Ah, grad school – how I dislike thee, let me count the ways. A great many of my friends have been very encouraging of my return to the University of Utah to finish up my Master’s program. Thank you all for that I also am interested in finishing and getting my degree so that my life can have some forward momentum. My M.A. degree will be integral to achieving this. Plus, I don’t like to quit and leave things unfinished.

But, grad school! I had forgotten how much I despise writing papers. No, not forgotten perhaps, but subjugated it to my latent ambition while reapplying. Now it returns to the fore.  In addition, it had also slipped my mind how much I had enjoyed playing patty cake with university administration, particularly financial aid. Sitting here broke and avoiding my landlord, I await the money authorized me, but temporarily denied due to a technicality that the office had neglected to mention almost to the point of scrapping the whole thing. The ignominy of having to drop out because of “those” people. Yes, the joy – you can almost imagine the smile on my face, can you not?

Thirdly, I am not a fan of grad students. Don’t get me wrong, I think a majority of them are very good people and a few are even my friends. However, I rarely get to meet such pretentious egos in such confined spaces. I do not think of myself as pretentious, but perhaps those that know me will vote another way. The root of my view is no doubt founded in how I approach history. I look at what is being said about what. Theory is my weakness and I often ignore the many and varied arguments over it that my fellow students seem to revel in. For example, I was in a study space where a certain book was being discussed and evaluated. It was a narrative and detailed one at that. The lack of theory or the little in the way in which to point to a theory was pointed out with a certain disparagement of its merit. I no doubt would have read it and found it a damn fine book. I hope this helps you understand my issue – fundamentally, my lack of interest in historical theory is detrimental to my being a history graduate student, much less a professional academic.

This is why I am so interested in government work. Political theory has only killed people in the hundreds of millions, so a lack of interest in that should not be an issue there, right? Fortunately or unfortunately, however you may prescribe to it, I actually enjoyed political theory.