Deniz, one of the members of my dissertation committee, chased me into a parking garage next to the airport. If caught, I was done for – so I ran. I found a set of elevators and hit the button to head to ground level. I could hear her approaching; slow, purposeful steps were coming toward me. The doors opened, and I slipped inside, pressing the button far more rapidly than would do any good. The doors closed, and a few moments later, opened on the next level. I hadn’t made it twenty feet toward grass and sunlight outside when I heard a noise and turned around to see her staring straight at me, ready to attack. Coated in sweat, I opened my eyes.
Yes, that’s right – this is the tail end of a dream that I had last night. That is certainly better than it reflecting a real situation, but it is still not a dream that I prefer to have. I am guessing that it is the combination of 1) working on my dissertation 8-10 hours each day for the past week or so and 2) reading Jim Butcher’s The Dresden Files, which is light fantasy describing a wizard detective in modern Chicago. Dresden gets chased a lot. As apparently do I.
Some people try to interpret their dreams. I suppose such people would say that this dream somehow reflects my beliefs about massive impending deadlines and nearing dissection of my dissertation by my committee followed by a two-hour cross-examination to see if I really know as much as I am supposed to know, and if I don’t, that there’s nothing I can do about it at this point, and my entire life and career would come crashing down, and I would likely have to work in a Wendy’s. Good thing I don’t believe in interpreting dreams, eh?
The most "real people" I could think of... image courtesy of bittenandbound.com
My wife half-jokes that the end of graduate school is when we become “real people.” I suppose this is a feeling that many people actually get at the end of college – walking out of the ivory tower, degree in hand, heading out into the world, leaving “growing up” behind, and becoming a full-fledged “adult.” We didn’t have that. We instead walked out of one ivory tower and into another, which I imagine is a process that will reflect the rest of my working life.
I don’t know that I agree with her label. Graduate school is an odd sort of hybrid between “growing up” and being a “real person.” Sure, you continue to take classes, but there’s an odd sort of independence that begins to grow. You are given more responsibility and more control over your time as you get further in the program. I’ve even taken outside projects as a consultant completely unrelated to schoolwork. Is that when I became a “real person”? When someone trusted me enough to pay me for my expertise independently of my education? Or is that moment still ahead of me, perhaps at my dissertation defense? Or, as many people I know that aren’t in academia would claim, perhaps the lack of a 9-to-5 means we will never be “real people”? I just don’t know…
That’s right – I have a real lab in addition to my virtual one! While I was in Norfolk, I visited my new department a couple of times, during the last of which I took the opportunity to take a look around.
The department chair, Janis, showed me where my lab will be. The room is actually perfectly sized for my needs – I was very happy with it as a lab space, and honestly, a smidge surprised that kind of space was actually available in the building. It wasn’t in the best of condition, however. I don’t have a picture, but I give you this visual approximation:
Okay, so the lab isn’t actually that big. But it is full of boxes. And desks. And bookcases. Which yes, means that right now, it’s a storage room. That’s fine, since obviously I’m not using it yet. My understanding is that the boxes, desks, and bookcases will be gone by the time I move in, but if not, I suppose that just means my graduate student and I will have a lot of heavy lifting come the end of summer. Frankly, I’m fine either way.
And when I realized that, it felt a little strange. I am actually excited about a room. A room. Not because I necessarily love the space, but because I love what it represents – a place of my own to conduct the research I want to conduct. It represents independence. It represents responsibility to a greater good. It is an affirmation from the powers on high that I – after 21 years of education – am finally being given the keys to the research Nova with the expectation that I will not drive it off a cliff.
That simultaneously thrills and terrifies me. I am endlessly excited at the view in front of me, and also a bit nervous that I will not meet the expectations of my advisor, my colleagues, and most of all, myself. I feel the great weight of expectation upon me, but I am also cautiously optimistic that I will be able to bear it. Is this what being an academic researcher is all about? Will I soar, or will I turn into a old, bitter academic with many regrets? I suppose I will know in only a few more short months.