End of year reflection

Buckle up, peeps, this is one of those looking back posts. It's been a year since I moved to Milwaukee to start grad school and a lot has happened.

Grad school is a very different type of lizard than undergrad. Now's when everyone is nodding, rolling their eyes, and generally being unimpressed by that observation. It's not an especially deep one, but it is deeply true. And it's true in ways that make it difficult to explain the differences. The atmosphere is different. People are here because they want to be, not because college is the socially expected next step in their life. The work is different. The expectations are different. The interactions are different. It's competitive. At Marquette, the competition is not vindictive or unpleasant, but it is there. A challenge a day keeps ennui away. 

Professionally, it's been a fairly decent year. I was accepted to three conferences, one of which I attended, one of which I declined, and one of which is coming up in November. It's a real, adult conference where people with actual academic careers will be presenting. And me. Exciting and scary.

Friendship. It's not one of the things I have a talent for. It's never been clear to me how one goes about becoming friends with strangers. Somewhere during this last year, I lost one of my best friends. I don't know what happened. There are people in Milwaukee who I consider to be acquaintances. We hang out. For some of them, I know we're halfway through our time together. I can't see us talking once there is geographic distance. Right now, we're brought together by locale and grad program, but that will change. And once that changes, there will be little we're left with. You can't be close friends with people who believe that your beliefs are only held by idiots. You both walk away with bruises.

Dear readers, don't think my friendships this year have been all doom and gloom. I've met a couple of new people with whom I think I will be friends. My wonderful old friends have stuck by me, even in my times of poor communication.

Moving to a new city in a new state was a big deal for me. I love my family and being near them. Geographically, Milwaukee is not that far away. But it was all brand new and stuffed with strangers. In the past year, I've found some good points - the lake, frozen custard, the grid layout (helpfully keeping me from getting terribly lost). It's been good for me to be here even though I know I don't want to stay forever.

Teaching has become more than just an idea. I have a teaching philosophy - something I could only imagine before. I've had students cry in my office, be angry with me, submit terrible reviews of my teaching. I've also had students drop by randomly just to say hello, thank me for working with them on their papers, and tell me that mine was their favourite class. I've learned that students' feelings are not what I need to use to evaluate my teaching.

This semester, I'll have forty new students. I'll also be a mentor to a new TA to whom I have not yet been introduced. How well that goes will depend a lot on her and what she wants, but also on how me and what I can tell her. Embarking on a new year of teaching, a year with experience, fills me with trepidatious delight.

There are a lot of terrible moments from the last year that I don't want to dwell on and that I'm sure you don't really want to either. It's important to learn from the bad but I don't want to live there. Learn; move on.

I have one more year to finish my MA. There are seven months before the exam to determine if I will receive the degree. Studying is a thing. Last night I finished Middlemarch. I think I will eventually like it better than I do right now. Currently my impressions of the book are far too coloured by the lengthy process of trying to read it alongside my summer semester coursework for me to evaluate it fairly. That being said, George Eliot could have told that story in significantly fewer pages. I'm off to read Tess of the D'Urbervilles now.

“Never say goodbye because goodbye means going away and going away means forgetting.”