Yesterday I was a PhD student
Yesterday I was a PhD student. Today I am a sub. It feels like a secret, like I am masquerading as this person who is not familiar with responsibility, who can’t be trusted to carry out a complicated lesson plan or even keep track of too many student names. I don’t have to grade any papers, I don’t have to write anything- they’d be impressed if I jotted down a few notes about who went to the restroom and who helped me with attendance. I can get here a few minutes late and they don’t hold it against me. She doesn’t know any better, she’s just a sub. In fact, every time I get here, they are so thankful I have arrived, raving with gratitude even. So what does it mean that I lavish this identity, of a person who will probably not be perfect, who should not be in charge of too much, and is basically expected to do the minimum amount of work? Is it okay if the answer is that I am tired? Am I allowed to be tired as a privileged white woman with three degrees and no children? I don’t think so.Â
Can I be sick of a few things? Perhaps being held to other people’s standards who don’t hold themselves to those same standards. I think we can all agree we are sick of that in some, if not all corners of our lives. Maybe it sickens me that I did all of the things I was supposed to do, and it wasn’t enough. It was sick that I woke up every morning feeling like I would not count as much as my phd counterparts no matter what I did. And so finally, just as luck would have it, my biggest worry happened. They told me to go. They gave no reason of substance-they didn’t have to do anything like explain to me in truth about why they had made this decision about my life. They didn’t have to do anything that made them uncomfortable, that’s what it means to have a PhD in some cases I suppose. And when I asked questions about this decision they either blew smoke at me or got all blotchy and insisted they already had been very clear about why. If that was the case then why, as an intelligent individual with a good amount of self evaluative skill and emotional awareness, was I still baffled as to why I deserved to be ousted from this ship I had poured everything I had into for over four years? It was sick.Â
And now, every time I read an academic research article its like I am lurking at the site of my own wound, looming around the blood, still sticky from the recent carnage, but no longer openly bleeding. Like a fly, I survey the sentences I could have written, peruse the year of publication, the author bios, Dr. This who works at University-That, as an Associate-Something I’ll never be. And here I sit behind a desk, but it's not my desk; it's the desk of a band director who is not here today, who has no expectations of me, no real lesson plan for me to follow. Only directions for what student (Brooke) should take attendance for me, and to please read aloud to the class the phrase “you are to stay and practice/be productive indoors.” I hope I don’t disappoint.
