School Days

Today, I actually purchased books from a university bookstore--again. What this means is that, yes, I will actually be going to graduate school in a week. There is no room left for the ambiguity I held onto for so long because god forbid I actually think too hard about the implications of taking graduate school classes, which are that I will have to see this thing through and pray that one more degree tacked on to the Bachelor's I already have will make me more employable in a job field other than facelessly answering phones all day for any number of giant corporations or being an employee manager at Burger King.

I have been working hard these past few weeks to understand and implement all the processes of accepting and activating my financial aid, enrolling in classes, getting my tuition reduced, changing my former name to my married name, etcetera and to infinity, and, oftentimes, I have been known to stand in the middle of campus and shout loudly for everyone to hear, "I've never done this before! I don't know what's going on! I've never applied for financial aid before! Do you know what's going on? I don't."

People are rather unimpressed by that.

But, today, I cemented the whole process, and I validated the countless times I got myself lost trying to find my way to UTSA and back, by buying books for my course, Introduction to Graduate School Studies, of which there are ten required books on the reading list and two of them are Norton Anthologies, American and English, respectively. So what I'm trying to say is that I am simultaneously pleased and scared to death. On one hand, the general public no longer has reason to snub me for being a freeloader on my husband because I AM GOING TO SCHOOL, and not just any school, but GRADUATE SCHOOL, which sounds like a very pompous and important kind of school, and makes me appear to be intellectually serious about the life of the mind. On the other hand, I am scared to death that after just one class the professor and my graduate student cohorts alike will discover me for the fraud that I am (she doesn't even like Shakespeare?!) and will thus chase me from the bosom of academia, and I will be forever scorned and shamed, and I will have to become a receptionist for Holiday Inn but not even a good one at that because every time someone asks me for directions somewhere I'll mix up my right and left like I always do, and...you get my point.

This thing will work itself out, I'm sure. I'm only taking two courses so I don't possibly see how I could do too badly. You should wish me luck anyway. I'll be praying we don't go over much Shakespeare. But if Ethan Frome turns up on the reading list then my cover will be blown, and I will be forced from the leagues of higher learning. I HATE that book.