I spent today giving my room a much-needed cleaning. It happens occasionally. It felt good to clear out some of the dust bunnies and junk that collect behind furniture. I also threw away my Buddakan employee handbook, which felt incredible. This led to unearthing some old papers and articles from my last semester of college.

I was only taking one class, it was my senior year, and I barely cared. The papers I wrote were mediocre at best, but I somehow made it out of the class with a B. It was a "Major Playwrights" series class, focusing on the works of Susan Glaspell, a contemporary of Eugene O'Neill. I wasn't really aware that she was a major playwright, but I had read her most famous play, Trifles, in two different classes. Also, I'm always a fan of female writers and exploring their work. She didn't have much, but she led an interesting life.

As I went though the coursework I discovered, removing staples and binder clips, I stumbled upon an academic article that haunted me for much of my college career: "Mimesis, Mimicry and the True-Real" by Elin Diamond. I'd read it in at least two other courses (incidentally, the same courses in which I'd read Trifles, I think), the first being my freshman year in an intro course. At that time, it made no sense to me, I couldn't wrap my brain around the dense academic language, and I wasn't really sure what Diamond's point was (I'm still not). When I had to read it again a couple of years later, I'd grown used to that style, and was able to parse out a little more of the meat of the piece, but it still seemed pretty useless and dense. I ended up pulling it out of the hat when writing my final paper in the Glaspell class. I found a few quotes that made it sound like I had an argument and was backing it up (I wasn't).

It felt great to get rid of it today. Highlighted and picked to pieces, with my notes in the margins, it reminded me of how glad I am to be done with college. Sure, I learned a lot, and was exposed to a lot of different ideas and people. But as much as I complain about what a drag the real world is, I never want to go back to school, and I'm so glad I finished and can never read another "ivory tower" feminist writer analyzing the act of "acting."

Congratulations, to me!