An ABD Baddie
What was that? I thought someone who ain’t 𝔸𝔹𝔻 said summin 🏆
In December of 2020 I spent three weeks writing my comprehensive exams in the midst of preparing for a cross country move, navigating health challenges in my family, the ebb and flow of discomfort that guides one’s mental health journey, the loss of one left eyebrow, and reworking the boundaries of several relationships - all in tandem with COVID-19 shifting our lives and all that comes with navigating compounding oppressions.
I’m officially closing the spring semester as a 𝕕𝕠𝕔𝕥𝕠𝕣𝕒𝕝 𝕔𝕒𝕟𝕕𝕚𝕕𝕒𝕥𝕖 - your girl passed her comprehensive exams and is officially ABD. If you aren’t familiar with the academic lingo, ABD is an acronym that stands for “all but dissertation” - which is the last culminating project of the PhD process. I’m one hurdle (the actual dissertation) away from completing this degree and am excited to also share that I am writing a solo-authored book chapter for an upcoming anthology on Black women in academia and how our “wellness, resistance, and liberation can produce joy” throughout our academic journeys 📚
Big ups to my wondrous committee of brilliant bad ass women of color, my sistren in the doctoral struggle for the writing groups and the shady check-ins, Peloton meditations, my beloved mentors and comrades in the struggle, @victoriamonet ’s entire Jaguar album (including the Christmas orchestral arrangements, iykyk), my partner and live-in omelet connoisseur Jesse, and most importantly - 𝕞𝕖 😎
It’s not often that women of color are able to celebrate themselves without criticism or shame. We’re told to be humble, that we’re intimidating, too big for your classrooms and boardrooms. We’re deemed ungrateful when we point out our oppression after gaining that coveted “seat at the table” and punished for demanding respect in the face of our exploitation.
So, won’t you join me in celebrating this milestone? Because I’m hella happy and proud to be this brilliant, this beautiful, and this whole throughout a process that can make you feel otherwise 💅🏾
#abd #phdcandidate #neweyebrows #almosthadmeinthefirsthalf #justtrynagraduate #publishedbaddie #shoutouttomytherapist #tiktoksavedme #brownbiscuit #allmylifeihadtofight #doctahcontreras #marxistflow #transnationalblackfeminist
