Post Grad: Part 2

Tags

#confusion, #graduation, #help, #lonely, #postgrad, #sad

After I reread what I had written a few days ago, I realized that the last post didn’t explain or say much.

I’ve only been home for three days and already I’m about to throw a temper tantrum. I know it sounds dramatic, but I cannot insure my car until I get a job – thus I am currently home bound.

It wouldn’t be so terrible if I lived anywhere near walking distance of ANYTHING, but I don’t. I move from the kitchen to the bedroom and occasionally to the bathroom. I can’t help but think that this my life and it’s ending one minute at a time. To top that off, I’m at my parent’s house, or more appropriately, now my house. Cringe.

At the moment I do not fit in with this house. My bed is not comfy, my parents rules are absurd, and anything I do is criticized. I understand that I am lucky to have a roof under my head, but this is difficult. I’m pretty sure my parents think I’m still a 15 year old girl instead of the 22 year old one that stands before them.

My father is a practical man, and my dreams are impractical.  He reminds me often of the difficulties that I am going to encounter. I know that he means well, but it is discouraging when it seems that no one else believes in me (except you, S). How am I suppose to get pass this? Not just now, but later on, down the road when it feels like I’m completely on my own in my pursuit of happiness? Is that how it always goes?

I need to break out this funk. I have a book to write, I have to get a volunteer position at the Newberry Library in their renaissance collection, and I have to learn Latin this summer. I have to live this life. I have to travel. I need to get to Europe…how do I get to Europe on someone else’s money?

Sigh, instead, I’m stuck at home, aimlessly searching through jobs I am overqualified for.

But, I can’t achieve what I want without a little hard work.

Post Grad

Tags

#change, #college, #graduate, #life, #postgrad, #uncertain

I’m back home. I’m back in the room that I grew up in and I’m extremely uncomfortable.

I have left a life I spent two years building in exchange for one I do not particularly want. Upon being accepted to school I had carelessly said goodbye to this life and the girl that lived it.

Yet here I am and I feel like a visitor even though I am staying.

I’m going to harness this uncertainty to fuel my book. I must capture these feelings of being a 20 something and capture them in a book. I must also use all this extra time to find a job and attempt to lose all the weight I gained in college (goodbye donuts and coffee diet!).

I must also stop looking at this situation as one of failure. This is just the beginning of an adventure, right? Besides, I have to work extra hard to get into grad school so I can be on the right track to get my PhD.

Future English professor with a concentration in Renaissance studies right here.

Chase it.

Tags

#college, #dreams, #elizabethan, #graduation, #professor, #scared, #unsure

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us most. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and famous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in all of us. And when we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

 -Marianne Williamson 

I’m about to graduate, I’m scared and I have a lot to say.

A million things dawned on me:

1. I entered Carolina under the impression that I wanted to write. But I never actually write – so maybe not?
2. I hated, loathed, and despised Shakespeare and his contemporaries.
3.  Then I fell in love with Shakespeare and his contemporaries.

What does one do with this love of mine? You teach, become a scholar, or become a teaching scholar. Ideally, I would do the last one. Except the only advice I have been given is that there are no jobs out there. “Avoid graduate school!” they say.

In my case the facts are simple: I don’t have the money for graduate school. I don’t have the grades and hell, I don’t even have three letters of recommendation.

But…

This is what I love. I love literature and all the theories that come with it: traveling wombs, lycanthropy, and witchcraft. I want to celebrate Shakespeare’s birthday, and make my students act out the death of Henry’s wives (hehe). I want to be their support system; I want to push my students in every way that Dr. Barbour has pushed me. I want them to recognize their potential; I want them to change the world.

When I fall in love with something I put my complete heart into it. I know this may sound backwards, but my own potential to succeed is what scares me. Failing at this would be disastrous, it would crush me.

This is what I love, failure cannot be an option.

I have this feeling in my bones that my life will not be ‘conventional’. I cannot picture a version of myself in which I’m married by 25 and pregnant by 26. I feel suffocated by the very thought of it.

I’m not saying the conventional (as defined by American society) is in any way bad. I just don’t think it’s for me. This also scares me. What if I stray so far from the beaten path that I completely lose myself? Never to be found again?

Would that be as bad as I’m imagining it?

On to my second thought: my professor, Dr. B.

In less than a month I will be saying goodbye to this man and the anticipation of it already has my heart beating with fear (I already don’t do goodbyes).

While I was having lunch with my professor I was telling her that sometimes all you needed was someone to look at you and say, “I believe in you and I think you’re worth it.”

So simple, yet it’s not something that happens very often…

Without his encouragement, dedication and belief in me I’m not sure what would have happened to me. He is simply and truly an extraordinary man and I’m not exactly sure what I’m going to say to him, but I’m probably going to do it in a letter. I’m pretty sure I will become an overemotional mess and end up crying instead of thanking him.

I’m not exactly sure how I’m going to repay him, but I will.

He’s changed my life, and so has Carolina. I underestimated my abilities and my intelligence. And I’ am scared shitless of my life after graduation, but as long as I’m surrounded by my bulldogs and a good Elizabethan tragedy, it can’t be too bad, right?

You will recognize your own path when you come upon it, because you will suddenly have all the energy and imagination you will ever need.

-Jerry Gillies  

Scattered

Tags

#envy, #professor, #relationships, #why

Last night, after a heavy night of drinking, I ran into one of my fellow classmates. She screeched  and excitedly ran up to me.

This is what she said to me (in what felt like a rather accusing voice):

“You totally have a lesbian crush on our professor. Just admit that you do.”

I wish I would’ve corrected her – I prefer the term intellectual crush instead of lesbian.

But I did fail to respond to her, I wasn’t exactly sure what to say. What bugs me about her comment is the way she said it. Perhaps she did it mean in a joking tone, but it felt like she was scolding me for it. and I felt like I needed to apologize.

I had told a friend of mine (who is in this class) what she had said to me and he told me that she said that to him when they ran into each other the other week.

I still don’t understand why she said it and why she said it multiple times.

This is what bugs me about the whole thing: I feel bad about it. I haven’t done anything wrong, obviously not, but why do I feel bad for it? Why do other girls (or people) say these things to us? What are they expecting us to say?

A part of me wanted to say, “I’m sorry, I don’t have a crush on her! Don’t judge me for having a relationship her – It’s weird and I don’t know why I did it.”

Maybe we were both on the defense. Me: defensive about my relationship with my professor. Her:  her lack of relationship. If the root of the statement stems from the envy then I’m really not sure why she said it. She had the power to get to know our professor…

Why is it when we’re envious we attack each other? It is natural, like a default setting? You have what I want and I’m going to make you feel about it! It seems bizarre, yet we all do it.

I enjoyed getting to know my professors (they are human after all). Especially this professor – she’s incredibly smart and sincere.

I don’t think it’s weird that I’m proactive about building a relationship with her. She’s a professor, it’s her job this is what she enjoys.

If I should apologize for anything, it should be to my classmate:

“I’m sorry you missed out in getting to know her because our professor is awesome.”

(I will probably edit and expand on this later…)

 

He said

Tags

#professor, #school, #thankyou

“I’m gonna miss ya kid.”

And I looked at him and held back my tears.

And I wanted to say:

“I’m gonna miss ya more.”

Little

Tags

#dachshund #significant, #professor, #rested

Sometimes it’s the little things that count the most in life. After I emailed my professor, he concluded his response with, “Here I sit, fat dachshund snoring, feeling well rested for the first time in ages. Hope you’re feeling good!” 

Simple, and it may seem only significant to me, but how many professors would include such a small, but caring gesture? 

Not many. 

Hard Work

Tags

#hardwork, #homework, #keepgoing

Last week my professor told me that I was the hardest working student that he’s ever had. Like every compliment I’ve ever received, I thanked him and smiled politely.

Did I believe him? Of course not. How could I be the hardest working student he’s ever had? He’s been a professor for thirty years and surly someone has worked harder than me.
And didn’t my best friend tell me the other day I spend too much time on the internet doing nothing? Didn’t I get a “what, what, what are you doing?” just yesterday?

Yes to all of the above.

I was in the middle of making a sandwich when my professor’s compliment popped into my head.

How effortlessly I seem to discredit myself.

Well, here I am. It’s 10:30 pm on a Saturday night and I’m furiously rewriting a paper, that I don’t want to be writing, but I  asked to rewrite.

I may seek distractions in tumblr, and appropriately enough, Iwastesomuchtime.com but that doesn’t mean I’m not a hard worker.

Where do I spend most of my time? The library. Where am I at 8am on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday? The library. Where do I go during my breaks? The library.

I’m a regular during office hours, and I’m pretty sure my professors sigh with relief when they check their inbox and my name isn’t anywhere to found.
The last paper I submitted had four drafts.

It feels like this is the hardest I’ve ever work, and I’m mentally and physically exhausted. Maybe I am a hard worker – even I admit it or not. If there’s one thing I’ve learned its this:

Hard work is fucking hard, man.

PS: I hope it all pays off!! Xx

 

Mirrors

Do you ever have those moments when you walk past a mirror and think, “Who the hell are you?”

I moved from the mirror to my desk, and I bumped into an open drawer one that was filled with old papers, each with a various grades on them. A visual representation of my growth.

My bedroom walls are filled with photos. Different versions of myself smile back at me. I touch the photo and I recall the memory, but I cannot recall the girl.

And I think: who the hell am I?

I am not sad.

Tags

#graduating, #help, #imnotsad #happy, #life, #mentor, #movingon, #rain, #sad, #sanfoer

“He awoke each morning with the desire to do right, to be a good and meaningful person, to be, as simple as it sounded and as impossible as it actually was, happy. And during the course of each day his heart would descend from his chest into his stomach. By early afternoon he was overcome by the feeling that nothing was right, or nothing was right for him, and by the desire to be alone. By evening he was fulfilled: alone in the magnitude of his grief, alone in his aimless guilt, alone even in his loneliness. I am not sad, he would repeat to himself over and over, I am not sad. As if he might one day convince himself. Or fool himself. Or convince others–the only thing worse than being sad is for others to know that you are sad. I am not sad. I am not sad. Because his life had unlimited potential for happiness, insofar as it was an empty white room. He would fall asleep with his heart at the foot of his bed, like some domesticated animal that was no part of him at all. And each morning he would wake with it again in the cupboard of his rib cage, having become a little heavier, a little weaker, but still pumping. And by the midafternoon he was again overcome with the desire to be somewhere else, someone else, someone else somewhere else. I am not sad.”

This quote is rather long and if you made it this far – congrats. I wanted to dribble into something that not many of us talk about: sadness.

Today was what my mother refers to as a ‘Winnie the Pooh kindof day’. Cold, rainy, blustery and overall miserable. I sat inside the library typing furiously away at the keys, thankful that I was on the inside looking in. Protected, safe, away from the rain and away from the sadness.

Except I wasn’t.

I soon had to leave for my hunger was gnawing away at my insides. And then suddenly the sadness was around me. I’ am not sad. I thought. I’ am not sad.

All day I eagerly awaited an email from my professor. I had sent him a draft of my paper yesterday- one that I have been working on for a month now.

It’s 10:32pm and it hasn’t come.

And I was filled with utter disappointment. I have written four papers for this man and only one he has not proof read. Here’s the thing, I know my friends are rolling their eyes at me right now and thinking “get over it!” but it isn’t about the fact that he didn’t read it when he said it would. It’s the fact that he didn’t even email me to tell me that he wasn’t going to read it. It’s the fact that it felt like he forgot me.  It’s the fact that I had expected him to help me. It’s everything I had expected of him when I had no right to.

Does this make sense?

It’s the realization that he won’t be around for much longer; waiting in the shadows to proof read the bits and pieces of my life before I submit them. I will be alone. I will have to do this.

I am not sad. The rain washes away my imperfections anyway.

 

The Way We Analyze Literature and Life

Tags

#bleak, #college, #failure, #future, #happy, #help, #life, #masters, #scared, #school, #unknown

I cannot work. I cannot focus on the task I should be doing, I cannot turn off the fragmented thoughts inhabiting my brain.

Yesterday, in my renaissance drama class, it dawned on me that I was the only student who responded to the play we were reading with emotion. Every time my professor asked a question regarding the play, each student answered with a precise, well-thought, and calculated answer.

It terrified me.

I’m attempting to figure out why.

I remember the look my professor gave me when I raised my hand, it was as though she was mentally preparing herself, as an ‘oh brother…’ sigh danced around her face.

The first thing I said was: “Well, I don’t like the characters…” And well, I didn’t. As discussion continued I became enraged by the fact that she didn’t even ask for our emotional responses. Doesn’t that matter when analyzing literature? Isn’t that the reason we read literature, or poetry?

I want to read something I can relate to, I want to form a personal connection with the protagonist and the antagonist.

Suddenly I felt deficient, as if I had been doing this whole English major thing wrong. It’s an absurd thought; I can’t even recall a life in which I wasn’t writing a literary analysis.

But maybe that’s it. Maybe I approach life with too much emotion and not enough analysis. I’ve searching for a compromise my entire life, but I have failed thus far. I’ve either approach a situation with a great sense of urgency, or with a carefully constructed list of pros and cons. I can never do both.

My mind is telling me that I cannot live life this way. Living in such extremes will only lead to my destruction, yet I’ve been doing it for the past twenty-two years.

These extremes often lead to self-doubt.

This worries me because part of me wants to be the impossible, a scholar. It’s a word that leaves a sour taste in my mouth; it burns my lips like acid.

Why does this word scare me?

It scares me because it requires hard work, dedication, and the possibility of failing. I can handle these three things, but the possibility of failing at something I love is petrifying. How do you bounce back from that?

Becoming a professor would mean grad school, which would lead to a PhD. What if I’m not smart for that? What if I can’t handle the pressure? What if I attack my studies with too much emotion? What if, what if, what if?

I can’t ignore the facts that both of my professors and my advisor have told me that there are no jobs in this field. What now? Have I failed before I even started?

If by some miracle I obtain a PhD and cannot find a job would my future be bleak? Would I be homeless?

Or would I end up doing what I think I love? Well, I know I love literature, but teaching? Would I be able to inspire students like me, like I want to? Would I have the luxury of traveling around Europe to study old documents and texts on some unknown, obscure author (that is until my book is published)?

I don’t know, I don’t know. I’m scared of so much. Is anyone else terrified?

Edit: This was the quote WordPress gave me after I posted this:

“Write your first draft with your heart. Re-write with your head.” An omen?