I just had the greatest dinner with a guest speaker and some colleagues from work. The guest speaker happens to the be the former dissertation director and mentor of a professor in our department. She came in to give a talk on study abroad, and since I was unable to attend the talk since I was teaching, I figured I'd go to the dinner. GREAT plan!
First of all, the woman is hysterical. I pretty much just want to put her in a box and keep her in my windowless office to make me laugh when I get all bent out of shape. The professor in our department I already love and the two of them actually resemble each other.....and the best part is that they laugh the same way! Which is great because I love the sound of other people laughing.
Furthermore, this woman gave me faith that yes, you can be a lady, be funny, have a kid, publish, and still be funny and normal. Well, normal is relative, but I found her thoroughly entertaining so she's my new girl crush.
So here's my disclaimer to the world: Please stop telling me I need to settle down, change this, mellow out, focus on one thing at once, do this, do that, conform, conform, conform. Shut it, people. In twenty years my former graduate students are going to invite me to give talks at their schools and I'm going to stun all the young faculty by showing them that you can be fabulous, wear amazing shoes, and still be brilliant. I can't wait for it. Oprah will probably want to have a special just on the power women of academia and I'll be invited.
I love it when I realize that it's everyone else that's crazy and I'm on the right track. Such a great feeling.
No comments:
Post a Comment