>I've been living in Academic Limbo for over two months. Application deadlines are looming, and I would be lying if I claimed not to have begun a grad school application with sure intention of completing it (only to leave it on file, lonely and unfinished). I am currently receiving emails reminding me that the deadline is less than a month and a half away. Today, I've decided not to complete the application. (I'll elaborate more on this panic inducing decision during a later post.) I won't be attending grad school next fall. I feel generally okay with this because the prospect of falling thousands of dollars into (more) debt seems absurd. The fact that I have to begin paying back my loans this month is already nauseating; I don't want to owe anything else to this shit system.
So, I've come up with a plan. I'm following it right now. Though some weeks prove lazier than others, I've decided that on most weeknights I'll pretend to be a student and take advantage of the TC library [where all the grad students look cool and study].
For the past two nights, I've crashed in one of the big armchairs in the library with my friends -headphones in and books stacked around me- to write. I've been quite productive. Monday night, I created this blog, posting and transcribing entries that I have written in the past few months from various notebooks. Last night, I borrowed some books from the family whose son I watch, and I started to do some research about some of my intellectual pursuits.
I have been a nanny/hometeacher for a long while: children and naptime is super important stuff. (When you have a kid and she's screaming all night because you couldn't get her to nap all day, you'll remember how important this shit really is.) Naptime is my specialty, and I pride myself in being able to transition needy sleepers into their cribs. Out of slight insecurity about doing this type of research in the academic arena, I may have hidden the titles of my books so as not to blow my non-student cover. As TC constantly tells me (I can't use the gym, take out books, etc.), I am an affiliate, not a student. I pay to live here, and that's about it. Though, perhaps some TC students could have been doing some pop culture research on naptime habits, I'm going to doubt it. In that way, being an affiliate has its redeeming qualities. I can research whatever the hell I'd like to research without having to pay for access to online databases. My partner just gives me his password, and into the world of Academia I go, searching the academic realm for information on babies and sleep patterns. This is why I can't/shouldn't go to grad school right now. I don't want someone looking over my shoulder, telling me how to do this research. From what I understand, in order to get into that sort of space in the academic world, you must earn your Ph.D. Unless you're paying for it and I'm doing my research, no way.
If I were to go to grad school, I would resurrect my position as a sitter/nanny/home teacher, and my experiences, not seen by larger society as economically valuable, would be overtaken and overseen by an academic institution with a mission. I don't want a mission. I want time to observe, take notes, read, take notes, then to read those notes, then write, then to read that writing, edit it, write more, and maybe make a book, or a booklet, or a blog, or an essay out of it. I want to create things that are coming out of my experiences, through my brain, onto paper. Maybe nobody else in this world will read my words, but I know that these words are written out of my own intellectual desires. My ideas pull me into these books, onto the keyboard, so that I can see them in front of my eyes. I can't fathom writing an assignment for another professor. I want to write my own words, and I am tired of writing words prompted by other people. I am happy -poor but happy- and I have all these resources FOR FREE at my fingertips. Thanks to my partner, his debt, his motivation, and my work, I serve as my own prompt. I can do the research I want to do.
This is what it's like to be in Academic Limbo.
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