On starting to let people know
A huge thank you to Dorothea, both for her recent comments and her story and straight talk.
I now told the general advisor. This is the person who you go to about all the stupid arcane rules and regulations, etc. I have not told my research advisor yet; I hope to look for him tomorrow. After this I will tell my cohort, I guess. I haven’t figured any of that out yet. I have to keep telling myself it doesn’t matter so much.
It went remarkably well with the advisor. I sat down and said something like “I’ve been thinking, and I would like to leave after this semester, preferably with an MA.” Because blurtiness is me.
And he didn’t blink — I mean this literally, cause the guy never blinks, my eyes get dry just watching him — and asked me why, though he said I was under no obligation to answer. Mostly I said it was the job situation, which I had reconciled myself to, but then with the incredibly low stipend, and inability to live on it, so I had to work while in grad school, which was difficult because I’m not American, I wondered what I was doing going for the PhD if not for academia, and I decided it wasn’t worth it. Which is true. I mentioned I don’t much like living here, but that had the other two not been a factor, it wouldn’t have tipped my hand.
Actually I think I said I hate living here. I can be discreet, but not about some things.
The response was “We’ll be sorry to lose you, but I can’t argue with your reasons”. (I should be able to get my MA as well.) He asked about my later plans, and seemed to think they were good plans, or at least fairly reasonable ones.
Altogether better than I had feared (most of the stories were about the previous grad advisor). I can’t imagine it having gone better, really. Not yet, while I’m tired and sad and unsettled.
I don’t regret having gone. An MA in two years is reasonable. I learned more semantics than I would have elsewhere. I got a free trip to Hawaii. I got a reason to visit Halifax. Soon I will have received 250 (just the price of the mini iPods! Tell me that’s not some god or another telling me to buy one) towards the conference I will go to in Berlin — also travel I would not otherwise have done. I got comfortable with public speaking (a huge change). I learned a hell of a lot about myself.
I’m glad I stayed for the second year; I think soon I will be glad I did not stay any longer.
With distance — and with a weekend on a beach coming up in 2 days — I will hopefully be able to write up a coherent response to things.
I need to tell my advisors at Canada U how things went. And my father, who just got very good news in a court case he was about to be involved in (and would likely have lost, because, really, he was in the wrong, through no real fault of his own), but who wasn’t phone-able, because he’s somewhere else. And everyone. My mother will get the joy of telling other family members on her side; my father the ones on his side.
I’m not sure I’m doing all that well. I am still constantly sick; I still do anything to avoid coming here (oddly no easier knowing it’s ending); I still am depressed. (But no longer thinking that a car accident would be a great way to get out of grad school. That was a sign.)