dear diary,

how did i get so dumb with only taking a year off from school???

last week in class (LADIES! of literature) i could barely descibe social construction and today i couldn't elaborate on if we've got true free speech or not in the country (all i could muster was about three more journalists in florida who were on the fed payroll. sort of on topic, but i picture it as the kuiper belt to earth. same solar system, but totally out there, away from each other) and we also got our first reading responses back today and the best i could pull out was a CHECK, not a CHECK PLUS.

on second thought, should i be more upset about a college professor falling back on the CHECK system??? she did write some constructive things about it. i think i should really focus on fleshing out my ideas better. like, collagen implant my ideas so thier plump, red ruby lips dazzle the beejezus out of the bachelor degree paparazzi.

on third thought, perhaps i should also focus on focusing.

FUCK!

i'm just eying a final finish line to bachelor degree-hood, and i can't stand the wait. to me, it's getting to be like waiting for christmas when you're five times eleventeen. eighteen year old terence dee is certainly learning his lesson right now. you listening, kid?

it's going to be at least two years.

i need to see a commercial for an accelerated degree program right now.

right now.

right now.

BEGIN YOUR FUTURE CAREER NOW!!!

please, diary? please? 

ABD: All But Dissertation or Ass Balls Dick?


and so i begin this entry with a question - what is abd - is it who i am - is it what i am - is it a stage, a phase, a term, a status - the abd that i refer to is all of these potentially - it is the part of the phd where you have done everything except your dissertation - where you can officially start applying for academic contract work and where you are halfway to completion - its a mini milestone in this world - abd is all of these things and more - and maybe it's just simply - ass balls dick

obviously this is an academic acronym - 'all but dissertaion' - which i think is funny because that doesn't sound very academic at all - but this is what people call themselves, and this, my friends, is what i have just achieved as an academic - i am officially abd -

remember those soul sucking, life draining, awful awful exams i was diving into when me and terencedee decided to get this blog off the ground - well i took those exams - and they SUCKED - they were soooo fucking difficult and weird and emotionally trying on me - and i hated every single second of them - and let me tell you - there were alot of seconds in there - 1,209,600 to be exact - and then yesterday i defended those exams - in a formal academic defense where my committee of three prof's grilled me on what i would have done differently and how i would characterize this emerging theoretical framework and how i can apply this theory to this idea and this persons work to this persons work and what the hell i meant on page 7 when i said this - and after two long sweaty hours - 7200 seconds later - they asked me to leave the room and wait outside while they discussed my work - and i stood outside for twelve minutes - this may not sound long to you as you read this - but twelve minutes is a LONG time to be standing in a hallway while the people who just grilled you are deciding whether or not you passed - 720 seconds in total - and then they called me back in and sat me down and my advisor said 'congratulations, you passed with no revisions' - and it was all over - just like that.....

sure they gave me feedback - which i listened to - but the nightmare - the emotional, personal and academic nightmare that was comps was over - i will never have to do them again - and i will never do them again for the rest of my life - unless i get another phd - but i doubt that will happen - mostly just cause i don't wanna do this again - not because one phd is not enough or anything- its just the comps that stops me from getting more of these things

- so now this demon creeping, isolating, self doubting experience has come to an end - and i am still here - i am still in this program - i am on my way to becoming what the prof i TA for already calls me - 'a gender scholar' - and the acronym for what this grueling process has been and what the past 2 years of phd work and 2 years of MA work have been and for what my mind and heart and soul have both been through and sacrificed for this degree - the epitomy of who i am in this moment - where i am in this moment and what i have to show for myself in this incredible beautiful and actual moment - is summed up in three beautiful letters -

i am officially abd - and who wouldn't want to sum up their life's work with three more interesting words than

ass balls dick -

- which is what my amazing sister guessed the acronyms meant the first time she heard it- and thank my non existent god we are related - because there is no way that i would get through life if i ever took myself so seriously that i actually believed that the acronym 'all but dissertation' could sum up what this moment means - so making it into ass balls dick does exactly what i want it to do - it makes this moment and everything wrapped up in it something too big and too important for words - it makes this moment a seventh grade joke - which is exactly what you do when you are twelve - you take the most serious human history, atrocities and current realities and most the incredible literature and poetry, the most influential speeches and photographs produced by the human race and you reduce it to some bad joke about someones ass, balls and dick - so instead of trying to capture the enormity of it all - i am taking the seventh grade strategy of assigning importance based on the level of imaturity of the joke-

and this one is big - i'm just saying - being ass balls dick in women's studies - its a big fucking deal