Just so we're clear: 24 credits, a stack of seminar papers, a foreign language proficiency exam, a twice-submitted qualifying paper, and a nervous breakdown (or three). Two semesters.
I don't ever want to achieve again.
Also I had big plans for a year-in-review reflective blog post. I left some space for major revelations and cute jokes and some hardcore goal-reviewing. There were goals!: for this year, this semester, and for life in general that maybe I achieved and maybe I drop-kicked to the "idealism is for losers" curb. There were fears I had that I hoped to overcome but managed to complement with additional fears. And reckless bone-headedness. YES.
I assumed I would learn things about life in academia, life in corporate America, life as a mostly-grown adult, and how to negotiate my post-coital relationship with a pretty significant identity-shaping period in my life. [Ed. note: still learning]
I survived crisis after crisis after self-induced crisis. I celebrated some things. I grudgingly accepted some things. Some things I ignored and hoped they would just go away. They got worse.
Sometimes I was right. Usually I was wrong.
But mostly, I thought for sure I would be a different person today than I was in August of last year. I was really looking forward to who I would be in May of 2010 and spoiler alert: I'm still me!
It's a little disappointing.
So, probably I should regroup. Probably I should stop and think and spend more time on me and less time on "things I do." Ultimately I am more than the bullet points on my resume or the statuses I update or the notches on my academic belt.
Probably it is time to start over (again).
... Right? Okay.
But I think instead I will be sleeping through June.
But in universally proud news: Cheers to me for wrapping up grad school in Philadelphia in one whole (almost whole) year!
