Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Graduation, OR: I Deserve A Parade

Welp, there's another notch on the ol' degree belt, eeyup, and yes there is such a thing ...university bureaucracies are 0 for 2 with Kana-wanas.

RESPECT IT; MIGHTY SLAYER OF CAPSTONE COURSES AM I.

But what are my plans now? Where am I going to get/what is my Master's degree? Well, as an over-educated pampered middle-class American graduate success story might well be expected to answer,

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...
 Um...I dunno...stuff?

Because that's what we call a 'life choice,' and there is no human way to be quote-unquote "ready" for that malarky. Committing to another huge segment of unknowable trials over several years, and spending thousands of dollars, only to become totally specialized at...I dunno, SOMETHING that I'm not clear on...that will render me unfit for anything outside my specialty? What happened to "potential"? When we were kids we were so nascent, so unformed, that we could be anything; and the teachers, the counselors, the aunties and the parents were so pleased to say it. We could be anything we wanted to be.

Well.

NO WE CAN'T.

We can choose to specialize and become "important," or try to stay undefined and label-free, which gets redirected to "failed," or get lost in the unremarkable middle ground of half-assed attempts to fall into the first category, where it was found to be hard.

I am certainly not obsessed by any one thing enough to want to be in it forevers and evers...but mediocrity tastes like McDonald's milkshakes, and I can't be having with that.

My mom won't rest 'til I have a Master's, but she doesn't seem to know who she's dealing with here. She's lucky my school didn't offer Dutch as a language option, I'd be so far into the Darkest Netherlands that capitalism would never find me. Living off bland cheese and bread, doing nothing in particular and doodling on lined paper, succeeding by my own lights, not my country's or my family's.

Can you get a Master's in Dutch? Nah, nevermind -- I don't care that much about it.

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