Academia

Earlier today I felt like a failure, cause I compared myself to my more successful peers and felt short in my academic success. My coworker and friend told me that "that is such a pisces thing to do and more if you obsess about it" (she is a pisces too). For a while I was distraught. To be honest, this has been a tough year in my studies; mainly because I've been slacking off, my job is XXXL stressful (which shouldn't be, but...) and I haven't been on point this last year.

I guess that is one thing that often happens in academia: not everything goes your way or according to plan. Sometimes you get rejected from funding opportunities (3 times); sometimes you don't win the poster competition; sometimes you don't win the presentation competition; sometimes your pre-dissertation research doesn't take off; sometimes you get shitty results from your comprehensive exams; sometimes your boyfriend (who you are living with) gets the grant that you both applied to and you get an honorable mention; sometimes you break up with said boyfriend 3 weeks before your comprehensive exams and 2 weeks before you graduation and your-whole-family-is-coming-to-visit-for-graduation-and-to-meet-the-first-boy-you-are-living-with-and-you-don't-have-the-guts-to-tell-them-you've-broken-up... I always thought that I had everything figured out and that by know I will be on my way to finishing my exams and starting my fieldwork in my 4th year. Reality is way off.

I always sorta knew that great thinkers were drug users, alcoholics and so on, because they were so burdened with the reality and post-reality in which they lived and tried to interpret. Faith and conformity were not tools that they used for said purposes. Following this rationale, I went on a bender by which I lived life to the fullest and enjoyed myself. I embraced more my queer identity and started to go out and be out! I cared less about tomorrow and more about now. I had copious amount of sex, drank and "pained the fuck away"...I'm not ready to give all of this yet, but my resolve to do my degree is still there.

I love doing research; I love doing interviews; I love anthropology...yet, I'm burned out.

Not everything has been bad. I went to Mexico for a conference with my friends, and in the words of a friend who went with me "I have never seen you this happy"...How can you not be happy when swimming in a Cenote? It's just magical. I've also become closer with friends here; I even made new ones! This place is more like a home now than it was before. I have a great support system and people who love me.

I am involved with my community in the university; and while sometimes these commitments take time away from me, I am deeply satisfied working (even if it's in minute and small ways) towards the betterment of graduate student life in general and my anthropology classmates. So, my friend and coworker reminded me that indeed we have to remind ourselves of what we actually do and not minimize it. While i'm not going to list stuff that I do, I know that I do (and have done) a lot; though all that community service does not count for my academia cred.

Not everything goes according to plan. I need to keep on learning on how to accept unsystematic changes and deviations to plan and just work with it. Regardless of how horrible this last year has been.

*Le sigh for Academia*