gradschool/nogradschool

I've been living in Academic Limbo for over two months.  Application deadlines are looming, and I would be lying if I claimed not to have begun a grad school application with sure intention of completing it (only to leave it on file, lonely and unfinished). I am currently receiving emails reminding me that the deadline is less than a month and a half away. Today, I've decided not to complete the application.  (I'll elaborate more on this panic inducing decision during a later post.) I won't be attending grad school next fall.  I feel generally okay with this because the prospect of falling thousands of dollars into (more) debt seems absurd.  The fact that I have to begin paying back my loans this month is already nauseating; I don't want to owe anything else to this shit system.

So, I've come up with a plan.  I'm following it right now.  Though some weeks prove lazier than others,  I've decided that on most weeknights I'll pretend to be a student and take advantage of the TC library [where all the grad students look cool and study].

Academic Limbo (nannyhood)

I graduated in the Spring from my degree in Women's Studies.  My partner and I were living together in Philadelphia.  He had graduated two years before me and we were preparing to move to NYC so that he could earn is Master's degree at Teacher's College, Columbia University.  Summer began, as it has for the past 18 years of my student life, but it ended in a very different way.  While the rest of the world was preparing for a new school year, I wasn't.  And thus began my Academic Limbo.