I’m a second year grad student and, while I absolutely love learning in general and the classes I am taking in particular, it is sometimes overwhelming when I also work full-time and have a nicely established life with comfortable routines that include writing, reading, and binge-watching shows with my taller half. Time I spend in class (online) and on homework interrupts these de-stressing activities, which is why I took the assignments from my Freelance writing class to heart and started this blog – because that makes sense, right?

This morning I was composing an email (for work) and realized that I had been so focused on everything else, I hadn’t even looked at my personal planner all week, and so the original idea I had for a post today never grew past “NaNo research and I love Fall.” Well, at least I have time to flesh that out a bit before my next regular post…

Back to grad school.

I am in my forties, and finished my undergrad (English major, of course) in the 90’s, at a time when doing research on the internet was frowned upon. (Or maybe that was just my school?) Nowadays, when doing research for a story I don’t think twice about logging on and using my google-fu skills to find what I need, but when I sat down to begin research for my first paper one year ago I was aghast at the idea of using information found on the internet. Oh no no, academic research is done at the library with old books that make you sneeze yet smell so good, headache inducing microfiche, and a silence so loud you feel guilty for turning a page so fast the paper makes a soft crackle that can be heard around the world.

I was woefully unprepared for doing “modern” academic research in the early days of this journey, and for that first paper I used a few articles from online magazines and, yes, books from the library. Thankfully, the paper was a personal exploration of myself as a writer and so didn’t require the depth of research that I later needed to do.

That’s when I discovered Google Scholar and campus library free access to articles that I would normally have to pay for on my own, and the fact that research articles are a pain in the ass to read because of the roughly one thousand citations found on each page. Oh my! I also have a tendency not to use the correct language and am often told, after passing in the first draft, “you need to write using academic vocabulary and less casual language.” No lie, I found a book that helps with that!

I have always been a research addict, happily throwing myself head-first into the rabbit hole and eating all of the goodies I find (aka, I snack a lot when I research). Oh! And there are cafes in libraries now? Whaaaat? I can get a latte and study with croissant crumbs drifting down like buttery feathers of tiny, delicious angels? When I visit academic libraries now I feel ancient, and also like a kid in a candy store. With actual candy. And books. And coffee.

So what’s the point of this post? Going back to school was possibly the best decision I had ever made, even if it drives me bonkers sometimes. It is a distraction and a joy, and frustrating and has opened my eyes to so many new ideas and technology that my brain blanks out and needs a reboot daily. A recent assignment was to read “The Allegory of the Cave” and find an image to illustrate our own “coming out of the cave” and as I type this, I am realizing that going back to school and having these new experiences and gaining all of this new knowledge is exactly like a coming out of the cave for me. Man, that’s another post entirely…

I’m going to end this now before it turns into a book. Which is possibly what my next regular post will be about! Thanks for following along with my ramble!