The Aristotelian Internet

I’ve reached another milestone in my life. Not an age, not a promotion, but a position. I have done what nobody in my family ever dreamed of: entered a PhD program with full intention of completing it. While I entertain several ideas of what I want to consider in my dissertation topic, I’m experimenting more and more with FYC, thus the creation of this blog.

My parents are extremely proud of this fact, but at the same time they wonder why I need this much education. I can understand their questions; they were both raised in a society where it was commendable to have a Bachelor’s degree and exceptional to have a Master’s degree. For me, I’m not satisfied unless I know I have given my all and excelled to the point that there is no farther up that I can go.

It is this drive, which I must credit to my father, that led me to embark upon my PhD. I’m currently enrolled in 9 hours of coursework and teaching 6 hours of First Year Composition. It’s a heavy load, but to me it’s worth it in the long run. Besides, is there any more gratificaiton than being referred to as “Dr. Blackwell,” having a nice office where students come visit and having the chance to watch the young minds I influenced cross the stage in graduation regalia four years later?

In fact, I’ve come a long way from the first few years of college where I had no desire to do anything but get a couple of classes, get a degree (in what I didn’t know) and get out on my own. If you had told me then that I would be in a PhD program in ten years, I would have laughed at you. But now, I’ve become the studious woman who juggles too much and stretches herself too thin and stresses too much. If you told anybody that I know now about this past, they would never believe it.

Outside of my teaching and coursework, I have a rather dull life. I am involved with two wonderful men (one who happens to have fur and a tail) and listen patiently to the requests of each for food, attention and fun times. Isn’t it interesting how a cat and a man can have the same demands. In fact, I’ve decided that the only difference to the two lies in the differences between “toy” and “remote.”

Perhaps one day I’ll marry one of these men and get a bigger house for the other (well, for all of us really). Here we’ll have a seperate room for the library, as opposed to the water closet so many of you are familiar with. But that’s the wierd thing about me. I can’t be the girl my mother wants right now and just hop up and get married. There aren’t that many people who can say they want to put off getting married until they have their PhD. But then again, how many women are lucky enough to have a man who agreed to wait this long. We were dating before I got my Batchelor’s degree. He’s still around. I’m a lucky woman.

If there’s anything that I feel everybody who reads this blog should know about me it is that I am the ultimate homebody. I do enjoy doing things with friends and families, but if I have my way, I’m sitting at home on the sofa, laptop in hand, wearing my cozy pajamas and typing away at something while Harley (the cat) sleeps soundly beside me. You can call me old if you want, it’s probably true, but I adopted this lifestyle after my party days ended. I know, some think it’s sad, but I’m not one of them, luckily.