Let's just make this a yearly thing...

My last blog post was about how I wanted to post more blogs.

That was almost a year ago.

Life took over after that. I had all the intentions of making writing a weekly thing (because writing blogs daily does seem like an extremely large amount of work that I just don't give enough shits about) but when you're a graduate student, life sucks.

There is this really cool guy who I have had a few classes with in the last three years of my program. We take a fiction workshop together. The class is in the evening and everyone is pretty much winding down from their days when we get out around 10 PM or so and usually our spirits feel a little silly. On a night when we were discussing our stresses a few months ago, I stuck a cigarette in my mouth and with it dangling right in the corner, I responded to something my friend had said about grad school (which I cannot remember what he said) simply with:

"Grad life sucks."

With some emphasis on the word, "sucks." He laughed. No, he doubled over and laughed the kind of maniacal laughter that happens when you watch those fail videos on the U Tubes. At the time I had been wearing my usual garb of black and was in one of those "don't give two shits" kind of moods.

After he stopped laughing, there was discussion about how your first 4-years of college (if you decide to do as such) can only be described as a kid with his mouth attached to a bong with the caption, "College life rocks." Despite the popularity of the following meme to represent lazy college students, I am of the belief that his face really captures all the frustration of graduate school:

And, grad life does suck. I'm not going to emphasize all of the political problems with going to school in the US, we've all heard the song and dance about that. What I do want to emphasize is how much graduate school takes you away from the things that matter. If it is the path you decide to take after your first program, be prepared to lose your grip on life. In the pursuit of a professional degree that is usually a signal to employers that you are dedicated and can survive through nuclear academic turmoil, you will face panic attacks (emphasized heavily in the last year of your program), loneliness, drunkenness, too much procrastination, back pain, severe illness, mental illness, exhaustion, insomnia, depression, and nothing but lint in your pockets (because you've spent too much on commuting gas, printing credits, and car repairs).

In graduate school, your grades matter more than they did before. If you get a "C," that's not passing, and even seeing those nasty "Bs" on your transcript make you cringe. Judge me if you like, but I have spent some time gawking at why I was given an "A-" instead of the full "A." You spend a lot of time thinking about these grades and what they mean as well as how they reflect on you as a person. The way you perceive the world around you begins to warp and you lose touch with the things that matter most.

Like writing. The atmosphere of a writing program allows for writing that tries to engage with doing something and the propulsion of your skills rather than savoring the act. We write for assignments, we write what is challenging, but between reading and write about what we read, writing emails and for some teaching classes, we lose the motivation to write for ourselves. Or, we just lack the time.

Blogging is one of those things that most people do for themselves. It's of a certain level of narcissism that gives the immediacy to publication gratification. You can write a blog, send a link, and say, "LOOK AT WHAT I WROTE." I am not against this. While many people blog because they have something interesting to say (I browse many interesting blogs and I do enjoy many of them) many people blog because it is one of the ways you get your writing out there, no matter how narcissistic the act actually is.

Blogging (if done well) is important to your career.

That's why I NEED to do it more often than once a year or so. I NEED to find a subject that suits my writing interests and stick with it. I NEED to blog because grad life sucks (I have about 12 days left) and there NEEDS to be some salvation in the turmoil that I slogged through to get to this point where I can say:

I'm a writer. Now what?

I'll blog more, I promise. While some of it may be narcissistic, I don't really care because I still feel like I have a lot to say about things and have been conditioned not  to give in to that desire to do as such. We have been taught (and yes it should be withheld to a point) not to fall in love with ourselves or just be wrapped up in our own business. I'm tired of not loving myself as a person and as a writer. I am the most important person there is to me (my cat might be slightly more important) and I am tired of people denying my desire to call myself awesome.  We are all our own awesome people and we should strive to be the coolest cats in town. We should love each other's own separate coolness, because the more we like one another, the happier everyone is.

I've spent a lot of my life being unhappy and it's time to change that.