Yep, that’s right — in less than 36 hours, I will be well underway on my fourth experience with a PhD comprehensive exam, and it’s my sincere hope that, unlike 67% of my prior attempts, my efforts will be rewarded with approval and establishment willingness to allow me to continue on this doctoral quest. I want to succeed so much I can taste it. And, as compared to the 2010-2011 cycle, I’m feeling decidedly different about what this means to me.
You may recall, particularly in advance of my early-October oral defense of the widely panned September American exam effort, I was feeling acutely isolated. I need not revisit the archives to remember lamenting the fact that I was never supposed to stare down the specter of professional failure wholly on my own — that turning the key at 2327 and opening the door to an empty house was fundamentally unfair, especially when I needed support more than I’d ever before needed it (at least with respect to my professional world).
Here I am, imminently to be in that position again, and I once again find myself wandering the streets of Nashville, not wanting to go home to a yet-emptier abode where there’s legiterally not a single soul (man or hound) to provide comfort and support. Come exam-writing time, I’m already planning to spend the bulk of my time outside the house, surrounding myself with nameless others in an attempt to sidestep exam-day isolation… because the dead last thing I need to infect this round is the same ol’ sense that I’m doing this in isolation.
And yet, even as I feel quite acutely that same sense of alone-ness that is inevitable when you’re facing tremendous challenge without someone to provide hugs on demand, my thinking about the nature of this task is fundamentally different. This is not going to be a referendum on the decisions I’ve made vis-a-vis my teaching or my research. I expect to be given a fair shot, to be evaluated with the benefit of the doubt, to have graders who have probably never read my writing before (or, if they have, it’s been minimally three years gone) and hence can reasonably evaluate my work on its own merits. I don’t feel the deck’s stacked; even better, I feel the task ahead is fair and manageable. In short, while the stakes are high and a *huge* amount of my self-respect and self-worth are on the line, I expect to be successful and will allow of myself nothing less. Put still another way: I feel this challenge is valuable, meaningful, and far from a foregone conclusion — but also that it’s a reasonable obstacle that, with focus and hard work, I can clear with room to spare. A worthy opponent who will nevertheless go down.
Of course, I’m not “alone” in the same sense as I was last time, and the difference is one well worth noting. The undercurrent of support, grounded confidence, and love from TMP is incredibly valuable, something I know has made the last six weeks of preparing so much less stressful than previous iterations.
So I will do what I’ve got to do — move around, do what I must to avoid any pernicious feelings of isolation (or whatever) — and soldier on. And I will triumph, dammit!
