I recently got a new job at a local bar. After defending my dissertation and graduating from my doctoral program, I spent months looking for work but learned the hard way how precarious it is to find employment when you have a PhD. Employees take a look at your resumé and wonder how someone with that much education is applying for entry level work. It was so discouraging, wondering if getting that degree was even worth it. I decided to find a job the old-fashioned way: get a stack of resumés and find whoever was hiring. With every business I went to, I decided to be upfront with them- I told them I recently completed my doctorate and plan on applying to academic jobs in the Fall, but I also need some kind of employment in the meantime. Some places told me immediately that they weren’t interested if I wasn’t planning on staying long term. Others saw my resumé, humored me, then showed me out. I ended up applying at a bar not far from me. The guy I spoke to was also really nice. When he called me later for an interview, I was so happy! I remember walking in for the interview, telling myself, This may be the closest thing you have to employment. Just breathe in, breath out, and you’ll be fine. We had the interview and a few days later, then he invited me to a working interview, where you work a shift to see how you would do. I think they really liked me- they offered me the job immediately after. It felt nice. I went home after, feeling a little more confident about my future and my job prospects.
Cats are natural companions for writers, not only because they’re relatively independent and undemanding of one’s attention—though there is that—but also because they tend to strike us as kindred spirits. Observers. Introverts. Always practicing their craft—only instead of wordsmithing, a cat’s craft happens to be hunting, and instead of word counts and margin scribbles, the cat’s main concerns are sparring, claw maintenance, and play-hunting: chasing shadows, leaves, laser pointers, and any other facsimile of prey. “The cat does not offer services,” William S. Burroughs wrote. “The cat offers itself.”- from The Half-Wild Muse: On Writers and Their Cats by Tim Weed
It’s Tuesday night, and I’m in typing on a keyboard while a cat nudges its head next to my leg. When you watch a cat, there’s something to envy. Their feet under their stomachs, posed like a loaf of bread. All of their worries flow off of their smoothed coats. Right now, I think about how they didn’t need a degree to have their expenses covered. Or how success can be found by catching a wild bird. I would love for all of my problems to be solved by catching a bird. Instead, I’m an academic. And right now, I’m on the job market.
Woodford Reserve Manhattan, the exact same drink I had last time I left a job I loved
I’m sitting at my favorite neighborhood bar, two days before my dissertation defense. This place came to me exactly when I needed it, about a week after I started my PhD program at OSU. Even the bar stool I sat at is still here, empty, but not lonely. I love how this place let’s you feel simultaneously lost and found. There’s a strong possibility I will have to say goodbye to this place, too.
In a little over 48 hours, I will be defending my dissertation, thus ending the chapter entitled “That time I got a PhD”. The more time passes, the stronger the gravity I’m feeling, collapsing my whole time here into mere moments. A lot has happened being here. I had an article published. One of my dogs and two of my cats died. I survived a pandemic, though not unscathed. I fell in love, fell out of love, fell in love again. I caught a bat flying in my apartment. I completed candidacy exams. I broke my first bone. I met people I would not have ever met if it wasn’t for this program. All of these things will soon become memories, ultimately fading away. I’m, like……really sad now. I knew this program had to end, but now I’m here, and everything in me refuses to accept it.
While I was writing my dissertation, I developed a habit- I would read a book that has nothing to do with my studies before starting the writing process. I read so many books. (read about that here) A few days before finishing my dissertation, I read Paul Coehlo’s The Archer. (also, no- I haven’t read The Alchemist) I really liked it. The prologue introduces you to the three main characters- Tetsuya, a master archer who has officially retired from his archery days; an up-and-coming archer who wishes to earn his title; a young boy, the curious observer, hoping to learn the ways of the bow and arrow. The whole book uses archery as a metaphor for life- how to hold a bow, what the act of aiming is, the song the arrow sings as it’s released. I’m at the point in my career where I feel like all of these characters blended together. I’ve officially mastered one sector within my academic field, hoping to become one of the giants I’m standing on the shoulders on, all while holding on to the idealistic, borderline-naïve, worldview that encouraged me to pursue this goal. I like feeling like an amalgam, not sure which I identify with the most at this moment. But, like all moments in life, this book has officially concluded.
I’m sitting at the bar, with my solemn face, and the bartender calls out to me, hoping to wipe my solemnity away like a beer stain. He sees me and offers me a shot of House Punch.
-Oh, I didn’t order this.
-No, it’s cool! We always make sure everyone here leaves happy. Even if you’re here by yourself.
Then it hits me…..
I’m not here by myself.
The lessons and material I learned here will be with me lifelong, as will the connections made. Nothing is actually ending. I will still be the precocious kid who is always asking questions. Only now, I’m way better at finding the answers. More importantly, this is not an end of anything. I will still always gravitate towards my passions. Only now, my politics shaped them to work towards social justice. The friends I made here are connections I have no intention letting go of. They will not disintegrate once I defend. Only now, they are now spread all over the country, even the world. It’s going to take work to keep these tethers in tact. Thankfully, this program taught me what happens when you work hard- it’s all worth it.
Like magic, this one song comes on the speakers. The last time I heard this song, I was taking a walk during my lunch break as I was juggling work with applying to PhD programs. The song “America” by Fear of Men plays.
Lie alone until the dark takes it all Without a body I am free to dissolve You became a part of me before I knew myself You became a part of me before I knew myself
I think we need to rethink the way we think of endings. Unless we’re on our deathbeds, we’re not “at the end”. I’m just trying to find the right phrase to capture this feeling. One thing is ending, but it’s not the end. “A new chapter”? “A Bookend”? “Commencement”? I don’t know……
-LAST CALL!!!!! Last Call for Alcohol
That’s it! This is Last Call- time to close up my bar tab, call a Lyft, get ready to call it a night. I will be hungover tomorrow, but after some morning tea, a walk down my block, maybe some breakfast, I will be ready to take on this new day. Sure I’m tired and depleted of electrolytes, but I’m not dead. Tomorrow is here, ripe with opportunity. I will seize it. Like I did with this program, like I did when I began this whole adventure, like my dad did when he emigrated here. The day after my defense will be a new day. I am ready to embrace it.
Drifting out of reach America, carry her away. Drifting out of reach America, carry her away.
(read What Seeking Infinite Jest Means Part 1 here, Part 2 here, and Part 3 here)
Introduction:
(click here to listen to “Notion” by The Rare Occasions)
The words you are reading are those of someone in the middle of writing a dissertation. It’s an image that is so ephemeral, conjuring up so many different images for so many people. When I imagined what the dissertation meant while applying to PhD programs, I thought it was going to be this exciting period where I could show off my research skills and help humanity through the brilliant words pouring out of my fingers, like Indiana Jones, saving the world through his academic research. This feels more like work. A lot of work. The kind of work where you clock-in, meet your quota and deadlines, clock out, then wake up and do again, over and over. I was never a 9-5 person. l always thought of writing as this creature that needs to be free, that has the power to liberate you. Instead, I write every day, sunup to sundown, where my highlight of the week is on Tuesdays, when they serve peach-flavored iced tea at the coffee shop in the library. The monotony of it all embeds itself into your hands, to the point where you can see traces of the cog you’ve been pushing all day on your palms. There are some days that are good. Some days, you find the right words to the paragraph you’ve been struggling with for weeks. On other days, you find a source that makes the lightbulb in your brain go off, and then pages just churn themselves out. The writing I do with this blog is dedicated to the writing I can’t do in academia. I write what I feel. Today…I feel like venting. I want to pour my feelings out, bleeding all over this page. I sit down and do it, then that somehow also becomes work. Maybe venting isn’t the solution. I stop for a minute, mute all sound around me, and picture myself in a place where I can tap into what I’m feeling. I’m visualizing a park bench, reading, while the thoughts in my head are running on a low hum, operating on a feeling of gratitude. I’m about to complete my PhD from an R1 university, a position I’ve been aspiring to for years. I am so goddamn lucky to be here. And it doesn’t take long to remember how much work it took to get here.
(click the player above to hear “Chicago” by Sufjan Stevens)
It’s Monday, about 2:30 in the afternoon, and I am lying on my bed, arms and legs spread out, like a starfish resting on a rock at the bottom of the ocean. I say this every semester, but I can’t emphasize this enough…this was one of the most grinding, demanding, exhausting, work-filled, break-deficient, shovel-to-the-face semesters during my time at OSU. It was a lot of work, but it would be disingenuous if I said this was solely the product of my program. I signed up for so much, and I could have said No to several of these tasks. But I didn’t, and now I’m in a constant search for pockets of time in order to get work done. Today, I’m resting. I decided to allocate time after work on Mondays to doing nothing. Most Mondays, I’ll run some errands, catch up with friends, cook an elaborate dish that takes the rest of the evening to make. (chicken piccata is way harder to make than it looks) But today, my body is telling me, If you don’t rest and take time to recover, I’m gonna take that time from you. That ends up becoming nights of crappy sleep, always feeling like I’m catching up, constantly moving pots to and from the backburner. The worst part is that when you’re out of time, you don’t have the chance to really reflect on what you’re doing. I don’t get to ask myself, Why am I doing this? Is this effort all worth it? Am I building towards something, or am I delusional in thinking that, while really, I’m just addicted to overworking myself? I’m resting on this bed, with small traces of lavender and currants from the candle lit in my room. I have the time now.
So is this all worth it? How exactly is the semester going? Do I want to keep getting grinded down by the end of the day? I really have to think about this. Now, I have the time to ask…
One of the strangest feelings academia produces is waking up, looking at a blank page, and beginning to write page one of two hundred. I’m not even sure how to describe it- intimidating? flummoxing? disheveling? discombobulating? A lot of “dis-” words come to mind. I’m in my fifth and final year of my doctoral program, teaching and continuing my job as an editor for a student magazine, all while in the thick of dissertation writing. With the end of my program around the corner, I would love to take a day off to just sit with my feelings and ask myself, What do I want? Where do I see myself going? What contribution do I wish to make with the training I’ve received during my time at OSU? The problem is that every moment I can spare has now been allocated to the dissertation writing process. The whole process feels all-encompassing, like swimming in jell-o. I have no idea if I’ll ever make it out, or if I’m even doing the thing I’m supposed to do to get out. There are days when you are on an upswing, where the words flow out of you, sentences like strings of brilliance, like you were born to do this. But those periods do not last long, only to then face the dreaded blank page again. A good day is when writing happens. My biggest problem was getting there. Continue reading →
[Lying Flat (tangping; 躺平) is a social movement happening now in response to China’s post-industrial period. The movement grows out of youth protest against a brutal work culture, often referred to 9-9-6, from 9am to 9pm, 6 days a week, by not participating in it. By “lying flat”, you are physically, literally, and metaphorically detaching yourself from the demands of late-stage capitalism. A fascinating synopsis can be found here. The following is a monologue, an introspective journey, flowing from thought to thought, on the exegesis of academia and the viability of its future through the act of Lying Flat, as our protagonist acknowledges the pain in his upper shoulders, in one act]Continue reading →
In this three-part series of posts, I shared my experiences studying for candidacy exams. There was a point where I seriously thought this was never going to happen, stuck in a timeless space where goals and deadlines had no meaning. It was that last month where I started to feel grounded, like a survivalist mode kicking in, ready to focus. All of the doubts about not passing reached a peak the week before, until it was over. And then…I passed! I learned so much in that last month, spilling over into the weeks leading up to writing this post. This is Part 3 of 3.
(to read Parts 1 and 2, click here (1) and here (2)
In my last post, I talked about studying for exams and what it’s like to study medical humanities. As much as I enjoy reading the books on my list, it’s really easy to feel disconnected from the text when you are not suffering from the illness or trauma the author is writing about. The more books I read, the more I thought about the narrative I wish to share. The only problem was that, according to me, I didn’t have a medical narrative to share. Then I remembered that I actually did, but it didn’t hit me because, well…I really don’t like talking about it. After reading so many of these books, I wanted to try. And “try”, not as a scholar of medical humanities, versed in the theoretical applications and a specific vocabulary from my studies, but just as a guy sharing his story. This is Part 2 of 3.
(to read Part 1, click here; to read Part 3, click here)
This is going to sound really dumb, but I promise it’s true…
I just finished my third year of my doctoral program at Ohio State. There’s so much to write about, like teaching online during a whole year of quarantining, studying for candidacy exams, and moving into the phase of dissertation writing and the academic job market search. I’ve also been meaning to write about my academic focus on my blog for a long time now. Medical Humanities is a really interesting study, but I’ve always felt like I can’t just “write” about it, as if I’m describing what I had for lunch. I want people to feel what it’s like to study this field. For that, I’ve decided to write about my experience with all of this in a three-part series of blog posts. I hope this series gives my readers a sense of how my program is going, and I’m happy to chat about it if you have any questions. This is Part 1 of 3
After finishing coursework last year, I moved into the candidacy exam phase of my program. I complied a list of over 150 books that reflect my major and minor fields. (Major: Medical Humanities; Minor: Post-1945 American Literature, with an emphasis on graphic narratives) This sounds treacherous to some, but for me, this was one part of my program I was really looking forward to. Ever since I became a full-time student (by “full-time student”, I don’t mean starting my program at OSU; I mean back to when I decided to quit my job to pursue a career in writing, and taking Intro to Literature classes at my community college), I’ve always felt like I was years behind my colleagues when it came to being familiar with the literary canon. It feels like not that long ago, I didn’t know who William Faulkner was, or even what the word “canon” meant. Every summer, I would spend hours on hours at libraries or parks, sitting at a bench, reading the classics and other books that I felt I should be familiar with. I actually really enjoyed it! It felt like I was enriching my knowledge, climbing to the top of the shoulders of giants I’m supposed to be standing on. Now, I get to gain the specialization I’ve always wanted through doing just that. I am now posed to apply my strengths while in my program.
Seeking Infinite Jest: My Road to the PhD 