Monday I emailed my potential recommenders about PhD applications, and by Tuesday I was starting to feel anxious about the whole thing, but Wednesday I started putting together some information and really researching programs and their various application processes, and yesterday I felt wound tighter than a spring, as they say. I feel as though everything has been thrown up in the air like so many feathers, but that's kind of silly because nothing has changed. If anything, I have a firmer grasp on things, in a way.
On the other hand, I'm daring to hope I'm qualified for Ivy League doctoral study, and holy cow. And what if I don't stay in New York...
I was also thinking, after talking with a friend Tuesday night who is in the MFA program at NYU and just got a job offer (or really, an offer of promotion, since she already works there) for when she graduates in May: What if I've wasted the last ten years of my life? Should I have been doing everything differently? ...Is this line of thinking a result of age and experience? I'm 29, I've just completed a major step, a definitive portion of time, and I'm preparing for another step, another deadline, another period of hard work and sacrifice with a huge reward at the end. Only, I'm wondering if these huge rewards ever feel more substantial. I don't want to wake up in six years and still be waiting tables. Which is why I'm thinking, do I want to wake up tomorrow and still be waiting tables?
And then I remember why I'm doing it, why I've been doing it so long, and that is this: it's flexible, it's good money, it's not work that can really take over my life (after a certain point), and it's fun for the most part. And for research purposes. And for networking purposes - seriously, I work with so many creative people, not just actors, but musicians, writers, performers, and other literary types; people who are interested in politics and philosophy and the economy and travel and what's going on in the world. It's a great environment to be in. And even though I feel like a little bit more of my soul is slowly and painfully sucked away each and every time I serve f-ing Patron Silver,* each time I smile when I don't want to, each time I wonder if I mean it, each time some corporate drone talks to me like I'm an uneducated worthless insignificant waste of space and I want to scream... I kind of love it.
*Patron is a brand name. Paul Mitchell designed a bottle, took it to Jalisco, and built himself a distillery. It's not bad. But it's not nearly the best. It's just well-marketed. But I digress.
The problem, of course, is that it's kind of slow at work this time of year, and with the economy, blah blah blah, but when I'm not busy, I have time to think about these things, and I start to question what it is exactly that I'm doing with my life, and I need to remind myself that I'm working towards some big goals and working at the restaurant is a part of that.
Now I just have to make that clear in my personal statement...
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