Minor Differences in College Life versus Post-Graduate Life

I’m currently working on a post that’s actually substantial, but in the meantime….Lately I’ve been noticing that there are certain things that used to be a normal part of my life in college that are almost completely absent from my life after graduation. Conversely, there are things in my post-graduate life that were never part of my life in college. I’m not talking about big things. Obviously, I don’t go to class every day anymore and I didn’t get a paycheck at the end of every month in college. No, I’m talking about little things like:

1.) YouTube. When I was in school, I spent so much time on YouTube. It was a convenient means of wasting time when I should have been working on papers. Now, the time that I spend tethered to a computer is in an office, where my co-workers and boss could see and hear what I was doing if I started watching videos every half hour. So, I’m really not on YouTube very much anymore, and I’m completely clueless about this whole Harlem Shake phenomenon. (It makes me feel old.)

2.) Walking. I’m willing to bet that I still walk more than the average American since I don’t have my own car. However, when I was a student, walking was built into my day. The longest amount of time I’d spend sitting would be in four-hour seminars, but after the seminar was over, I’d have to stand up and walk home or to the library or to my next class. Now, I spend eight hour days sitting at a desk and I don’t have an excuse to get up and walk around regularly. It’s tough to get used to and my back doesn’t like it much. (And we wonder why Americans have so many health problems.)

3.) Conversations about old-people things. Yesterday, I had a chat with my dad about what exactly a 401(3)b–the non-profit version of a 401(k)–is, under what circumstances you can tap into it, why you need alternative savings as well, and what happens to it if you lose or change your job. I’m very grateful that I have parents who are willing to explain this stuff to me and give me financial advice, but retirement was an issue that never, ever crossed my mind when I was in college.

4.) Feeling dumb. Occasionally I’ll see something on a blog or in the news and it will call up vague memories of something I learned in school that I just can’t remember anymore. Just today I was reading a book on politics that briefly referenced the sociologist Marcuse. I can recall a time when I read some of Marcuse’s work and feverishly crammed notes about him for a test, but for the life of me, I can’t tell you anymore who he was or why he’s important. (I can, however, describe in great detail the couch I was sitting on while doing the cramming. It’s odd what the brain remembers and forgets.) When these instances come up, I feel really dumb–like I should know something that I’ve forgotten. (I also wonder why knowing it at the time seemed so incredibly important, and if it really was so important, why don’t I remember it now?)

5.) New priorities. Of course, learning doesn’t stop just because someone is no longer in school. I now know tons of things about grant writing, fundraising, types of nonprofit designations and what they mean, how to create a social media campaign, and the weird and confusing world of government contracts and subcontracts. These are all things no one ever taught me in school, but they’re things I’ve either picked up interning in the nonprofit world or had to go out and learn myself. So, maybe it’s not that I’m dumb, but the topics I’m interested in learning and my priorities about what I’m learning have definitely changed.

Obviously, when I graduated and entered “the real world” I expected a lot of things to change. These are just some of the minor changes that I either hadn’t expected or hadn’t really thought about until now. It’s strange to think that I’ve been out of school for almost a year now, but in many ways, I’m still thinking of myself in relation to college. Being a student has consumed my identity for most of my life, and while I’d say I’m doing fairly well outside of academia, it’s like that identity hasn’t fully updated yet.

The Big Phallus Theory: The Big Bang Theory, Nerd Culture, and Women

(While I tried to avoid them, you may find some SPOILERS for The Big Bang Theory in this post.)

 

One of my favorite sitcoms is The Big Bang Theory. While the show is not always strong on plot and rarely portrays life in academia accurately, its likeable characters and nearly unending stream of insider gags for nerds make it an entertaining means of spending half an hour. I love Leonard, the everyman. I enjoy Sheldon’s elevated dialogue. And I can both sympathize with and laugh at Howard and Raj’s awkwardness. I also appreciate that it features a smart, sensible heroine, Penny, who isn’t afraid to assert herself and can talk back to the guys.

What I can’t stand is that, like most of nerd culture and the wider culture, the show often reeks of sexism. Some of it, like Howard’s frequent lewd comments that reduce women to sex objects, I can ignore. Indeed, if I restricted myself only to popular culture that presents women as nothing less than fully realized human beings, I’d probably never be able to watch another movie or television show again. I’ve become so used to explicit sexism, in the form of derogatory comments about women, in my media diet that, I confess, I often recognize it and then choose to ignore it. It’s one of the patriarchal bargains I make as a feminist and a woman living in a culture that recognizes my gender’s worth only in so far as it meets certain standards of sexiness, attractiveness, and compliance. What does bother me about the show that I haven’t been able to ignore so easily is the implicit sexism in the lack of female nerd characters.

Seriously, where are the women nerds? I see them everywhere in real life. They attend conventions, they go to the movies, they cosplay, they talk about Star Wars and Star Trek  and play Skyrim and Dungeons & Dragons. They consist of the majority of people that I know and I’d say nearly all of my female friends are nerds. I know women who can code websites, quote Lord of the Rings, act out scenes from Doctor Who, recite the noble gases and their atomic weights, and kick your ass in Call of Duty. Why are these women not represented, or even acknowledged, in The Big Bang Theory? I’m not even asking why they aren’t main characters–though a show about four female nerdy friends would be awesome and so much more entertaining than Sex and the City–so much as I’m wondering why, in the show’s universe, they don’t even seem to exist.

Well, one might point out, what about Amy and Bernadette? Perhaps, in the strictest sense of the term “nerd,” someone who is brilliantly smart and obsessives over even the tiniest minutiae of something, Amy and Bernadette are nerds. They’re both smart, they’re both biologists, and they both have Ph.D.s. To give credit where credit is due, just a few decades ago it would have been unthinkable to have not one, but two women characters in the S.T.E.M. fields on a television show. However, Amy and Bernadette are still ultimately defined in the show by their relationships with their male significant others. They are judged, and often found wanting, by their ability or inability to meet cultural standards of attractiveness, and they do no participate in what has come to be the domains of nerd culture–things like comic books, science fiction shows and movies, and video games. There are no women regularly featured in the show who enjoy these pursuits, even though such women exist in real life.

In real life, however, nerd culture often has just as much, if not more, of a problem with sexism than The Big Bang Theory does. While The Big Bang Theory ignores nerd women and pretends that they don’t exist, real life nerd culture can be downright hostile toward women attempting to claim the identity of “nerd.”  Whether its people accusing women of only pretending to be nerds in order to hook up with guys or creating the “Idiot Nerd Girl” meme that I’ve attempted to reclaim in this post, a lot of guys seem to want women out of their conventions, their role playing games, and their Internet spaces. But why? The most obvious answer is sexism, but it would be too simple to leave it at that, so I’m going to dig a little deeper.

Though the cultural perception of nerds is changing, it is still largely a negative one, as evidenced by the male main characters on The Big Bang Theory. All of them, in some way, have failed to live up to to our culture’s unrealistic and burdensome ideals of masculinity. None of them are physically strong. Neither are they particularly attractive. They know little of sports. They aren’t charismatic or suave or charming. They aren’t physically or emotionally tough. They prefer the comforts of their apartments to the outdoors. Nerdy men are, as the show and the wider culture seem to suggest, not masculine. The show has frequently paired short, wimpy Leonard with Penny’s tall, dark and handsome beaus to make this point. Leonard, Sheldon, Howard, and Raj could often be better described as “feminine” than masculine. There is, however, one group that is lower than nerds on the social hierarchy: women. Whatever male nerds are, they are still more masculine (and thus higher on the hierarchy of patriarchal culture) than women. But when women start entering nerd spaces–and demanding an equal right to be there and be recognized as nerds–they challenge the modicum of masculinity that nerd culture has been able to salvage for itself. They also challenge the perception of women, within both nerd culture and the wider culture, as nothing more than accessories that convey masculinity, and thus worth, on a man. (Think about how, when Howard was first dating Bernadette, he worried that she wasn’t good-looking enough. An attractive girl conveys to society that there is something “manly” or “masculine” about the man she is dating, thus increasing his worth in the eyes of patriarchal culture.)

I think there is a place for women in nerd culture, and I’m sure that women will continue to attend cons, play video games, and go to special screenings of Star Wars. Just as women have fought, and are still fighting, for their right to inhabit the biology labs and physics departments where Bernadette and Amy have managed to reside, I suspect that women will continue to exist in nerd spaces and gradually gain acceptance there. I also suspect that, as nerd culture continues to grow within the mainstream, the stereotype of nerd men as less than masculine will diminish.

However, just because the stereotype of nerds as feminine may disappear does not mean that sexism within nerd culture will necessarily end. Though I would be very glad to see our culture expand its definitions of masculinity beyond its currently narrow confines, I suspect that this will do very little to challenge the standards of beauty to which women, even nerdy women, are held, both inside and outside of nerd culture. Maleness, I still sadly suspect, will still be privileged within nerd culture, in part because nerd culture is inherently exclusionary. To be a nerd, it helps to be male. It also helps to be white, cisgender, and educated. I suspect being able-bodied helps too, though I have seen a broader spectrum of ability represented in nerd culture than I have in mainstream culture. It is required that one be at least middle class, as I doubt the working class has the time and money that are necessary to indulge in nerdy pursuits. Gaming systems can be incredibly expensive, as are books, DVDs, and high-speed Internet connections. One must also have the leisure time to master the games and fantasy worlds present in nerd media. Sadly, in many ways, nerds are often primarily defined by what they consume.

I would like to think that nerd culture is smart enough to look at its own privilege and try to include a wider range of people. After all, many of us nerds define ourselves by our inability to fit in, our difference from mainstream society, and our stories of bullying and rejection. Perhaps we could use those experiences to sympathize with those whom society bullies and rejects. Until more nerds are willing to make this effort and look beyond their own privilege, however, I suspect that nerd culture will largely remain another old boys club.

Synergia: What is Creative Writing? Part 3

Before reading the final installment in this piece, please refer to Part 1 and Part 2.

Dinner was, fortunately, not the awkward affair I’d been afraid of. The ten of us were seated at two long rectangular tables pushed together. Dr. Smith and her partner sat at one end, while Erinne, Alex and I sat at the other. I intended to stew in my own misery and mourn the loss of my four-point-oh, but then someone ordered a bottle of wine and Alex started making jokes about the poets and authors he’d run into during the conference.

Jalia took out her camera and snapped shots of everyone toasting to another successful year of AWP. When our plates of food came, she took artsy photos of everyone’s dishes before we started eating. Veronica talked about the exposure our university’s literary magazine got at the conference and her hopes for making it a reputable journal. Dr. Smith and her partner discussed how nice it had been for them to catch up with friends and professors from their grad school days. Erinne said the conference had inspired her to start working on the next chapter of her novel and she’d also made some good contacts for publishing jobs.

Eventually, we finished our dinners and the bottle of wine, and the conversation turned to what we’d all be doing after graduation. Some of us had no idea. Some of us wanted jobs. Some of us were still waiting to hear back from grad schools. All of us dreamed of being writers. Maybe someday we’d submit a panel and get to present at AWP. Maybe we’d get to join our idols like Art Spiegelman and Jhumpa Lahiri as keynote speakers. Maybe, someday, breathless and excitable undergrads would run into us there and whisper, “Oh my god! Isn’t that the author of—?” Or maybe they’d make fun of us and wonder why their professors ever recommended our books. Or maybe we’d attend just as an excuse to see each other and drink wine together again.

I didn’t speak to Dr. Smith much, if at all, that night. I did, however, leave dinner and go back to my hotel room feeling peaceful and pleasant and not caring much about my GPA or what anyone else thought of my writing.

* * *

I mentioned before that writing about other people’s lives is neater and tidier. It’s easier to impose an ending on an experience or situation when the author is not still struggling with it. In my own life, such complete endings are rare. I wish I could I say I confronted my professor about her comment and asked for an explanation. I wish I could say that I met her in her office and swore an oath to prove her wrong—that I would be a true creative writer and a social activist! Or I wish I could say that I argued my case and brought her around to my way of thinking about writing and activism. I did none of those things. For one thing, I was too afraid. I felt too small to call out my professor, someone that I had previously admired and would have never thought to question. For another thing, I was too angry and bitter. I eventually got over the loss of my perfect GPA, but I was still hurt that someone who shared my passion for both poetry and feminism could so completely misunderstand my work. I was afraid that if I tried to bring up the subject with my professor I would either rant or cry. Both scenarios were mortifying, so I never put myself in that situation to begin with. I stayed silent and nodded “hello” when I passed her in the hall, but I never brought up her comment on my capstone.

For a while, after I graduated and the sting of her comment wore off, I wished I would have said something. Now, though, a year later, when I’m no longer angry, I wonder if it would have even mattered. It wouldn’t have changed my grade, but it might have restored some of my previous admiration for her. It might have allowed me to graduate thinking of her as a friend and mentor and not just another academic. It might have also built up some of my confidence in my own writing. Even if she would have held to her remarks, I think the fact that I was willing to justify my work might have made me believe that my writing was worthy of defending.

To be a creative writer is to believe in the value of your work, even when no one else does. It is to write constantly, even when you don’t think your work is any good, because you must practice your art. It is to submit to contests and publications and agents again and again and again, despite the rejection letters and the setbacks. It is to post on the Internet, even if the only readers you attract are detractors. The writers who believe in the value of their work enough to continue in the face of such trials are the ones who finally attract an Internet following or win a contest or get their work published.

And writing is not easy. It’s a solitary business. It’s often taken me away from the excitement of everyday life, sometimes so much so that the only stories I  have to write about are those of my friends. Or sometimes I find that, really, I fall back on writing my friends’ stories and not my own because I don’t have enough faith in the importance of my own life and experiences. Who would care about my life? I often think. Sure, I’ve done things like attend one of the most prestigious writing conferences in the U.S., but I didn’t do anything while I was there. While my friends were out getting drunk with people like Eli Shipley, I was in my hotel room writing poetry. The only thing that happened to me at AWP was I took a heavy blow to my self-confidence.

But taking a heavy blow to one’s self-confidence is an experience that nearly everyone has had. While I haven’t forgotten about it or gotten over it, I have moved past it and am now able to look back on it with some perspective. Maybe that’s all the meaning or ending that any story can hope to have. I just have to realize that it does have meaning, and maybe that meaning will connect with other people too. In telling that story, in shaping it with that meaning, I am a creative writer. If I use that story as a commentary on the arbitrary lines between academic disciplines, I’m still a creative writer. If I use that story as part of a larger meta-narrative that explores the nature of writing itself, well, then I’m still a creative writer. Being a creative writer means seeing the value in words and stories and messages and putting them together to create art. It means being dedicated to the craft of writing. A year after my professor told me that I wasn’t a “true” creative writer, I’m still here and I’m still writing. And I’m only just beginning to come into my voice.

Synergia: What Is Creative Writing? Part 1

(While I write a lot of critical essays, I also write creatively, mostly poetry and nonfiction. I thought I’d experiment with posting a creative  piece I’m currently working on.)

“It’s sort of like The Great Gatsby, isn’t it? Like Nick Carraway.”

“I’m sorry, sir?” I took a deep breath and tried not to fidgit. I had just presented my undergraduate capstone project, and after giving a dramatic reading of several of my creative nonfiction pieces, which were met with resounding applause from my classmates, my professors were grilling me about my work. If they liked my presentation and felt I answered their questions adequately, then I passed. But if something went wrong, I failed and the past three and half years of hard work to earn my creative writing degree were meaningless.

Dr. Truman ran one of his large, pink hands through his thin thatch of straw hair as he replied. “I mean, the point of view in your pieces. You’re on the outside, always watching everybody, never judging. You’re an observer.”

“Oh, well, yes, I guess so.” I searched for an response, one that would make me sound smart and literary and creative. Then an idea came to me. “But isn’t that our duty as writers—to observe the world around us?”

Fortunately, Dr. Smith came to my defense. “I think, Dr. Truman, if I could just interrupt briefly, that this project is unique because not only does it tell a story but it also attempts to bring critical theory into everyday life through examining life experiences with feminism and queer theory.”

With a new surge of confidence, I continued: “Thank you, Dr. Smith. Exactly! And as critical theorists, it’s also our duty to observe the world as well and point out trends and inequality where we see them.”

Dr. Smith smiled at me. I smiled back.

Dr. Truman nodded and stroked his double chin. “Yes, I think I see that.”

I held back a sigh of relief.

* * *

How does one write creative nonfiction when nothing seems to happen to one? In many of my stories, I find the events of my life building toward a sort of crescendo that never resolves. I almost get into a crazy romance or almost win the lottery, but then these dramatic scenarios never pan out or live up to their tumultuous potential. I’ve traveled, but throughout my journeys to China or England or Germany I’m usually so jet-lagged and so hell-bent on squeezing the most out of the few precious moments I have there that I’m in too much of a sleepy daze to write about my experiences. I also don’t find traveling to be greatly revelatory. I learn things about other cultures or places while I travel, but I rarely learn much about myself.

I’m also not funny, which is almost a prerequisite for being a successful creative nonfiction writer. Either you have to have overcome an addiction or some sort of abusive relationship or you have to be funny. If you have all three and a good agent, you can write a bestseller. Overcoming mental illness is good too, but like most of my experiences, my depression and anxiety have never made for a three part story arc. Instead of being like the lover you meet unexpectedly, spend years with, and finally leave and make peace with, my experiences with mental illness have been more like a day-to-day slog. They’re the lazy roommates that showed up one day and have never left, and I try to work around them as best I can. I expect this is most people’s experience with mental illness, but it doesn’t exactly make for a thrilling memoir, or else we’d all be on the bestseller lists.

What I do have, however, are dramatic, funny friends. And as a creative nonfiction writer, this is the next best thing to being dramatic and funny myself. My friends get into the crazy relationships, triumph against some horrible disease, or make amusing quips, and I go along for the ride. If I’m there when it happens, I figure it’s just as much my story. Right? So I change some names, make up a few details, invent some dialogue, and omit certain identifying particulars, and I have a meaningful, amusing story that I think people will find worth reading. I may only be a supporting character, but I still get to narrate from my own point of view.

It’s also much easier to bring order to someone else’s life than my own. In other people, I don’t see the self doubts, the neuroticism, or the apprehensions. I just see the final product, the front that we all put on to impress the rest of the world. I know it’s a front, but that doesn’t mean I’m not as duped by it as everyone else. I look at people on the bus and think that just because they’re wearing a suit or Gucci pumps they must have life all figured out. Most likely they’re looking at me and, despite my jeans and t-shirt, thinking the same thing. When other people relay their lives to me, I can pick out patterns or romanticize them. In my own life things just seem to happen at the whims of chaos, and I never quite know what I’m getting into until it’s already over. It’s easier to package other people’s lives into neat, tidy stories with a theme and a meaningful ending. My own life never seems to make sense.

Click here for Part 2.