A New Year: A New Season

To Everything/there is a season

A year ago, I started this blog to document my last year as a Ph.D. student. Exactly one year later, I am no longer a Ph.D. student; I am a Ph.D. Success was had—I have the pretty diploma and its frame to prove it—yet it still seems slightly weird. And I wonder if that feeling will ever leave. My students refer to me as “Dr.” or “Professor” but the weirdness still hasn’t completely left. I walk down the street or into stores or talk to new people and still I wonder if I shine with “Ph.D.”—somehow I’m thinking no.

Purposefully I went to class this week with bright pink glitter nail polish. Why you might ask? Well, there’s part of me that still wants to prove that there isn’t a mold much like I tried to prove for years there isn’t mold to what makes a woman sexy (see blog post on short hair). One might think these tiny acts of rebellion would have left me by now—I’m sure some part of my mama is cringing even while she is proud at how she has raised me to be me—but, fortunately or unfortunately, they haven’t completely gone, and I sauntered into class the first week sportin’ glitter pink nail polish. Glitter is my go-to when I want to try and push the limits ever so slightly because glitter offers very specific (sparkly) images. I’ve almost come full circle with glitter: as an undergraduate I wore glitter eyeshadow to try and show that strong and independent women could and did wear make-up and could try and be—yikes—pretty.

So, one year later how has the season changed for me? What does it feel like to be able to reflect back on the last year of my Ph.D.?

A time to build up, a time to break down:

As evidenced by the blog posts throughout 2011, there is definitely a time to build and break down though perhaps more breaking down than building up, especially for the dissertation. I feel like my dissertation broke down many, many times before completion. And the break downs were hard because in order to finish you had build yourself back up--no matter how bad you didn't want to or feel like you wanted to. Also, the job market does a pretty job of building you up and breaking you down all in one massive-like swoop. Luckily, the build up had a longer lasting impression as I both finished my dissertation and got a job.

A time to dance, a time to mourn:

2011 held a lot of reasons to dance and many that even lived outside of academia. It was a solid year. The mourning that happened was only temporary and didn’t leave a lasting effect, which is the best kind of mourning. Also, I literally danced: I began to learn how to dance to Michael Jackson’s best songs via the Wii—totally awesome. Who doesn’t want to know how to dance like MJ?!?

A time to cast away stones, a time to gather stones together:

I’m going to use this one literally, too, and stones stand in as money for me. Somehow it seems I had more of it as a graduate student. I still haven’t exactly figured that one out. I definitely cast away more money as a grad student than I am as a faculty member. After driving the poor tax guy nuts at DU, I’ve gathered that as a member of the “real” world there are more taxes. And Denver is way more expensive than Tallahassee. And I didn’t give moving enough credit: it costs A.LOT. Like for real. I'm hoping things will begin to even out more in this new year, and I think they will.

To everything there is a season for sure, and my season is still changing and has changed over the last year. I'm still working on figuring out this club I now I can say I belong to. I'm still working on feeling like a Ph.D. instead of a poser. And I have to wonder: in 2013 will I still proudly say that I wore glitter nail polish to class. My guess is probably. If four years of a Ph.D. couldn’t shake the glitter outta me…I’m not sure what would or could.

Those Byrds—they knew a thing or two about seasons. My seasons tend to come and go with different amounts of glitter. And I'm still ok with that.