As much as I wish I could identify as this constantly erudite, high-culture/brow intellectual, and have that be the most infallible, indelible element of my nature… the truth is, it’s not. I’m some weird consortium of high and low brow pursuit, of theoretical abstraction and reality-driven pragmatism. I’m reminded of the Yiddish film, Der Dybbuk, about a spirit that occupies both the land of the living and the land of the dead; literally dybbuk meaning ‘between two worlds.’ My entire life, I’ve been between two worlds, and have never forced myself to commit to anything, really: the duality of who I am can be astonishingly powerful and beneficial (it has given me a fantastic strength, intellectually and critically), or catastrophically disruptive.
The past eight weeks have been really quite difficult for me, for a host of reasons, not the least of which has been the pigeonholing of my ‘nature’ as a student. Without doubt, they’ve been the most trying of my academic career, and I’m now seriously concerned about applying for, and receiving, a Fulbright Grant to conduct research. In terms of project ideas, I’m confident in the importance and utility of my proposal (which is, as yet, only outlined and still requires writing); my GPA has slipped considerably, though, and Fulbrights are very competitive.
My academic career, historically, has been one of moderate intensity, externally stimulated by my own interests, curiousities, and fascinations. Though I have very mixed feelings about my undergraduate experience (I attended, and graduated, from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, a top-tier (albeit lesser-known) engineering school in the Northeast), I cannot go so far as to express abject regret: the critical thinking skills I acquired as a science student have proven incredibly useful in my movement to graduate school. In one department, particularly, I’m something of an affirmative-action student: I was accepted likely more for the curious and eclectic background than for any particular specific merit.
Historical academic successes, though, has accompanied (sometimes deserved, sometimes not-) an accumulating hubris about my role and position in academia. Since my background is so wildly varied (and, admittedly, consistently inconsistent and unfocused), I’ve had the fortune of attempting some modicum of success in a number of different areas: military science, nuclear and physics engineering, physics, sociology, medical anthropology, public health, ethics, data management, &c have all occupied large quantities of time, emotion, and intellectual energy. I’m not proud of having a chip in my shoulder or disproportionate arrogance, but it is extant. And the strings of successful academic and intellectual ventures came to a screeching halt this summer.
I can attribute this summer’s folly to a number of elements, but ultimately they all boil down to what kind, what sort, of student I am. The class itself was small (the first four weeks, five; the second four weeks, four), and the instructor was a native speaker and prepared grammatically rigorous lectures and assignments. Each week saw a minimum of twenty hours of class time, typically with another five or six hours of additional activity (films, lectures, conversation hours, etc). In addition, each evening and weekend had somewhere between two and four hours of homework (simply to stay afloat; studying to actually learn material would be another 2 hours nightly, ideally).
And the end, to make a long story short, is thus: I’m really not very focused. I love studying languages, but I also love – among other things – sleeping late, going to the gym, cooking elaborately inefficient meals, wrenching my moped, going out with friends, reading books for pleasure’s sake, drinking wine from the bottle, spending time with my significant other, looking at the ceiling, reflecting and meditating, talking with friends….ad infinitum. I’m simply not designed for, as a thinking person (and of course, many – probably the most ‘successful’ – of thinking persons are designed for-), to study one subject intensely, and passionately. I need time to disengage from the rigors of daily life.
Insofar as this summer was a valuable learning experience, I’m glad that I made the decision to partake in such an intensive program. I certainly know plenty of Polish now, and it did keep me – in some sense – intellectually stimulated. However, were I to make the decision over again, I would never have chosen to enroll. I have a low grade now eating up a large amount of my transcript, I never received funding from my department (a whole other situation entirely, and very much the focus of ire and aggravation), and emotionally, psychologically, and scholastically exhausting. At some point, I needed a make-or-break academic situation, and I think this may have been it. I’m a very serious student, but my life is so muchmore than being a student that I can’t function in an environment where scholasticism becomes the only focus.
Suffice to say, I am thrilled to have my life back: I can go back to the gym, I can begin reading for pleasure (again!), I have plenty of time to socialize, to write, to reflect, meditate, think, imagine. And I can get on with being this odd, incongruous bundle of contraditions, aspirations, criticisms, praise, and everything else.
