notsothinlizzy replied to your post: man, I am so glad I waited to start grad school? ...
this makes me feel a lot better about waiting. i’m 22 and barely got through college, mental health wise (gotta deal with that pesky depression i’ve been ignoring for years lol)
listen... when I finished undergrad? I was DONE. I didn’t want anything to do with anything I had studied. I had abuse-related anxiety problems (which I’m a little more free to talk about because I no longer attend the institution where that asshole teaches) and was just exhausted and had to work on me. so I totally get it. take all the time you need.
as a footnote, I don’t know if you do music stuff, but I’ve been recommending a musicological text to a bunch of my friends who are into academia? it’s called “just vibrations” by William Cheng. it’s like 100 pages and is available for free from the U of M Press website if you don’t mind reading on a screen. but Cheng is a fantastic musicologist in his mid-thirties who got his start as a ludomusicologist (aka studying video game music academically) but has recently moved on to academic activism. As a gay man of color with chronic health problems, he has a LOT to say about self-care and “slow time,” the idea that you don’t have to sacrifice your livelihood to be good at stuff if you’re willing to let it take a little longer.
needless to say, a lot of old white scholars in the field did not take to his text very well, which is all the more evidence to people like me that it was super important and worthwhile.
