island-grown grace

grace, 23. homegrown island girl, english MA, working my way to PhD. used to study in a big canadian city, now I'm in a small american town.

[islandwrites]

dressing like the books i’m working on

[firstfullmoon]

“Listen to me. All of writing is a huge lake. There are great rivers that feed the lake, like Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. And there are mere trickles, like Jean Rhys. All that matters is feeding the lake. I don’t matter. The lake matters. You must keep feeding the lake.”

— Jean Rhys, from an interview in The Paris Review (via exhaled-spirals)

[islandwrites]

breakfast the other day!! 

[charlotteagerillustration]

dusk

[islandwrites]

Thank you so much for sharing your experience re: grad school! Wishing you the best, most empowering, and satisfying future, regardless of where/what that might be. I've followed you for a long time and I feel that you will do great things anywhere, whether that's in or outside the university as an institution <3

YOU DARLING

boy oh boy have we been on this journey together for a long time. thanks for sticking around. it really means so much.

[islandwrites]

hi! just read your reply to the question about how far into the phd you are. are you thinking of leaving after the MA, or switching to another program? what's been your experience with the small town you live in? i'm also thinking of grad school and your thoughts are always super helpful :)

i'm not going to deny that living in a small small town has been hard. i grew up in small towns and small cities, but this is a town that grew up around a college and mainly only survives because of the college. and it's a true american college, too, with frat houses and boys practicing their golf swings on the lawn and football games and--inevitably--the kinds of right-wing and anti-masking sentiments which come packaged with that culture. and some trump-pence bumper stickers and yard signs. my first time experiencing that upfront. it's really sad but i don't like to hold my partner's hand out in public when she's here.

but at the same time... i've learned so much about myself since moving here. even though i've been lonely sometimes, my loneliness has pushed me to seek out new spaces in myself and in my relationships to my body and the land around me. i have become more in tune with the seasons and the birds in my backyard and the bunnies i see on my evening walks. i have started noticing the intricacies of plant life to a degree that was never possible in my previous setting, whether because of the urban environment or because i simply wasn't tapped into that kind of awareness.

the smallness of this place has also made my connections to other people very special. i mentioned this to the last anon so i won't go on forever, but i have been grateful for friends here in a new way.

the question, of course, is whether all of that is enough to live on. to survive with. the jury is out on that question, and i will have to keep reflecting as next year approaches. i will certainly "apply into" the PhD portion of the program (our version of the qualifying exam, it's like re-applying again with a new statement and a sample of writing from coursework) but i don't know much beyond that yet. although i regret nothing about moving and i am endlessly grateful for the discoveries i've made since beginning this program, i need to weigh out carefully the pros and cons of this life path--not just in terms of location but in my career goals, my passions and also the logistics of my life (for ex, can i go five more years doing long distance full-time with my partner...probably not, so something's gotta give).

[islandwrites]

i want more of your thoughts about the difference between ivy and non-ivy! also what made you want to go to the states rather than stay in canada (not sure where you're form originally). THANK YOU for sharing your experience!!

alright friendos i'm settling in at my desk with a little saturday-night drinky to answer a couple questions you've sent in about grad school. first up! ivy vs. non-ivy!

to start, i feel a little bad about the way i phrased this binary in my last answer. the distinction i'm trying to make shouldn't really be between ivy and non-ivy, which is probably a reductive comparison (and i apologize to ivy people for that), but between the two kinds of academic settings i've experienced: the somewhat colder, more "traditional" and Prestige-obsessed setting (and with the capital P i mean a specific kind of old-school clout), which often happens to emerge from ivy schools, and the smaller, sometimes warmer and more community-focused environment of schools that don't get ivy status but which are still very much worthy places to study. at the university i was previously attending, the department was so incredibly fixated on maintaining its status and on producing rigorous, "respectable" scholarship that it seemed impossible at times to generate any warmer sense of comradeship. at my new institution, which is by no means less scholarly rigorous but perhaps cares a tad less about keeping a "traditional" academic-humanistic reputation, the community has been immediate, responsive, and rather cozy in ways i didn't anticipate when i chose my school. this is partly the result of the school's setting in a smaller town, forcing students to rely on each other more for co-survival than in a big city (my previous setting). in a city you kinda go home after class and you're sorta expected, for lack of a better phrase, to fuck off to your own life. and that can be really alienating! but i don't mean to glamorize the alternative - small towns can be very alienating in different ways, and sometimes dangerous, especially for BIPOC, queer, and/or trans people.

so there are pros and cons to every school. for me, having heard second-hand from my partner about her experience at an ivy school in a city, i feel that the choice of a smaller-town non-ivy school actually ended up doing me better. my mentors and professors have been attentive and responsive to my problems (as much as they can within a fundamentally flawed institution, which is its own problem), and my classmates and i have bonded in a really special way. but even that, again, can vary from cohort to cohort, regardless of where you are.

[islandwrites]

hey love! just read your response to that anon about adhd etc. you are so kind and i felt grateful so know there are kind people in the world like you who would take the time to help people. thank you <3

aawwwww belated reply (so sorry) but thank YOU!!

[islandwrites]

how do you find the PHD journey in the humanities? i'm thinking about pursuing one but i'm trying to weigh the pros (funding, cool experience, living somewhere else, learning something i love+am good at, etc) vs cons (long 4 years, tough job prospects, i could be learning something new differently etc)

hello HELLO sorry for the late reply!

oooh what a doozie of a question. it's one that i'm going to keep having for some time to come, if i stay on this path. the bad news is that there is no straightforward answer. the market for PhDs who graduated last year will be different than the market this year, and different again in six years' time. the good news is that you CAN do a PhD because you want to and not because you think you'll make a "job" out of "it." i put quotes because we often talk about the "it" job as the tenure-track professor dream, but there are many other skills that the PhD *can* (not will, but can, because it depends on the institutional atmosphere, your funding package, and your resources) cultivate which can send you on endless exciting career paths beyond the TT job. that's at least how i've started to view it. if you're going somewhere with liveable funding (god i wish it were more than liveable, though), you can treat the PhD as your job for six years. you get paid in return for reading and teaching and writing. this is a somewhat simplified formula but it will have to do for now lest i write a novel.

beyond the whole question of jobs (if anything can be said to be outside the question of jobs, bc i understand that financial flexibility is often unfairly assumed), the PhD experience is cool for the very reasons you suggest. i haven't been here one year and i have been transformed, most specifically by my cohort-mates. this is something i wasn't really anticipating; i came here knowing i was enthusiastic about the scholar i wanted to work with, and the general learning atmosphere, but i didn't think that much about the influence of classmates. holy shit, they're worth it a hundred times over. i'm lucky in this regard because it's not always the case, but sometimes you have to take a chance. (i have more thoughts on this if anyone wants more of them--particularly on the maybe more organic cohort environment in non-ivy schools, like where i am.)

there's much more to be said but i'll leave it here for now!

[islandwrites]

How far into your phd are you?

i'm only in the first year of my new program in the states, so not very far at all! it feels like i'm farther than i actually am, since i completed a whole other MA before coming to this american program (where they typically ask you to complete an MA before it becomes PhD work). it was only a one-year MA, but it was a condensed coarse-load that made me feel 1000 years older by the end.

in our second year we "apply into" the PhD (like a qualifying stage), and before then i'm going to be having some really deep life chats with myself about my future (and whether i can survive five more years in this small town)

[apoemaday]

“I am afraid to own a Body--”

by Emily Dickinson

I am afraid to own a Body— I am afraid to own a Soul— Profound—precarious Property— Possession, not optional—

Double Estate—entailed at pleasure Upon an unsuspecting Heir— Duke in a moment of Deathlessness And God, for a Frontier.

[islandwrites]

You can and should delete or private your old posts if you want to. It's your choice and your comfort.

thank you friend! I think I will. nobody should be using that shit as a reference for their own life.

[islandwrites]

been toying lately with the idea of deleting all my old food photos from when i was in recovery bc they keep circulating and it concerns me that anyone could look at it out of context, or really look at it at all.

[islandwrites]

lately I’ve been helping out my sister with social media for her delicious granola business. the upside is that I get to eat the granola after I photograph it. this morning: yog, flaxseed, banana, dried apricot and of course the granola. nella larsen’s quicksand and a candle (wild rose, lovingly carried from ireland back to pennsylvania by my roommate) for show. 

[islandwrites]

quick note to heartily support your recommendation that the question-asker seek out an ADHD diagnosis & meds if they haven't already—this is legitimately not so much life-changing as it is life-enabling

life-enabling is perfect. thank you!

[islandwrites]

Grace, I keep self-sabotaging and ruining opportunities for myself and don’t know how to stop. I got multiple emails from my dream companies with interview offers but didn’t respond. I procrastinate past deadlines. it’s probably due to my anxiety and ADHD, but whatever it is, it’s wrecking me.

I know you’re not on here regularly anymore, but you gave me great advice years ago, and I never forgot it. hope you’re doing well

babe! I'm so sorry that I didn't see this until right this very minute! tumblr was silly and didn't notify me. I hope it's not too late to help.

first I want to ask you why you haven't been able to respond. by finding the true answer to this question you will get to a place where you can begin to help yourself heal. now, I know that there have been times in my life, especially in my undergrad, where I could barely bring myself to open my email inbox because I was crushed by the very thought of the expectations that would await me once I had opened any new emails. this was partly due to exhaustion, but it was first and foremost because I was terrified of being any less than what others desired of me. I wanted to be perfect at everything and so I did nothing. is this ringing any bells?

it took me time and a lot of practice to realize that other people didn't care as much as I thought they did about how well I performed. my bosses, colleagues, classmates, and mentors were merely out here surviving, just like me, and at the end of the work day, they wouldn't remember whether I did or didn't achieve some particular goal or if I made this or that mistake. not to be cringe, but there's a scene in Schitt's Creek that communicates this lesson really well. David is anxious about renewing his driver's license because he is worried about what the examiner will think of him if he makes a mistake, and so he puts off the test until Alexis says "ugh *David,* literally nobody cares." I had a revelation when I heard this hard truth, which is somehow so simple yet had escaped me for so many years (and still escapes me sometimes).

for me, finding a way to START the work has always been about realizing that the work I do or don't do won't matter to anyone else at the end of the day except for ME, and maybe the communities I'm helping to serve. the higher-ups will go home and have a glass of wine and continue to live their lives and time will keep moving. realizing that you're only out here to impress YOU can be really liberating.

and then my love there's a much simpler answer to all this as well. ADHD can be really hard, I know--but there are medications out there for it. a friend of mine recently started on ADHD meds and texted me being like "WAIT THE WORLD IS THIS GOOD?" it's not always easy to get access to a diagnosis, but if you have the resources, use them. it could change your life.

if this was entirely unhelpful, pls do clarify for me what you're currently feeling and I'll try again. <3

[islandwrites]

The minutes gathered into hours, but still she sat motionless, a disdainful smile or an angry frown passing now and then across her face. Somewhere in the room a little clock ticked time away. Somewhere outside, a whippoorwill wailed. Evening died. A sweet smell of early Southern flowers rushed in on a newly-risen breeze which suddenly parted the thin silk curtains at the opened windows. A slender, frail glass vase fell from the sill with a tingling crash, but Helga Crane did not shift her position. And the night grew cooler, and older.

—Nella Larsen, Quicksand (1928)