i wish
I wish I could just finish my PhD here, but I think I really can't. Why? Bad faculty, overstretched advisor, and especially that NOBODY knows ANYTHING about my interest areas.
This sucks, it being my third year and all.
But, it's not as though my life was really on hold for the PhD. I've had quality of life throughout, in some ways. By teaching at the same time I was able to afford the trips I had always dreamed of - kayaking in Baja, the Galapagos Islands, and of course MEEWT including Africa and India. I owned a house and fell in love. I learned some good things and realized what I don't give a shit about. I recognized what a warrior I am and that I don't back down from a toe-to-toe with the scariest of administrators. I have had my hair done at a Vidal Sassoon Academy and I have dragon boated and I have landscaped and I have done a marathon. These were not wasted years.
So, I just emailed my advisor and the graduate advisor (whom I was supposed to TA for) and let them know - that I haven't completely decided, but it's looking that way.
As I said to advisor, "I keep trying to make JSMU fit my vision of my future, and the fit is awkward, incomplete, and uncomfortable at best."
As I look around at other programs, they all look like four years to finish usually and they do take some transfer units so I could do it in less. Most of the schools I'm looking at would have a financial package - I'd TA or research to support myself throughout. Not enough to support a family, but enough to get by a few years. Plus, there are always loans.
Other international/comparative education programs with a year to master languages and travel: Plan A.
Law school next year: Plan B. I've done some web trolling, but haven't been able to get my applications ready yet (there's some problem activating a program - I'll figure it out later - I have a week or two).
About Dayton, well, I emailed him that I can no longer be with him because he's married to somebody else. Emailing was rude, but I don't feel like talking to him on the phone. I love him like crazy, but I'm not playing this game. Hopefully he's able to figure things out. I'm not ruling out a reconciliation, but I'm not sorting my life around it. I am ignoring the pressure I put on myself - to hurry up and get the girls here (CeCe is already 9 - the older she is when moving to the US, the more difficult the transition), to have a baby before 40, all that. He's a slower processor than I am, and me being out of his life will let him have the processing time he needs. And if things work out for us to be together later, when he's really available, then that's great. If not, well, life goes on.
My roommate thinks, of course, that I am insane. But the State of Change is my permanent address. I only get this one lifetime, so I should do it right.
The prof I talked to Wednesday night over pizza and beer after class - she inadvertently encouraged me to leave. She was trying to do an intervention to make me stay, but when I said my fears of not contributing to retirement planning she said, "A year or two doesn't matter."
Transferring to a much better school will only take a couple more years out of my life, and probably create less stress, and the end result will be a much rosier future where I will have to do less proving of myself from an inferior school. There are advantages to the big names, to the connections made, all that.
Of course I have to get in, but I think I'm a pretty strong candidate. Need to craft some fine personal statements. This is a major task over the next couple months, and that's ok. Major tasks I'm not afraid of. Mediocrity and futility - that I avoid.
This sucks, it being my third year and all.
But, it's not as though my life was really on hold for the PhD. I've had quality of life throughout, in some ways. By teaching at the same time I was able to afford the trips I had always dreamed of - kayaking in Baja, the Galapagos Islands, and of course MEEWT including Africa and India. I owned a house and fell in love. I learned some good things and realized what I don't give a shit about. I recognized what a warrior I am and that I don't back down from a toe-to-toe with the scariest of administrators. I have had my hair done at a Vidal Sassoon Academy and I have dragon boated and I have landscaped and I have done a marathon. These were not wasted years.
So, I just emailed my advisor and the graduate advisor (whom I was supposed to TA for) and let them know - that I haven't completely decided, but it's looking that way.
As I said to advisor, "I keep trying to make JSMU fit my vision of my future, and the fit is awkward, incomplete, and uncomfortable at best."
As I look around at other programs, they all look like four years to finish usually and they do take some transfer units so I could do it in less. Most of the schools I'm looking at would have a financial package - I'd TA or research to support myself throughout. Not enough to support a family, but enough to get by a few years. Plus, there are always loans.
Other international/comparative education programs with a year to master languages and travel: Plan A.
Law school next year: Plan B. I've done some web trolling, but haven't been able to get my applications ready yet (there's some problem activating a program - I'll figure it out later - I have a week or two).
About Dayton, well, I emailed him that I can no longer be with him because he's married to somebody else. Emailing was rude, but I don't feel like talking to him on the phone. I love him like crazy, but I'm not playing this game. Hopefully he's able to figure things out. I'm not ruling out a reconciliation, but I'm not sorting my life around it. I am ignoring the pressure I put on myself - to hurry up and get the girls here (CeCe is already 9 - the older she is when moving to the US, the more difficult the transition), to have a baby before 40, all that. He's a slower processor than I am, and me being out of his life will let him have the processing time he needs. And if things work out for us to be together later, when he's really available, then that's great. If not, well, life goes on.
My roommate thinks, of course, that I am insane. But the State of Change is my permanent address. I only get this one lifetime, so I should do it right.
The prof I talked to Wednesday night over pizza and beer after class - she inadvertently encouraged me to leave. She was trying to do an intervention to make me stay, but when I said my fears of not contributing to retirement planning she said, "A year or two doesn't matter."
Transferring to a much better school will only take a couple more years out of my life, and probably create less stress, and the end result will be a much rosier future where I will have to do less proving of myself from an inferior school. There are advantages to the big names, to the connections made, all that.
Of course I have to get in, but I think I'm a pretty strong candidate. Need to craft some fine personal statements. This is a major task over the next couple months, and that's ok. Major tasks I'm not afraid of. Mediocrity and futility - that I avoid.
posted by NOLA at 7:45 AM
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