where the grass is always greener

Lately, I have been thinking about how ready I am to get back into school mode. Working a normal, 9 to 5 job only makes me appreciate the academic life in all its caffeinated, frantic splendor. I LOVE being in school, which is convenient considering I will be there for the next million years.

Still, graduate school has its moments. Terrifying, soul-destroying, claw-your-own-eyes-out (Oedipus-style) moments. While I'm not thinking about those moments right now, come back around October and you'll experience them first hand. So, in honor of graduate school angst, I give you the latest installment from Blog 1.0. Enjoy.

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It's That Time of Year...
November 15, 2006

...and I'm not talking about the holiday season. I'm referring to that point in the academic semester where students begin to slowly, painfully lose their minds. I'm starting to recognize the symptoms in my students. They are perpetually 3 to 5 minutes late to class. They don't have their homework. They are wearing last night's eyeliner. I'm thinking of instituting yoga as the first 10 minutes of every class.

I'm also recognizing the symptoms in myself and my fellow graduate students. The desperation is starting to stink. The graduate computer lab is full 24 hours a day as we print out articles and search for inspiration. The papers are piling up as we decide if tonight we want to stress about teaching or our own classes. I feel a pang of guilt even writing this instead of working on my paper or reading for class or responding to student's topic proposals.

My solution to all this pain? Domesticity.

Not kidding. My favorite activity of late is take off my Grad Student hat (and by "take off," I mean "snatch from my scalp in my vicious talons and fling mercilessly across the room, my only regret that it's not solid enough to make a satisfying thump when it strikes the wall") and joyfully adorn myself, ritualistically, with my Wife apron. Today, I baked cookies. I've never baked cookies before in my life. Still, I found myself armed with all my new fun baking gadgets (thank you, wedding showers!), television tuned to the Food Network, and elbow deep in butter and brown sugar. As they baked, I did laundry. I dusted my living room. I made a grocery list. I reveled in my alternative existence where Frederic Jameson can't hurt me and the rhetorical triangle doesn't matter nearly as much as my new Christmas tree.

My dear friend and fellow graduate school maven, Summer, informed me that the best medicine for grad school angst includes chick flicks and baked goods. Never has a wiser word been spoken. There must be something about reinscribing myself into the patriarchal system of Wifery that my studies force me to criticize that makes me feel better about the world. That's right, I'll say it. I love being married. I love keeping house. And I love cookies. And cupcakes with sprinkles.

I can put off my work no longer (which means I will shortly be going to bed, only to dream of discourse communities and flunking out of school). At least I have cookies.