a wolf angel is not a good angel

Tomorrow, I am going to speak to the graduate advisor and tell him I intend to leave. (Partly this is so that he can find himself TAs for next year, since I was expected to be one. I debated about this, but in the end, I want to have the damn thing out, and not keep up the pretense. I’m tired.)

This scares me, though I am not sure why. I just keep reminding myself that he does not know me well, so whatever he thinks, the people who *do* know me (as a linguist) think that (a) this is the right thing for me and (b) it’s a loss to the field.

The worst that can happen is that he doesn’t grant me my MA, and he somehow gets the school to stop giving me my stipend for the rest of the year. Unlikely, but both are live-through-able. Livable-through? Whatever. Oh, and that everyone there refuses to give me a recommendation, but I have people here who would, with an explanation of why I’m not getting any from my more recent school, and I have people I’ve worked for who would also write some.

Then I suppose I can tell my cohort, the rest of the students, and the faculty. Who will of course know almost immediately. Still. I don’t know how they’ll respond. I don’t know how I would, if I heard this of someone in my program. Surprise, perhaps, though it’s really to be expected. Not, maybe, just over a month before the end of the second year, but eventually.

I’m not sure when I’ll tell people, though. I’m scared of this whole step. And ashamed, too. I keep feeling shame and sadness and fear, about something I know is the right move. I still wish it weren’t.

I’m lucky that I’ve had unwavering support on this from my parents, my friends, and my advisors. I can barely imagine how much *more* difficult it would be if I had not.

It’s sad that I doubt I will ever speak to anyone I met in grad school again, with the possible exception of the two people who’ve given me advice.

I rather hope they’ll believe I’m leaving as a choice, and not as a necessity, but I suppose it won’t matter in a few months.

Coming soon to televisions near you: the new season of linguistics TV shows.

I’m waiting to read the next episode of Move Alpha.

I spoke to my primary undergraduate advisor today.

The dismal job prospects ahead were conceded. Indeed, though people can get jobs, it’s a year here, a year there . . . and you teach more than a tenure-track, of course, and you’re preparing applications . . . you can’t get too much research in. (Invisible Adjunct, of course, has covered this.) Sometimes she too worries that saying anything positive to undergrads is dangerous. Because then they end up in graduate school. And that’s a danger.

And, as she pointed out, I am *choosing* to leave, not being kicked out. I was doing fine. I go to conferences, where I speak well. (Of the things I learned in graduate school, this is perhaps one of the most useful.)

She thinks it is good if I leave now. (Not that she wouldn’t've supported me had I stayed; she would have.) And again, I feel a bit better. It comes and goes. I feel terrible about leaving, but still, relieved; I’m sleeping a tiny bit better. (For now, until I have to tell people at my current school. *That* terrifies me.) Next weekend I too am a beach (if not island) girl. Shortly after, I will be a Europe girl. (For, I suppose, my last conference for quite a while.

I do feel I’m letting people down, though. I just need to convince myself that making myself even more miserable would certainly have let them down more, in the end. That I will be happier. That I won’t one day regret this more than anything.

I’m feeling far calmer about my decision. Yes, I would like to take another year to get some credentials in computer science. One of the programs I am looking at has a stage — 15 weeks in industry, at a minimum of $400 a week. Not a wonderful permanent salary, but for academic credit? Not bad.

But that’s not the point.

I’ve been thinking about Dorothea’s post about whether departments know anything about the problem.

I suspect they know some of it, and not all.

But I think about my application. Geographic area was a consideration. Now, it’s less of one in linguistics, because the best departments (for what I do) are mostly in the northeast (trickling down the Atlantic, and a bit towards Ohio and Chicago) and California, and I didn’t get accepted in California, anyways. Which is just as well.

Now, on the leaving side, geographic area is a bigger consideration. Because I am absolutely entirely unwilling to give in on where I would live for an academic career. I thought I would be willing. I learned I was wrong.

I knew I was giving in on the idea of being a professor a while ago. Recently, I decided that getting a PhD just for the satisfaction wasn’t enough — while I *wasn’t* satisfied with much.

I love linguisitcs. But it’s not enough for me.

I hate where I live. And, though I have nothing against the US quite, I hate living in the US. Maybe it’s the politics now; maybe it’s the fundamentalism I kept gettning thrown against; maybe it’s the war. Probably it’s, in part, the election. But I cannot stand living there anymore. This is definitely a part.

But it’s not one of the more relevant parts.

We recently completed a job search. I know the candidates vitas. There’s a bias — an obvious one — in where the candidates were from. THREE of the short-listed candidates had the same advisor. Four candidates were short-listed.

Now, I have nothing against these candidates. They’re all good linguists. But lots of other good linguists exist, and have other advisors.

My undergraduate school hasn’t, in years, hired a syntactician who wasn’t trained at MIT.

And, as much as I had friends who were in graduate school, they were all at the beginnings of their programs. I didn’t have interactions with people who were doing job searches. I had an idea, perhaps, but not a full grasp. Was this my fault? Yes. But also: there’s a limit to how much I could have been expected to know.

Placement rates are a little fuzzier. My department puts up all its graduating students, and what they’re doing, even for the ones who left linguistics entirely. It puts up the ABD students who are out in the workforce but still around. But it doesn’t put out how many people left. I heard only once I got there.

I spoke to people, of course, when I visited. I loved the faculty. But the students — well, we lie. Oh, people who do stuff way out of the specialisations are told to go elsewhere, but other than that, problems in the department are glossed over.

Students warn me, now, who not to go to with these concerns. (Everyone, pretty much.) I’m half ready to say fuck it, anyways. The worst case scenario is I finish an MA, slowly, back home.

I understood that graduate school funding was low. I didn’t understand that low meant 2/3 of the poverty line (for a single person) — nor that you were expected to do research full-time over the summer. Since I refused to take out loans, it meant I had to work all summer long. You can’t research when you’re working TWO full-time jobs at once. (At UHawaii, the funding situation is worse. But at least you’re living somewhere nice, where you can WALK places.)

I asked some of the right questions. I knew some of the answers. But not all. I got good advice from advisors at my undergrad school. I got good advice from people when I visited schools. I’m not sure what the problem was: even had I known the attrition rate, or anything, really, I think I would have gone. Because I didn’t *know* what graduate life meant.

I don’t think I will regret having gone. I learned a lot. I learned much more about linguistics. And more about me.

But I do think I will regret staying. I know people who stayed, either for the entire PhD or just for a few more years, and they regretted it. I know ones who left and regretted only not leaving earlier.

Of course, I know also people who stayed and didn’t regret it.

I’m not willing to make the sacrifices. I think it comes down to that. It’s not worth enough. And I feel like a failure about this. Regularly and often. And I feel sick about it.

But also I feel relieved and, finally, happier.

Found out that the advertised March 1 deadline is really a May 1 deadline. Yay!

Also, spoke to an advisor back at Canada U. (I will be phoning the other this weekend.) She was helpful, as always. I don’t know she really thinks I won’t one day want to get back into a PhD program in linguistics, but she says that would be possible. She had advice on how, if I needed to, I could get an MA from Canada U (in one year). Not so much on how to approach people there about (a) getting an extension and then (b) getting an MA. At this point, it seems like I should do (a), then suddenly go for (b) in July or something. I’m not so sure. It puts them in a real bind about TAing if I leave then, and they might decide not to grant me one. I’m still thinking here.

Why don’t I just say both at once? Because the culture of the department is such that they are likely to say they don’t want to bother with my QP if I am leaving, in which case I would certainly not get an MA.

But I do have enough course credits for an MA given the university’s requirements.

I feel somewhat better, although still, so tired.

It’s odd. She tried to convince me I’m not a failure; that making this decision now is a good thing. And it is, and also it isn’t. But I feel better about her response. I look up to this woman a great deal.

I think maybe tonight I will sleep.

Still working things out. Still remarkably unhappy. And tomorrow, going to speak to someone from my old school. I don’t know. I woke up before 6 today. It’s been a long, hard time. It still is.

The professor I had wanted to work with next year is on sabbatical in the fall, and is, therefore, unwilling to chair anyone’s committee.

I feel somewhat disturbed. I suppose I hadn’t decided entirely what to do.

But now: now I know even less. I would like to get a year’s teaching experience. I have realised egtting the MA is a good idea. But there is no one else there I would particularly like to work with. There are three semanticists, and two will be unavailable next year. And I don’t know the third well, have heard odd things about them as a committee member, and don’t really care for that type of semantics. Which would leave me with phonology which, truly, I do not want to do, or learnability, which I want to do a little more, but not particularly. Also, I know I lack the programming skills to do much there.

One school in Canada City has a good one year program. One has an okay one. Guess which one I missed the deadline for? (I sent an email to the chair. For various reasons, I think I have a chance at having my record looked at, even late, if there are still spots open. The if I am not sure about.)

And I will look into what I could do to get an MA from, say, my undergraduate school. Would they give me credit for enough graduate courses that I could do it in a year? That’s no worse than at my current school.

I am so confused. I know that being where I am was . . . let’s just say not healthy for me. But is this going to be better? It’s still the question of what I will regret less, in the end.

I sort of wonder what I did wrong.

I thought I chose a field I was passionate about. No, I know I chose a field I was passionate about. I looked into graduate schools closely; I chose a good school. Did I ask all the right questions? Maybe not. But I made sure I had funding. I spoke to the students there. I visited, I liked the place. I knew their placement record. I did not know their attrition rate.

I know now, of course, that graduate students lie to the prospectives. Not entirely — when people visited wanting to study things entirely out of our department’s field of expertise (WHY were they admitted?), they were often told to leave. I was warned that they’re not really all that fond of cross-disciplinary stuff, whatever they might claim.

I didn’t realise, perhaps, how small it is. How much I would hate living there. How isolated I would feel. How the cost of living is so much higher than I imagined that the stipend would barely pay rent, food, utilities, unless I lived in a slum and ate only ever Ramen.

Initially, I am not sure how well I realised the job market.

I don’t know what happened. I went to a therapist. I went on anti-depressants. I’ve been on more SSRIs than I care to remember. None worked, or, at least, the ones that did work had side effects worse than depression.

Was I overconfident? Did I assume I had more willpower than I do?

I have willpower, but not always enough. And never when I’m this depressed.

I feel like a failure, even considering this. But I have moved well beyond considering; I am planning. At this point, I am mostly deciding whether or not it would even make sense to stay a third year (to get my MA); I have pretty much resolved to leave after that.

I don’t really want to get it. Or, I do, but I am not sure I want to enough to actually stay the course. I look at the year to come with dread. I cannot take a year off, because you lose funding if you do.

I am sick all the time. I know it is stress and misery.

I have told: my parents, one friend in Canada City, one friend in my dept (and her roommate, who dropped out of my program), one friend online. And anyone who reads this, but I haven’t really *told* people that. My roommate asked if I were all right, last time I was there. Sure. I just stay away all the damn time and otherwise sit around and do nothing.

Next year I would be expected to do another research paper. I know the only person in my department I have any interest in working with; she will be on sabbatical for the fall semester. If she would not chair my paper, I will take this as a sign that I should leave. And I long for that sign. I would like to work on that paper with her. I think it’s a neat topic.

But my life has to be about more than that, or else it’s about nothing. And then, as mentioned, I can’t work.

I will be speaking to one of my undergraduate advisors this week, and I hope to catch the other one soon. Because they will not tell anyone at my school, and because I need advice. Because I know (and it has been confirmed) that as soon as I mention I am thinking of this I will be written off. Goodbye. Don’t let the door hit you in the ass. Or do, because we don’t even care that much.

Such a difficult thing, to be considering. I can’t get anything right. I worked hard to get here, and now I’m desperate to be anywhere else.

I just don’t know where exactly I screwed up. I did, somewhere. Something has been a mistake, in this series of well-thought, well-meant steps. The easiest way to build a disaster.

Richardson’s Roundup, on CBC Radio, mentioned that St. Isidore is (among other things) the patron saint of the internet. He suggested having people write in a plea to St. Isidore, as a quatrain, given his first line: Please hear my plea, St. Isidore, and spare me from all spam.

My mother and I came up with three (well, four, but the last one wasn’t serious).

Please hear my plea, St. Isidore, and spare me from all spam:
My penis is quite large enough; my breasts are truly glam.
I work from home, I have no debts, I bought my PhD.
Until there’s something new out there, please leave my inbox free.

Please hear my plea, St. Isidore, and spare me from all spam.
Don’t you know I’m simply perfect? Please see me as I am!
I don’t need the South Beach Diet, my face is wrinkle-free.
But I wouldn’t mind hearing from hot girls waiting for me.

Please hear my plea, St. Isidore, and spare me from all spam.
All those amazing offers are nothing but a scam.
I don’t need ten million from Nigerians in the slammer.
I’m already a billionaire — I’m Canada’s top spammer!

Update: fourth poem.

Please hear my plea, St. Isidore, and spare me from all spam.
My name is Bill Richardson; my inbox is in a jam.
I had asked all my listeners to send me a quatrain.
The poems keep on pouring in, it’s driving me insane.

I just saw Rabbit-Proof Fence. It was recommended me ages ago. I forgot until my mother mentioned it as one of the movies that was available, and I said that it was supposed to be good.

And indeed it is. But harrowing.