi
Oh hey there, I haven't been here in a long-ass time. I don't even know if anyone's still reading. I haven't really felt the need or the desire to write in so long, mostly because it's been too painful to look at old entries, or remember my old life before my dad got sick. I'm sure most of you reading this already know, but my dad died on May 29. I was in Canada for a conference until the 26th, and the night I got home, my mom called me and told me my dad had decided to go into hospice and to stop doing treatment. I'm so glad I was able to be there at the very end, and I only wish they'd told me how little time was left sooner. I'm still searching for the words to make sense of that experience, but I realize there might not be.
However, my view of the world and of my own life has kind of changed radically (I'm a lot more passionate about arts education, let me tell you, especially for kids who have abusive or difficult home situations, because the value of the arts as an emotional outlet cannot be overstated, and I never fully realized it before). I always considered myself a go-getter, always full of enthusiasm for life and projects and being busy, but I definitely don't feel that way so much these days. This semester has been pretty horrible in terms of unreasonable demands being put on me by my department, but I've made peace with the fact that I am not as emotionally invested in this job as I was before, and I never will be again. I've made peace with the fact that grief is this little rock that you carry around in your heart, and it rattles around in there all the time, but even more so when you hit a bump in the road. Grad school is something I need to get through right now, and not so much a source of joy or fulfillment.
Which is difficult to explain. . .or even bring up? with people in my world. I enjoy reading, learning, doing experiments, and my enthusiasm for those aspects has slowly been returning after a long period of just not seeing the point in ANYTHING. But, how can I put it? I see grad school as a job, and I don't view myself as a student much anymore. I want to be a creator of information rather than a consumer. I feel like I've outgrown the "go to class, read, discuss" model of learning, but I'm still required to do it for one more semester.
Meanwhile I'm teaching, and I'm doing my comprehensive exams, which would actually be somewhat enjoyable if I actually had the time to do it properly (I have to write two literature reviews on topics related to what my dissertation is going to be on). I enjoy doing the reading for the most part, not so much the note-taking, definitely not the writing right now, but it's way more rewarding than the one class I'm forced to take because for some reason the department thinks 9 hours of comps credits is too many, even with teaching (fuck you die).
Plus, I got summer funding to do a study I designed last semester, and I obviously didn't do THAT this summer. Of course, on the surface, the department is all, oh, of course, you had extenuating circumstances, so sorry to hear about that thing I'm too uncomfortable to bring up in conversation. . .but seriously, when are you going to finish that study? So I'm running subjects right now on top of everything else I'm doing. Only one professor in the department said to my face that she was sorry for my loss, and that the job doesn't matter, that family is the most important thing. Everyone else just wants to act like nothing's changed. I'm not exactly angry about this, just detached, like, fine, don't invest in me as a human being, but you're going to get what you give.
Thus, I'm worn pretty damn thin these days, and I just do not give a fuck when my goody-goody fellow students want to measure dicks on how far they are on their papers and what conferences they're applying to and what the job market is like. I don't care what you're doing this weekend, and for God's sake, don't ask me how I'm doing, because if I say "okay," I'm lying, and dishonesty brings my stress level up to 100, but if I say "terrible," I'm the one who just made everything awkward.
So I stick close to the people who who know my deal, and keep my distance from others. I don't have the energy to pretend I'm still a member of the Normal People club.
I just want to do my work well, fast, and go the fuck home, because I am painfully aware of how short and difficult life is, and what bullshit it is to give other people power over your self-worth, especially when they don't really know you or care to. I'll do my best this semester, but if I fail, no one could possibly say it was for lack of (superhuman) effort on my part.
However, my view of the world and of my own life has kind of changed radically (I'm a lot more passionate about arts education, let me tell you, especially for kids who have abusive or difficult home situations, because the value of the arts as an emotional outlet cannot be overstated, and I never fully realized it before). I always considered myself a go-getter, always full of enthusiasm for life and projects and being busy, but I definitely don't feel that way so much these days. This semester has been pretty horrible in terms of unreasonable demands being put on me by my department, but I've made peace with the fact that I am not as emotionally invested in this job as I was before, and I never will be again. I've made peace with the fact that grief is this little rock that you carry around in your heart, and it rattles around in there all the time, but even more so when you hit a bump in the road. Grad school is something I need to get through right now, and not so much a source of joy or fulfillment.
Which is difficult to explain. . .or even bring up? with people in my world. I enjoy reading, learning, doing experiments, and my enthusiasm for those aspects has slowly been returning after a long period of just not seeing the point in ANYTHING. But, how can I put it? I see grad school as a job, and I don't view myself as a student much anymore. I want to be a creator of information rather than a consumer. I feel like I've outgrown the "go to class, read, discuss" model of learning, but I'm still required to do it for one more semester.
Meanwhile I'm teaching, and I'm doing my comprehensive exams, which would actually be somewhat enjoyable if I actually had the time to do it properly (I have to write two literature reviews on topics related to what my dissertation is going to be on). I enjoy doing the reading for the most part, not so much the note-taking, definitely not the writing right now, but it's way more rewarding than the one class I'm forced to take because for some reason the department thinks 9 hours of comps credits is too many, even with teaching (fuck you die).
Plus, I got summer funding to do a study I designed last semester, and I obviously didn't do THAT this summer. Of course, on the surface, the department is all, oh, of course, you had extenuating circumstances, so sorry to hear about that thing I'm too uncomfortable to bring up in conversation. . .but seriously, when are you going to finish that study? So I'm running subjects right now on top of everything else I'm doing. Only one professor in the department said to my face that she was sorry for my loss, and that the job doesn't matter, that family is the most important thing. Everyone else just wants to act like nothing's changed. I'm not exactly angry about this, just detached, like, fine, don't invest in me as a human being, but you're going to get what you give.
Thus, I'm worn pretty damn thin these days, and I just do not give a fuck when my goody-goody fellow students want to measure dicks on how far they are on their papers and what conferences they're applying to and what the job market is like. I don't care what you're doing this weekend, and for God's sake, don't ask me how I'm doing, because if I say "okay," I'm lying, and dishonesty brings my stress level up to 100, but if I say "terrible," I'm the one who just made everything awkward.
So I stick close to the people who who know my deal, and keep my distance from others. I don't have the energy to pretend I'm still a member of the Normal People club.
I just want to do my work well, fast, and go the fuck home, because I am painfully aware of how short and difficult life is, and what bullshit it is to give other people power over your self-worth, especially when they don't really know you or care to. I'll do my best this semester, but if I fail, no one could possibly say it was for lack of (superhuman) effort on my part.