Low geek self-esteem

I pride myself on being a geek (or a nerd in some instances). And I think my geek power is pretty strong most of the time. Reflecting on my adolescence, I think most of my friends were pretty brainy in some way. Even if they were slackers who cut school most of the time, they were smart about how they did it and what they did with their time. One of my favorite TV shows is still Jeopardy. My family used to bug me about auditioning for it and I even had dreams of going on College Students week on Jeopardy. Yeah, I am pretty full of my geek self.

To me, being smart isn't just about knowing random facts though. Smartness has a feeling of "book" intelligence and "street" intelligence. Knowing how to utilize certain types of smarts is crucial to surviving in this awful world. I am not saying that have achieved this perfect balance between the book and the street. I just like the challenge of being thrown into situations where both my book and street intelligence gets called upon. However, don't get me wrong- sometimes knowing the words to that obscure Police song goes a long way when I'm playing a trivia board game.

Lately I've been feeling like I am slipping. On several occasions, I have been out-geeked in the most surprising ways. The latest surprise has been my friend D, who knows everything about 80s pop music. Since I wrote my MA thesis on hip hop music of the 1980s and 1990s and since I have been a radio whore for most of my life, I have taken every Name That Tune challenge with confidence. D, however, blows me away because he can name every 80s pop song he hears, sing along with the right words, and name the samples mixed in the track. It takes me a little longer but I can eventually come up with the right answer. But D is on point all the time. This is impressive stuff.

C, another friend, has insane knowledge about all things literary. She is an English PhD student of course, so perhaps she has an excuse. I've played Trivial Pursuit with her before and she leaves me in the dust in the Arts and Literature category. She has all this weird knowledge about obscure historical facts as well. Her blog is wickedly funny and she's a great writer. And she lets me crash on her couch Monday nights so I guess I can't hate on her.

The feeling of supreme geekiness also appears in my academic endeavors. I guess you can't be a PhD student without feeling smart. Yet it is only recently that I have been able to feel like I'm smart in the academic sense. What can account for this?

For the past 2 years I think I have been struggling to find my voice and be able to articulate my ideas clearly. I constantly felt like I was always behind my classmates and struggling to understand the readings in my classes. I think I only took one or two classes where I felt confident about the material and able to contribute in an articulate way. I think the other part of it is also the realization that my academic work is truly unique - that is, no one else is working on what I am working on in the slightest way. As a result, I can only talk to certain people about certain aspects of my interests, but never in an entirety.

My friends are kind of like that too. I wonder if this is the case of most people. What does it mean that I have groups of friends who I would never bring together with others? Clashing ideas and interests would definitely make for a suck-ass party. Who wants that? I guess I have different groups of friends for the same reason that I have different people I must turn to in my academic world.

I guess all this doubt has made me wonder what my academic career is going to be like once I finally get that piece of paper framed and up on the wall of diplomas in my office. (I put up my diplomas and D's diplomas but left one big space for what I consider is my "last diploma.") After all, I am no-traditional PhD student. I am not at a big name school or program. I don't have big name advisers or faculty on my committee. I am not funded at all. I'm fast-tracking by trying to finish in 4 years. I haven't built up my CV with publications, book reviews, research projects, and fellowships. I can't do a national search when I come onto the job market. I have an almost unrecognizable degree and I have to constantly explain my research to give context to why I'm doing what I'm doing where I'm doing it.

To make matters worse, I personally have not bought into the Ivory Tower like most "successful" graduate students have. I believe there are other possibilities out there for me. I used to say that I was interested in going into administrative work in higher education. A Dean's position or perhaps a Provost position perhaps. I'm not so sure about things these days. Then there is that crazy idea to open a doggie store with K and O. Or maybe doing consulting work as a diversity "specialist"? So I guess these options make the glass half-full?

Looking at what I wrote makes me ask myself: What the hell am I doing????

Self-doubt always seems to creep in when I least expect it. On bad days, I feel like I'm going to be forced to be a lecturer, driving all over the Bay Area when I'm done. Not that I wouldn't like to be a lecturer, but lecturers are hired from semester to semester and quarter to quarter, without any kind of long-term stability. Or worse- I'll end up unable to find any kind of academic job at all. That would be academic suicide. If I step away right after my PhD, I'm not sure I'll be able to recover. But then again, how much of this can I really control? I won't have any idea what the "market" will be like when I'm done with my PhD, so what's the point in worrying? Logic doesn't seem to work very well when I have low geek self-esteem.

I guess in the meantime, all I can do is just focus on the baby steps. None of this will matter if I don't pass my exams in May. I can definitely kiss my academic career goodbye if that happens. I know I have put a lot of pressure on myself to accomplish what I set out to do, but the weight of it all gives me a backache sometimes.

On a happier note, I dropped off my application for the a fellowship this morning and I dropped off my IRB forms for signatures. Two more steps closer...