Here We Are

Spoken

Yes, I'm going back to school again. What am I going back for this time? (chuckles) A PhD. Yeah. In Romance Languages. Well, it's like . . . okay, basically Spanish for me, and I might do like a minor in French. Yeah, in August. Mmhmm, a professor. Well . . . that depends on me, but usually about 4 years.

Unspoken

No, I'm not a cold, ambitious career woman who craves to climb the highest rungs of academia so that I can see my name engraved in whatever. What else do you expect me to do? Go back to teaching in the nightmare of the public school system? "Settle down"? For whom? With what? (or switch those two interrogative words around.) Buy a townhouse in the part of town that is in transition to being "the other side" of town and chill, eating either MSG-laden Chinese food or Golden Corral Sunday afternoon after Sunday afternoon? I have to be able to take care of myself. That's the fact of the matter. And I can't do that well doing what I've been doing. Exhibit A: Juggling gigs and living with my parents ever since finishing my Master's and emerging from my "French experience." Yes, I am painfully aware of my singleness and of my mother's covert grandchild craving. But here we are.