life

One of the problems with studying rhetorical theory is that it makes you question everything. I mean EVERYTHING. What is right and wrong? What is up and down? What is black and white? Are there any of these things or everything?

Sounds a little convoluted, doesn’t it? Then, like so many scholars in the social sciences and medicines, you start to apply it to yourself, that intern syndrome — that you have every disease you study about, or are afflicted with every type of psychological diagnosis.

Who am I? Am I virtuous? Am I good? Would Plato or Aristotle or even Quintilian approve of me? Does being a woman preclude that? Are my ideas valid? What are my ideas exactly?

Am I a good student? Should I even be an academic? Do I belong here? Am I too lazy to be a “good” academic, or even too lazy to be a “good” citizen?

Who am I?

I think. And I think. And I think some more. And sometimes I don’t like what I think, but other times I want to share what I think, because there are others doing the very same thing. They are smart, interesting people, and I want to contemplate these thoughts with them.

If Socrates wanted us to examine our lives, we are doing it. In so many ways.

I was reading Wil Wheaton’s post on a problematic issue he has with people associating him with the character he played on television while he was a teenager. One of the things he said was

Imagine having something you’ve worked so hard to create being dismissed out of hand, because of completely unrelated work you did when you were a teenager – work that you had no control over – and you may understand why this is so upsetting to me.

There are people in my life who have only known me as a teenager (isn’t Facebook grand?). And there are people in my life who still talk to me or treat me like a little girl or a teenager. I don’t even remember that time in my life, let alone still act like that person (or look like that person — I looked so young and cute, and my hair was still very red!). Life has ensued. I have changed (for the better, I hope).

I don’t think Wheaton is alone in this desire, although he may have to face it in an ongoing and more public way than most of us do. We reach a point where we want to be known for who we are now, the accomplishments we’ve had over our lifetimes, and the people we’ve grown into.

Which, I suppose, is a nice segue into my next item. I’ve been thinking about how, even as a teenager, I was never interested in the typical guy: the football captain, the all-round jock, or even the student body president. I was interested in those who were a little on the edge like I was — not quite in the center of things, but not quite outside of it all, either. I hung out with the popular kids, but was never quite one of them, and the men I liked were very similar.

I was speaking with someone on Friday about a friend. I said that being single might be a good thing when you’re working on your doctorate — there is so little time for much else. The person I was talking to looked at me and said he thought I should date men who have been working on their own dissertations or projects, locked away in labs and socially inept. I laughed. I’m attracted to geeky men, so it struck me as a funny comment.

But then I started thinking about it (or over-thinking about it, as the case may be). What did he mean by that? Did he mean that only socially-inept men would find me attractive? Did he mean that, like them, I’m socially inept so we’d fit together? Or did he mean that I’d be good for someone socially-inept? I have a feeling he meant the former two, and not necessarily the last. Hrumph.

I’m still attracted to geeky men. They are smart and fun and interesting. Who wouldn’t find that appealing?

I’ve been reticent to write. I think that I’m afraid that if I write about things, then it will all blow up and the dream will dissipate. It’s more than the very real imposter syndrome that so many academics feel. It is the knowledge that I actually don’t belong here. They’ve made a mistake. I don’t fit.

That’s not to say that I don’t want to be here. I do. I actually like it (despite the feelings of claustrophobia because I’m surrounded by people living on top of me, across from me, and on both sides of me, and the ribbons of asphalt and cars and people that seem never ending, and because I miss my mountain views and my wide-open property that gave me breathing room when I felt overwhelmed). There are lots of things to do, my fellow students are amazing, and the faculty have been supportive. It is a beautiful place, and my apartment has come together. But I don’t fit.

Pshaw, you’re saying.  I can hear it. Really.

I’m not saying I’m leaving. I’m not saying I’m not going through with it. I’m just realizing that I am different, that there are reasons why I’ve never felt like I belonged in academia, and why it has always been a struggle. I’m reading an amazing book, Those Winter Sundays: Female Academics and Their Working-Class Parents, and I’ve really begun to realize that all of these feelings of inadequacy, of difference, of an “otherness,” has not been imagined, and I’m not alone in feeling it.

We don’t talk about class issues much in the United States. We (as in the American society) like to pride ourselves in being a classless society. We’re not. It’s clear to those of us who have had to deal with issues of poverty, homelessness, unemployment, and the fears that come with these issues that there is a definite class divide in the United States.

Nowhere is it more apparent than in higher education. This is the realm of the priviledged. For those of us who come from working-class families and who manage to make it into college and who, by some miracle or unnatural act, actually make it into graduate school, the university systems of the United States are filled with the perils of trying to fit in, trying to blend, trying to not be noticed for the interlopers we are. We’re not supposed to be here. Not only do our classmates not understand us and make snide remarks regarding the working class (or even worse, those who have been homeless or who are unemployed), but faculty rarely understand the pressures that accompany a non-traditional student and the struggles that go along with trying to beat the odds to be a part of the academy.

Oftentimes, family and friends don’t even understand this need to get an education (And it’s a need for me. No one struggles for twenty years to get a bachelor’s degree and three years for a master’s degree, works full-time during the entire process, and moves 1600 miles away from everyone they love to pursue something they don’t need. That would be insanity (and maybe that’s really what it is).). We don’t push through the comments made by people who love us (and worry about us), even when they hurt us, for something we don’t need. “It’s only an AA (Associate of Arts) degree.” “Now s/he thinks that s/he is smarter than the rest of us.” “I’m not stupid. I can understand what your research is about.”

I struggle to straddle the fence between my working-class upbringing where few people have more than a high school education, but who are amazing, inspirational, supportive people and the world of academia where most of my classmates have been supported financially and emotionally to attain their degrees, but who speak a different language and understand a different world than those of the working-class.

I don’t think of myself as better or smarter than anyone. If anything, perhaps I’m the one that is lost. My working-class family and friends have a path and understand it. They know what they want and they work hard for it. They are diligent. They are, for the most part, happy with their lives. My academic family can be defined in exactly the same way. Me — I’m the one who spends hours crying over a thesis because it’s not working out right, or who wonders if I’m doing the right thing, or who has given up a very good paying job to move thousands of miles to be unemployed (at least until the semester starts and I begin teaching).

In the next few days, I’m going to be writing a bit about this struggle. I want to talk about my experiences, the people who have inspired me, where I come from, and what I think my upbringing and struggles can do to make me a better educator, a better researcher, and a better person. One reason I’m doing this is because my brother, Shadow, and I have discussed writing a book about these issues (once I get my doctorate — not before). If I start putting down the foundations here, while I’m thinking about them, it will help me in the long run. However, another reason I want to talk about it is because class seems to be a taboo subject in our society generally, and in academia specifically. Oh, sure, we talk about it. We theorize and discuss it ad nauseum. But most people don’t really understand it and make judgments based on theory and not on actual encounters in class struggle. If there is another student out there who is struggling with these issues, or another person who is considering pursuing any degree but is stopping her or himself because of class issues, and my words can help, then this will all be worthwhile.