I fucking hate jogging. There’s no clever way of saying it. Jogging is the absolute worst. There is nothing worse than jogging. It is pointless torture on the body and soul: you run, but you can’t run too fast or you won’t be able to run as long as you need to. You often have a destination, but you’re just going to fucking end up where you started. You have to buy fancy shoes so you don’t vibrate your shins to pieces, and the only practical application for those shoes outside jogging is other things similar to jogging, like hiking, or biking, or walking kinda quickly. At least you can ride a bike to get to work. Nobody has ever thought it a worthwhile pursuit to jog to their job. That would be like refusing to fill your car with gas before a long road trip: a useless expenditure of energy for something that uses up even more energy.
I don’t jog. I used to, but I’ve grown as a person since that time, and I know that even I do not deserve that kind of suffering. However, for the last two years, I’ve been in grad school, a horrible rhythmic trudge if ever there was one. Grad school was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. Also like jogging, I’m probably better off for having gotten my degree, but there were probably others that would have delivered me to the same place with a little less suffering. But I did it. I did the suffering, and now I’m done. I’m out. I’ve napped multiple times this week. Nobody has graded any of my work in over a month. I don’t cringe at the idea of reading anymore. I’m healing. I’m becoming a person again. My life is my own after so many years of relentless school.
But I’ve been thinking.
Which, historically, is a problem.
What if I could go for another short, easy jog. Maybe even just a bike ride.
What if I went back and got another degree?
I don’t read a lot of my own writing. I find the prose overwrought and the author is weird. But I did read all the posts I wrote complaining about grad school, and I noticed that most of my complaints were not with grad school itself, they were with my insane program that forced me to decipher esoteric grading requirements, post to discussion boards every night, and read articles that I think were written to be deliberately dense and inaccessible because academic elitism is alive and well if you look in the right place.
So as long as I don’t do another program like that, I could be fine. In fact, I could probably enjoy myself. There was one class in particular that I enjoyed with the innocent pleasure of a toddler with a ring of keys. That class also happened to be far outside my degree plan. It was a creative writing class, and I got to write goofy, sad stories about my life and space and commercials and homeless children. Nothing like rhetoric, but a fantastic time. I might do that, get a degree in creative non-fiction.
I love writing more than almost anything else, including alcohol, cats, and tea. So I might go back to school in a year or two because I want writing to be what I do. I want to be better than I am and have a piece of paper to testify to that. I don’t think it’s school that makes life miserable; it’s the specific courses and work we have to do, and if I can find a program that doesn’t make me feel like a mouse pushing a mountain, then maybe school can be a good time again.
And School owns me anyway. I’m a teacher, so why not keep taking classes until I’ve got more degrees than I can remember and better credentials than I’ll ever need.
Non-Euclidean Sofa 
I am convinced that people who jog wish to inflict pain on themselves on purpose (freaks) and Jesus, those dense articles you touch on. So true. Waaaay too many words that shouldn’t exist and who I never even knew existed until I read them.
Also, I think you should just sleep forever. That sounds pretty chill.
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Joggers are inexplicable masochists who feel nothing in their day-to-day lives and so instead must tread the line between life and death so they may feel something for a brief moment, even if it’s agony. Pity them.
Yeah, I’ve slept every night since finishing grad school, and that’s a luxury I haven’t had in 6 years so I might keep living it up for a while
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Haha well said, Mister Sofa. I do pity them while tapping myself on the back for walking like a good, healthy human being.
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I just kind of look at them when I ride by on my bike. I like to shake my head to show my disapproval of what they’re doing to themselves, but I’m guessing it just looks like a bug flew into my eye.
Glottal stop aside–why did I pick a blog with an S in the title–I actually think miss sofa is more accurate. Also walking is obviously the more sane route, and anyone who chooses to jog when walking is available represents a portion of humanity that has more in common with our inevitable robot overlords than with us.
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Oh my, I’m a fool. I had no idea you were a woman! My apologies.
And also, well put. Who’s to say, they aren’t robot overlords themselves?
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Ha! No worries. Honestly I think most of the people who read my blog have not yet noticed I’m a lady.
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I confess I thought your ending line would be something along the lines of
“I’m a teacher, so why not keep taking classes until they stick my dead body in a coffin”. But I may need a little more coffee (maybe a bucket will do the trick) in order to become capable of pretending to be a normal human being.
On a less creepy note, I agree that it’s not school that makes you miserable, it’s what you’re going for. I’ve gone through uni 3 times (I know, there’s clearly something wrong with me), and not all of it was painful. It’s all about what you’re being forced to sit for a few hours in a cold classroom to learn.
I hope your next pursuit makes you feel accomplished and not insane! 🙂
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Oh I’m probably going to be a student, until I’m dead, but thinking about my coffin stuffed with unfinished notes and essays is a weird kind of disturbing, so I’m just going to keep denying that I’ll ever die
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If you die you get an automatic A+ on everything, silly.
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My motto has always been “why jog when you can drive”. Good luck with your decision making. I have also wondered about taking a creative writing course, but on the other hand I did complete a BA English and pretty much hated the final year and 1/2, so I am not sure why I would put myself through that.
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That’s a very sensible motto.
I know a lot of places online have creative writing workshops that are often way better than anything I did in university, but I also thought some of my English undergrad was kind of a drag. Ugh, too many essays about books I didn’t care about
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I agree….besides I might just take the feedback the wrong way….but still I have been thinking about it a bit.
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Also, what? You’re a lady. Now I feel bad that I assumed otherwise.
I assumed you were a robot.
(I can still call you a jerk sometimes, right?)
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Ha! Yeah, I’m a lady. Don’t feel bad! A lot of people seem to think I’m a guy even though I thought I was being quite overt that I’m not.
Robot is much closer to who I actually am though. If there’s ever an opportunity to shove my brain in a sick robot body, you know I’m getting in on that.
(Lol yes of course you can. It’s quite accurate, after all considering all subsequent chain letter awards are going your way.)
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All of them? Forever? As in, all of eternity?
You’re a horrible person. 😀
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Well if the robot body thing end up working, then yes, all of them forever until I am universally reviled by everyone on the internet. 😀
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Sounds like a worthwhile pursuit.
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