Going back to school

From the beginning I would get impassioned responses. When I told someone I was back in school taking my master’s, they would either say, "What are you doing a silly thing like that for? You should be teaching," or, "I really like people who go back to school." This latter from my doctor who is trying her best to straighten out my crooked face (after surgery, obviously not cosmetic). I saw her gracefully and successfully swallow a word. She was going to say, "I like old people who go back to school," but her good manners saved her.

Most of the time I really didn’t care what anybody said. The desire to go back to school was real and hard to fight. I like to say I was bored at the time but that diminishes the real situation. The reality was that I had worked very hard to bring our medium-sized Filipino agency to a certain standing and now I was all out of answers to such eternal questions as: What do I do next? How do I sustain this? How do I stimulate/motivate myself? No one around was going to help me so I thought maybe school would do the trick.

I had tons of fun with classmates and professors. Loved going to a new place, doing new things, even acquiring a new wardrobe. I found I had school clothes – jeans – and office clothes. When I presented myself at school in my office clothes, the security guards wouldn’t recognize me. I must have looked really different as a student. I loved the idea of having many lives, like a cat.

Of course I knew there would be a thesis at the end but no one told me how soon that end would be.
I stare blankly at the guide for writing the thesis. This is simple enough, like writing a book. Haven’t I written two? This chapter should begin with that document in my school folder. The other document is in my presentations folder. Why can’t I open this diskette? How will I continue the work I started at the office?How do you do this? It looks simple enough. I have this document in that folder. Surely the industry presentation I submitted is chapter three and the case they wrote about me could be chapter 4.

Sometimes I work at my office computer, which has more memory, more advanced software, and is closer to the IT guy we call Lester who saves me from all my tech disasters. I’ve written a memo advising everyone I’m on thesis leave, meaning, I’m physically in the office doing office things (the thesis is a five-year business plan for the agency) but my body and soul are always on the verge of parting. I can’t be relied upon to make any sense in the present. Maybe in the future, in five years.

Long weekend that I’m planning to spend alone, away from everyone to catch up on thesis work. Documents from my work computer are transferred to neatly labelled diskettes so I can work at the laptop in my country home. The documents won’t open. I think I will die. Calm down, I command myself. When you get agitated your energy affects the computer. It’s part of your being a witch. Calm down now.

Children call. Let’s go visiting. I go. Friends call, let’s do this or that. I do this or that. Associate from a previous life calls, can you write a long article on this or that. I need after the weekend. I commit myself, anything to take my mind off the thesis and the neatly labelled diskettes that won’t open. Why won’t they open? What if I don’t get my thesis done? Wouldn’t that be shameful? Maybe I would die of shame. No, that would be too easy.

Why didn’t I do this when I was younger? Never was a great student but got good grades. Early enough in my life I invested time and risked failure to discover through disciplined experimentation how much effort was required to achieve above-average performance without prejudice to recreation. After a year I got that down to an art, drove the nuns crazy. Then and now, I was a champion procrastinator. I think procrastination is a DNA thing.

I have to write my thesis? Okay, but first I have to finish these major memos. Then my columns, can’t miss a deadline, I promised. Oh yes, as I switch work I have to play a little computer solitaire to clear the mind as sherbet clears the palate between major courses. And my household chores! My maid took one of her long leaves so I had to stay home and clean out the fridge, my closets, the pond...

What a joy it is to live with a pond but it does need a lot of upkeep. I came very close to filling it with earth and turning it into a garden except that would have made my little bridge look silly. When your house sits on water you get moving patterns – sun sparkling on water – reflected, almost projected on your wall, changing with the time of day. It is so pretty. You could really spend a full day just watching these patterns change. Very comforting. Very Zen. The very antithesis of my thesis.

You should see how much my fish have grown. Amazing, I don’t feed them. They feed off the tadpoles and the moss and they are just growing. The carp and the mollies have babies. My fish have been mating, procreating, productive. Only I am stagnant.

Those people were right. I should never have gone to school this late in my life. It wasn’t necessary. Now I have this thesis to ...well maybe, after lunch or later tonight... full moon... must take a spin on my broom... I wish I were really a witch. Then I could whisk this thesis into shape. But, looks like I’m really going to have to do it myself.