Life After Prelims

So I passed. Cue great rejoicing. Although really, all I felt at the time was this distant, unreal sense that it was over and that no one would make me do it again. But I'm thawing out and waking up now, in part simply due to the passage of time but also through my slow reintegration into the world of the living. Here's a brief look at some of the things I've done since Wednesday afternoon that I probably could not have done before:

* Had friends over to hang out and drink wine.
* Put in contact lenses to teach. (My students were adorably/annoyingly confused by this change - "can you just like, not see, or are you wearing contacts?")
* Happy hour and last-minute dinner with fellow comp/rhet-ers
* Spoken to my immediate family on the phone 5+ times.
* Spent the night somewhere other than my own apartment.
* Made an extensive set of playlists for things like Singing Along, Rediscovering Classics, and Rocking Out.
* Cleaning. Hours of cleaning. Totally overhauled my room and brought the bathroom back from the brink of alarming. Words cannot express the catharsis.
* Had a major singalong while doing aforementioned cleaning.
* Began constructing a list of my favorite Community episodes. (Harder than one might think!)
* Big celebratory dinner out with friends and drinks and delightfulness

And that's not even touching all the things I did in the two weeks between passing in and the defense that I could not have done before finishing the essays. It's been a really...expansive few weeks. I'm reclaiming my life, my time, my priorities, and it's still unclear how they'll be redistributed. But I'm not to worried. I am so much more alert to what and who is around me, so much more able to reach in and put a hand on the core of myself...I don't know. I can't quite explain it. It's like before, I couldn't contextualize anything that happened to me in the personal realm with any depth or accuracy. I had truisms and gut reactions, but that was about it. And now I once again have intuition, hindsight, educated speculation, and confidence with which to assess events.

Confidence. God, I've missed you. Confidence isn't even the right word exactly. It's...the sense of myself. The knowledge I've built over 27+ years of who I am and what I can (and can't) do. What I'll always be and what could change over time. It's similar to what I felt on my road trip summer of 2010, just in a lower-key and less dramatically exciting vein - that slow realization that everything I was before is still there if I reach for it. I can't head off on a major adventure now like I did then, sadly - but it seems like I'll find other ways to accomplish the same kind of breaking with status quo that may be just as effective. Things to collide with that highlight the rest of me, the parts that have been in cold storage for the past 5 months. I love new people and new situations. I am energized by the right kind of challenge to my non-academic abiities. I am not as uptight and old and inexorably set on the path to traditional middle-class academic life as I might sometimes feel or fear.

I'm still the same as I've always been. If anything I'm better - just out of practice. I can have what I want. I can surprise myself. I can be the friend/daughter/sister/niece I want to be. And I can win battles no one's even expecting me to fight in.

But bottom line: I'm alive again. And it's going to be awesome.

Home Improvements

So I just had one of those moments where I realized that I've unconsciously crafted a life for myself that in many little quirky ways (and some less little and less quirky ways) adheres to the values and habits of my own family - specifically in this case my mother. (This is a totally random opener, I'm aware.) Moments like this are almost always positive for me - they make me feel good about the adult I've become, about how my background has stayed a part of me through it all (even if I sometimes feel like there's nothing left to me but work, my love for my cats and a growing case of OCD about neatness).

What was it you ask that triggered this feeling? Scissors. Or more specifically, the realization that I own three pairs (four if you count the kitchen shears) - and thus can always, always find a pair when I need them. This felt surprisingly good - like realizing you've unconsciously managed to live up to some small but significant parental expectation. Which I guess is kind of what it is. Like Grampa and his perennial insistence on always having a flashlight in the car (something that's become a staple family in-joke at this point), always putting the scissors back in their place so they are they for the next person is something I remember being a thing growing up. Except the reason I likely remember it is because no one ever did it. Like, ever. So it was always hell finding some when you needed to wrap a gift, clip an article, cut a tag. (This is why I have the incurable habit of ripping my tags.) So as a result our house eventually just had scissors more or less everywhere. Junk drawer? Ancient slightly rusty black-handled scissors that looked like they'd been around since prohibition. Top drawer of the sewing machine? Slick uber-sharp heavy-duty mauve-handled shears that Mom would kill you if you didn't put back. Drawer of the huge heavy metal desk in the basement? More old-school metal ones. My top right desk drawer? Normal paper-cutting scissors. Kitten's room? Some safety scissors. Sewing basket? Embroidery shears.

...I'm digressing. And possibly exaggerating somewhat. But the point is: today I needed scissors twice in quick succession, and was able to quickly locate a pair in two separate locations, right where they belonged - and then I instinctively put them back. And it made me feel good about the life I'm building, a reassurance that there's always going to be more making me up than the last three years, and that graduate school is temporary but being a Tarsa is forever.

And thank God for that.

Epiphany comes but twice a year

Today I had one of those awesome moments of clarity that allow me to pretend for 10 months of the year that I secretly enjoy the end of the semester. I still have 17-20 pages to write, but I can see the entire path now, all the way to the end. I know where I'm going. It came late this term, but damn it still feels good.

I also discovered that Mike's syllabus requests a "20 to 30" page paper rather than 25 pages, as everyone's somehow come to believe. This was a joyous discovery, and led directly to the aforementioned flash of insight.

I will finish. There will be a life after this semester. It sounds stupid, but it's like driving in a lot of fog - everything feels less oppressively endless if you can see where you're headed.

Maybe I should ditch this little white rental on the interstate

[Note: Started this like over a week ago. Oh Becca - can't even finish blog posts on time.]

Oh man. My life may have highs and lows in terms of interest/enjoyment level, but it's alllll maxed out for sheer content. Yikes. Daylight savings has begun - and as always, this is when the semester kicks it up a notch.

Not all in a bad way though. The trip to Chicago for Ben Folds with Nora and Nathan was pretty epic, and worth the effort that went into the planning. We made good travel partners - nice, easy dynamics, and the best parts of traveling with three people. Three's tough sometimes - we all know the adage - but I think that when the balance is even among the three people, without one dramatically stronger or weaker bond, it's pretty much the ideal group size, especially for small experience-based trips. Five's getting unwieldy, and you won't get to talk to everyone, and everyone ends up feeling like they missed something. Four inevitably becomes two groups of two. But we made a good trio.

There may have been a bit of confusion arriving in the city (Becca forgetting where the directions she printed actually took us, parking on the wrong 300 block of Ohio and consequently forfeiting $14 for parking). But there was tasty Indian food for dinner, and a great show. It's funny...seeing a Ben Folds show isn't quite like seeing other people I really like. It's in part because his body of work is so huge that you don't go in hoping for one particular favorite, since A) you likely have too many to pick and B) it's hopeless. Yet you can depend on hearing a good chunk of the classics - all of the big ones post-Suburbs, really, at this show. The nostalgia factor is really what makes the magic though. Like most people there, I've been listening to Ben Folds since before I could drive. And then once I could, it was Rocking the Suburbs in my jury-rigged stereo. I (or rather, the audience) am on the cover of his live album giving him the finger. Three of his songs have served as crutches during breakups over the years. And now he's partnered with my favorite author on the latest addition to the canon. He looms large for me. And though we've all got different Foldsian narratives, it's the same for everyone. Maybe you love his songs because you've been fired, had an abortion, been advised not to join the armed forces by a parent, had a friend take a shitton of acid and spontaneously convert to Baptism. Or maybe not. But we've all been in love, all been dumped, all found life incredibly nonsensical yet moving at some point or another, and at a good number of those points Ben Folds provided the soundtrack. So when you see him play...it's not so much about that specific show as it is with other bands.

Which meant I wasn't phased by some of the technical fuckups (nothing terrible, but limited how well his voice came through sometimes), or the fact that it's clearly unnatural and (at least now, at the tour's outset) somewhat tough for him to sing words someone else wrote. It was still awesome. And of course not everyone was quarter-lifers like the three of us. I saw some snowy peaks in there, and the guy behind us was practically a child. (His face when Ben played "Underground" in the encore was priceless...he was like, "what is this and why the hell is it being played where a major hit should go?") Not a huge crowd for the venue, which meant all was civil and we had a good view.  And I was reminded why I always make the New Year's resolution to see more concerts: it's because they're awesome.

Post-show we hit up the Violet Hour, a lounge/bar that in daily life would be far too swank for me but is perfect for occasional drop-ins and makes me feel cool, because apparently anyone who's got taste remotely like mine has been to and loved it. I'd been once before with Maeve and Co., right at the end of MA spring, and while I had a great time, the fact that I was coming off a major life change or two and miiiight have been dressed like an elementary school teacher kind of limited the magic.

We had to wait about half an hour to get in, which wasn't unexpected - but I'd forgotten the way lines like that, even ones consisting of groups, tend to wait in relative silence. I hate that - not that that'll be a surprise to anyone. It's boring, and in addition we were all in danger of sobering up and falling asleep, which would have been tragic. So we all rose to the occasion and played 20-odd minutes of "Kill, Marry, Fuck" at a quiet but not inaudible volume while waiting for admission into a major Chicago hot spot. (The looks we got from both the couple behind us and the host when we turned to theorist groupings were truly priceless.) Once inside, we settled into a lively conversation that covered everything from Marxist theory (naturally, with Nora there) to 9/11 to college hijinx. We also consumed some of the best cocktails it's ever been my privilege to drink. And I might have made us do whiskey shots. We ended up more or less closing the place out, then catching a cab (such luxury! I'm going to be living on Ramen for the rest of the month) (not like I wouldn't have been anyhow) back to the hotel and crashing immediately despite Nathan and I's intentions to catch Nora up on some major YouTube classics.

Woke up a bit worse for wear, Nathan drove us home, he and I are obsessed with the a cappella version of "Effington," we stopped at a creepily middle-America Dairy Queen in Janesville, all crashed when we got back to our homes. Great weekend. It reminded me that adventures can actually be better now that I'm old.

And then of course despite being certain I'd be too busy and tired to go out Sat night, I ended up at the Mason with the larger gang until 2:30. And regretted it not at all. I'm a lucky girl in my friends.

I did manage, through what feels like Herculean effort on my part but was probably just reasonably Fear-motivated catch-up, to finish my entire academic to-do list for the weekend. Of course, I wrote it with an eye to making it modest and actually doable given my plans, but still. Small victories and all. It's going to be a rough week until Wed is over, then will just be the usual "OMG it's mid-November fuck"-style week. Things are both helped and hindered by the fact that I'm incredibly excited about my VisRhet final paper - I just want to work on it. But of course I have no time to do so - or rather, what time I might be able to scrape up is needed for the 25-source annotated bibliography detailing not my research for the paper but "the conversation" I'm entering. Yes this is good for me blah blah, but it can't help but feel chafing when all I want to do is run with my topic.
----------

Well this is surprising

I'm proud of myself.

This isn't something I find myself noticing all that often anyhow, but the fact that I'm feeling that despite having spent most of yesterday eating three days' worth of food while watching 20 episodes of Community is especially surprising. (And I wish I was exaggerating either of those numbers, but I am sadly not.)

I'm not doing perfectly. I still sleep too much, watch too much TV, drink too much, don't read enough for class, never cook. And that all gets me down a lot, because I know I'm capable of doing better than I have been. I can take better care of myself, work harder, make more adult decisions (in quality and quantity). And that's all still true now, at the end of this week.

But things are looking up all the same. I worked out twice, I started really thinking about final papers, I went and talked to someone about my teaching insecurities, I drank less. And I made an very difficult decision about my personal life and stuck to it - even under duress. I also mailed back an RSVP card the day I got it. That's big.

What I need to remember is that I'll never be doing everything perfectly. So what's important to notice is the improvements I *am* making, the good things I find ways to do anyhow. People close to me have been telling me this for a few years now, but I'm starting to believe that I really can frequently be too hard on myself. But it's important to give myself credit for the things I accomplish, however small - because if not, that's how I end up believing I can't do anything.

I actually had a nightmare the other night about this - in which I had a paper rejected from an undergraduate research symposium on picture books and fled weeping into MBD's office pleading for affirmation that I wasn't in fact just an experiment in - and this is 100% true - "the restorative power of rhetoric." The "nightmare" part is clearly just how mortifying it was that I had done this at all, since it was one of those dreams that felt suuuuuuper real. Ugh.

So. Yes. I need to be less negative about myself and remember I'm not entirely a weak-willed fuck-up with no work ethic. I can make changes, I can have good ideas, I can be strong enough to stand up for what's best for me.

And I can eat like "a fat girl trapped in a thin girl's body" as Justin famously put it, and I can appreciate the genius of Community. (Even if I sometimes wish a little too deeply that my life looked more like that - god, so much cleanly resolved drama! And so much entertaining sexual tension! It's like my dream world, except in Colorado and...well, at community college. But who knows - with this market, I'll be lucky for Prof. Slater's job.)