15 May 2008
one long identity crisis
that's what i think gradschool is. 6-10 years of not knowing...who knows what. not knowing anything? not knowing what you don't know? not knowing everything? this is sounding kind of negative--but i don't mean it that way. i find the crisis quite exhilarating, actually. my latest crisis is not knowing what kind of professor/scholar i want to be. a wise wise person once told me that it's important to realize one's academic "ceiling"--one's intellectual capacity. as much as i think that's great advice and as much as i respect all advice coming from this wise person, i think i'm unwisely going to take a different route. i say always assume you don't have a ceiling. i say push beyond the limit as if you totally can. anyhow, that's my new MO and i might go down in flames. but flames are fun. flames are exciting. and hey, if this job doesn't have any flames, then i might as well go do something that will actually make money at a fraction of the time cost.
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4 comments:
I'm so glad that you dismissed the "ceiling" lecture too. Mostly because when I first started reading, I immediately began composing a profanity-ridden response. But I do want to have this conversation with you, even if I'm not an official gradschooler right now. (How weird is that?)
But I want to have this conversation in person. Because I need Anna.
Isn't "realizing one's academic ceiling" kind of like giving up? I say go for it.
Oops. I left that comment as Gabe. This is Alexis.
By the way, I thought Becoming Jane was a decent movie, but I don't know as much about Austen as you do. They basically turned her life into a version of P&P, and maybe if you consider it another adaptation of P&P instead of biography, you would like it better.
I think I know the wise wise person you're talking about and even though I'm sitting here avoiding my thesis--proving the ceiling theory?--I feel a comment from a friend of mine about how marriage prolongs life is relevant here: "Burn out or fade away."
PS. I think you should visit lizzy g especially if that's your nickname for me.
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