a wolf angel is not a good angel

Via In the Shadow of Mt. Hollywood, a question of why people pursue PhDs, given the (lack of) academic job market. These are my interpretations of the responses.

Answer (a), from Cold Spring Shops (Apr 29, permalinks bloggered):

Hey, well, I’m getting paid some, guaranteed to keep this for a couple of years, and it’s not like I’m going to get a job anywhere else.
(Presumably these students intend to leave when the job market gets better.)

Answer (b), from Intersection of Anthropology and Economics:

They don’t want a real job! They want to say: look, look how badly the world has treated me. I will now go into seclusion and reject the real world, which obviously deserves to be rejected for its blindness.

Comment (c), from Optimization Prime, mostly on why grad students whine about money:

It’s not like they’re expecting tonnes of money. They’re complaining that society has its priorities so fucked up that atheletes get more money than intellectuals.

These all seem to miss the point.

I know people who have said something like (a), but also “this is really the only thing I want to do anyways”. I do not know people who go to grad school solely to wait out a bad job market. (Professional schools might be different, as might other fields, where I don’t know a good selection of people.) I’m not sure many people think a PhD in linguistics is going to help retool for the job market. But this is certainly a factor, it’s just not the only one.

I don’t know anyone who would go into grad school *intending* not to get a job. Every single person I met wanted a job in the field, and usually an academic job. (Chemists of my acquaintance often wanted research jobs in industry.) “Gee, let’s see if I can get rejected from every job I apply for.” Please. How many people court rejection this much?

And though I do think that priorities are screwed up about who gets paid how much, the reason I was complaining about money was because I was getting paid significantly less than the poverty line, and although I don’t live that expensively, I couldn’t live on that.

The “hey, what else do I want to do that I’d be good at” sentiment is definitely there for many people. Even among people who know there are other things they could do, this is what they must want to do more, otherwise why bother? And there’s the reality that these are the people who pretty much always got the honours, were the ones selected for this or that. Of course they’re going to still be the ones. After all, they were told after elementary school that in high school, there’d be more smart people around, and they wouldn’t be the best. But they were. In high school, they were told that about university. And again, they were the best, the smartest. So there! They will still be the best. They will be the special ones who get the competitive fellowships, the conference talks, the jobs.

And, of course, some of them will. But some of them won’t. And although everyone realises that, they know that they’ve been told again and again it would change, and it didn’t, so why would it really change this time? It will change for the others, who weren’t really the best before.

And if you’re 21 or 24, you’re still not entirely sure what does or doesn’t matter — how many people, at 20, said they never wanted kids and changed their minds? (Lots don’t, of course, but lots of people do.) I didn’t imagine how much I wanted to have a place of my own — that I owned — but I do. (It’s in the 1-3 year plan; I have savings, so I hope to start looking after I get a real salaried job.) Or you don’t know what this can do to relationships. Or how you will feel living wherever you end up. Or what it’s like to live on that little money, possibly in a place where you can’t legally work. This isn’t a terrible thing; grad school is not necessarily a worse place to find these answers than any other place. But your cheap time changes, and then you’re in the place where time is less cheap, but you’ve already sunk so much time in — you should at least get something tangible (a degree) out of it, right? And then after all maybe you *will* be lucky and get a job.

But starting out, these are not things that you think of. Maybe you have huge student loans. If you’re still in school, you don’t need to pay them back yet. (This is why a lot of people I know didn’t take a year off. They couldn’t find a job that would pay enough to make it worthwhile.) You won’t need to take out money for grad school if you have a fellowship, you think.[1] You’ll get enough money to live on, long vacations, you can sleep in. You love what you study. You’ll get to keep doing that. What else matters? Life of the mind. That’s what’s important.

And the decision might be a bit uninformed, but it’s not irrational, especially because the job market isn’t the top thing on your mind. As an undergraduate, you don’t know what job searches are like. You see the successes. You don’t know what adjuncting means, not really. Maybe you see some grad students. You share a class or two with the incoming students, and, sometimes, you’re better prepared than they are. You have some 3rd years TAing you; they’re not looking for jobs, either, and they don’t tell you about the people who are. If you ask, you’re saking what the life is like, not what the end game is like. Five years is a long time away. You don’t know how things might change by then. How often have you made 5 year plans in your life? You weren’t in university for five years.

I think and rethink why I chose to go to grad school. And I still think I made the right choice. Yes, it turned out that it was later the right choice to leave. I didn’t go in because there was nothing else I *could* do; I went because there was nothing else I wanted to do as much. I certainly didn’t go in hoping to be rejected. Ha. It sucks being rejected. I’m not going to court it unnecessarily. I’ll apply to jobs where I might not get it, etc — I even buy lottery tickets — but I don’t go out and say “hey, I want everyone to tell me to fuck off”. My priorities were just different. Then they changed, and I was unhappy, and I left. (I’m so glad I went somewhere that they give terminal MAs.)

I think about why friends went, and it was pretty much for the same reasons as me.

It’s easy to look back and say how silly some of the things you thought then were. Easy to say that of course being closer to family will matter (I stayed in the NE for this, but it mattered even more than that). That living on that little money isn’t worth it. Maybe you’ll still love the studying as much — and it will or won’t be enough. You can’t have perspective on the time you’re living in. It’s easy to see 10 and 20 years out of high school that the things that seemed to matter then really didn’t, in the end. But they did matter then.

[1] For most people, this seems to be true. I only know a few people who went into debt; mostly these are people who didn’t get summer jobs. I don’t tend to feel too sorry for them, given how hard I worked in the summers.

Update — my response to John Bruce:
A lot of the discussion focusses on what people think of the cost-benefit analysis after getting in, and possibly leaving. This is fine, but it’s not fair to the people who go in. Even if you’re not in grad school, your priorities change over the course of some years. And once you’re in, there are reasons to stay, even while there are also reasons to leave.

There are problems with academia. Simplifying the reasons that people choose to go into it doesn’t do any good, though.

Hey Mike, you busy?
All this sunshine’s making me dizzy
Went outside all my clothes dried
And If I’m babbling please forgive me
But it’s the first hint of sunshine
For a week or so they say
I’m keeping well I’m in good health
But I sneezed when I looked into the sun today

There’s my bike looking dusty
The spokes are broken and rusty
But I’m happy to walk
I’m happy with anything today
And I’m out in the sunshine
While my friend’s at home asleep
-Lucksmiths, T-shirt weather

Sunny day today, the first, really, since I’ve been back. I might love Montreal, but sometimes the weather sucks. Not today.

I met an old friend to walk along St-Denis. It was beautiful out — and everyone was out walking. Montreal in beautiful weather is a wonderful place, so alive. Went along Mont Royal to the ice cream place I like (Le Patio bar Laitier, 836 Mont Royal E). I forgot: their chocolate hazelnut ice cream is mediocre. On the other hand, the chocolate orange is fabulously yummy.

I got a rubber ducky at Chez Farfelu, right next door. I want to own much of their inventory.

I think he is awfully cute. Or maybe she is. I suspect this ducky needs a nice, androgynous name. Also, of course, an evil one.

I sang to the Lucksmiths on the way home. Bad influence, Mr. Ducky.

And I say hey
It’s a beautiful day
And it’s starting to feel a lot better
So wake up, wake up
It’s t-shirt weather!

-Lucksmiths, T-shirt weather

You are ill and so I lead you away
and put you to bed in the dark room
- you lie breathing softly and I hold your hand
feeling the fingertips relax as sleep comes

You will not sleep more than a few hours
and the illness is less serious than my anger or cruelty
and the dark bedroom is like a foretaste of other darknesses
to come later which all of us must endure alone
but here I am permitted to be with you

After a while in sleep your fingers clutch tightly
and I know that whatever may be happening
the fear coiled in dreams or the bright trespass of pain
there is nothing at all I can do except hold your hand
and not go away

Al Purdy

This campaign has been famously boring. Satirists are complaining. (Can’t find the article online.) Paul Martin pledges to leave if he doesn’t keep his promises. Yeah, sure you will. Just like Chretien promised to resign halfway through his term if we’d elect him just one more time. And we did! (And, eventually, he did, too. Very slowly.)

But look! What’s the front page news about the election? Campaign promises? No, silly, it’s the colour of the party leaders’ eyes.

In not so surprising news, all our politicians are idiots.

Jack Layton accused Paul Martin of killing the homeless because he cut low-cost housing funding. Well, okay, I also think that was icky, but Paul Martin isn’t exactly a murderer.

This wouldn’t be particularly interesting — though it’s unusual, because personal attacks are fairly rare (except the evil reptilian kitten eater from another planet thing, which was more weird than an honest to goodness personal attack) — except that current projections have the Liberals 20 seats short of a majority (135 seats out of 308), which means that they’d have to band with some other party. The Conservatives are almost guaranteed to be the opposition (98 seats), and I can’t imagine the Liberals and the Conservatives actually joining up, even if they weren’t the opposition. Which leaves the Bloc Quebecois (54) and the NDP (21). Now, if the NDP + Liberals don’t actually hit 155 (the magic majority number this year), I’m not sure what will happen. Something interesting, but not necessarily so great.

Gilles Duceppe — well, frankly, I can’t imagine the Bloc ever agreeing to anything with the Liberals. Which means if there’s a minority government, either Paul Martin has to suck it up and deal with Jack Layton or a new election will happen.

There’s a possibility that some gaming of the system will happen. A lot of people, like me, want a Liberal minority government. This means that they need to win enough but not too many seats. (People who want a Conservative government don’t have to play any such games.) Another Liberal majority would be a really bad thing for Canada, especially if they got well under half of the popular vote.

The provincial Liberals have screwed up in both Ontario and Quebec, too, which means they’ve lost a lot of federal support in two important provinces. And recent scandals are still recent — Paul Martin called this before support for him dropped even further, but I don’t think this was a good time for him. I’m not sure there could have been one.

I might just be too hopeful; I was desperately wanting a minority government last time, and they got something like 165 seats out of 301.

I found out the other night that my grandparents sell stuff on ebay. Okay. Worse — they’ve been doing it for years. Through my cousin’s account, that he’s had since he was 9, or something. (He’s 16 now. Driving. Well, learning.) I’m impressed they’re so into the internet, but — I only started buying stuff on ebay this year. I’ve never sold anything there. (This might be just cause I’m a packrat.) This weirds me out for no good reason.

At least I don’t think they blog.

In reading responses to Erin O’Connor’s question about what books should be assigned in high school, I found someone who said how much they loved The Catcher in the Rye.

This book was the only book that I have ever been assigned that I didn’t finish reading. (I finally forced myself to finish it a few years later.) Was I the only disaffected teen who *didn’t* identify and absolutely hated the book? (The year after it was assigned, I was assigned Cat’s Eye. That worked better for me, and made me realise that Atwood’s writing got far more interesting than The Handmaid’s Tale.)

Seriously. Someone tell me they didn’t identify with or like the book. Lie to me, if you must.

1 t sugar
1/2 c warm water
1 pkg yeast
1/2 c oil
1/2 c warm water
1/4 c sugar
2 t salt
2 eggs
3 1/2 - 4 c flour
sesame seeds
1 egg yolk beaten with 1 t water

Dissolve sugar in 1/2 c warm water in a large mixing bowl which has first been rinsed with hot water. Sprinkle yeast on top and let stand for 10 minutes. Stir to dissolve.

Combine with oil, water, sugar, salt, eggs and half of flour. Add in rest of flour slowly until dough looks right: it should be sticky. (I use a stand mixer for this, though usually a food processor is also okay. If you use a stand mixer, the dough should just start to crawl up the paddle.)

Cover dough and let rest for 10 minutes. Turn out onto a floured board and knead for 10 minutes, adding flour as needed. (You can do this part in the mixer also.)

Round up in a greased bowl. Cover and let rise in a warm place until double in bulk, about 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Punch down, cover and let rise again until double, about 45 minutes. Divide dough into 3 equal parts. Shape into strands. Place on a lightly greased baking sheet and braid loosely (you can do any other shape, but braids are traditional and pretty). Fasten ends securely. Cover with a damp cloth and let rise until double. Brush with beaten egg yolk and sprinkle with seeds. Bake at 400 for 30 minutes, until golden brown. (If you use all the egg yolk, it will burn after half an hour. Once the top looks pretty — 15 to 20 minutes — cover it lightly with tinfoil.)

Stupid commenting system sucks. I am seriously underimpressed with Typepad currently. Instead of a comment to this, then (and also a bit of a response to this — Trackback in Typepad also sucks):

Although Dorothea says it wasn’t about my fear — I didn’t think she was putting me in the group of people who never take risks out of paralysing fear. Not that I’m not risk averse, but that’s mostly about extreme sports — it was, a bit:

And they lack, utterly, the fear that Wolfangel feels right now.

I do feel some fear about being worthless, or whatever adjective pops up. But that is really not about fear, it’s about some vein of depression. I don’t feel fear about my future. I’d like to see that it all works out wonderfully (I forgot to mention the part where I also win a big lottery; I’d like to see that, too), because I’d like to feel now that I made a good decision. It’s not because I’m worried nothing will work out — my boss seems to think he can give me good advice on this, and I’m also planning to create course outlines and apply for Cegep jobs teaching humanities. (Not that I’m clear about how I could fit a linguistics course into “ethics”. Knowledge and world views are easy. Ethics? I don’t know. Something about all languages being equal? Maybe not.) This isn’t my primary goal, and without teaching experience I’m not sure how competitive I’d be, but it can’t hurt.

The reason I’d like to see I made a good decision is that I keep that faint hope that this will be the thing that, finally, makes me feel maybe I’m okay. Doubtful. I am not the poster girl for sanity.

So I keep going. I’m waiting to meet with my bos\s to see what he thinks I should do to get into computational linguistics/machine learning kind of work. I’m waiting to see if I got into that programming-for-the-real-world program I applied to, and to see if it’s even a worthwhile move for me to make. It’s 12 months, but the last 15 weeks are a stage. I can keep working parttime for the next number of months. I have another month worth of money from my ex-department coming in — 2, maybe even 3 paycheques. I have almost 2000c(US!) coming from federal and state tax refunds, about 60 from Canadian — and I don’t owe as much Quebec taxes as that. Next year I will get ALL the US taxes I paid returned, because I will have received less than 10k. In September I’m getting my deposit back, which will be 500 (if the spare room never gets rented out) to 1100 (if it gets rented for June). It’s really really comforting not to be worried about money. Also the living at home = no major expenses thing. But I want to move out once my life is settled again.

Anyways. Where was I? Fear, presence or absence of. I can tell mostly I’m not, because I can sleep again. So mostly I am happy and mostly I am comfortable with my decision. And then obviously I’m also not because, hey, I’m obsessing! I’ll go out for breakfast tomorrow and tell a good friend everything I’ve posted here and everything I’ve read and she’ll tell me how good a decision it was. Then we’ll have ice cream. I’ll appreciate the support my parents have been giving me in this. I’ll get very annoyed as I watch my neighbour’s cat, Oreo, chase Sam. No, that’s right now. Oreo is such a pest. Leave my cat alone. You outweigh him 47 to 1. Or close to that, anyways. Oreo is a big cat, and also a fat one. Moving on.

I need time. I mentioned I still feel spite towards some people. I will admit that I feel spite towards someone I haven’t seen since grade 5 (it’s failed utterly, since apparently she’s a successful lawyer in LA). I don’t exactly think about her often — today because I’m considering the issue, and the last time a year or two ago when my mother ran into her mother, not for years before that — but when I do it’s with a “well, I wouldn’t help you, and actually I sort of hope you fail”. There are other people like that. I don’t live shaking with anger. I do take time to move on. When I give myself it — and am given it — it works. I figure this is unlikely to be that much different. I hope I am giving myself time. It’s hard to tell sometimes. Whether or not I am, there time goes.

It’s still hard.

I think that my story is in many ways like Dorothea’s. All the details are very different, but the stories are indeed much the same. I was too busy *before* I left to have too much angst — now, not so much busy. I can only hope it will turn out as well as hers did.

Hot hot! I am Curry Flavoured. I have a spicy personality. If you can take the heat, you’ll love me, if not, I’ll probably make you cry. I am not for the faint-hearted. What Flavour Are You?

Otherwise I’m tea: Cor blimey, I taste like Tea. I am a subtle flavour, quiet and polite, gentle, almost ambient. My presence in crowds will often go unnoticed. Best not to spill me on your clothes though, I can leave a nasty stain.

You are YOU CAN’T DO THAT ON TELEVISION.
Sometimes, you wonder why you couldn’t just be
Canadian. Some people say you are weird. You
have an interesting sense of humor and a
meaningless life. But, you’re nearly Canadian,
so did you expect better?

Of course, it’s easy when you answer that you are Canadian and you like the Bay (= Hudson’s Bay Company). I watched the show on YTV, though, not Nickolodeon.

I can, however, still sing the theme song for Clarissa explains it all. (Na na na na.)