Dude. I have such a backlog of things that I struck my eye over break, that I totally haven't gotten it together to post here. Wow. Anyway. Here's something for you to enjoy
As an academic brat, I found this sort of interesting, and my experience these days, is that I'm really pretty comfortable in academic settings (dare I say, most comfortable?) While academia has completely colonized my brain, I'm mostly ok with this. Lets just hope I get into grad-school. Anyway, Enough angst for right now.
Read this post:
post MLA post
"I really enjoyed MLA this year -- as I usually do. I know so many people who are still wounded from the job market and who loathe MLA -- but oddly enough I always really like it. I've been thinking about why that is, and I think it's something tribal. MLA is the one place where I feel like I'm part of something bigger, like I belong with a group of people. Of course, as a second-generation academic, this might make some kind of sense (supposedly I attended an MLA with my parents when I was 2 1/2 but I don't remember it). But at a deeper level I generally have a strong distrust of groups, of seemingly artificial communities. I was raised without any kind of religious community, youth group, sports team, or other such organizations that probably promote social skills and a sense of belonging. I'm an introverted, overeducated nerd -- so mostly I don't walk into a room of strangers and think 'ah, I fit in here.'
But at the MLA, I know I fit. And I know that I fit somewhere in the middle of the spectrum -- I'm not the nerdiest, the smartest, the ugliest, the leftiest, the most fashionable. I'm right in the middle. And I very very rarely get to be middle-of-the-road average. It's kind of relaxing."
(Via In Favor of Thinking.)