Adventures · in · Wonderland

I'm still waiting to hear back from my number one choice school - so you never know, it could work out!

Hope everyone is ok out there. The trees are all having sex here and their pollen is all over the place.

Current Mood:

okay

It was nice to not worry and obsess over checking web sites and my mail box for news on grad school acceptances while we were away. Not thinking about it for awile has helped me come to a decision on this. I'm still waiting on my top choice school; if I get in there, I will probably go (in large part because it has such a great reputation that getting hired after I get a Ph.D. will be much easier). However, the likelyhood that I will get accepted is decreasing by the day as we near April 15. But right now the only acceptance I have is here at FSU. This is nice, but I don't want to stay here (as a student - I love the city, especially this time of year). There are lots of reasons, but it comes down to this: It will take me about five years to get a Ph.D. Then, I'll have to find a job at a university, which is challenging (lots and lots of competition). Since this program is in the process of rebuilding, I don't know what reputation it will have in five years - so I don't know just how competitive/prestigious my degree will be. OK, say I get a job five years from now, but it may be in a town I don't want to live in; I still have to suck it up and take the offer. Then, it will be another five or so years until I earn tenure, and there are no guarantees that I will get tenure. So I'd have to start the whole process over again (lather, rinse, repeat).

It would be one thing if I were younger or single. But I'm neither. He's willing, but I would geel guilty uprooting my husband every five years. And frankly, at some point I would like to be able to buy a house and know we'll be staying put - and in a community that we want to live in, too. And then I think of what my age will be when I'll be when I finally get to that point - yikes. That's a long time to wait for a measure of success that academia holds pretty dear.

Teaching is great, but to be able to teach at the college level is going to take way too much work and too many sacrifices - and there are no guarantees it will come to fruition. And I'm taking in my rejections that people who would be my peers in academia aren't interested in what I want to do. I stated in my admissions essays that I wanted to bring my experiences in an office setting and apply them; I wanted to help my students become decent writers in the business world. I have learned in my theory class that many people in my major field actually don't think this is a good idea. I am not making this up. I won't bore you with the details, but I can go get my composition theory text and quote some professors as being against this sort of thing.

So. It breaks my heart to write this, but I have about decided to finish my M.A., cut my losses, and move on. I'll let my husband concentrate on his career, and we can move where he would like to be. Or, we'll stay here. I'll try to find a job back in an office. Hopefully I can find something where I'm not always the first to get laid off and the last to get a pay raise (which has been my position in more than one job). I think I'll also try to do some creative things that are satisfying and that I can sell, maybe on eBay or at craft fairs - photography, tote bags, wall hangings, etc. I may even try to write fiction, though I confess that I really don't like my fiction writing. Maybe my years here teaching writing will help me get over that.

The fact that I'm also struggling this semester has played a big part in this decision. While my main class is a theory class (and theory does tend to suck big time), the fact that it is the first comp class I have enrolled in (save for my how-to-teach-freshman-English courses that summer), added to the fact that it's taught by the prof whom I would need to work with closely for the next five years, seems to be an indication that all is not well.

I know some people will be disappointed if this is what I decide. My mom, for instance. Though she isn't into me getting a Ph.D. for the status, she has observed that I have been a lot more happy since I started work on my M.A., and that's been the case, for the most part. I also worry (and frankly, I really shouldn't give a shit) that others will think I'm a failure for not continuing on. Their opinion shouldn't matter, but the fact is they are on to something. I did fail, I didn't follow through with something I wanted to do for quite some time, I didn't meet the career goal I set 3 or so years ago.

I should be ok eventually, I wish I didn't feel so bad right now.

I've been doing a lot of thinking. Dangerous, I know.

I'm at a crossroads in my life, a major one at that. I've jut completed my first year of grad school. And I did well - good grades, nothing from my students that I couldn't handle. But I'm bummed. Why? Because I just don't have that "fire in the belly" about grad school that I really need to have in order to continue. I don't burn with passion to continue to write 20 page papers every semester.

And that's sad.

Part of it, as I've mentioned before, is because my school does not offer the specialty that I'm the most interested in. I guess that's a big part, isn't it? But it seems like such a big risk to move again, this time to another state, to enroll in a PhD program that I may not like.

But here's the thing: I loathe working in an office. No, not my co-workers, it's the soul-sucking management that you tend to run into there. They don't care about your skills or talents, they just want you to SHUT UP AND DO THINGS THEIR WAY! Because obviously the guy who inherited his job from Daddy is so much smarter than you are. So just sit there quietly while Mr. BiPolar yells at you. Sit there in that mind-numbing cubicle for 8-10 hours a day, grinding code and making Power Points, while your life just drifts on by.

I look through classified ads and I just panic, remembering all that bull shit. Then I talk to my grad school friends, and they tell me about where they will be applying, and I have this odd twinge of jealousy mixed with "I can't do that!"

So there you have it - the issues that are plaguing me.

This whole semester has been one difficulty after another.

Current Mood:

working

I did not volunteer. I used to do that for a living, and trying to help engineers with their writing is like trying to teach a pig to sing, except pigs aren't that egotistical.

I'm having a terrible time getting motivated to do all the writing I have breathing down my neck.

And then I think of going on to a PhD program. If I had to decide today, I would say no. I woke up from a strange dream this morning with the phrase, "Make sure you're running toward something, not running away from something" echoing in my head. My subconscious is no dummy. It makes a valid point.

I like teaching. And sometimes I like studying. Sometimes I think I really belong in a composition and rhetoric program instead of literature. But that would be a big chance to take, to apply to a good PhD program in comp/rhet - on the off chance I get accepted - what if I don't like that, either?

Current Mood:

morose

Oh, and Happy Easter!