Piper Harron

“In my second year, my body temporarily lost the ability to properly deal with sugar. I don’t know if this is a thing. My doctor never really figured it out even after she got “really scientific about it.” Whatever it was, I realized stress had sent me to the hospital and I was thoroughly against that on principle, so I gave up stress.”

“When I entered graduate school, I was a sponge for external pressures. Please tell me the rules I must abide by in order to make no waves! Which jokes should I not find offensive? Oh, am I here because of Affirmative Action?”

“I had to fill out an exit survey. They asked how many years spent on coursework (3), how many years spent on dissertation (10). TEN YEARS?! WHAT KIND OF PERSON SPENDS TEN YEARS ON ONE DOCUMENT AND STILL HAS TO BUILD UP COURAGE TO DISCUSS IT OPENLY?”

“For 7 years I called myself an escaped graduate student. I laughed and made light, but each passing month increased my shame burden. Having kids made it easier to throw my hands up like I was okay with things and not at all failing, but I was never okay. I’m still not okay. After my defense”

“My thesis is that thing I got sick of just when I should have been fine-tuning its organization. It’s where I find typos that have already gone to print. I am a writer; don’t ask me about my writing.”

“My thesis is this thing that was initially going to be a grenade launched at my ex-prison, for better or for worse, and instead turned into some kind of positive seed bomb where flowers have sprouted beside the foundations I thought I wanted to crumble.”