Day 25: A Character I Can Relate to Most (or: Am I Still A Scholar?)

I am taking part in the 30 Day Book Challenge.  Click the link to do it too (and add your blog to my meme)!  *could someone please tell me why my draft page reads "30 Day Book Challenge" and my actual blog page reads "96 Day Book Challenge"?  How do I fix this*

This is a tough one. While I'm tempted to go with Hermione Granger and that answer would certainly be true, perhaps I should try to find someone else.  I think I'm going to have to peruse my bookshelves to find the answer.

Ah, yes.  There it is!  Jennifer Lee Carrell's Interred With Their Bones.

Kate Shelton is a Shakespeare scholar who agonizes over her decision to leave the world of academia to pursue a career in theatre.  Kate soon finds herself embroiled in a murder mystery and she must use her scholarly training to unearth a lost work of Shakespeare and catch a murderer.

Okay, Okay.  So I don't really identify with the whole 'catching a murderer' thing.  And I'm definitely not a Shakespeare scholar.  And I don't direct plays....although I did stage manage once upon a time, but that's a story for another day.  I also don't live in England.  *sigh* I wish I did.  Wouldn't it be lovely to live in London?

What?  I'm getting off topic?  Sorry about that!  Kate and I don't have a lot in common outwardly, but I really connected with the internal struggle she faced over her decision to leave academia behind.

I am currently a graduate student.  When I started I was wholly convinced that the only thing in the whole world for me to do was get my doctorate and be a professor.  I longed for it.  I idealized it.  I was going to be a professor.  It was the only career for me.

Then life struck and my department struck and certain events unfolded that royally pissed me off.  I had a 4.0 GPA.  I had presented at major conferences.  I had proven myself to be a damned good Teaching Assistant. I was on the fast track to doctoral success.  Then I got screwed.  I will forever maintain that my department erred greatly. I'm not the only one who felt that way.  A few professors agreed with me. I was so angry I left the program.

I spent all of last year embroiled in my own internal struggle over leaving academia.  If I wasn't going to be a professor then what in holy hell was I going to be?  More importantly, who was I at all outside the confines of a university?  I had no idea.  I was entrenched in a myriad of emotions:  anger, resentment, despair, confusion, sadness, more anger.

I finally decided to return to graduate school for a more practical degree, a M.A. in Public History.  I've decided to return to the wonderful world of museums.  I struggle daily with this decision.  I am enamored of the Middle Ages.  I am at heart a medievalist.  I always will be.  I do enjoy American History though and museums make knowledge more accessible to the masses.  Museums are friendlier.  Museums are less likely to practice subterfuge.  Yet some days, some days...I long for the scholarly confines of an academic library and a dissertation.