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February 15, 2006
Grad School
I've been having serious grad school fantasies of late. I don't know whether to be alarmed or not. It hasn't even been a year. I was so ready to be done with school last year, I don't think I should want to go back yet. On the other hand, it's not the academics I was so sick of as much as it was campus life as an undergrad-- I wanted an adult life, meaning a studio apartment in San Francisco and a cat.
I've been reading a book of criticism to review, and reading it has gotten me engaged again in thinking rigorously about literary studies. I feel in my element when I'm making notes and responding to authors. I know grad school is something I could be very good at, and I think a large part of its recent appeal has to do with that. As a non-student, I'm just like every other mediocre, loserish twenty-something. I don't have a real job, nor any real career aspirations, and there's no place I see myself going. I'm just totally unspecial. And I don't like that. I realize that if I were still in therapy, my therapist might encourage me to cite this as a reason not to run back to school but so much of who I understand myself to be is a student. What I do is school. What I do well is school. Other things, not so much, but school I do well. School, academics, literary studies, critical writing-- that's where I can plant a foot.
Posted by hissycat at February 15, 2006 10:35 AM