grad school is all about having fun(ding)

One fun thing about grad school is being poor and the lengths to which one is willing to go in order not to be. Let's face it; most of us are older now (I'm going to my 10 year high school reunion this coming weekend), and we're fed up with living like hobos.

It all starts when you're accepted to grad school. In my case, my department offered me a wonderful "funding package" which entailed 3 years of indentured servantry: I teach Spanish, they pay my tuition and a meager salary. What wasn't made clear was that there was no way in hell I could ever finish my PhD in 3 years. Or the fact that the department wouldn’t be giving me any money beyond that. So this year, as I begin the fourth year of my doctoral program, I've had to sell myself to the English department instead. I'm teaching two sections of Expository Writing to first year students. It's amazing: I always thought that the students in my Spanish courses couldn't write well because of language barriers. Turns out, they can't write in English either!

Take this one for example, this student's stab at an introductory paragraph on the first essay:

AS time changes and media evolves new issues change. What was not possibly before is common place. Thirty years ago no one would have thought that you could have a computer that you could carry around. Now that is common. For as media expands to new fields, people will find new ways to interact with the new fields, one such thing is fan fiction. Now as fans can write they own stories based inside the world of a different origin then our own, written and owned by other people. Since the stories are written in a world that belongs to the author of the books, outdated copy write laws can come into effect.

Yes, 18 years old. Actually went to high school and was accepted to Rutgers University. Now I have to teach this kid.

The up-side to this English deal is that if I survive the Fall semester, in the Spring don't have to teach. I can just focus on writing my dissertation, and I still get paid. My plan for now is to go back to Madrid, where I was doing “research” from January to August of this year. Maybe this grad school thing isn't quite as bad as I make it out to be…