Another Saturday at work...
September 04, 2004
So, I'm realizing that I enjoy these Saturday shifts at work. I get to come in and be by myself. The workload is lighter than most days because I'm pretty much just here to field the Saturday newsreel, so I have a lot of time to just surf , read the last two hilarious weeks of Savage Love, and listen to music. I'm currently listening to one of my favorite albums--the Counting Crows' Recovering the Satellites. I pull this album out like twice a year and listen to it obsessively for a couple of weeks. And think about going to my very first concert at the Coca-Cola Star Lake Amphitheater, just outside of Pittsburgh, with my dad. I bought this album at that concert with an "autographed" CD insert. And my dad was so cool that day. So cool for coming with me in the first place. So cool for standing up when lead singer Adam Duritz told all of us sitting in the back to "get off our fucking asses and dance" even though he had to note before standing up that he didn't like the way in which Adam had asked...And him being shocked when he said, "Someone here is smoking weed," and I responded, "I know." Heh.
And then later, telling me about this one time in the early 70's, soon after he'd arrived in America,thinking he he saw Bob Dylan playing in a park in Virginia. [Dad?! You think?! You can't be sure?!] Heh.
Anyway, it's nice just sitting here, doing some work every once in a while and thinking back...Even though it's a pain in my ass to have to be here from 10:30-9 on a Saturday, it means I get a three-day weekend next week. Mini and I are thinking of heading to the Red Sea. But come to think of it I should probably use those long weekends to focus on finishing my goddamn masters. Yeah, that's still hanging there even though I try to avoid mentioning it.
Someone once called me a "fake" grad student. At the time...well, honestly at the time I just kind of laughed it off because frankly I was drunk as hell and on my way to one of the most indifferent hook-ups in my life. But LATER, like the next day, I was actually pretty offended. What did they mean? I'd applied to the grad school just like everyone else. I'd written the essays like everyone else. I'd undergone board scrutiny like everyone else. The only thing I hadn't (thankfully) had to do was take the GREs. What's more, up until the last semester, I was taking a full course load and working part-time. And the courses I was taking were fairly intense with a lot of paper-writing, reading, and grad student ego-competing. Also? I'd taken a course where I had to speak, read, and write literary analysis papers in Hebrew. I thought that all pretty much qualified me as a grad student.
Was it because I was only doing a masters? Or was it because I had an extremely lax attitude about the whole thing?
I'm thinking that might be it. I just didn't have the attitude nor the drive to be a proper grad student. I didn't really worship other professors in my field (well, except for Edward Said, and he was actually NOT a professor in my field). I didn't have the everyone-listen-to-me-and-the-important-things-I-have-to-say ego, because frankly I don't think anything I or any of my peers have to say is that important. Interesting? Maybe. Pertinent? A lot of times, yes. Ground-breakingly important? Almost never.
To all my grad student friends, contrary to how this sounds, this is not an attack on y'all. You're all brilliant in your own fields. This is just a round-about admission of the idea that I may in fact be a "fake" grad student.
In finding it so utterly difficult to just finish my damn thesis and get the freaking masters I've realized that my problem lies in the fact that I just don't think I'm cut out for academia. The truth is, I don't think my academic work will make a spot of difference in the world, except to give me more/better credentials to maybe get into a position where I can make a difference. I'm tired of lofty ideals, and talking. I want to do not think. I don't have the patience or the self-importance to go any further with my academic pursuits...at the moment.
This attitude, however, does not change the fact that I hate, hate, hate not finishing something I've started. And since I'd like it to appear like I finished my masters in 2 years I'm determined to have it done by the end of 2004. I'd also just like to get it out of the way so I can feel okay about taking up other projects like learning German, enrolling in a drawing & painting class at the arts center, and learning how to play the oud or again taking up my viola.
For now though I'll have to satisfy myself with being more up-to-date than ever on current events in the Middle East.
And with that I'm going back to work.
--
She sees shooting stars and comet tails
She's got heaven in her eyes
She says I don't need to be an angel
But I'm nothing if I'm not this high
But we only stay in orbit
For a moment of time
And then you're everybody's satellite
I wish that you were mine
So why'd you come home to this angels town
It's a lifetime decision
Recovering the satellites
Everybody really knows for sure...
That you're gonna come down