So my therapist, my mother, some of my friends, the mailman, that guy over there, they all think that I’m not taking any pride in graduating from college. I am. I’m just doing it privately.
I am a high school drop out and in 36 hours I will attend my first graduation ceremony, for my BA in English Literature. I am so filled with that accomplishment that I can’t even verbalize it. But to a large extent it isn’t mine, or not just mine.
That pride that I should feel should really be felt by my friends and my professors. The people who held me up when I didn’t think I could keep going. It should be felt by one one ex boyfriend who constantly told that I was too smart to be only a waitress. It should be felt by every person who gave me a pass on going out so I could sit in and do work.
No one does anything alone, and I sure as shit didn’t reach this alone. You can’t go from dropping out of high school at 16 to finishing your degree at 26 by yourself, it’s too big. It’s a group effort.
The other night was the awards ceremony where I was being inducted into the Alpha Sigma Lambda Honor Society for my scholastic achievement as well as receiving the departmental award for excellence in english literature. When I arrived the assistant dean asked for my name:
A.D.: Oh, Patricia, can you believe it? You are receiving two awards!
Me: No I’m not. I’m receiving one.
A.D: No, you are receiving two awards.
Me: What awards?
A.D.: The English departmental award and the Michael F Maher Award…
Me: Which is the english award . . .
A.D.: No, it’s an award bestowed upon the highest GPA.
Me: Oh My . . .
I was the only person in the University College who received two awards. They read quotes from my professors about my writing and commitment. I wanted to melt into the chair I was in when I had to go up three times total.
And even though there was no one there to see this, I still wasn’t alone.
I can’t show how proud I am, because I’m still so amazed that I begin to cry whenever I think about it. That this little girl, who a lot of people thought wouldn’t amount to anything, walks with high honors on saturday and is leaving to begin grad school.
But I am going to grad school, and to some extent I feel like pride only has a fleeting presence. You can’t spend the rest of your life proud of the fourth grade spelling bee, and I’m proud of getting my BA, but I’ve basically gotten it. So now it’s back to the drawing board to come up with new things I can do to be proud of myself. Grad school seems the best place to start.
It wasn’t easy, but nothing worth doing ever is. And it’s been a long time coming. But is really isn’t just mine, and saturday morning I’ll think of all of you and try my hardest not to cry when they call my name.
Thank you. All of You.
I’ve often said that I think Philosophy is the way intelligent people get back at everyone else for being tortured growing up. They come up with esoteric theories which they write out using the most convoluded sentence structure known to man. They make impossible to argue with them because any sensible person is using a blackboard at NASA to try and diagram each sentence to determine the subject and action.
While writing a philosophy paper to summarize three deferent opinions on Plato’s Forms, I’ve discovered that my opening paragraph reads like one of their stupid texts. I apologize, because now I see the only way to convey any topic that is metaphysical is with imprecise human language and reads like stereo installation instructions translated from English to Japanese and then back again.
This is me procrastinating my second paragraph.
So I’m losing my mind and with 6 weeks left until I likely hear from any other graduate schools I’ve decided to spend my spare time planning 6 different possible outcomes for my life.
Trust me it is more interesting then me going on about homework or boys.
So first up:
Purdue University
West Lafayette, IN
504 Northwestern Avenue
West Lafayette, IN 47907-2103
City Data:
Population: 31,079
Estimated median household income: $26,322
2008 cost of living index in West Lafayette: 95.6
Poss Apt:
Efficiency – $340, electric not included – 2.2 miles from campus (cats okay)
1 – 2 Bedrooms = $500 – <2 miles from campus
Poss part time jobs:
Nothing on Craigslist for waitress/bartending
Possible on site oppurtunities?
Poss Campus oppurtunities?
West Lafayette has lower unemployment than state average and lower than national average too.
The Move.
Approx: 700 miles
11.5 hours straight through
Spend 1 night overnight on the border of PA and West VA
Approx $125 – gas for the moving truck
$606.00 – Uhaul 1 way (big enough for bike too)
Fun Facts:
• The Indiana Dunes region provides habitat for many unusual plants, including prickly pear cactus, lichen mosses, bearberry, and more than 20 varieties of orchids.
• The first successful goldfish farm in the United States was opened in Martinsville, Indiana, in 1899.
• In June 1972, Lowell Elliot of Peru, Indiana, was said to have found $500,000 in cash on his farm. It appeared as if the money had fallen from the sky. And in fact, it did. A skyjacker parachuting out of a plane had dropped his stolen profits over Elliot’s farm. Elliot returned the money to the authorities.
Stay tuned for next week’s entry – Nashville. Wew!
Okay, I’m halfway through one of the worst efforts I’ve ever made on a paper about poetry. Almost done and I decided to stop, eat a banana, and blog. So, hello. I have the worst case of senioritis ever.
Another odd and long week has begun. This starbucks has everyone from the teenagers making out on the couch to the old people who have nothing but time. It is Life Cycle: The Reality.
Tumblr seems to have too many sexualized picture, so I can’t even really check it here for two reasons. 1) looking at porn in public is still frowned upon. 2) I’m already like a live wire lately, accidental stimulation could only make everything worse.
Was listening to a lot of Ani lately, and I was musing on the fact that not enough women my age appreciate Ani, and even fewer younger women do. And I then I recalled that during this election I heard and read different things about females of a similar age to much younger wish that Roe v. Wade wasn’t such a huge issue. they didn’t understand how women could change their mind on a canidate based on that one issue. The two things collided in my brain and I realized:
people are stupid!
No, for real, I realized that women aren’t angry anymore (semi-accidental Ani pun). They don’t realize that we aren’t free and clear and equal. We have a lot of work left to be done, and angry is one of the best ways to stay on track. It hasn’t occurred to them that Roe v. Wade isn’t in indestructible right. It was won on the backs of our mothers, and if we take our eyes off of it, we’ll lose it.
There is a lot left to be angry about. We are the only oppressed minority that regularly sleeps with the enemy. We are the only oppressed minority without a strong community. We tear ourselves down, so that men don’t even have to. And for me, Ani is a way to reconnect with my righteous anger. To remind me I’m not done fighting, and that complacency is no substitute for true equality.
Just remember no one who has power has ever given it up willingly.
(Clearly all militant feminist views are not directed to my many many lovely guys friends, who certainly outnumber any female friends I have. Please don’t leave me.)
So the paper? It’s on Emily Dickinson and the theme of erotic love in her poetry. I have the nicest 900 year old professor you ever will meet, and for some odd reason every time I have to have an awkward conversation it seems to be in his class. Thus far other topics covered with him included race in Flannery O’Conner, and masturbation in James Joyce. He’s actually a great sport about all these conversations.
I swear in an upcoming post you are getting my last will and testament, but I keep forgetting to do it until I’ve already written a full post. Hopefully next time.
Ugh. So I’m probably on the penultimate draft of the last piece of fiction for my manuscript. Well the piece which started out at seven pages, has grown to fifteen pages (roughly four thousand words). What this means is that if I use it for the British Columbia manuscript, I can only use one of my flash fiction stories. If I don’t use it, I’ll need to write an eight to nine page story in a day and a half because I need to finalize my manuscipt rough draft Tuesday so that my friends editing can see it.
I guess the problem is that I like to hedge my bets and this story is a little odd and not my best. But my best story is very fucking odd and I fear that if I put them together it won’t show diversity in my portfolio.
I’ll have to hope that the Blog and the Poetry will show enough facets of my personality that I won’t seem two dimensional.
I’m sorry I can’t even talk to you right now. I’m going to vomit and die.
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