Doubt.  The title of a play by John Patrick Shanley.  The title of a movie which starred Meryl Streep.  And what I felt last week after returning to the classroom six years after obtaining my undergraduate BA degree.

The class started off with the professor clarifying which class we were indeed in.  There had been a drastic mix up and the bookstore had the books for the class the professor taught in the summer, not the current fall semester.  Only one person left the room after finding out which course they were in.

The professor then passed out a vague syllabus, and informed us that a more detailed course syllabus would be posted on Blackboard.  He then gave us a four-page, photocopied essay written by LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka) in 1963 to read.  That’s where my trouble started.  I love reading…books, some poems, fiction primarily.  I don’t mind reading essays but they are not my number one choice when it comes to sitting down and finding something exciting to read.

I got out my little red pen, jumped back in the time machine, and tried to remember what I did six years ago when professors passed out essays for us to read.  I began underlining important phrases, and putting checkmarks next to interesting points.  I tried to paraphrase the author’s ideas in to my own words.  I understood some of the essay but not all of it.  Before I knew it, we started discussing the piece even though I still hadn’t finished reading it yet.

I sat in my chair around the conference table (this class meets in a conference room, probably to invoke that seminar style/closeness atmosphere that a lot of professors hope for) the bubble of doubt forming over my head.  Some students spoke up.  Some students presented their interpretations of the essay.  Some students challenged the words of the professor.  Some students.  Not me.  I sat in my chair, silent, listening to the words of others and listening to the voices inside of my head asking me what on earth I was doing in graduate school.

At 8:20, when the class ended, I introduced myself to one student, then quickly retreated from the room.  My head was killing me.  One of my occasional migraines had come up during the almost two hour course.  I stopped at the Burger King to grab a bite to eat but felt so nauseous by the time I got home that I didn’t eat anything.  I just crawled under the covers and went to sleep.  I felt so dumb after class.

When I woke up the next morning, my migraine was gone.  I was still disappointed in myself, but I managed to come up with enough valid excuses to make myself feel better.

Valid Excuses

• This was graduate school.
• Of course the classes are going to be hard.
• I’ve been out of school for a while.
• I’m just a little rusty that’s all.
• Thinking about literature has never been my thing.

Tuesday night, I went to a second class and left feeling much better than I did on Monday.  This course was a writing course.  On the novella.  A lot of reading, but more discussion about what writers do and not so much analytical stuff.

I keep telling myself that I’ll be okay in my migraine course as well as the other graduate level literature course that I signed up for.  I have no qualms about the writing course.  That will be fun.  The other classes will be fun too.  I just have to get used to thinking that hard again.  I’ve done this before.  I managed to get through undergraduate literature courses with nothing less than a B.  And I had to read essays.  I had to think.  And I passed the classes.  No worries right.

The professor finally posted the complete course syllabus on Blackboard.  By next Monday, I have to read a 25 page chapter in non-fiction book#1, a 25 page chapter in non-fiction book#2, 20 pgs in non-fiction book #3, and a short story in the Norton Anthology.  Plus I have a novel and 2 short stories to read for my writing course, and a 400 page novel to read for the other class.  Plus, I have my own writing to work on.

All of this reading.  And this is only my first semester at Queens College.

Probably not going to be going for that PhD anytime soon.

No worries.  Right?  Right?