Here's the thing - it's not that I don't like cops. I mean, sure, when they're being cops, they're jerks. Of course they are - how can they not be? They have to be and I get it. And okay, Mounties have this bizarre sort of male chauvinist thing going on, it's quite disconcerting. I think maybe it has something to do with the military-like quality of Depot. Never in all the years of my life combined have so many men winked at me as they have in the last year since I started at Depot. But this is sort of the point, too. I mean, my job is both real easy and real boring, and I do a lot of homework while I'm on shift at ye olde Trading Post, and these men either wink at me or look at me like I'm a weirdo because I'm reading books (some of which are classics, and they can't seem to understand that someone would want to read something like that for fun). These are not uneducated people - many, many of them have university degrees, some of them have worked as teachers, others have owned businesses or been artists or mechanics or military men. But they don't read.
All of the cadets are super nice to me - 97% of them are just super nice in general, so nice. There's one cadet who talks to me about books. One. And he's finished his training and heading to Mile 0 of the Alaska Highway next week. In my head, I refer to this cadet as Dawson Creek, because that's where he's going, and I refuse to learn their real names or let them learn mine. It's best this way, do trust me.
Aside: talking to me about books is pretty much the only certain way to my heart.
I'm finding myself at a crossroads. I mentioned in the last post that my degree is finished very soon. There's been lots of encouragement from my professors, lots of recommendations that I carry on and go to grad school. One prof even told me that I could go to any top-notch grad school I want. Whether or not this is true, I have no idea. What I do know is that I haven't applied to grad school (this is because I didn't know if I would be done my degree in the spring or the fall, and I also have the Imposter Syndrome), so I'm not going in the fall, and that means that I have a year of being outside of a university environment, where it's okay for me to be smart and read classic literature and other stuff for fun. And so I'll be working at Depot at least until the end of summer, where nothing that I do is valued, and where it's better for me to smile pretty than it is to be smart because the chaplain tells me that if I ever want to get married (presumably he means to a cop), I'm really going to have to dumb myself down (yes - he really said that to me). It means that I won't have anyone to talk to about books, because I won't be at school and most of my academically inclined friends are going to grad school, and the only cadet who pretends to be interested in what I do is going to the middle of nowhere. I find this disheartening. Books are what I love.
Dear Dawson Creek,
I will miss your pretend interest in my academics.
Sincerely,
Blonde girl at Trading Post
Dear University of Regina,
You are a little bit of a disaster and sometimes you look at me like I'm a dummy, but what I am going to do without you?
Sincerely,
Student 2002*****
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