I know she can GET the job, Harry, but can she DO the job?

I have always thought that making first-or-second-year college students pick a major was a little ridiculous. How on earth is someone supposed to know, at age 18, what they want to do with their lives? [1] I cannot tell you how many people I talked to in my senior year who decided that they didn't want to be an education or business or psych major, but they only had one more semester and changing their minds would mean more time and money spent at school. And yes, I know that (thankfully!) many employers are just looking for a degree in general, nevermind what that degree is in, and no (just for the record), I'm not saying that getting a degree isn't worthwhile (although see [1] and a probable future post for more thoughts on this), but the point is: that's a hell of a lot of pressure to put on someone fresh out of high school, who--thanks to senior year and an unrealistic sense of self-assurance--thinks they actually know what it is that they want to do.

Like me, for example. I knew exactly what I was doing with my life (note the rueful shake of the head). I never even changed my major, because I knew before going to college that I was going to get my English degree, and then go on to grad school to study Composition And Rhetoric, and then become a tenured English professor and teach college freshmen How To Write and have a book-lined office with a comfy swivel chair and be that crazy blue-haired professor who changed students' lives on the regular.

Confession: I had no idea what "rhetoric" actually was (something Aristotle something), and now after a year and a half of grad school I might be able to explain it to you. Same applies for "tenure." I have also learned (in a mere 3 semesters of teaching) that I'll settle for making sure my students remember to bring a pencil to class, and convincing them that teachers DO actually notice when you use 12.5 point font (and that it just makes you look desperate when I've told you seventeen times that there isn't actually a page requirement). [2]

--anyway the point is, being an English Composition professor just made the most sense. Writing has always been pretty easy for me (which is why I would wait until the night before to do it...), and I care about reaching students at the early-adult-stages because that's the time when most people deal with/go through a lot of pretty significant life changes. I certainly did. And you'd think (maybe) that the fact that literally all of my other plans had changed would have indicated to me that I should rethink the English Prof one--but no, I'm stubborn, and it was the one thing I was determined to hold on to. Going To Grad School was the reason I turned down a promotion at The Corporation (at least three different times), why I only half-heartedly looked for better-paying (and more enjoyable) jobs, why I spent my summers trying to study for the damned GRE and write up application essays instead of doing the thing that has always been waiting (patiently) on the sidelines for me to notice it. I was thoroughly devastated when I didn't get accepted on my first round of applications (surely the magna-cum-laude-with-honors and a talent for writing would up my chances of a killer statement of purpose?!) but then not getting accepted just became a challenge that I had to take on, which I did, because I knew that I could if I just tried a little harder.

Not once did I stop to think whether or not that was what I really wanted to do.

The summer before I started school was the first time I gave myself a break, took The Pressure Of Everything Else off, and allowed myself to take my writing seriously. After all, I had the time, and no other commitments, and I might as well make the most of my summer before I moved on with my "real" life. And then I wrote more that summer than I've ever written, and it was messy and mostly awful and that project has been temporarily shelved, but it underscored the thing I've always known and pretended not to: I want to write fiction. My heart has always been in the young adult fantasy shelves, with the stories about girl heroes and adventures, with magic and romance and learning about life and relationships and yourself. But then grad school happened, and there I was, doing what I'd worked so hard to do and trying (only somewhat successfully) not to be miserable while doing it.

This is a post about Making and Changing Plans (she explained), but allow me to take a small detour to talk a little bit about whining. The thing is, it's so hard to explain where I am with school without looking like I'm just pathetically complaining about having relatively-demanding responsibilities. On the one hand, my problems are directly related to the combination of the objective, widely-accepted stress about grad school and my own struggle with anxiety. Being a graduate student is all-consuming: you wake up in the morning thinking about the work you have to do, and frequently just doing your chores feels like reprieve. [3] But I also never feel like I am doing as much as I should, and I never reach a point where I can look at my to-do list and say "yep, crossed everything off for today." And because I'm teaching, I have the weight of the education of 48 students on my heart, and the constant feeling of failure when it comes to providing meaningful feedback on their work (which only about a third of them will read anyway), as well as managing my interpersonal anxiety when it comes to overly-confident-and-cocky students (or, worse, the totally non-confident students, when my Big Sister Function kicks on and it's all I can do not to hug them while they're crying). It's little wonder that I'll take my victories in the form of pencil-equipped students on a daily basis.

But that's only one side of it. The other side comes directly from the fact that I can't seem to stop from talking about how hard of a struggle this is. And that's the really upsetting thing about grad school: it consistently makes me feel like a failure, like I am the kind of person who would rather be doing anything other than the work she's supposed to be doing. It makes me genuinely concerned that I am lazy and/or incompetent, that I am bad at sticking things out, that I can't handle actual responsibility (so much for motherhood) and I'm never going to be happy because all I want to do is watch Netflix and color--and that all of this is my fault, because I'm useless. Personal life history and character references will probably (hopefully) prove otherwise, but grad school makes it hard for me to even know who I am anymore, and between weeks 1 and 15, sometimes it's literally all I can do to have a good solid cry on the couch (or the floor, or the shower, you know, wherever). [4]

For those of you who have asked me about school and gotten the overly-dramatic time-for-a-paxil answer, this is why. And then I hear myself say (again) how it's really challenging and how rough of a time I've had, and then I hate myself for whining about all of this, again, and then I shut up because methinks the lady doth protest too much.

And thus I return to my main point, which is that having plans is fine, and being the kind of person who pursues her goals is fine, but what we often forget to tell ourselves is that we need to take time to consider what it is we actually want to do, and whether our Well-Made Plans are really getting us there.

Last semester I had to decide whether to turn in an application to renew my teaching assistantship, as well as one to the Creative Writing department to Continue My Education and get a PhD (because regardless of the fact that The Plan had always been a PhD in comp/rhet, getting a PhD in general was still acceptable). It's such a good opportunity, everyone said, and it would be silly not to at least apply because you can always decide not to go later. And even if none of UWM's fiction writing classes will specifically help you with what you want to write, you can still benefit from the classes, because writing and sharing your work will always help you improve, won't it?

I am not ARGUING that with you, Harry. [5]

But for the first time (that I can think of anyway), I made an active decision not to act on something that I could have. I nervously took some deep breaths as December deadlines passed me by. Filling out some forms? No big deal. [6] But what was a big deal was realizing that even taking that step--even pretending that I would decide later--meant that there was a really good chance that I would make myself do it. Because, damn it all, I'm not a quitter! I'm not someone who flakes out on Serious And Important Life Goals! I am not someone who just gives up on her dreams!

Not arguing that with you, Harry. But just because I can get the job--and maybe, even if I CAN do the job--it doesn't mean that I have to.

Now (almost 10 years after Making Plans) I finally, actually, know what I want.

I want to write novels and raise a family. I want to go to a job that allows me to actually cross items off my to-do list, a job that I don't need in order to feel fulfilled, and I want to leave everything there when I come home. I want to read ALL of the books and learn not to feel like I'm disappointing anyone (myself included/especially) for not Being Productive every waking moment. I don't mind hard work, and I don't mind challenges. But if I'm going to face those, no matter what, they might as well be hard work and challenges on the road to doing the things I'm actually interested in.

So, long story short (much too late, they chorused): I'm about to hit the ground limping with my final semester of grad school. [7] I'm really, really overwhelmed by it (I have to write my thesis and teach a totally new class, not to mention ignore the noisy conflict of senioritis and highest-grad-school-stakes-so-far), and I could use your prayers, because I'm already a couple of emotional meltdowns in and the semester hasn't even started yet. But if Joe can jump into a volcano, and if Addie can leave the castle to find the cure for the Gray Death [8], then I can (probably) (hopefully) make it through the next 3.5 months.

And then?

I guess we'll find out.

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[1] Not to mention the fact that we tell them to go directly to college, do not pass go, do not collect any money for having a full time job to grow up a little and figure out what you want out of life (because you certainly won't be making enough money to pay for college, to the collected dismay of the older generations) -- but that's for a different post.

[2] For the record, blue hair washes out right away and looks terrible with my complexion, and besides, I don't even like to own books.

[3] If that doesn't capture the sense for you, I don't know what will.

[4] For my Catholic friends out there: how do I nominate my husband for sainthood?

[5] This, the title, and the images are from the movie Joe versus the Volcano, which if you haven't seen yet you absolutely should.

[6] Sending in creative writing samples and actually getting accepted to the program? Much bigger deal. All things considered, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have gotten accepted anyway (realistic observation, not self-depreciation). But that's not actually the point, so this got footnoted instead.

[7] I've considered quitting, but Aaron has convinced me that I should have something to show for all the work I've done (emotional and otherwise), so I guess I'll at least give it a shot. See [4].

[8] Bonus points if you know what this is from -- looking at you, Minte.