October 5, 2011

#34: Porsche. There Is No Substitute.

 (Risky Business, Paul Brickman, 1983) 

The feeling of not belonging or not being good enough is one that most everyone can identify with. There have been times in all of our lives where we've been in a situation where we've thought to ourselves "I am completely out of my element. I don't belong here. I want to go home." I had a profound moment of feeling out of place recently when I had my departmental orientation for graduate school. I found myself seated amongst 23 other new graduate students, all of whom seemed to have a much firmer grasp of who they were and what they were doing there. For the first time since being admitted I found myself thinking "I don't belong here, they must have let me in by mistake." In Risky Business Tom Cruise's Joel has his moment of doubt when the Princeton representative lets him know that his many high school achievements just aren't quite Ivy League. I only mention that because this is ostensibly a post about Risky Business, but let's face it, it's really going to be a post about my first week of graduate school and how on the second day I had a sincere moment of thinking that I might just throw in the towel.

Because I feel like I must, I will take a moment to discuss Risky Business. It's a good film. The world certainly has this film to thank for the rise of Tom Cruise: Megastar. Or maybe they have this film to blame, I guess it just depends on how you want to look at it. That one underwear dancing scene is certainly entertaining, and Joel's first call girl turning out to be a call transvestite is rather amusing. I enjoyed this film heartily, though admittedly many months ago. However, the scene that I briefly mentioned above has stayed with me and rung true with me for all of those months, so any time I reference the film in the rest of this post it will most likely be to that scene. Sorry. I know that I once made the statement that this was a blog about film, but that probably hasn't been true for a long time. With that in mind, let's start our journey through the insecurities of a graduate student in English.

One month ago I was so excited to start graduate school that I could barely contain myself. I even went out and bought all of my textbooks in the first week of September and then proceeded to stare at them and marvel at the wonders and brilliant ideas they would be providing me with in mere weeks. I bought new pens and notebooks, dug out my trusty highlighters, and dusted off my school bag while I anxiously awaited the day that I would return to school, my mind ready to be filled with new and exciting things. By the second day of class I was convinced that my admittance to a graduate program was either a horrible mistake or a cruel joke. The stack of books in my room suddenly seemed like it was taunting me, its ideas far too complex for my feeble, undergraduate-quality mind. I was no longer the lone shark in a lake, I was suddenly a guppy in the Pacific ocean. And there were 23 hungry sharks staring at me as if they hadn't eaten in months.

One of the lines in Risky Business that I remember most comes from that scene I mentioned above. Joel and the rep are in their meeting, and after running off a list of Joel's high school achievements Mr. Princeton says bluntly,  "you've done some solid work here, but it's not quite Ivy League now, is it." In a strange way those words have haunted me ever since. I now worry that I'm going to hear that or some variation of it every time I go to a professor with an idea for a paper or a topic that I'd like to research. "Well Caroline, you've got some interesting ideas here, but they just aren't quite graduate school quality, are they." I know I shouldn't think like that, but I hear those words echoing in my head every time I think I've come up with something good.

The decision to go to graduate school was one that I made fairly quickly. I think a part of me never really absorbed what was happening or the gravity of the situation that I had put myself in until I was actually in it. I felt a bit like Joel when he realized how in over his head he was with Lana's pimp and the repair costs for his father's Porsche (seriously, a lot goes down in this movie). He's in a situation that he's put himself in and has to do what he can to get through it. While I can't really solve my graduate school woes by turning my house into a brothel (fear not, parents), I do have to just do what I can to get through it.

Near the beginning of the film Joel's friend Miles gives Joel some interesting advice that Joel later repeats to the Princeton representative. It's advice that I'm trying to use whenever I find myself thinking "it's just not graduate school quality now, is it." When Joel tells Miles that his parents are going out of town, Miles says to him "sometimes you gotta say 'what the fuck,' make your move. Every now and then saying 'what the fuck' brings freedom. Freedom brings opportunity, opportunity makes your future." Of course, the difference between the film and my life is that Miles is trying to convince Joel that it's a good idea to hire a hooker (spoiler alert: it's not), ad I'm trying to remind myself that the chances of them letting me into graduate school as a cruel joke are probably pretty slim. But the advice is sound. Sometimes you have to let go and not worry so much and take chances and do the things that you want to do. So, you know... what the fuck (sorry, mom). 

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