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Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Surgery?

My Dear Reader,

So it's official: I've got to go into surgery about my dislocated shoulder. I'm not that happy about it, partially because I don't really think that anyone should be happy about going into surgery, and partially because it messed up all of my plans for the summer, which weren't doing so well anyway. The problem with this whole thing is that I'm graduating. I always kind of thought that I would be a student forever, and that graduating was what other people did. Other people got sick of school and had better things to do. I don't really have either. Like I've said before, I'm only graduating because staying would be somewhat ridiculous and cost more money. I mean, sure, I'll try to get a job someplace. Editing, most likely. That's the only thing business-ey thing that I've simultaneously enjoyed and been good at, except for writing. I could write the pants off of most people. Anyway, here's a list of what I was hoping to accomplish this summer:


  1. Eat
  2. Publish my book
  3. Live somewhere that's not Utah
  4. Go to New York City with a friend
  5. Make mountains of money somehow, preferably by way of #2
  6. Get my own apartment
  7. Feel like a bachelor's degree is actually worth something
  8. Get an editing job
9999. Make it so my shoulder no longer attempts to escape in the middle of the night

Now that I'm going to be getting surgery at the beginning of the summer, I'm not sure if I can still work at the MTC this summer while I try to find an editing job. I've got surgery scheduled for May 7th, after which I might be spending up to three weeks at Madre and Padre's until I feel better. Then, I'll go back to my job here (spending six weeks in a sling), I guess, but it now kind of doesn't make sense if I'm only going to be here for a couple of months and two of my best friends are going to be in Russia the whole time. Ugh.

And then today, as I was sitting in class, I thought that it would be really strange to go from being an English major to not-talking-about-literature-all-day-every-day in a little over two weeks. And then I was thinking that maybe grad school would be worth it. And then I remembered that I never, ever planned to go to grad school grade-wise. And I haven't even looked into any of the requirements or anything at all. I mean, I really, really don't want to leave college, but at the same time, I don't want to go into grad school just because I'm too afraid to try anything else. And I have student loans to pay off. Ugh again!

And then I think that this might be my big chance to grow up even more than I already have in the years I've studied here. That's one of the reasons why I want to try to live by myself: I want to be even more independent that I already am (or do I mean less dependant?). I'm the kind of person who's always looking for an opportunity to stretch myself a little more, and moving away and getting a job might be it. Or I might just fail miserably at everything because a bachelor's degree isn't worth what it used to.

At this point, I just wish that I knew what I wanted, and how to get it, and that this surgery thing wouldn't mess everything up. For now, it seems that I'm just going to have to play it by ear. In the meantime, if you hear of any editing jobs that require only a bachelor's degree, let me know.

Regards, best wishes, and not surgery,

-Cecily Jane

3 comments:

Molly said...

I found an editing job for you in Moscow. There's tons of them! I looked on expat.ru and almost wished we were moving to Russia permanently. And then I remembered about winter. haha.

~Stappsters~ said...

Reality sets in! Surgery or no surgery, you rock Cec!

Anonymous said...

I too graduated from BYU with an editing minor. About a month before graduation I started thinking about grad school. But, like you, I thought I was just being silly and not wanting to grow up. I had never really considered grad school before. I thought, "I need to grow up some and get a 'real job'." I've been graduated for a year now, and guess what? I'm waiting to hear back from grad schools. Take my advice, go to grad school. You can write your novel. You can move out of Utah. You can visit NY City with a friend. Heck, you can go to grad school in NY if you want! Working isn't all that exciting really--defiantly not as exciting as discussing great literature.