How long is it since we were postgraduates? Years … several years … But very important years. The part-time ditch years. The whoring-pit years. The abyss of part-time desperation years. When we lost all our delicate postgraduate hope.
We matured. We hardened. We became what we are. We passed through the wringer. We were destroyed and reborn …
We were thrown to the mercy of the four winds.
Outside the university. Lacking an institutional home. Freewheelers! Buccaneers! On the high seas of precarity!
We lost our youths. We gave up our youths. Our youths were destroyed.
We were sensitive souls. Too sensitive. It’s amazing we survived. And really, did we survive? Can we be said to have survived?
Do you know what a postgraduate is to us? A reminder of promise. Of … potentiality. When we hadn’t become … what we are now.
What we could have been … How we didn’t have to be anything …
The postgraduate dreamworld. The only thing they have to do is finish their dissertation. Pass their viva voce. Other than that – nothing, if they’re on a scholarship. Nothing …
Work in Progress 