For the last two weeks, I've been recovering. Not from any sickness, or from any lack of sleep... I've been recovering from grades. It has been two weeks since I got my first grade of last term, and a few days ago I received the final grade from last term. I did not do well, and for a guy who is seeking a terminal degree here and a scholarship for next year, it has taken two weeks for me to begin to come back from that.
When I received the first grade, I thought that was bad enough. It was this last grade that sent me reeling. Having graduated from my first Master's degree from NYU with a 4.0 grade point average, this is the first time in a long time that I have felt this kind of stress. I have begun to question myself, and my abilities as a writer, as a scholar, and as someone capable of doing what I have set out to do. People have said that one bad grade is not anything to freak out about, and it's not. However, given that I was already scared out of my mind... it sent me into a wormhole of despair and gave me an overwhelming sense of a PhD being way out of my league.
So, a lot of soul-searching has occurred. I've entertained all kinds of notions, as a fear-induced brain should, and come to certain conclusions about my state of being here.
Before arriving, I was told that seeking a PhD was going to be the hardest thing I have ever done. That I would face untold hardship, and that I would only succeed if I really wanted it. My resolve was to be tested on so many levels that I could not possibly conceive of what was ahead of me. That I was seeking a PhD in another country, and another culture, meant that I would have nothing to fall back on, no comfort zone in which to drown my sorrows and find my confidence again. Strangely enough, it is there that I have found my faith. Faith in myself, and my resolve.
I have lived long enough to know what it feels like to quit something I have always dreamed of. I know the deep well of regret that follows, and the unending effect it has on my life. It is in that realization that I have begun a path in my life that is absolutely one that I want to follow, and the reassurance of those that care about me that "this too will pass," that I have finally come to wisdom I feel only comes when you feel at the end of your rope. Everything worthwhile doing, is as hard as your mind can imagine.
The funny thing that no one tells you, is that once you have begun that worthwhile endeavor, there is no turning back. No rethinking it, or renegotiating it.
There are any number of platitudes that I have heard from those older and wiser than I, and plenty of those have ended up as memes on Facebook for me to read and roll my eyes at. I know that saying all this is pointless for those that have not been through it, and I'm sure when I read this again in five years I'll be rolling my eyes at myself for ever having doubted my ability to complete what will then be, a thing of the recent past.
Now, all I can do, is think... one thing at a time, one article at a time, one paper at a time, one monologue at a time, one design at a time, one class at a time, one workout at a time, one teacher at a time, one moment at a time. I feel like if I get through that one moment, and that one moment is well spent, I can make it to the next one, and the next one. So, off to class I go to sit and wonder what it is they are actually talking about, and whether or not I will ever understand all the cultural references, and ever begin to understand all the words that they are using in their lectures.
Wish me luck.
A fool thinks himself to be wise,
but a wise man knows himself to be a fool. -- As You Like It, Act 5, Scene 1.
Year 1, Day 158 -- Words Written: 0.
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