Tag: Debate

i don’t know who you were expecting/probably some bitch who does not budge/with eyes the size of snow/i may get pissed off sometimes/but you seem like the type to hold a grudge/and in the end, i just let go.

Last night, my name was mentioned in an ad-hom attack against Kyle by someone who I’ve always given the benefit-of-the-doubt in situations despite the theories i hear to the contrary about what is said about me when i’m not around. Specifically, it was alluded to that I cannot even carry Kyle through the rest of our lives because I failed to get into grad school. Pretty much this started the melancholy, woe-is-me I’m not in grad school funk that I think everyone was expecting. But really, it’s not that bad. There are just some things I don’t really talk about because I don’t like to bring my personal world into the blogosphere quite the same as I used to. But the fact is, i don’t write things down except on the internet. And the fact is that now that my so-called failure has been broadcast to a community where I still like most of the people I’ve met through it, I feel like I should maybe go into a bit more detail about how I actually feel about it.

Not getting into grad school is sort of a sticky subject. Stickier because I really do have mixed feelings on the deal. For one, I don’t like it when I decide someone should let me do something and they disagree. For another, I think the absolute best thing for me next year is to take a year off, spend some time adjusting to the real world and considering what it is that I have a life-long passion for. I don’t think I’ve day-dreamed about what I want to do with my life since I was a very littler girl. “Well, I could do this, or this, or this” is so liberating to think about. Now that I’m doing it I feel a great sense of relief that I have the ability to do it because I never really have before. After spending a summer thinking about what I wanted to do I decided on African History so I could further pursue the apes thing and then Joe told me I was “too fickle to follow” to grad school and so that flipped my stubborn switch and even after i wasn’t dating him and didn’t have to prove anything to him, I felt like I needed to prove to myself that I could stick to something. So that’s what I stuck to.

And maybe I was right. I think my statement of purpose was purposeful. I think i have a vision and an idea of what I want to do…. but sometimes I don’t know quite where I fit in the realm of African History. Sometimes I feel like just another white girl trying to appropriate agency on Africans. It’s harder because I really like Pan-African movements. So in my utopia, I’d be out of a field of study. But then, history isn’t about studying what you are, necessarily. Bearman always says that History is a dialogue among historians which is true, it’s all a debate and a discussion about what’s been done and how we interpret those events… but I think historians are just really curious about their own identity and what it means to be human. Or at least, I think that’s one of the reasons I’m interested in it. I’m interested in African history specifically because I think Western feminism has a lot to learn from gender roles in Africa. It’s interesting to me both how societies have divided themselves and how Western women have sought out to wreck those existing systems and how now women’s standing is seen as so important to economic development in Africa. I also want to be an activist and I think the Great Apes Project lacks an historian in their approach to African history. So there is that. I have a passion for history and I have a passion for African history because I think more than any other field it allows me to voice my opinions. There are so many reasons why I want to be an Africanist historian that really it doesn’t bother me too much that sometimes I feel a little like I don’t know where I fit in. I also think I would feel the same way if I was an historian of Ancient Rome or something except the really passionately interested in it part. Cos I’m most certainly not passionately interested in Ancient Roman history.

But I don’t want to struggle with the difficulty of a modern, academic job search while not knowing if I really fit in. I don’t want to uproot Kyle and I and get somewhere and decide it’s not for me. And so I think a year off is in order. And further, I think that even if I just feel that way about maybe burning out on history or African history is a ridiculous assertion that comes out of my defensiveness and need to justify to myself, or more my feeling that i should justify to others that it’s okay that i didn’t get in. But I’ll figure that out in a year off as well.

I would also like to experience making money, just once. I want to spend time with Kyle without thinking about what homework I have due the next day. I am going to read. I am developing a book list of things that I want to read and I am going to read them because that is what I enjoy doing. And I haven’t had a booklist since I graduated high school… but I used to have a long one. Take the length of your netflix que and multiply or divide depending on the season and you have my booklist. I read so many wonderful and interesting things! I discovered so many worlds I didn’t know and how cool was that? I miss it desperately. And I’m going to do it again. And maybe next time when I get into higher education I won’t stop doing it.

To be honest, I’m excited for my gap year. It’s just hard to talk about. I get a little embarassed and feel like I did something wrong or let someone (myself) down by not applying to more schools… by not applying to what would have been a surefire safety school. By not running just one more edit on my rough draft or not losing my jump drive with my better hook on it or whatever. Writing a longer statement of purpose for Iowa or Boston who didn’t specify how long it should be. Talking to professors in the department and catering my applications more. There are so many things I could have done differently but sometimes it doesn’t matter. And I’m just fine. And more than that I know I’m going to be just fine.

I don’t have to fit into a little box where I can say “i am an historian” and have that mean something. I wrote such a long entry last December about how I just wanted to be a debater, a historian, a Catholic and a poet. But I’ve found that when I lose those things, I don’t lose who I am. I’m not less of a person because I no-longer debate or am not going to grad school in history in 2008-2009. I’m still me. And I adapt and I evolve and I change. And I choose more worthwhile friendships.