Slow Dancing in a Burning Room

Today I am having the epitome of a quarter life crisis, all because of one email from the Office of the Registrar informing me that I could search for classes. As a graduate student I now have first pick of the classes, and can arrange my schedule to best fit me.

Except that is a complete and utter lie, since there is only one class that I can actually take in my program; tech writing, perhaps the one class I wanted to avoid the most. There are however, over ten that I could take in the Politics program. You know, that field I actually got my degree in, am actually interested in, and was actually pretty good at?

Perhaps I should start at the beginning. In the last year I've rediscovered my love of writing. I was on the newspaper all through high school, and while in college I legitimately enjoyed writing papers. I love arguing and making a point, and since my Politics and International Relations degree wasn't getting me employed in this economy, I thought I needed to switch things up a bit. Perhaps I could combine my interest in politics with a love of writing, but first I felt like I needed the piece of paper to prove that people could hire me. Visions of writing/editing for the Council of Foreign Relations danced in my head, and gleefully I sought out a program to help me get there. Journalism seemed too broad, communications made me nauseous, and then I saw that my old/local university offered a Professional Writing and Editing program. It would take a year to complete, not cost an arm and a leg (just a few fingers and toes) and I would have a piece of paper saying HIRE ME.

But then I got a job. And then it was time to register for classes. And then said job said, "We can't work with you, your schedule is 8-5 and we can't arrange for anyone to cover you to leave early for class. You need to decide what your priorities are." Right, because I'm going to choose a receptionist job over a master's program.

Except I did.

I did the "Responsible" thing, and put economic security ahead of completing my degree within a year. So perhaps it was after a three week hissy fit in which I was determined to quit and pursue my hazy, still unformed dreams. I didn't though, I scheduled the only two 7:30 classes that even remotely fit my requirements. So the semester started, I was very excited to start back at school, to learn, to read, to write again. To fall head first back into my nerdy habits of loving school.

Except I didn't.

I have fun in my blogging class, it forces me to write, and moreover it's provided me an outlet to work everything out in my head. Or at the least to accept that maybe I just have to ride it out. But my other class? It's everything I hate about academics. I haven't learned anything, I dread the class, I find it unbearably boring and even worse is it has forced me to question whether this program will actually benefit me in any way. I'm not learning to be a better writer or editor, I'm being trained to enter the academic field of rhetoric. Which let me tell you, is resoundingly not my cup of tea. If I was going to pursue a useless academic field, I would be rotting away at some tiny liberal arts school, up to my eyeballs in classical and modern philosophy texts. Instead I'm stuck for three hours a week debating the power of the technical writers, excuse me, "technical communicators." One class I finally broke down and started talking about real responsibility hierarchies in the form of the ICC and ICJ. My classmates stared blankly at me, and I went back to hiding in the corner, trying to grasp why any of this mattered.

Which was fine. If you haven't noticed, pondering irrelevant matters with no real answers is kind of my forte.

But now I have to actually find an answer. About where I'm going, what I want to do, and if I should really keep pursuing this degree, or if I should stay at the job I have. Big questions for 9 a.m.on a Friday.

Do I prolong this program even longer, and only take the one class that I don't want to take just so I can still be doing my masters? So that I can feel like I'm working toward something instead of standing still? Do I even want to stay in this program with no guarantee that I will come out with the ability to get a writing/editing job at the end of it? Or do I eat this semester's tuition money, and just switch back into Politics, into the realm of power struggles that have tangible relations to the world around us? Would any master's degree work?
Will I ever learn to write without using the Socratic method?

What about my job?(The answer is apparently not.) Do I stay at a place that refuses to work with me in any capacity? Or with a boss who micromanages my every twitch? Just today she came and reorganized my desk. A few months ago she pulled me into a one-on-one about young professionalism because I had lowered my chair since it made me hunch over the desk at that height. A thirty minute lecture because I was trying to stop my back from hurting and my neck from cramping. She told a group of people going to lunch yesterday, and who had invited me to come along, that she supposed just this once she could "grant permission" to let me go to a slightly longer than 60 minute lunch (everyone else in the office takes close to two hours). She promised to call me and let me know I had been invited, and yet for some reason my phone registered no new or missed calls. I can't go use the restroom and leave the calls on voicemail without being paranoid about being lectured. It's like a nit-picking form of guerrilla warfare and it keeps me on edge all day.

But who quits over the simple fact that their boss is a pain in the ass? I have no guarantee that I would be able to get another job, nonetheless one that allows me enough spare time to work on homework, and has a 40 minutes or under commuting time. Honestly I don't know if I have the wherewithal to have my ego bruised quite as soundly as it was in the last year of searching for jobs. Having everything you've worked for, all your good grades and gold stars be deemed irrelevant is daunting.

So now I'm at a crossroads again, with my job and my education going in two different directions, and I have to choose between them again. And I'm not even sure if either of them is worth choosing.

Or I could just yell at the English Department. Would it really kill them to offer more 7:20 classes? I know by nature of studying English or Philosophy, we have to resign ourselves to choosing our cardboard hobo box early on, but stop crushing the dreams so early. Let us enjoy a little fiscal stability at least until graduation...