Feigning Maturity

Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art

It looks like I've finished all of the doctoral study. As often occurs with these things, there has not yet been the "now you're done, hooray!" moment. In a few months, when my diploma arrives, perhaps that will satisfy. For now, I have to make do with an email from my professor saying, "Well, I marked you as done. And you got A's so don't worry."

It's not quite what I was picturing.


So whenever anyone asks -- and they have been asking -- "are you done?", my only response can be an affirmative nodding of my head, while I simultaneously shrug. It communicates the complex emotion of "Yes!.....?" And their faces go all quizzical and say, "Don't you know?"

It's basically the flip side of what I've been experiencing for years, where people kept calling me "Doctor Schwartz" which would then require a correction. And the faces would go all quizzical and say, "Are you done?" Same tone of voice and everything!

So now my function (again?) is the unemployed recent graduate. I tried dusting off my resume, but found it was largely un-updated since 2003, so I decided to start over. I've been eyeing some jobs that require cover letters and other "grown-up" materials, so I need to figure out how to write those. All this schooling, and nobody ever offered a course in the business of being an adult? Oh well.

I'm applying for at least one job in a state far away, in a city I have never been to, in a field that I don't understand. The job I understand (or at least I think I do), but the company itself deals with technology, which is not the sort of thing I've had a lot of practice with. I've put up this site, but that's largely a function of filling pre-made templates with words in a semi-particular order.

I've also recently tried my hands at some video production and editing, which I very much enjoy and only barely understand. I recorded a stream of consciousness video of about seven minutes speaking extemporaneously which I was very pleased with, but I made it on a subject which is sensitive to my heart, so I won't be making it public.  It was also made during the 30-day trial of a piece of software that has since expired, so I can't make any other videos of that quality without laying out some money. Eventually, videos will have a place here among my blog thoughts -- that I'm fairly certain of. I had too much fun.

But for now, life is fairly low-key. I'm catching up on all the things I put off, like packing away winter clothes (though low temperatures still keep popping up) and sorting through years of papers and other potential recyclables. I decided that I would obtain a membership to the Nelson-Atkins Art Museum. Largely because it's not very expensive, but also because I would love the chance to visit more often, and members waive the $5 charge for parking (the museum itself is free).

But it also represents a microstep or two towards what I aspire to be: someone who has enough time to visit the theatre and the museum, a patron of the arts. And as mercantile as it sounds, I can get a year's admission to the art museum for the same price as I spent for two tickets to this weekend's KC Symphony finale. What callous calculous to weigh the value of priceless painting against a Strauss tone poem?