This week my best friend here in Middletown, the Cajun Princess (CP), received hard copies of her first journal article. I knew it had been accepted. She worked on revisions all last semester. Yet, somehow seeing the actual journal and her name in print made it real. She is published. I am excited for her. I made her tell our favorite professor in her field. In fact, I think she should post it all over the department for all to see. Fortunately, she is far too self-deprecating for that.
The CP's response is, "It' s just a small article. It's not in my major field."
To which I replied, "So! It's your first article. It's a whole new section on your CV!"
Clearly I am pretty excited for her. Now about the title of this post...
There is also a little part of me that is jealous. Not in a mean way, CP worked hard for this. She is a better student and more focused scholar than I am. Maybe it's not even really jealousy. It's more like self-disappointment. During my MA at this university my friends were mostly PhD students, so when they did things like present at conferences and publish articles it didn't really feel like I was behind or missing out on something. They were supposed to be ahead of me in this process. However, CP and I started the PhD program together. We are in different fields, but we should be on fairly similar tracks. By publishing, she's moved ahead of me.
Seeing her name on a title page forced me to think about what I am doing (or rather NOT doing) to get myself in similar positions. In other places I've written (whined) about my inability to self-motivate and my profound ability to procrastinate so I don't want to rehash it here. For a long time I've felt the need to change those habits, but have failed to act on it. Maybe seeing CP's name on that title page and realizing that I want to see mine somewhere similar will help get me moving in the right direction.
"Cheek to Cheek"
5 hours ago
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