break up

It's official, I am an ivy league drop out.

Well, in the way that a post-bacc to an ivy league can be supposed to be a drop out.

It was a difficult decision for me to make. I agonized over it for weeks, seeking advice from anyone, and everyone I knew--on both coasts. I called old professors on their cell phones @ 7AM their time because I was in the midst of a meltdown, my gmail threads to other professors run long, and I even called a professor's home on a weekend to talk about this monumental decision.

Because it felt monumental.

If I walked away now, a part of me, small and inconsequential, knew that I would be walking away from this road--this classics/ancient history/PhD road--forever. Yeah sure, I could defer for a year, but I know that it would only buy me some time to get used to the idea that I wouldn't be coming back. And how do you walk away from Penn? For all its pretentiousness, for all its glorification and belief that it is God's gift to mankind--yes, mankind--it is, and remains, a good, very good, school. Higher education is, in itself, a very rare gift. I'm lucky to have been able to attend college and graduate school, never mind studying at an Ivy League university. I was well aware that although this decision weighed upon me like bricks every waking moment of my life, that fact remains that the biggest worry in my life wasn't how to feed myself, how to clothe myself, how to provide shelter, it was making the decision of whether or not I wanted to go to school. That was the biggest worry in my life? I felt all the guilt of my pettiness, my selfishness, my luxury. How many people never get an opportunity to attend college, never get to step into a university classroom, never get to sit in on lectures. And here I was, preparing to just to walk away from it all.

Yes, I am spoiled.

I've felt my fair share of guilt about this too. How dare I turn down Penn? Just who did I think I was? I wasn't so smart, so special, as to say, No, Penn, to be frank, I just don't need you. Where did I get the audacity? It's something I'm still dealing with.

I know what many people will think, and despite it all, I will care about the opinions of others who don't know me. I'll return to San Diego, sooner than planned, tail tucked between my legs, and know that on some level, I've failed. People will say that I couldn't handle it, that I could only be a big fish in a small pond, but that I couldn't rise to the occasion when placed in an ocean of other big and bigger fish. I know this will happen, that people will think this of me. I know this because, as ashamed as I am to say, it would have been what I would have thought being put in that position.

But, and I know this will sound hard to believe, but it was never about how difficult the classes were--and trust me, they were difficult. It was always a matter of whether I wanted to be there in the first place. I'm not opposed to hard work. In fact, I often welcome challenges as a chance to improve myself, or something. But I have to have a reason--something, anything, that makes the effort worth it. And that was what I was struggling to find. I couldn't justify how hard I was working. The program that I was in was created especially for people who wanted to go on to get their PhDs. I knew from the beginning that I didn't want to do that. I didn't want to get my PhD, so why was I there? For the love of knowledge? Believe you me, that is not enough to justify the effort. At least, not anymore.

Because nothing, not the belief that you should be doing this, nor the knowledge that you could just buck up and do it, nor the fact that you know it would only be suffering for one year, nor the perverse obligation one has to the people who put their names on the line so that you could attend the school in the first place, nor the desire to prove something to yourself--none of those reasons will get you through the rigor of such a program.

You have to want it.

And I didn't.

More than that, I didn't want to wake up one morning, a year from now--five years from now--ten years from now, and feel like it was all a mistake. That I had done the post-bacc, had gotten my PhD, and done it all, but that I didn't ever want it.

That I did it because it was what I thought I should do.

It's very easy, especially in academia, to get caught up in this track. This one track of just plowing through classes, schools, degrees. You just keep going because it's what you do. If you define yourself as a student, well, going to school is what you are good at. But just because you are good at something, doesn't mean you want it. And I didn't want to wake up and think that I had never consciously made the decision to get a PhD--it just happened to me.

I didn't want to wake up and think that I did it because I didn't have any other choice, either. That I didn't have options, and so I did what made sense at the time.

I had to want it.

And I didn't.

Still, it didn't make the decision any easier. It felt like I was breaking up with someone. You know that it's something you have to do, that ultimately you'll be better off. But you still hem and haw over it, still drag your feet when the opportunity arises. I think it's because it's one of those things, one of the few things in life that seem so permanent, so irreversible. Once you say the words, and mean them, there really isn't turning back. And so you have to make sure, make absolutely sure, that it's what you want. And even that intellectual knowledge doesn't mean it won't hurt. Because relationships, when they come to an end, ought to hurt you. If they don't hurt you, well then that relationship wasn't that meaningful. I, unfortunately, have the unlucky (lucky, depending on how you see it) disposition where I only have meaningful relationships. And I could already tell, this one was going to hurt. Big time.

I was breaking up with the University of Pennsylvania.

The morning that it happened, I remember walking through campus, which is just gorgeous in its quiet awesomeness--the towering, old, brick buildings sitting so elegant and noble against the equally impressive walnut trees. I sat on a bench of a bay window that overlooked the quad, the very heart of the university, and observed the students passing by below me.

I was always so curious about the students here. Each has their own story, but I always wonder what it was that made them special, made them stand out, so that they could go here. Were they the products of private schools? The darlings of the prep schools? Were they legacy cases, the most recent progeny of some long family line who had always attended there? Were they international students? Athletes on scholarship? Or, were they really just that brilliant that not even the high cost of tuition prevented them from attending? I wondered about this even more, in the those few minutes outside the director's office. All of them had a story, and mine was about to be over.

And when it was over with, I felt relief. I did. But I also felt the very fibers of my existence.

For the first time in my life, I felt like I didn't have an identity.

I had defined myself as a student, an academic.

It was not only what I did, but who I was.

And now I didn't have it. I didn't have an identity. I was, and am, job-less and school-less in Philadelphia.

It's utterly terrifying.

I have to, somehow, figure out for what I exist. At the moment, I exist for nothing and for no one. I have no direction and no purpose. I exist, but for no reason.

I cry often these days. I don't feel my sadness until it gets triggered by something so mundane, so seemingly ordinary, and suddenly my eyes are wet with moisture, tears streaming down my face, and I'm biting my lips furiously in attempt not to show how much they quiver or, God forbid, I actually let out a sob. I can't ever predict when I'll burst into tears, which is quite unfortunate because it's often in public places, and I'm always left scrambling for my sunglasses, even when I'm indoors, to hide behind.

Luckily, these combustions don't last very long. I'm able to put myself back together before it gets really embarrassing. Usually.

I'm trying to remain positive. In my deepest despair, I try, everyday, to find something to laugh at, something to marvel at, something of beauty in my otherwise dismal existence.

I write, I read, I pray a lot these days. I wander quite often as well. I try to be outdoors as much as possible, and to be in nature when I am outdoors. My favorite place thus far is the riverbank of the Schuylkill. They've made these little grassy park right on the embankment, that's a small oasis in this concrete jungle. Sure, the water is murky and at times smelly, and the park faces the very industrial skyline of Philadelphia, but it is something.

This entry was more depressing than I had intended, but I look forward to updating with something more lively in the future.