What's this Blog About??? Oh right....balance.

So I began this blog just about six months ago in celebration of my 28th birthday. My goal was to use the blog as motivation/support/dialogue in my quest to find some balance in my life. My partner was about to move to Chicago to begin her own graduate program. I was in need to losing some weight. I was mid-stream in reading for my comprehensive exams (the things that "prove" I "know" enough to begin my own independent research for my PhD), hence making the weight-loss damn near impossible (I sit for a living, folks). But I think my purpose is a bit bigger than finding balance in my own life; for those maybe unfamiliar with the stereotype, in academia, we're kind of told that academics is everything. Like a lot of professions, if you want to be good, you have to give up your life. I think my purpose with this blog is about figuring out how to transform what we think of as valuable sorts of living. And how academics play into capitalist evaluations of lives.

Let me explain by way of an anecdote.

An old student of mine asked to meet with me to talk about graduate school so a few days ago, we met up for coffee. After a brief catching up (after my Women's Health class, she changed her major to Health Sciences with a minor in Women's Studies!) she asked me to explain the process of applying to graduate school. "My parents can't help me," she said, "and I gave up on applications this past fall when I realized how expensive it was to apply." So we talked. I told her about tuition fee waivers. I told her I thought it was totally fine to take a year or two to re-group between undergrad and grad school. I told her the Americorps application she started to fill out seemed like a great option for developing professional skills (I did two years myself and in the end, despite a few gripes, I think I did some good work). After a long discussion, she asked, "Do you ever, like, get frustrated by people that have so much? By people that don't have to worry when their car breaks down?"

"All the time." Then I paused. Took a breath. I tried to summon some of the wisdom I received from my own mentor in my Masters program. "But I try to remember that money isn't everything. That despite class, we can find things in common with people. But I think that anger is important. It's not fair. And graduate school will be harder for you."

We talked through things like financial aid and loan consolidation. I gave her some resources I have found helpful in my own life. I told her about the miracles of income-based repayment. "Don't apply to graduate school because your desperate and worried about paying off loans," I said, adding, "But don't not apply to graduate school because your desperate and worried about loans." She smiled. I asked her to put together a resume and email me in a few weeks. That we would work on this together. It was just a matter of getting started.

And here's a fact: Graduate School will be harder for her. It's difficult to work 12 hour days when you don't have someone rewarding you with a decompression spring break vacation (this is actually more common than you might think among graduate school colleagues I've met, both at my public university and the private one my partner attends). Its hard to focus on writing awesome term papers when, at the end of the term, you know you will be scrambling to find something--anything--that will help you pay a few months of rent before your teaching stipend is renewed. It feels like defeat when you have to turn down conference presentations because you couldn't come up with the credit cards to pay for the plane ticket (graduate programs don't fund conferences like they used to, now that it seems like every humanities department in every university is facing recession-era funding cuts). But this is why finding balance is important.

Because you can't put all of your energy into building your grad school resume. Because there will always be someone wealthier than you pushing themselves harder. And I'm finding out that's okay.

Because getting here and reading and creatively composing ideas is what life is about, right? And graduate school gives us the intense privilege to do just that. And I worry about universities being businesses. I worry about the legitimacy of ideas being based on the length of your c.v. (and idea I have subscribed to myself). I worry that students with good work and drive are being discouraged because of class politics. And here's how this relates to balance: defeating hierarchical class systems means not playing into twelve hour work days (would you want someone at a chemical plant to have to work 12 hours?), not buying the argument that the more you do, the better life you've lived.

So maybe this is a bit buddhist.

But I feel it's important to encourage more diversity in academia. And doing that means understanding that not everyone will produce a lengthy resume and c.v. (for socioeconomic reasons, for dis/ability reasons, for choosing-to-have-a-life reasons) but their ideas and politics and teaching are better for the balance.