Reemergence. Later.

It seems the only way to kick myself into gear is to shut down all distractions.  So, bye bye Facebook for now (deactivated my account) and bye bye blog for now.

It's going to be all good. I am the queen of procrastination and languishing in an unmotivated stupor, but I have this little trusty thing that kicks in when it needs to.  Time to crawl into my hole.  By the time I come out, it'll be almost time for me to go to Cuba, and then my online presence will go black again because there is extremely unreliable to nonexistent internet access on la isla.

I am a phoenix.  I'm about to get burnt up by the pyre of final papers.  But from my ashes, I will emerge reborn.  And done with taking classes forever and all time.  

A Few Facts

1. I am absolutely unmotivated right now.  At a time when I can least afford to be.

2. I am utterly unprepared to go to Cuba in a few weeks.

3. I am quite frustrated with myself for worrying so much about what people think about my choices.

4. I am very tired of being in limbo.

5. My skin and hair are not my friends right now.

6. I hate the fact that I have contradictory urgent desires: one, for things to change, and two, for things to stay the same.

7. I want to crawl into a hole and fall off the face of the earth for a while and reemerge, anew.

8.  I have lots of chocolate at my disposal and I'm not afraid to use it.

9. I'm not getting enough sleep.

10. The three answers I have for "Why?":  I don't know.  Because I want to.  Because I don't want to.

Detour

"Wait, where are you going?  This isn't the right exit!"

"Calm down, I'm just taking another way.  You've never gone this way before?"

"No, I usually get off at the next exit."

"But you know where we are, right?"

"Yeah, I do.  Maybe I should just trust that you'll go the right way."

The Rest of the Story

Remember this?

I briefly mentioned this "possibility" that was "exciting and frightening and exhilarating and overwhelming" that I couldn't divulge at the time because it was up in the air.  Well, now I'll spill the beans:

My professor (the young awesome one whose son I babysit and who I rave about all the time) was offered a job at a very prestigious Ivy League school.  The most famous one that comes to mind.  Apparently, it's common in academia for professors working with students who accept a job elsewhere to bring those students with them.  She wanted to take me with her.  And the way she asked me was so casual.  "So, do you wanna come with me?" I was dumbfounded.  Flabbergasted.  In a moment, something I had never even conceived of in the realm of possibility suddenly became possible.  "Keep your fingers crossed," she said.

I was informed this week that I was not accepted for the fall.  Here's why: Because of the timing of my professor's job offer, by the time I applied, I was considered an out-of-cycle admission.  I was told that my dossier was impressive and that I would have been accepted, but since the money for students who applied and were admitted traditionally was already allotted and since this school doesn't accept graduate students who aren't fully funded, it was a no go.  I was told that if I reapplied next year, I'd have a very, very high chance of getting in.  My professor says it would be a matter of simply applying; though they couldn't legally guarantee it, I'd be at the top of the list.

But here's the problem with reapplying for next fall: As of right now, I am halfway done with my program.  This semester is my last semester of coursework.  I plan to take comprehensive exams in the fall, and I plan to submit my prospectus by this time next spring.  If I play my cards right, by the time I'd go to this famous Ivy League in Fall 2014, I'd be ABD.  All but dissertation.  Nothing left to do but write.

Why is that negative?  Because grad school doesn't work like undergrad.  I can't just transfer credits or whatever.  Upon going to a different school, I'd have to retake at least a semester of coursework, and I'd have to re-do the process of taking comprehensive exams there.  I'd essentially be starting over.  Well, not completely over, but it would set my graduation date back at least a year and a half.  And I don't know if it's worth it.  I could see if I was just starting my PhD.  But I'd be 3/4ths done.  I could see if I was a fresh-faced 20something.  But I'm not.  I'm not saying I'm decrepit, but I'm trying to wrap this puppy up.  I'm not exactly a spring chicken anymore who has time to kill.  I'm trying to get out of school so I can get out of this state of prolonged instability and get a job and establish myself.  Not to mention that going to this school would be stressful as heck.  Am I willing to expend more time and undergo more stress for a brand name?  I don't think so.

But all's not lost.  Once my professor is established there, she can apply for money to hire a research assistant for a summer or maybe even a semester and she would have much more control over the process.  The best time to go would be once I'm admitted to candidacy (after my prospectus is approved).  Once I start writing my dissertation and get a few chapters under my belt is when I would start applying for jobs.  And wouldn't "Research Fellow at Big Shot Ivy League" look great on my CV?  All of that to say, even though I don't plan on actually attending and graduating from this school, I would still be able to have a beneficial experience there.

In the end, I'm content with where God has me and the doors He's opening for me.  Things that I never imagined possible suddenly becoming a possibility . . . it seems to be a recurring theme this year.  (Remember the Cuba thing?)  It's exciting.  And I'm thankful.

Maybe It Ain't All That Bad

You know that history final paper draft that I said was a crying ugly baby that smelled like burnt collard greens and garbage?

I made a 91 on it.

Guess my baby was prettier than I thought.

I need to ask myself a question right now . . .

Me: Hey, can I ask you something?

Me: Uh, sure.

Me: Can you stop being awkward?

Me: Huh?

Me: Yes, you know exactly what I'm talking about.  When will you stop being awkward and giving yourself empty feelings?

Me: (Sigh.) You're acting like I'm doing this on purpose.  I say things (text things) that just slip out and I mean them one way, but they can be easily taken another way.  It's not me, it's them.

Me: See?  That's exactly what your problem is.  It's never you, is it?

Me: I mean, I know it's me, as in, I'm the one doing/saying/texting awkward things, but I'm not the one misinterpreting the awkwardness.

Me: (laughing) How do you "misinterpret" awkwardness?  You don't think through things before they come tumbling out.  One of the prime characteristics of being irredeemably awkward.  There's nothing to be "misinterpreted."  It just is.

Me: Easy for you to say.  But it's like . . . I don't know.  Almost like I can't help myself.  Just by virtue of being me, it seems like I'm destined to continue to place myself in these empty feeling-like situations.

Me: Well, you need to get a hold of yourself.  Stop being a weirdo, and think about things before you let them cross your lips or before you hit "send."  For real. Stop embarrassing me.

A Series of Unfortunate Empty Feelings and Sucktastic Events

Yes, I am exaggerating.  Yes, I am dramatic.  Yes, it's about to get ranty.

How can I 1. Not have fun, 2. Be anal, 3. Be a procrastinator, and 4. Be manic all at the same time?

Okay, before I get in too deep, let me explain to you what an "empty feeling" is.  It's a feeling when you do/say something and it doesn't get the response you anticipated or hoped, so you're left feeling empty.  It also happens when you respond to something you probably should have let lie.  You know that feeling when you've said something that went just a tad over the line, but it's too late to take it back and you super wish you could?  Empty feeling.  When you make a suggestion or put something out there, and it's rejected?  Instant empty feeling.  It's this feeling that you want to claw away from you, that you want to peel off like a layer of detestable scum, but you can't because the feeling is nothing.  How can you get a nothing away from you?  How can you put a nothing behind you?  It's just there, hovering, weightless, matterless and stubborn.

I "don't have fun" because I didn't have plans Saturday night.  But you're young!  It's Saturday night.  You should be doing something fun.  Pick up that phone and give him a call. So, I did, and then I did have "plans," but I still don't want people to want me to "have fun."  I'll have fun when I feel like it.  I don't want people thinking I'm a repressed, skirted, 31-year-old shut-in who doesn't "have fun."  A black, 21st century Emily Dickinson.  Get your fun-wantingness out of my lifespace.

I'm anal because I'm putting together the graduate student panel and I'm working with a few other representatives on other things.  Yes, I want things done a certain way.  And I want them done ahead of time so folks aren't scrambling around at the last minute looking sweaty and incompetent.  But I was faced with the fact that I'm anal when I was outweighed by the other representatives on a couple of issues.  Admittedly, minor ones, but things that made me have this dawn of empty feeling realization: I'm micromanaging and anal and need to take a deep breath.

I'm a procrastinator because the draft for my history paper is woefully awful.  It smells like burnt collard greens and garbage.  It is a suckfest of fail.  Incomplete, garbled, not impressive, bad and just . . . bad.  And then I'm going to have to get up in front of these history grad students who know all the historical historicity of all things historic and present this ugly baby.  Crying, ugly, screwed up face final paper draft baby that I birthed.  I'm going to feel like I've been sentenced to a life of everlasting wedgies.  Mad uncomfortable.

Procrastination debacle #2, absent bibliography on a paper proposal.  The horror.  Honestly, I was going to take the 20 minutes I alloted myself to slap down some references I had previously investigated, but that 20 minutes was taken up by comforting a frazzled, teary-eyed colleague having a mini-meltdown before class.  Mama-me kicked in and my bibliographic mad dash time annulled.  Options: 1. Turn in what I had and write a lame apology note where the bibliography should have been suggesting that I would turn it in later if given the opportunity. 2. Send a lame last minute email right before class was about to start talking about some lame "I ran out of time" crap.  I went for option 1.  At a later meeting, I get a guilt-wrenching "what happened?" talk with my major professor.  It was a concerned, almost maternal "what happened? Because I know your work" probe.  Even worse.  Butterfly flittering excushish words very quickly transformed into a shameful empty feeling of acceptance of my own lack of time management.  It's okay.  I did eventually turn in a bibliography.  But the empty feeling remains.

I'm manic because I let my little texting thumbs get out of control and make me become what I've never wanted to be considered.  A hyper-academic race-obsessed radical who pounces on any un-nuanced utterance.  Sit your maniacal self down and stop.  Breathe.  Stop opening your mouth as wide as humanly possible and shoving as many feet in it that you can jam in.  A flood of empty feeling.

And again today.  You had to turn something sweet into a not-that-funny joke.  It was fine, everyone laughed, but you were still left with an empty feeling and felt compelled to send yet another apology text.  In both instances, my apolotexts were accepted gracefully and even "not needed" in this instance, but still, that stubborn empty feeling lingers.

Lastsemesterofclassesitis is settling in and robbing me of motivation.  How can I be so lethargic, yet so unwilling to get anything less than an A?  I know that if I end up getting anything less than an A for any of my final grades, I will turn into Rumplestiltskin and have a manic foot stomping freak out fest.  But then, I have to tell myself, hold on, little mama . . . in this game, you get what you give.

More Parables

Imagine if you had a $50 debt. You need to pay a bill that amounts to $50. Then a guy comes up to you and says, "Hey, I heard you have this $50 debt, and I just wanted to let you know that I have $50. I mean, I don't know if that means anything to you and I don't want to make things weird, but I just wanted to be honest and put it out there that I have $50." Hmm, really? . . . someone telling you they have $50 because they want you to know, but they're not willing to actually give you the money.

And then pretend there's this other guy who you see at the grocery store from time to time. Every time you see him there, he's buying a bottle of root beer. This happens over the course of a few months. You going to the store, seeing the same guy, and him buying a bottle of root beer. You suppose he must like root beer. So one day, you strike up a conversation with the guy face to face and you ask, "Hey, are you a root beer aficionado?" And the guy gets wide eyed and says, "Me? No . . . I'm not really interested in root beer." And you're a little confused, but then you're like, Okay, I guess I was mistaken. And then the next time you go to the store, you see the same guy buying an entire case of root beer. And then you think, really? When I asked you if you were a root beer aficionado, you were buying individual bottles of root beer, yet said you didn't like it, but then, ever since you declared you weren't interested in root beer, you started buying cases of it.

Trying to Be Discreet (on a Blog. Oxymoron?)

1. Unheeding tears streaming down my face because a realization harnessed itself on to me.  I have a friend who is, for all intents and purposes, the friend of friends, and whose brain is necessary for my brain's survival.  Once I get into a certain emotional spot, I get into my own head and can't get out.  I'm glad she was able to hear me out and reassure me.  Our friendship is dynamic.  So many things aren't fixed in space, they can't be pinpointed, and they most certainly cannot be relived, redone or undone.  I'm so thankful that there is a plane where I can be myself and be a friend with my friend.

2. I once wrote a cryptic parable about a certain boat I couldn't float.  So, what does it mean when this boat calls me from time to time?
a. This boat called me on my birthday.
b. This boat called me two days after that.
c. This boat called me today.
I enjoy talking to the boat.  It's not like I don't want the boat to call me.  I told the boat that I was fine being friends, and perhaps the boat is simply communicating to me that it is fine being friends, too.  But I have a question for the boat that I will probably never ask: Before any talk of floating was mentioned, we engaged in unphoned communication.  But since you made it clear that you aren't interested in floating, and since I accepted that declaration gracefully and moved on, you've felt free to engage in more personal, phoned communication.  Is it curious for me to be curious about this?  Care you to explain the disconnect between "not being interested" and "calling you up on the phone," kind sir?

3. Friend zone (see #8).  Friend zone is still in the friend zone.  Just let friend zone stay in the friend zone until further notice.  It's just that the notice seems much further off than I'd like.  So . . . right.  I have no other option than to keep it friendly, and keep it in the zone.

The Bee

Yup.  The busy one.

It's that time again.  Oh, yes, honey.  That time when the candle starts burning at both ends.  How dare I be this calm?  I should be freaking out . . . frantically writing proposals and bibliographies and stuff.  I mean, I'm going to eventually have to hunker down and grind it out, and it's not going to be fun, but, hey.  This is the fourth time I've done this.  And the last time.  At least as far as classes are concerned.  The scrambled egg thoughts in my brain:

1. Cuba.

2. Reading lists for comps.

3. What the heck am I going to do this summer after I get back from Cuba?

4. A history paper that is going to kick my tail (for a rather dashing Puerto Rican professor).

5. My veggie babies.  I went to visit them today to plantwateringcanfeed them.  I have to supplement their rainfeeding with the watering can.

6. How much I hate it when people know my name but I don't remember theirs.  It's happened to me several times this week, and it makes me feel awful.

7. The gorgeous weather.  Stay like this forever!

8. And . . . (well . . . ) a guy.  Sort of.  He remains, for all intents and purposes, in the friend zone, but he's been slowly inching a little toe over the line.  And I'm fine with that rate, for now.  And that's all I will ever say about that unless something changes.  I've learned my lesson about overblogsharing.  Yezzir.

(Sigh.) Back to the grind.

Prophet

I need to be reading The Suns of Independence right now, but I'm going to take a break to talk about something that's really stuck with me this week.

The Lazarus story in John 11.  The entire time, Jesus knew how it was going to end up.  But no one else knew.  No one else could have known.  By the time Jesus gets there, Lazarus had been dead for four days.  Four entire days.  People couldn't wrap their heads around it.  "Jesus, why did you wait so late to get here? If you would have just been here, he wouldn't even have died!"  Jesus.  Dude.  What are you doing?  You're dragging your feet.  You let Lazarus die.

But he knew the whole time what he was doing, he knew the whole time what he was going to do, and he knew the whole time how it was going to end up.  He sees what we can't see.  He knows what we have no ability to know.  He's our Savior, but he's also our Prophet.

In verse 22, Martha's like, "I know you have the power to do whatever you want," but she still didn't believe He would do it.  Even after Jesus point blank tells her, "Your brother will rise again," in verse 23, in the next verse, she's like, "Suuuure he will . . . in the resurrection in the last day."

Part of me is like, Martha, you are off the chain!  You have Jesus standing right in front of your face telling you He's about to bring your brother back to life, and even you yourself admitted that He has the power to do it, but you still don't believe He will!  Sit back, girl.

But then, the other part of me realizes that I am like Martha every single day.  Yeah, God, I know you have the power to do blah, blah, blah.  I get it.  You're almighty.  I know.  But my reality is a dead Lazarus.  A Lazarus that's been dead for four whole days and seriously reeks.  And not only that, a Lazarus that didn't even have to die, because it could have been prevented.  That's all I can see.  I'm just like Martha.  So, maybe I need to sit back.

This whole time, God has been listening to my cries and accusations.  Shoot, He's even broken down and cried with me (see verse 35).  But this whole time, God has been like, "You can't see what I see.  You don't know what I know.  In just an instant, a dead, stinking Lazarus can become living and breathing and walking and alive. Just sit tight."

The whole time, Martha was like, "I know you can resurrect him," and Jesus was like, "Um, hold up.  You thinking about this all wrong, honey.  I am the resurrection" (see verse 25).

I want to stop repeating this mantra to myself about what I know God can do, and rather start focusing on who God is.  And in addition to many other things, He is a Prophet.  He can see waaaayyy ahead of the game.  He already knows its outcome.  He knows what He's doing and what He's about to do.  And it is good.

Birthday Weekend

When I turned 30, people asked me if I felt any different.  I said that I didn't.  And the truth is that I honestly haven't felt any different since I turned 25.  (Well, I have to be honest and say that maybe one difference is that I seem to have acquired an increased propensity for gaining weight.  So, no more cake for dinner.  I'm gonna miss those days.)  Anyway, what has changed about this new decade of life is how I will henceforth refer to my age.  Instead of saying the number, I will refer to my age as a phrase that implies it.  For example, last year, I was "the new 20."  And, as of Saturday, this year is my "Baskin Robbins" year.  (Next year will be "Magic Johnson."  And I can't wait to turn 95, so it will be my "Martin Luther/Protestant Reformation" year.)  Ahem.

This was the first birthday (outside of the times I spent my birthdays abroad in Spain and France) that I didn't go home to celebrate.  It was the first time I didn't spend it with my parents with pre-made plans and a pre-arranged cake.  This year, I bought my own cake.  (And it was to die for.  I'm serious.  Layers of moist cake with custard and strawberries and whipped icing . . . stupid good.)  This year, I arranged my own dinner party.  What I'm saying is that I finally realized that I have to make my own place.  Foster my own community.  I finally realized that I have to make home wherever I am.  I finally realized that there are people who love and support me where I am.  I don't have to go home in order for my birthday to be a "real" birthday.  I can forge a family and depend on a network of supportive people wherever I am.

I'm a big sister.  I will always be one.  My brothers, who are now grown men, will always be referred to as "the boys."  I will always be in big sister mode with them.  Bossing them around, being "responsible" and all of that.  Some things never change.  This year, my brothers came to spend the weekend with big sis for her birthday.  And I realized this year, more than I ever have before, how much I depend on them.  As much as my brothers are annoying and at times total uncouth guys around me, I love those dudes.  I realized how much I depend on them for moral and emotional support.  No matter what, they are my brothers and I know that they love me and have my back.  When they left this morning, I couldn't help but tear up.  They really helped to make my birthday special, and I appreciate them more than they know.

There's something else about birthdays.  Guys.  It's when they come out of the woodwork.  It's the one day people you haven't heard from in a minute come out of hiding.  It's the legitimate excuse to hit ya girl up (if you are privileged enough to already have ya girl's digits, that is).  And I can't say that I mind.

My Baskin Robbins year is definitely getting off to a sweet start.