Global Gaze/Global Gays

One Of Those Days You Question Life, The Universe, And Everything

Grad school is a feeling of desperation, a constant rushing towards the goal post to never quite arrive only to find out that it has been moved, again. Grad school is holding a map that tells you all of this, and how long it will go on for, a map which tells you that you are far from the end, and even as linear time (in which you are not even sure you actually still believe) propels you forward you remain, somehow, as far from the end as you ever were. When you reach the end, there will be no sense of relief, but only a brief reprieve in which you will attempt to block from memory the pain of the previous semester, the way they say mothers do with the pain of childbirth, so you can collect your thoughts and what remains of your sanity, and return again.

Grad school is sandpaper on your soul, your dreams and your goals, wearing holes of varying sizes in different and unexpected places. It is a call to question, on a near-daily basis: all the things you believe; all the things that make you up; all the desires that have driven you to this point. Grad school is a long series of maliciously relentless questions - Why am I here? Why did I choose this? What is this accomplishing? Why don't I leave? - punctuated by the inexpressibly rare moment of relief, joy, certainty, which then has to carry you through... everything. for however long it takes.

I took a class once in which the professor would not allow us to say "you" or "people" - we were required always to speak from the "I." Try it for a day, I challenge you - it was one of the most frustrating exercises I have ever participated in, and also one of the most revealing. (Here I was tempted to write "it will be one of the most frustrating exercises you ever participate in - see how such a seemingly small way of taking complete personal responsibility can change the tone of a conversation, even the sort of one-sided conversation represented by a blog entry, immeasurably? It fascinates me.) There is a temptation to universalize our experiences (I feel a temptation to universalize my experiences...) and it is difficult (it is difficult for me...) at times to construct our experiences (my experiences...) as purely personal.

I went on a free-write rant yesterday in class (see above!), and I very much universalized, but I am going to defend that decision here. My program is a unique subset of a unique subset of a subset of academia. First, I am getting my MA in a liberal arts program - getting one's MA in something more practically applicable, such as a science, or social work, would be a very different experience. Y'all can now count yourself out, and sit back to mock my pain.

Within liberal arts programs, I am working in several largely amorphous, somewhat unestablished fields - gender theory, cultural theory, and queer theory. Then, there is the novelty that I am actively working in all those fields; my degree reflects my program's extraordinary, nearly psychotic commitment to interdisciplinary work. I have yet to encounter anything comparable.

That being said, my friends in the liberal arts in general seem to speak to some of the same hopes, joys, and thousands of daily frustrations that I feel which, due to the positioning of the moon, the end of spring "break", and the fact that after endless imploring G-d STILL let it snow yesterday (???!!!!!), came to a head yesterday afternoon. It got worse throughout the day, and by 9pm, I was ready to quit my program and flee the continent. Today, I woke up and reminded myself of the classic literary heroine, Bridget Jones, who once said, "I will not be defeated by a bad man and an American stick insect." I will not be defeated by a bad Monday and a Professor stick insect.

At least, not today.

Research and That Lightbulb

I'm actually a huge research nerd. I find research intimidating, but I love, in the age of the internet, how much you can unearth about a subject, and how quickly. (What researchers and students did BEFORE the internet I sincerely never want to know. Terrifying.) Research was, at one point, my profession, something I was paid to get up every morning and do; that was absolutely one of the happiest and most fulfilling periods of my life.

Now, of course, I pay other people to let me do research, to give me a direction and an idea. It's interesting and challenging in a different way, and unlike the extremely guided work I did as an undergraduate, generally allows for a great deal of agency. I also happen to love my subject matter and the different questions it allows me to ask. This semester, I have committed to writing a paper on the antichoice movement's targeting of African-American women, particularly through visual media, and a Marxist analysis of Wes Craven's "Last House on the Left." So. That should be. good.

The thing is, during research there is this LIGHTBULB moment. It's amazing. It's so cool. It's the moment where you stumble upon an article and you think, "OH MY GOD, THIS IS IT, THIS ARTICLE IS THE ARTICLE THAT MAKES MY PAPER, IT PULLS IT ALL TOGETHER, THIS IS THE ARTICLE I WROTE THIS PAPER HOPING TO FIND." You think this, as indicated, in ALL CAPS, in a circular way, happy ideas chasing one another around in your mind like so many hamsters on a wheel, and you can hardly breath as you start searching for the full text. Of course, you have based this joy, this glee, this conviction entirely off of a title and, very occasionally, an abstract, BUT THAT IS NO DETERRENT. Naturally this article, this essential, paper-making article, is not available online. You cannot find the full text and google, sweet sweet google, of all things, is insisting it does not exist, although you have a title and an author and HOW CAN THAT BE, but OK, keep breathing. You check interlibrary loan - nada. Not happening. You despair. You awake in the morning. You try again. You despair some more. And then a week later, another related search makes you realize this "article" is actually a chapter in a book, and the library has two copies just. sitting. on the shelf. Your heart rate goes back up. This is it. It's aaaaaaaaallllllllll comin' together.

And then you pray, as you descend the library stairs, that this article is everything you hoped it was, or even just a fraction, or maybe even just tangentially related to your topic, because you realize you have based this hope for fulfillment on a title, a wing and a prayer.

Oh yeah, I love this stuff. And in case you're wondering, the chapter is "11. High and Low: The Transformation of the Rape-Revenge Movie – Carol J. Clover" in Pam Cook and Philip Dodd's Women and Film: A Sight and Sound Reader, and I'll know Monday if there is a Patron Saint of Desperate Grad Students, and if s/he heard my prayers.