It's strange to say, but darn it, I missed being busy. A lot. More than any rational person probably should. When I worked nine to five, I had fantasies of not working nine to five. College life was romanticized and made everything pale in comparison. So carefree, so full of thoughts and feelings and valid emotions I was...in my recollection. So, I re-enlisted. Then, I worked all the time because the thing they don't tell you about going to grad school for English is that YOUR WORK IS PORTABLE and YOU SHOULD FEEL GUILTY FOR SETTING PERSONAL LIMITS. This is the true reason paperback books are the size the are. It is not for the convenience of mainstream American, but for the elaborate social/torture experiment that is graduate school. And while that was all well and good, and in coursework I really did enjoy yelling at people over Washington Irving (
note: DO NOT get me started), when it came time to propose a dissertation and then get down to the work of writing it, the lack of structure drove me to the point of distraction. First, I felt funemployed. Daytime television is, in my opinion, a glorious enterprise. Then, as I was developing some intricate theories invovling Kathie Lee and Hoda, it stopped being fun.
But this semester, everything changed. I got an extra job at school. My randomly selected students might turn out to be good citizens. I tutor more. I go home tired. I am a bit more frayed, but more productive. Things are good.
Last night, I celebrated the completion of two friends' dissertations and I wanted to do something to acknowledge the event. I considered greeting cards, floral arrangements, homemade t-shirts, making an concentrated effort to call both of them "The Good Doctor So-and-So-All" night, running around the bar making sure I bought them both beers, blood donations in their names, and finally decided to go old school. Certificiates! Of Achievement! Because, really, when you've achieved something important, there's nothing like a colorful piece of paper acknowledging that you achieved something important. Also, certificates are a reminder of a simpler time, one filled with stickers and smiley face stamps that used to let those of us who were good at school know that, as third graders, we really had some smarts. Graduate school can be difficult for a number of reasons and finishing a dissertation can be hard based on the nature of the project, but sometimes it's the simple things that told us we were good at something that we miss the most, like a certificate telling us we did a good job. I really should have slapped a sticker on my Master's thesis.
