Back to basics

I am quite vocal about my degree at work, as well as my teaching experience, because I am desperate for someone to ask me about what I know. I’ll be the first to admit (and am admitting right now) that that is sad. But it’s also true, and I’m nothing if not honest in my little home on the web. All of this leads me to my current buzz: my dear coworker (and namesake) asked me for some help on her final undergrad research paper.

I was so stupidly happy about it, I bid Eric goodnight and settled onto the couch to read, take notes, and send some feedback. I don’t know if she’ll go with the changes I suggested, and while I say I don’t care, I kind of do.

When I first went to school, it was with dreams of becoming a book editor. I had romantic notions, most of them spawning from the remarkable and prolific career of Maxwell Perkins, of giving authors a voice. I wanted to find the next Thomas Wolfe or F. Scott Fitzgerald, and I wanted them to have the kind of trust in me that said authors had in Perkins. I wrote papers about this vision, and I planned my entire life around it.

But college is more about changing crushing dreams, and I became distracted. First I thought about moving on to Environmental Law, then I was enamored with Folklore, and finally I was in the midst of a break-up and changing the rest of my life. Somewhere among those different ideas, I lost my dream of book editing and took on a series of mostly unrelated jobs that might one day spawn an interesting memoir.

Back to my point – assuming I had one – my coworker asked me to help with her paper, and I was excited.

Another coworker recently put in her two weeks’ notice, and in her explanation to me about leaving she said “no offense, but I know I’m capable of so much more.”

That has been bugging me lately. A whole hell of a lot. She is graduating in a few weeks with a BA in Film Editing. When she said it, I just smiled and agreed and went on with my day, but like a microscopic parasite, it’s been eating any sort of nourishment I’ve tried to swallow the past week or so. Seriously, what did she mean by that?

I took this job with the intention of going back to school, and I think it’s time I make a decision on that. I can either go for an MA in English, or I can look at another Bachelor’s. But I need to make a decision and move forward because otherwise, I am going to be deserving of that look down her nose at me. And, really, I get stupidly excited about school papers that I didn’t even write. This is ridiculous.

Oh, hello rambling tangent of a post!

Summary: Once upon a time, I wanted to be a book editor, but then life happened, and now I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up except that I’d like to get moving on something.

I’ll keep you posted.

And I need to craft!

I made some really good Indian food last night that made my mouth bleed fire. But it was delicious.