Holy Crap, it’s DONE

If I were a good grad student, this would be a post about how parting with a thesis is emotional, how finally handing it in all wrapped up in its pretty bindings is terrifying and sad and exhilarating. I would probably use a metaphor involving a child.

A thesis is meant to be a pet project – something you have a love-hate relationship with, you’ve dedicated months (years if we’re talking phd) of research to, and which has consumed you entirely. My thesis was a thing I had to write to graduate (just a long essay). Its purpose was to tick a box on the degree checklist, and I knew it needed to involve something historical-linguisticsy. I metaphorically plucked a topic out of a bag of topics at random and then

Linear B Exam and Awesome News

It took me a minute to figure out how to put two unrelated things into simple and relevant title; turns out English has a nifty word for doing just that: ‘and’.

Anyway, I’m going to start with the latter first, because it’s definitely cooler than Linear B: I got full funding to Villanova + a Stipend!!!!!!!1!1 (I’m so happy I can’t type properly!). So yeah. I’ve been bouncy and giddy about this since last night. Walking into one’s room after a celebratory-post-exam night out with friends to find that Villanova is giving me lots of funding is pretty much the best way to end a day.

The stipend comes in the form of a graduate assistantship, which means the Classics department will employ me as their glorified bitch. I couldn’t be happier! Talk about a tri-fold blessing: tuition waiver, stipend, and work experience. Life is awesome.

Anyway, that’s the super exciting part of my day. The other

My Time in Academia

Being in academia is hard.

Of course it requires a lot of hard work, but no one ever thinks about the difficulty of becoming an academic for those who aren’t born to it. It’s like a special sort of sedentary sport where success is measured only by survival; there is no finish line except perhaps tenure. And unless you take to your subject like a fish to water, you’re in for a very rough time of it.

The problem is that once you’ve entered academia, it’s assumed you’re a fish in water. If it turns out you’re just