Rev. Erudite Redneck, B.S., B.S., M.A., M.Div.

By The Erudite Redneck

Here it is Sunday afternoon, and I'm at my desk at work, fixin' to try to get caught up -- but I probably won't. It's one of the things nobody warned me about when I started out on this lark, tryin' to get a graduate degree in history, back in the summer of '01.

Here are a few others:

2. Time sometimes loses all meaning.

Right now, the only distinction between a week day and a weekend is football. Pretty significant, maybe. But the significance evaporates as soon as the final buzzer sounds. Then it's back to juggling.

3. Something has to give.

Since the summer of '01, I have given up my vegetable gardening, which used to keep me sane; yard work and landscaping in general, which I really enjoy; my guitar, because if I have 10 free minutes, then that's 10 pages read of the average book -- but only two, or three, or just one, of what I'm reading this semester; and reading for sheer pleasure.

4. I may have lost some folks.

There are people I haven't seen since the early days of my sort-of-late-in-life return to the ivory tower. I just haven't had time to do any of the things that I used to do with certain people. I mean, there are a handful of folks I used to go to baseball games with. I didn't go to a single triple-A game this year.

5. Age brings its own challenges.

Starting a master's degree at 37 is a lot easier than finishing one at 40. I cannot imagine starting one now. I cannot imagine not finishing the one at hand. Interestingly, I can see myself continuing on for a Ph.D. I can see it. That doesn't mean I will. I am way tired.

6. The world marches on.

Since I started this degree have come the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, war in Afghanistan, war in Iraq, an explosion in the power of the federal government, under a Republican president, that the biggest lefty would never have dreamed of; a total reorientation of who the United States' friends and enemies are around the world; and a million other major changes that I've been forced to give comparatively scant attention to because studies have had me distracted. Wait -- maybe that's a good thing.

7. The digitization of academe.

Of course, it's taking over. I asked for an old-fashioned card to fill out an Inter-Library Loan request yesterday at the college library; they insisted that I do it on-line. Last semester, the prof required that we receive assignments, and post homework, on a class Web page. Sigh. Sorry, but I will always prefer things the old way, and will always go kicking and screaming into the future.

8. It really is darkest before the dawn.

Unless I bomb in my current class, my last, I will be finished with school at the end of the year. I didn't expect this semester to be any easier. But I for damn sure did not expect it to be so much harder. Holy Roman crap!

9. Nobody told me "blogging" would come to be, or that I'd get hooked on it just when I've become busier in life than any time since, oh, the spring of 1988 (next-to-last semester as an undergrad). Sigh, 28 minutes just flew by when I shoulda been working on something that counts on my "permanent record." :-) Make that 30, after the edit.

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