Does Playboy qualify as an academic journal?

Grad school is a ruse, you know that? It's all smoke and mirrors. The next time you get an email from I'm-Kind-of-a-Big-Deal Joe Blow, MA, put two marks for "douchetard" next to his name in your mental catalog and move his message to the junk inbox.

Because MA doesn't mean "I'm smarter than you" or "I'm uber qualified for my job" or even "I worked semi-hard so I could put two letters at the end of my signature." MA just means a person has an unusual amount of tolerance and time for BS.

That's not to say I won't boast and brag and be completely obnoxious when (when, not if) I get my Master's; I was brought up in a household where we announced any and all titles we received as a sign of our awesomeness and superiority over others. Best Dressed in high school? Yes I was, thank you...put it on the list of ways to answer the phone:

"Frankie Avenger, Best Dressed at EMHS...may I help you?"

It's simply the way I was raised. My father has loads of ridiculous letters after his name, and he insists on articulating them all anytime he calls me (or Sister; his unspoken but none-the-less clearly second-favored daughter). It's funny I guess, if you haven't been living it for 20 some odd years...but the most clever thing about it is that he both admits the lameness of the letters while also gaining respect by letting their presence be known. Because it doesn't really matter if they mean diddly-rat's-tail-squat; if you've got letters after your name, somebody somewhere is gonna be impressed. People are stupider than we generally give them credit for.

So yeah, one day I'll send you emails that say

Regards-

Frankie Avenger, MA

(I can't wait until I'm grown up enough to sign emails with "Regards.") But let it be known now that those letters will be earned through my personal mastery of utter prattle. I'm constantly bemused by the dumb junk I'm made to read; page after page of citations and et al.'s and quotations so spliced and deconstructed that they could only make sense in the mind of the author (and perhaps in the mind of a crackhead; I really can't be sure). Point being, it's nonsensical academic jargon that matters only in the stuffy world of research junkies and PhD's.

So do not fret, my Bachelor's-only friends. For though I am climbing up and beyond you on the educational food-chain, I'm doing so by learning that which will certainly never benefit me in the Real World. And there you are, holding down a good job in this age of economic and professional uncertainty...something I may never again have the chance to do if Obama fibbed and actually has no idea how to Heal This Nation. Hey, I voted him into office - I can talk smack where smack-talk be needed.

Ahh well. The hours not spent pretending to care are open for suggestion and interpretation; a freedom for which I sacrificed my first Big Girl Job without as much as a second thought. Therefore, I should now be thankful that this Friday I have the option to

A) read about human rights/equality in the globalizing climate of modern mass media culture
-or-
B) go to Christie's Toybox with a married friend to help her pick out Unmentionables (and sneak peeks at various elements of Filth hitherto-unknown by my piteously naive little mind).

Hmm, wonder what I'll decide to do? I do need to learn how media conglomerates are taking over the universe....but I'm far more interested in seeing an actual pair of edible undies and/or furry handcuffs. Sue me. Plus, I'm pretty sure the Greatness of Christie's has more real-life applicability than any of this research crap I'm supposed to be reading. I'll probably never be the CEO of a multi-billion dollar corporation on the verge of achieving media monopoly, but there is a chance I'll someday have a husband who will want things spicy in the bedroom (fingers crossed I get to dress up like Princess Leia). So, I must prepare for the future that lies before me...and that evidently means spending an afternoon at the local sex toy shop.

I may not be a very good grad student, but I'll make a fine lova one day.

Much love.