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January 31, 2005
Out of Depth
I really feel for the Counseling people at the U. They are completely booked up; today, I tried to reschedule and they had no time slots available until the same time next week. Now, granted I went in there for one purpose and one purpose only, to take the Strong Inventory. But what kind of counsel, aside from that of a sympathetic ear, is a second-year psychology student with zero life experience outside of academia (and even less experience than me inside of it) going to be able to give me? What is she going to tell me about careers that I haven't already lived? And what is she going to tell me about grad school that I don't know already?
Posted by Underblog at 4:42 PM | Comments (1)
One of Those Days
I did not want to go to Campus today because I feel quite sick, but the career counseling people could not reschedule me until next week. So, I muddled my way out the door, leaving enough time to get a haircut beforehand. I thought about bringing the two packages I need to mail with me and decided against it, since I figured (rightly) that there would not be time after the meeting to go the Post Office. I made two errors in my febrile state: First, the barber shop is closed on Monday, which I should have known because it was closed at the exact same time last week when I went there looking to get a hair cut. Second, across the street from the barber shop is the Dinkytown Post Office, where I could have mailed the packages and gotten a little bit ahead of the game. Naught for two, as they say.
Posted by Underblog at 4:15 PM | Comments (1)
January 11, 2005
Thanks for the Update, But It Still Doesn't Work Properly
The U. has made some features in its MT installation available to Mac users like myself which have been available to the Wintel crowd for some time. They are supposed to make boldface, italic, underline and urls more or less at the push of a button. These features copy and paste the entire entry however, making for [possibly redundant phrase] unpleasantly psychedelic reading.
Posted by Underblog at 7:37 AM | Comments (1)
January 8, 2005
Message from the Geriatric Ward
I am sober now. Roomie heroically drove out in the sub-freezing temperatures on the chance that she would see me exit the Loring Pasta Bar. This is what is known as True Love, especially since we have been out of gold stars to place on her side of the ledger for a week now. Approaching her third pass in front of the LPB we met up where the River Road meets University. I drove for two blocks, then Roomie took back over.
It was really fun talking about Italy. Your reason for holding off on Italy for a longer separate trip makes a lot of sense. But Italy cannot be rightly snubbed for any length of time. Plus, Austria is already in some sense his, whereas in Italy you can share the language barrier. And he will like Brixen (Bressanone) and Bolzen (Bolzano) since his Austrian-inflected German will serve there quite adequately. Check out where Stilfserjoch (Passostelvio) is on a map. Then yodel.
Burning Man vs. Coachella is another dichotomy upon which I pontificated. The two events share dust, discomfort, lots of people, and entertainment galore. Coalita appeared at both Burning Man and Coachella, but she was born at the former. BM requires a commitment to actually participate in some small way. This replaces the passive "entertain me" component with an active "here I am and this is what I am doing" role. However, by no means do you need to come up with something on your own. There are probably hundreds of people going to the Burn from the Cities, and many are likely toting person-powered craft. A quick search of the listings can put you on to a smorgasbord of groups doing all kinds of wicked crazy theme camps. A friend of mine in San Francisco sets up a croquet lawn, complete with wickets and mallets, and kicks your butt. And then there is always Pedal Camp. Burning Man is a transcendental experience: The hardships are universal, there are no garbage cans (you pack it out), and Black Rock City is a giant collective. If you go to Burning Man, it will be a project. But it is one that I think you will really really enjoy. But what the heck do I know?
Previously in this blog I have already blathered about the relative merits of scooters and motorcycles. You may also want to check out the Susan Synarski Interview, where I ask her all about her experience as a new rider and purchaser of a Vespa LT150. I think Susan may have mentioned it, but I will reiterate: Women who ride motorcycles are HOTT.
Posted by Underblog at 8:41 AM | Comments (2)
January 5, 2005
Small Wonders
I rub my eyes at 7:43 this evening and wonder why I am so tired. Oh that's right: I woke up at 2:07, 3:07, 4:07 and 5:07 this morning.
At 9:35 this morning, I walked in the 2 degree weather across the river to the Physics Building, where I chaperoned advanced placement high school students working on public policy. Better they not know that political science has nothing to do with policy. Or very little. My cohort was lucky enough to be excused. I sat in a hallway for 45 minutes. It was kind of fun.
Posted by Underblog at 8:47 PM | Comments (1)
January 2, 2005
The Counsel of Good Intentions
I have been receiving a lot of counsel this past semester. Some of it has come unsolicited, notably from people who are not academics. One well-meaning person, who has exactly one year of graduate school under her belt (albeit from Harvard) gave me the following "pep talk."
I remember when I graduated the last thing I wanted to do was study any more. I wanted to be out in the world, doing things. I had been working hard for four years and I was tired. But finishing my degree was the smartest move I could have made: Every door that opened for me in my career is due to having that degree.
Although her degree opened a lot of doors for her, it took 20 years or so for it to do so. Following that patterm, I should start making use of mine by the time I pick up my first Social Security check or mandatory IRA distribution.
Another well-meaning fellow made the following tautological argument: "If you finish the degree, then you will have something that you didn't have before."
Both comments share the following premise: All things being equal, it is better to finish up than to bail. And I agree with that, so long as all things are indeed equal. But they are not. It is not equally easy, fun, or productive to engage in something that makes you so miserable that you contemplate suicide or become unable to do the remaining things that bring you joy. As I had to point out to the latter interlocutor I have little sympathy for those people that stick with things merely because they have started them, willfully or ignorantly disregarding their own happiness.
I have no doubt that these two have my interests at heart, as do my friends who consider me generally competent to teach—on questionable bases, however. The problem for me is that I am not so sure of what I really want. One friend thinks that I have already made my decision, that I am a goner.
I give more credence to people who have been through the academic wringer. (And I don't mean people with a one year's Master's—sorry.) Here, the experts are split: One Ph.D. tells me that I should stick with it: she gives the same advice to her own daughter, an ABD who is struggling with two small children, a looming dissertation, and a job that cuts deeply into the time she would like to spend on the other two missions. Her advice resonates with my non-patented "regret prevention" approach. Having made some horrendous personal decisions in the past I fear most of all arming myself with the "If only I had stuck it out for another couple of years; I had funding, I was almost done" bludgeon.
A second Ph.D. specifically rejects the blanket "stick with it" advice. He tells me that he has seen more than a few academics sacrifice non-academic aspects of their lives—family, friends, relationships—upon the altar of pursuing a career in the ivory tower. He himself regrets similar decisions that he has made. Since making those decisions, he has committed himself first and foremost to his family. In a sense, he has committed a quiet professional suicide. Which is what I am contemplating, really, though much sooner in the process.
The third Ph.D., whom I pay for his counsel, appears to think that pursuing a Ph.D. may not be the right thing for me. The hours are long, the work inherently isolating, the benefits—in terms of things which I value, like friendship and service—fleeting and abstract. In response to my regret prevention argument, he tries to show me that some of the decisions I made were not really blunders: I managed to live a good life because of not in spite of, the decision to abandon or delay an undergraduate degree. Still I lived under that particular cloud for a long time, and I fear that not finishing this degree will put me a under a similar one.
A young woman grinding through her first year of law school told Roomie her father's tale: He was in an Ivy League history Ph.D. program back in the 60's. He did so poorly there for a while that he was placed on academic probation by the graduate school. He did, eventually, graduate, go on the market, get a job, and obtain tenure. My wise young friend put it succinctly: graduate school makes you face your demons.
And this may be where I am now: continue to do poorly until they force me out. This can take a long time, as in the case of the grad student who basically made the department go through every conceivable hoop to get her out of the program (blogged about here). She eventually matriculated.
It may be that the particular work I am doing this semester is about as far away from my research interest as I am likely to get. Perhaps once I start the Big D., things will improve. The only possible way to test the hypothesis that researching a dissertation will improve my mental state is to complete my incompletes, get through the theory prelim, and get that Master's en passant. And from where I am standing, it is a steep hill indeed.
Posted by Underblog at 9:35 AM | Comments (10)