Wednesday, February 4, 2009
The Drudgery of Academic Exile
I'm rapidly being drained of all passion and zest for life by my present academic situation. I've pretty much become a vacant entity that processes information throughout he day, relays that information to a few students and faculty, assimilates more information, eats some shoddily prepared food as quickly as possible, returns to small room in apartment, processes necessary interactions on computer, physically works out at a minimal level to keep blood flowing, returns to computer and books, lays down when back is tired and watches short bursts of tv while back stretches out, gets back up and processes info in isolation until 3am, sleeps 4.5 hours, gets up and does it all again in an endless monotony. The only time I have any life is during the holidays or when I travel abroad. I have another year and a half of existing in this hellish cocoon if everything goes smoothly. I'm hoping to break the drudgery if I can get back to Italy, but that is unknown at this point. I fondly miss the prior balance I had in my life in years past when I remember what it was to have a good time and not be thoroughly oppressed by a crushing schedule. I used to be able to have a life and get the necessary work done because the requirements were considerably less. I'm not sure there will be much left of me after all of this if I can't change some things. I am presently trying to secure a new living situation in a different area where I can try to build an actual life, but time is a problem. I advise everyone to never allow your life to become as fragmented as mine where the fundamental components of life are spread over three states in a way that stretches you so thin there is nothing left of you. Nevertheless, I will endure and give the finger to the world until the next phase of my life initiates a new transformation. I will live like a Taoist monk for a year and go with the flow until I shed my skin again in the next phase of my life. The only fundamental truth is that some level of change is inevitable. Thus spoke TIS.
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2 comments:
Damn. Needless to say, I sympathize. When do you qualify/take comps? Is the light at the end of this particular tunnel still over a year off, then?
Still a year off because of the peculiar nature of the philological requirements of what I do. Each comp exam in Roman Hist and Greek Hist has a comprehensive portion and an at sight translation component in Latin and Greek for each test (no dictionary). Once passed, I can take the oral component on Late Antiquity and Archaeology/Material Culture as my 3rd and 4th fields. Simultaneously, I test in German, French, and Italian. Then I submit my prospectus. In my field, they don't want people taking comps before 3rd year because of the philology, for other fields they can take them much earlier. The process makes the following dissertation years a welcome respite. Hence, I don't have much of a life until then.
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