it seems like i compartmentalize my entire life into little pieces and scatter them around the internet like breadcrumbs, leading to nowhere. domesticity, here. pop culture and banal observations, there. food and cooking, over there. relationships, somewhere else. i am never whole, and never is it writing about what really matters– that is, what needs to get done right now. about why i am in graduate school, or what’s at stake in continuing these ever-increasingly futile projects. on the difficulties and triumphs of teaching roomfuls of students. on trying to balance my career and my personal life. i write about other things, in other places. and like i said, the trail usually leads to nowhere.
but i want to be heard. and more importantly, i want to hear myself thinking aloud, typing these things out. i need to get my shit together.
i knew grad school would be a struggle, and oftentimes lonely. but as i finish my third year of this PhD program, and am seemingly no closer to attaining even the smallest of many goals/pieces of paper i am supposed to get to validate my worth as an academic, i think it’s time to start getting in touch. not with my ‘true self’ or some touchy-feely blather, but with my anger, my resentment, and my pain. working through it is the only way i’m going to make it through. and i know i didn’t move myself across the country to not leave with what i came for. giving up cannot be an option.
so, here it is. another little corner of carved-out space in this vast interwebz, this time for that thing called Grad School. and maybe down the way, Professorial Life. my questions, my thoughts, my rants, my process of making my way in this world. it might not be pretty, but here it is. hello.
Words and Steel 