I got an adrenaline rush while canceling everything.
Unless you are a contestant on the German version of Big Brother, I don’t need to tell you what is going on.
I work for a national academic organization, and the national conference, for which I have been working on for the last ten months has been canceled.
I am President of governing body, and our large research event, all meetings and elections have been canceled.
These are both things that I chose to do, signed up for, fell on the sword for the love of my field, and for the annoying fact that one has to work in exchange for money. My colleagues and I have been in a state of mourning over the loss of these experiences.
However.
You know when you are planning an event, and it gets to be busy, and there are things about it you don’t like, and you have to travel and schlep supplies and deal with people? And you think, I just want this to be over. And this time, it came true. In an instant, you can cancel the stressful things in your life with no repercussions. We’not holding large meetings that take a lot of planning and prep. I don’t have to stand up in front of 50 people and make a fool of myself anymore. There’s something really, really satisfying about getting that high when you can just…cancel. It’s done. I can just, in an instant, feel the tingle of knowing that something bothersome has been lifted from you. Like you are a rat in a 1960s social experiment and the lab assistant rewards you with taking away the electric current.
Must I put the disclaimer here that I’m not really happy things are canceled? That the reason they are canceled is serious and a larger issue? That I don’t really like canceling things I have committed to? I guess so. But let me just hang onto that high I got from metaphorically just grabbing the tablecloth under the dishes and just pulling, with none of the dishes falling. The dishes are blame and scrutiny, if you didn’t get the metaphor.
What is this? A semi-regular newsletter about being a culture studies graduate student. Do you like it? Great. Please share it widely.
What to look forward to:
Academia shenanigans
More Showgirls, the novelization
Recommendations of culture to consume at home
Possibly some fiction…?