Burn Out

Everyone in the writing center is dying. I am sure of it. I firmly believe someone has released the plague and they are slowly dying from Ebola or Hanta Virus. It is weird I walk in and it is like sitting next to my grandmother when she was sick alzheimer's diease. You know who they are but they are zoned out and don't even recognize you any longer. It is a strange feeling. You are repelled by their sickness but you have an overwhelming need to give them a hug and tell them it is going to be ok. Then you realize that it is not going to be ok and that things aren't really going to change.

So you try to put on a brave face and lie but in the back of your mind your thinking, "Wait until you have 50 papers to grade, lesson plans to make because you are not real sure where you are in the syllabus anymore, your students hate you because you still haven't handed back the papers you took up a week ago or lost the papers you took up a week ago, a student that goes to the department head because she thinks a limit of 8 absences a semester is unfair, and he agrees. On top of that you have a Master's Thesis to write, 6 hours of course work to read for, journals to write, and a spouse that thinks graduate school is just like your undergraduate work that only takes a couple hours a day to complete and thinks you are being a drama queen. All for 797 bucks a month for a job that only pays about 60,000 a year if your lucky enough to land tenure track at a good school."

Here is the truth though: The hardest part of the year is the first year of graduate school. Being in the writing center really is an ASS WHIP. You have no idea how hard it really is to have 9 am-2 pm blocked out of your day until you have 9-2 free. Once you get an office where you can work at your own pace and not have to cram eight hours of work a day into five hours and still manage to find time for the other people in your life, or have fun. The truth is graduate school is a MAJOR FUCKING ASS WHIP. Nobody likes grad school not even professors (in fact they try to sabotage you with nothing but fucking horror stories that are like daggers to the heart and they wait to pounce until you are actually feeling good about your career choice and yourself). However, after you get your own classes and begin teaching it is ok because managing your class preparation is much easier than being in the writing center. You will have a year (or a semester) that is like money falling from the sky. You won't understand why it was so hard last semester of why you ever bitched about it in the first place. Then the Gods will laugh at your good fortune, and become jealous they will foist a master's thesis and you (and do not think that a 595 is any easier, it is still 35-40 pages and starting in the fall most professors are going to make you write a bibliographic essay. Good luck with that). Then suddenly the clouds clamor and the sun disappears and you realize that world still hates you, and fate still mocks you. However you can avoid this fate by heading this warning.

THIS IS THE BEST ADVICE I CAN GIVE YOU:

Pick something that you are interesting in like sexuality, identity, etc. and write every paper in your course work on that topic so that you can throw three of them together and write an introduction and conclusion and be done with your thesis. If you do that life will be a gravy truck with biscuit wheels. I wish someone had given me that advice. I would have graduated already. Plus I was would be skating toward graduation in a drunken stupor right now. I hope this helps.