Facebook Memories, Graduate School and The Cyclical Nature of Time
Being at home has given me nothing better to do than think about this, I'm afraid.
Facebook memories have given me the view of time as cyclical rather than linear, as I’m reminded what I was doing on this day in years past. I’ve heard a lot of people complain about the feature*, but I quite like it. I’m fond of nostalgia in general, though not in the traditional “the past is better than the present” sense, but in the “look at how far we’ve all come, this is tangible evidence of growth. We’ve made it through a lot and we will make it through this, too.” Facebook memories have also given rise to two traditions: March 6th and Andrew [Last name redacted] Day. The former was the day that I got into grad school twice and announced my decision to attend my PhD program (2011, 2013, and 2015, respectively). The latter references a post I made in college stating one of my friends was my hero. It came up in my memories and we couldn’t figure out the cause. It turns out it was because he took me to the ER, and now I post about it every year as a sort of in-joke.
However, Facebook memories have warped my perception of grad school time. Specifically, while I was working on my PhD (May 2015-December 2019), my perception of time is weird. Specifically my first full semester (August-December 2015) felt like a year and the rest of the PhD, when I think back on it, feels like no time at all. Yet it has been two years since I collected my dissertation data and completing my dissertation fieldwork, and those memories are starting to come up in my Facebook memories, which, in turn makes it seem like it was not just yesterday. As such, the second semester of my PhD program paradoxically feels like it was yesterday and four years ago (it was the latter).
In other news, quarantine has got me thinking about things like this. Send help.
* To all my friends out there living with trauma, you can turn off particular days so that you don’t see those memories.