I�ve been having trouble putting words in my fingers here lately. I seem to be capable of writing well in only one arena at a time. Suffice it to say that the dissertation is going well and, in fact, seems to be damn close to completion at last. I have a meeting with my advisor tomorrow and am hoping to dump a couple of hundred pages on his desk for review.

I�m not sure what�s happened in the last few weeks. Perhaps it�s the preparation for teaching. Or perhaps it�s the conference acceptances. But I�m starting to feel more like a professional than a student. It�s funny, because I�m writing about this exact process in my dissertation � the process of moving from amateur to professional. The more I have written, the more personal my topic has become.

I know plenty of people who don�t feel personally involved with their topics in this way. The people I know who moved through school the fastest have managed to find a certain type of intellectual engagement that avoids true passion, thus enabling them to choose topics based primarily on expedience as a tool for employment and keeping them clear-headed when in the middle of the muddle of research that one must inevitably pass through. And yet, I can�t imagine why someone would be in this line of work if not for passion. Otherwise the rewards are far too few. Perhaps they merely feel they can postpone until employment. It�s hard not to see that as the more practical approach. And yet I find myself unable to divest myself of a need to be most personally and emotionally involved. Life doesn�t begin after receiving a diploma. It is already happening. I don�t want to waste my time on things that don�t engage me.

And there it is. This arrogant refusal to waste my time. This is at the very heart of my anxiety about academic employment. I love my research. I love talking about it in front of people. I love teaching. Even those mundane details like grading don�t get me down if I feel I have the chance to offer a view of �what, exactly? A love affair with the organization of sound? A way to understand and explore the world? What am I worried about? I have the things I love about the field without the things I hate (politics, committee meetings, tenure review, publication mandates). I have near total control where I am now. To move out is to put myself under the thumb of others, to suffer injustices, to waste my time. Like someone stuck in an unhealthy relationship for too long, I�m having trouble moving on. I�m the battered wife of my dissertation. In attempting to maintain my control, I have lost sight of how little control I actually have.

In these last few weeks, something has changed. I�m fighting back. I�m packing my bags and moving out. After my meeting tomorrow, I�ll be following my advisor to a dissertation defense by another of his advisees. It is supposed to serve as a reminder of what comes next. And the job listings are piling up on my desk, as yet unanswered, but soon to be. A particularly tasty one has recently arrived. It�s in one of my favorite places in the world. Would my husband, who has never lived outside the Chicago area, be able to handle living overseas? It seems hard to imagine, and yet I�m wondering if it might feel like home.

0 people said it like they meant it