How is Graduate School? Answer:

Some days it feels like everything is falling. Literally. I don’t mean that with even the slightest of metaphorical bents. Today I spilled an entire glass of water all over the carpet and my book and my folder. Yesterday I dropped dishes in the sink, pens on the floor, books off the shelf, you name it and it was falling. The popcorn I was eating, the towel I was wearing, my phone I was talking into—some days everything feels like its slipping through my fumbling fingers. 

I guess that’s my answer to the question now. There’s always a question, right? “What are you going to do with your English major?” and “Why are you going to Korea?” and “When’s the next time you’ll be home?” The question now is graduate school: “how is it?” 

How is graduate school? 

Mom. And the giant pencil outside my building. And me.

I don’t mean to say that everything is falling. It’s not. Some days I’m so on top of things I surprise even myself. Most days aren’t like that, but graduate school is not like the grapes I dropped on the floor when trying to put them in my mouth or the wall I ran into aiming for the doorway a foot to the left. 

Graduate school is like the foot-long Subway Club sandwich I ate last night for dinner. Cheap—I’m not joking, $5 foot-longs all September(!) and a teaching assistantship: God is good—and full of vegetables, turkey, on wheat bread. The healthy stuff. And the good stuff: banana peppers and provolone cheese and chipotle sauce. Twelve inches devoured in under five minutes followed by a stomachache so bad I had to drive not walk the half a block to the gas station for tums. 

And that’s a story about sometimes things just fall right into your lap. 

And so you can see faith without deeds is useless. 

And so to bed.

Photo compliments of Jojo who is actually called Yunyi Du. Some of the cohort and one of the professors.