One of the curses of being a graduate student is that you are completely unbound from the normal tethers that anchor people to reality, like working hours and HR offices and regular, reliable wages. It is a challenge that has both professional and personal ramifications – is well documented, these days, the kinds of abuses that graduate students are vulnerable in the academy, but it is quite possible to drive yourself mad in a world without deadlines, job prospects, or any clear sense of what you’re doing most of the time. To finish in one piece, you must find your own way of handling the constant uncertainty.
I have coped with this pressure, for better or worse, by leaning into it, which gives me the (mostly false) illusion that I have some control over what I’m doing and what will happen to me when I graduate. Most recently, this led me north, all the way to our Canadian neighbors, where I spent a brief period this winter visiting Quebec City and their Winter Carnaval while working on writing a dissertation chapter.
Continue reading “Je Me Souviens”
Much That Is Fair 