i didn't sleep at all last night. tossed and turned into bed sheets and the heart palpitating comments that i've only allowed myself to read once over again a year later about all the failings of my dissertation. somehow i skated through with both the three letter acronym and my juvenile naivety* still squarely intact. (*I feel inclined to include all of the variant spellings of this word just to prove that I know they exist and to also comment that I chose this particular one for no particular reason. It reminds me, really, of the times I've said the word patronizing in a distinctly American way. Like many other things--having to live life where my job is which means we're far away from people we'd like to not be far away from--being American, strangely, isn't exactly my fault. And besides, it's not like I've ever wanted to live here, anyway.) reading those comments made me feel small. made me remember that i'm not cut out to do what people do with degrees like mine. made me stay up all night wringing my inadequacies as a person, as a scholar, as a thinker, as an activist into unforgiving bedsheets. made me howl and scream and cry hysterically into the middle of morning streets.