Apparently quite a lot. I’m not a Dr. yet, but this blog will chronicle my way there and hopefully help motivate me on the way. If all goes as planned I will really be Dr. Walsh in about three years.
So my journey. In a nutshell spliced together through fragments. I was a high school theatre geek. I was actually a high school theatre-choir-orchestra-stuco-AP-NHS geek, but theatre always ran first on that list. For the moment, I’ll skip the high school details and move on. I went to a liberal arts school on the east coast, Maine to be exact, where I doubled majored in biology and theatre, theatre being quite an unpractical profession in my mind at that point. I am practical, occassionally. Failure there. Transferred to Colorado State where a double major in biology and theatre was impossible.
Fragment: I sat on my couch at home talking to my mom about my decision. I had agonized over it for weeks. Spent time talking to people from both programs. I had already made my decision, but hadn’t yet vocalized it. “I can’t not do theatre.” My mom, always supportive, fully agreed with me. A rarity as parents go.
Fragment: My boyfriend and I, after both transferring back to Colorado, go back to our high school to talk to our teachers. Mrs. APEnglish teacher. You know, the one you always tried to impress, but managed to always fall short. I tell her my choice. “What a disappointment. What a waste of talent.” The words stamped themselves on my being. I will prove her wrong, I thought.
The program at CSU was small, but fierce. As I moved through the other activities I chose to hang on to fell away, cello, and eventually singing (the end of my relationship with musical theatre).
Fragment: I’m in the design studio at CSU. Three years of class work is being persued by the faculty, set designs, costume designs, and a massive pile of papers. “So, what do you want to do for you senior project?” “I want to write a thesis.” Pause. “I don’t think anyone’s ever done that here.”
I graduated early (thought I graduated anyway, another story I may or may not re-live here) and there I was with a BA in performing arts.
Whoop-dee-friggin-do. As any theatre BA graduate will tell you, this particular degree does not buy much in the real world. Let me re-frame that statement. A BA in performing arts from CSU doesn’t buy you much. However, as with any degree, it’s what you make of it. Initially I didn’t make much of it. I thought at the time I wanted to be an actor. I worked in town in community theatre and dinner theatre shows and worked full-time (as actors do) during the day at a daycare and the mall. I toyed with the idea of grad school.
Fragment: I’m standing on a slope next to I think a bell tower at UC Berkeley. To my right is the library. Stretched out in front of me is San Francisco bay at sunset. I want to be here.
I always sent for the applications, filled them out halfway and never sent them. A few years passed, three I think. I did plays in town. I fell in love with my husband. Before we got married I told him I wanted to go to grad school and that it probably meant leaving Colorado. He was cool with that. He got a job that was easily transferrable. We got married and I applied for schools in the fall.
Fragment: I’m sitting in the library at CSU on Valentine’s Day. An e-mail pops up from a professor at Florida State. “Call me so we can chat about the program, it says.” I have to leave the library to shout out loud.
My master’s program at FSU was amazing. After one semester I knew I wanted to get my PhD.
Fragment: I’m at Smoky Bones having beer and watching the first night of Monday Night Football. I’m a few beers in. The sideline reporter, Lisa Guererro comes on wearing a light purple chiffon dress and heels to interview players on the sideline. Jesus! What the hell is wrong here? She looks ridiculous, like eye-candy. I rant about it.
I write a paper about women in sports, particularly focused on football. I present it at my first conference. It turns into my thesis on women’s performance in sports. I apply for the FSU PhD program. At my faculty’s urging I also apply to UT Austin and UMN.
Fragment: I leave Sonja’s office. I walk outside. It’s mid-March and fairly freezing. I have to go somewhere to cry. I walk behind what I now know is the music building, look across the river and sob. How can they not want me? Why did they let me come here? Maybe this is fate. We’re not supposed to be here. I call Scott and tell him about my meeting. He tells me to turn around and tell them I want the spot and whatever I need to do to get it, I’ll do it.
I write Sonja an e-mail. I want a position in your program, is in essence what the e-mail says. Three agonizing weeks pass. I finally get my acceptance letter from UMN. The PhD program at FSU folds.
Here I am, though. Two years in and still going.
This blog has a specific purpose. I’m getting ready to begin work, allbeit preliminary work, on my dissertation. I’m also reading a book called How to Write Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day. In it she says that writing has to become a way of thinking for you. You have to do it everyday; a lesson my advisor from FSU also told me. So, this blog will contain my daily dose of writing. I’m not sure how interesting it will be for other to read. It will chronicle….well, definitely my dissertation process. Who knows what else. “It’s a mystery really.”
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