10 most of the year

I recently read through a few blogs that are recapping on the year. One recapped on what he read in different genres while the other recapped what he wrote on his blog over the last bit, focusing on the highlights. I was wandering if I should do the same and then that little part of me that wants to be original said - nah!

I just received the highest cumulative semester GPA I've ever received - 3.78 on a 4.0 scale. That is exciting in a lot of ways because I've never seen that high of a score next to my name before and yet it was a bit anti-climatic as well.

I'm realizing that I'm at the end of my graduate degree, which I started in 2004 (it will have taken fours years with 3 years of breaks to travel and get married in-between). After a short-lived celebration over my good grades I felt less accomplished than I ever have before. I know, I know, it's the old story of searching for something endlessly, getting it and then feeling empty. I don't think that's what this is all about.

I'm going to sound full of myself but with all my hard work and love for academics - I still feel like I'm underachieving. There are still so many books to read, curricula to write, conferences to attend, etc... Yet for what? I love study and writing and teaching and opening up ways of thinking that help people to think instead of staying trapped in conventionalism yet every step I take forward, there is a field filled with landmines of discovery - places I'm afraid to go because if I do, I'll never get to see the rest of the field.

I also sensed an emptiness when I realized that my professors are paid to read my papers, but that doesn't mean they like what they are reading or would read it on their own time. They aren't even allowed to really dislike what I've written unless they do it professionally. Either way, there is no room to communicate their own visceral reactions to my work, when that's what I'm writing for. I hope that writing and research hasn't become an attention getter for me. I hope my neediness doesn't come through the medium of what I've written.

Like all true writers, I want to inspire, to create, to unearth and to introduce, to unveil, to make laugh and to make cry, to draw the real, visceral self to the surface for one still moment and and see the reader not fear who that person is. Maybe I'm too much, maybe I'm not enough, maybe navel gazing causes indigestion, mabye it's just not time and maybe it never will be. I like something hopeful to finish thoughts that I write but then that little part of me that wants to be original will just say - nah!

Here's to 2011 - a toast to all those who don't feel like they get the response they wanted, who write from their heart only to receive a paid in full GPA, for those who want to be recognized and praised for their work but fear the first critic too much or for those who just plain don't care what others think of them but can't seem to motivate themselves otherwise. What you write is yours - thank you for sharing.