Ouch, My Head

The election is thankfully over though the afterglow remains. No we can wait to see what “change” really means. Something better, I hope. I have no cynicism in me for Barack Obama like some of the leftys I know. Or maybe I have just lost some of my energy for it after eight years of disgust over the Bush administration.  

In the aftermath, I am left feeling small and isolated as I return to the prospect of my work without the warm comfort of being incessantly connected to the happenings of the political world. My own work seems small and insignificant in comparison. I wonder if Obama campaign staffers are going through depression right now too? 

I wouldn’t call what I am feeing depression. I am just feeling burdened by my own shortcomings. It is year five, I’m far behind, and I seem to have little fire in my belly to forge ahead. Only the thought of finishing is positive, the thought of being able to move on to something else. But on the days of my worst malaise this motivation is seldom enough. 

I feel like I need three months of solid work and concentration, but my life has changed so much that it also seems impossible to find such focus. There is so much else to do and I sort of long for the days when I lived in my college town and could be at my office for twelve hours a day without anything falling apart as I did it. Being in a couple is great, but your responsibility load goes way up and sometimes it can make me feel harried. 

And then there is the constant need to maintain my own health, or the guilt if I don’t. I had my first big CT scan last week and I sat at the hospital thinking “this is funny, I certainly don’t feel like a cancer patient.” But I don’t want to forget that this is what I’m facing either because it needs some degree of vigilance. So I go to the gym five days a week, juice my vegetables, go to the health-food store constantly. But it all takes time and a concentration that eats up focus that should be on my thesis. Everyone has told me to slow down, worry less, take things at a different pace. But the thing this misses is that I’m fucking tired of being a student and going slower doesn’t make that any better. 

Quite a lot of complaining for one day. Will soon need to find a way to actually motivate myself and move ahead decisively. My article is nearing completion for submission to the American journal I was targeting when I went to the conference in Chicago. So this is one positive thing. Five months ago this outcome seemed impossible but success is nearly upon me. I just need to cross the finish line without falling over.

Day one of the conference was a success. I gave my paper to a pitifully tiny audience. You would have thought that Derrida was in the session next door. Or maybe nobody came back from lunch. 

But the session was populated with spies planted by my supervisor. All of his close friends huddled together near the front looking grave while I flailed about onstage. None asked a question or offered much comment afterwards, but by that time I didn’t really give a fuck. I skipped the official banquet and went to see The Incredible Hulk and it was time well spent. 

Another day of panic, flailing, and worry. I’m not sure this is really worth seven grand a year. 

One of the hardest parts of being a student for your entire twenties is the way that you seem to stand still while everyone else around you rockets into the financial stratosphere.

You are doomed to living in a crappy apartment and never going on vacation. And then you are forever going to house warming parties for your friends buying infills in trendy neighbourhoods or hearing about their trips to fucking Machu Picchu and absolutely straining to feel excited about it. 

This is not their fault, these people aspiring to be yuppies. I’m just saying that it’s not that much fun living with so much bitterness and fear about the future. And what can be worse is when these people tell you how worthwhile it will all be in the end. Nobody is convinced of this. 

I prefer the honest response – when people say things like “you get paid how much to teach a class? Wow! Brutal!” At least they try to identify with the pain of it all.