Grad School Dropout

Anyone who's ever gone to grad school, law school, or med school has wanted to drop out at least a thousand and one times. I've been tempted to quit, especially lately, because the stress that comes with (trying to) complete my dissertation and living off of a tiny stipend drives me up the wall sometimes. I turned in another draft to my dissertation director and advisor, and according to them, it still needs a lot of work. (What I need is a roomful of coffee, a time machine, and a private place to scream.)

Every once in a while, I can't help thinking what it would be like if I were to just walk away from grad school and live a "normal" life like everyone else. Maybe I wouldn't be such an obsessive, neurotic workaholic. Maybe I would be "normal" too. 

Sometimes I get so frustrated, sad, and angry that I want to lie on my bed and listen to "Everybody Hurts" by R.E.M. or Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill album (and maybe make my dissertation committee listen to it). Other times I want to dress all in black (most of my clothes are black anyway, so I'm halfway there) and go to open mic nights where I can read poetry about how academia is draining all the life out of my heart and my soul and I don't even have my one true love to make me feel better because I think that William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway are less irritating than most of the guys I've dated (except I wouldn't want to date Faulkner OR Hemingway).

But I can't drop out of grad school, because...

1. I have learned more from my students than I have from anyone else.

2. I am too much of a prude to work at Hooters or a strip club. (Unless they start letting the employees wear turtlenecks and baggy pants that I would never have to take off.)

3. Seeing as how I started having nightmares that Stephen King's Carrie White went to my school after I watched the movie, I would never be able to work as a doctor and see so much blood on a regular basis without shrieking and curling up into the fetal position.

4. I'd still have the urge to correct people's grammar, except I would no longer be able to say it's part of what I do for a living.

5. I wouldn't be able to read novels without over-analyzing the political/psychological/economic/social/racial significance of every aspect of them.

6. Other than teaching, the only job I am qualified for is retail, because I spent years working in stores. And I really DON'T want to spend the rest of my life saying, "Thank you for shopping here! Have a nice day!" when what I really want to say is, "Karma will GET you! And I'll be laughing maniacally when it does!"

7. The baristas at Starbucks might show up at my door, pleading, "Please come back! We'll give you free biscotti!" because I won't spend as much money on the coffee I need to stay awake and get all my work done.

8. Everything I've been through in the past decade - all the seminars, the teaching jobs, the retail jobs that made me want to SCREAM, the sacrifices I've had to make - will have been for nothing.

9. I'll never be able to walk past a college without feeling envious of every professor who gets to teach there.

10. I might not write as much fiction, because every time I feel angry, frustrated, or stressed, I pour out what I'm feeling into my fiction writing. The stories I write provide an escape from all the papers I have to grade, the grade complaints from students, the research I have to do, the lectures I have to attend, and the professors who keep telling me to revise, revise, revise. When I write, I feel happy, and it makes everything else a little more bearable.

So I think I'm going to stay in graduate school. I'm only a year and a half away (I hope) from finishing the Ph.D. But in the meantime, I think I'm going to find my Alanis Morissette CD and listen to "You Oughta Know" on repeat for a while.

What about you? Do you ever wish you could quit the work that you're doing? What keeps you from walking away?

(I Wish I Was A) World Traveler

The last time I did any traveling was more than eleven years ago, when I spent a summer in Spain as part of a study abroad program. Several of the other students in the program enjoyed going to bars and clubs and partying with American tourists, but I figured that I could do that at home. So I often went out to explore on my own.

One thing I noticed about a lot of the people in Spain was how relaxed they were. I liked that they took a two hour siesta in the middle of the afternoon. They weren't rushing around constantly, and they weren't glued to their cell phones like the Americans at home were. They took the time to enjoy long lunches with their friends, and they seemed happier.

So that summer, I followed their example. Instead of spending all my time studying, I walked up and down the streets of the city I was living in. I browsed through almost every shop I came across. I went to restaurants and bars during the day; because I couldn't speak a lot of Spanish yet, I would often just point to dishes that were on display or items on the menu. I ended up eating a lot of good food that way. I even traveled to other cities in Spain. I brought my journal everywhere with me, so that I could write down everything I saw and experienced. Maybe it was because I was only twenty, or maybe it was because I was in Europe, but for one summer, it felt wonderful to not be a workaholic.

But ever since then, I haven't really done much traveling. I visit my parents twice a year, for a week or two at a time; they live in a different state. I don't have the time or the money to travel anywhere else. My passport expired a while ago, but I didn't bother to renew it.

Recently, I went to New Orleans for a couple days to attend a relative's wedding. I'd never been there before. Since I had my mornings and afternoons free, I walked up and down Canal Street and around the French Quarter. I watched artists selling their paintings in a small park, and I took pictures of the river. I tried not to stare at the women who were clad only in their underwear, standing in the doorways of peep shows and strip clubs.

I browsed through souvenir shops. (Side note: what is it about being a tourist that makes you more willing to buy overpriced stuff? It's like, "Yes, I WILL buy that magnet for $3.95! What a deal!") I even bought one of those colorful Mardi Gras masks with feathers attached to it, even though the chances of my attending a Mardi Gras party are about as likely as my going to a death metal concert and then heading to a tattoo parlor afterwards. I went to cafes and watched people singing and dancing in the streets. It felt good to be somewhere other than Chicago for once. (I'd post the pictures I took, but I'm a terrible photographer. The pictures kind of look like I drank a bunch of caffeine and then rode a roller coaster for an hour before taking them.)

After the rehearsal dinner, my younger cousins (who are all in their twenties) took me with them to Bourbon Street. As I walked with them and looked at all the bars, the people standing and drinking on balconies watching the people below, the guys lifting up their shirts to get free beads (I thought it was just the girls who did that), and all the people with beers and cocktails in their hands, I kept thinking of that line from Dante's Inferno: "Abandon all hope, all ye who enter here." (Nothing against New Orleans, of course, which I liked very much. But can you tell I'm a teetotaler? It doesn't really bother me if other people drink, though, as long as they don't throw up on my shoes.)

Many people spend their twenties traveling all over the country or the world. They take road trips across America or they go backpacking in Europe. I, on the other hand, spent my twenties resisting the urge to staple expired coupons to rude customers' foreheads and telling undergrads, "WHY do you have to come to class? Because I SAID so, darn it!" 

I worked multiple jobs because I had to; it allowed me to support myself while I was in graduate school and while I was teaching. I learned a lot from those jobs. But sometimes I wish I had been able to do more traveling, because I wish I could be that girl I was in Spain all those years ago.

Once I finally finish grad school (which, as I've stated before, is quite similar to the nine circles of Hell), I will do more traveling. Maybe I'll go back to Spain, or maybe I'll go to France and write in cafes like Hemingway did. And for the first time in a long time, I'll let myself relax.

What about you? Have you done a lot of traveling? If so, where have you gone? If not, where would you like to go?

Losing Manuscripts

This morning my computer unexpectedly crashed. I wasn't even using it at the time, but for some reason I couldn't get it to turn back on. Considering how much time I spend on the computer (I'd spend a lot of less time online if it weren't for all those homemade Youtube videos of cute puppies and the clips of Jane Austen movies with good-looking male actors - though of COURSE I only watch those movies because I love Jane Austen's books), my first reaction was to start running around and screaming and hope that my sheer terror would frighten my laptop into working again.

I reacted the same way that the cast of Jersey Shore would react if they were forced to live in a town with no bars, or the way that cell phone addicts would react if they were told that the new version of the iPhone had just sold out before they could buy it.

I took it to a computer repair place that I'd seen on my commute, and they told me that a diagnostic would cost $59, but that the problem was probably my motherboard. If I needed a new motherboard, they said, it would cost anywhere from $200 to $500. Considering the fact that I am a broke grad student and I view a Frappuccino as my biggest splurge every week, I almost started screaming and running around again.

So I took it to Best Buy and had the Geek Squad look at it. Their prices were considerably lower, but one of the Geek Squad guys told me I should buy a new laptop, especially because my old one was more than five years old. It had been breaking down a lot lately, and I was originally planning to replace it in a few months. He said that he'd look over my old laptop and let me know what was wrong in a few days, but I also figured that it might be a better idea to buy a new computer than to spend several hundred dollars on repairs for a laptop I would just be replacing soon enough anyway. (After talking with the technicians at both places, I realized that the cost of repairing my old laptop might have ended up costing more than the cost of buying a new laptop.)

I found a decent one that was cheap. But the purchase still means I'll be eating macaroni and cheese or peanut butter sandwiches for the next few weeks. Or maybe I'll pretend to be an undergrad at the school where I teach and go to one of the meetings for student organizations that are held on campus, because they usually serve free food. Except one of my students might be there and "out" me. And then what would I say? "Er, I'm really not looking to be one of the future lawyers of America, sorry! I'm just here for the free pizza!"

But what REALLY freaked me out was the possibility of losing all my files on my old computer. I'd backed up most of them and e-mailed several files to myself, but there were dozens more files that I'd forgotten to back up. Worst of all, unless the Geek Squad guy can find a way to transfer those files, I'll have lost the final draft of the first novel I finished writing last year, as well as the most recent draft of the second novel that I've been working on this year

I have copies of the first drafts written out longhand in my journals. But it's not the SAME. The possibility of losing all that writing that I'd worked so hard on is almost worse than giving up the money for a new laptop. Even though it will take a while, I can work extra hours at my website job, save some of the money that I earn as a teacher, and earn back the money that I had to spend.

But I can't get back all the writing that I did. I can go back and try to rewrite those drafts based on the original drafts in my journal. But as I was typing out those drafts on my laptop, I came up with new ideas, passages, and pieces of dialogue that I added to my manuscripts. And I can't necessarily remember them all. Why is it I can remember exactly what I wanted to say to that mean lady who cut in front of me in line four years ago and then was nasty and deceitful enough to accuse me of cutting in front of her (I wanted to say, "If Jiminy Cricket was your conscience, you'd try to beat him up, wouldn't you") but I can't remember everything I wrote?

Sighhhh. Maybe the Geek Squad guy will be able to transfer my files to my new computer so that I won't lose all that writing. Or maybe I'll just have to start all over. (But this time, I am DEFINITELY backing everything up.)

What about you? Have you ever lost writing before? What did you do?

Side note: I usually respond to most people's comments on the same day I receive them. But I'll be out of town for a couple days this weekend, so if I don't respond right away, I promise I'll respond as soon as I get back.

How to Deal with Rejection

Several bloggers and other people have been buzzing about the fact that Pam van Hylckama Vlieg, a literary agent in California, was attacked by a writer whose query she'd rejected. He reached through her car window and tried to push her into her steering wheel. But one of her dogs bit him, and the police later caught the guy. (Reason #786 why dogs rule: Dogs have your back.)

I felt sorry for that agent, and I couldn't help thinking how foolish and senseless it was of that "writer" to attack her like that. It was a violent crime. Also, what agent in his or her right mind is going to want to work with someone like that in the future?

Every writer gets rejected. I think it's part of being a writer. You learn from all those rejection letters and unanswered submissions. You learn what works in your writing and what doesn't. It shows you what sells and what doesn't. Rejection is not an excuse to hurt anyone.

Here are other possible ways to deal with rejection:

1. Try writing a book about a werewolf and a vampire who fall in love, except they can't be together because one of them is also in love with a teenage wizard whose name rhymes with "Barry" and the other one makes his lovers sign S&M contracts.

2. Try hypnotizing people through Twitter by sending out Tweets like, "You are getting very sleepy. When you open your eyes, you will go out and buy my book. And you will LOVE my book."

3. Bide your time until you do become a successful, published author by practicing your Pulitzer Prize acceptance speech to the cashier in the supermarket checkout line, the teller at the bank, and your dry cleaner. All the people standing in line behind you will probably applaud...just so you'll stop talking. (Or maybe they'll start throwing things.)

4. Work out your aggression on a punching bag, and tape a picture of the cover of a book that you really hate to the front of it.

5. Send out a manuscript to another agent, and then pick the petals off of a flower while saying, "He (or she) loves my manuscript, he loves it not."

6. Listen to inspirational music while you're writing, like the theme song to Rocky, Queen's "We Are the Champions", or Britney Spears' "...Baby One More Time". (What? Am I the only one who finds her music inspirational?)

7. Imitate Scarlett O'Hara by eating turnips in the middle of a field and declaring, "As God is my witness, they're not going to lick me. I'm going to live through this and when it's all over, I'll never be unpublished again."

8. Name all of your characters after the literary agents that you're sending your work to.

9. Resist the urge to look at books by celebrity "authors" and wail, "Why? WHY?" before running out and buying a bunch of ice cream.

10. Pick up a pen or turn on your computer and keep writing.

What about you? As a writer, how do you handle rejection?

To Date or Not to Date

1. If I never date again, I won't have to shave my legs anymore. Then I can take the money that I save on razors and spend them on sweaters and blouses that button all the way up to my chin.

2. If I start dating again, I won't watch happy couples walk off into the sunset at the end of romantic movies and think, "Yeah. Like that would ever happen to me."

3. If I never date again, I won't have to look at any online profiles that feature pictures of shirtless guys posing in front of their bathroom mirrors. You know how they say, "Less is more?" I'd say, "More (clothes) is better."

4. If I start dating again, I might find someone who makes me happy.

5. If I never date again, I won't have to wring my hands over the dozens of profiles of guys in their thirties and forties (and yes, not all of them are like this. But a LOT of them are) who specify that they only want to date women between the ages of 18-25, which makes me feel like I'm over the hill at age 31.

6. If I start dating again, then I might actually meet the right guy this time. Then my dream of getting married and having children someday might actually come true.

7. If I never date again, I won't wait by the phone for guys who pretend to be interested because they like the attention about as much as Kim Kardashian likes the spotlight (and famous boyfriends).

8. If I start dating again, I won't have to tell nosy people, "No, I really don't know why I'm still single."

9. If I never date again, I can spend more time on the other things that make me happy, like writing, teaching, dancing, and exploring interesting neighborhoods in the city.

10. If I start dating again, I might meet a guy who turns out to be worth all the bad dates, the creepy jerks who couldn't understand why I didn't want to date them, and all the time I wasted on the nice guys (who turned out to be not so nice after all). I might meet someone who's different from all the others and makes me think that maybe I could have both work AND love.

I recently read a post on online dating by fellow blogger Tom, who writes the blog My World in Crisis. It made me think about whether I should start dating again. It's been about a year since the last time I tried online dating. I've thought about joining another site, or perhaps one of the sites that I already tried. But right now I really need to focus on making more progress on my dissertation. My graduate funding runs out at the end of this school year, but I won't finish my dissertation until the end of next year. That means that I will be unemployed next year, unless I can find some other way to support myself (teaching, a grant, a small loan, etc.).

Even though I still want to meet someone and fall in love (FINALLY), at the same time I also want to finish my dissertation, complete my Ph.D., and find a good full-time job as a teacher. My work has always been very important to me, and I don't think that I should have to apologize for that (in spite of several people I know who have tried to make me feel like being a workaholic means that something is wrong with me).

That's why I've decided to put off online dating until January at the earliest. I will write more posts on dating in the future, but for now, I need to focus on work and school. It's one thing if I never become a "Mrs.", but I still want to become a "Dr.".

(And I have to admit, I'm kind of relieved about not going back to online dating, at least for now. If you've read any of my earlier posts on dating, you know why.)

A Life Without Writing

I haven't been blogging or writing fiction lately for several reasons. I've always enjoyed writing in coffeehouses and have developed several good scenes and interesting characters there. But lately, the Wi-Fi freeloaders who never buy anything and hog tables for hours have really bothered me, though I know that I should just ignore them. I guess they bother me because they can apparently afford iPads and iPhones but are too cheap to spend a few bucks on a cup of coffee. Because of them, paying customers like me (and as a broke grad student working two jobs, I work hard to afford that cup of coffee) often don't get a place to sit (and write).

So I tried writing at home. But as many of you know, several of my neighbors are pretty loud. The drunk parties, loud music, and Family Guy reruns at top volume grate on my nerves, and one of my neighbors has apparently taken up singing. That wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the fact that she sounds like Miley Cyrus after she's smoked two packs of cigarettes. 

In spite of all that, I've usually managed to get writing done on a regular basis. But lately I've been feeling stressed out and overwhelmed because of work and school, so those inconsiderate jerks didn't make me feel any better. I think that all that is why I've been fighting writer's block lately. I sit down to write and I don't know what to say. I try to write anyway and nothing rings true. I read over what I wrote and I start worrying that maybe Snooki could have written something better.

It got to the point that I felt so discouraged that I considered giving up writing. After all, what if I wrote all these stories and never got published? Or what if the stories did get published and nobody liked them? Was it even worth it? As stressed out and discouraged as I felt, I knew what the answer was.

Writing is worth it. Even if I never get published and even if I did get published but people wrote terrible reviews about me on Amazon.com, the point is that writing still means something to me, and it's not something that I can live without. It made me think about what my life would be like without writing.

If I stopped writing...

1. I might spend my time on something that I never enjoyed and was never good at, like sports, just so I'd have something to do. And then I'd spend the rest of my life running away from the ball.

2. I might spend more time watching reality TV, and then I might start thinking that it really is reality. For example, I might start thinking, "Wow. I hope that if I ever have a daughter, she'll be just like Honey Boo Boo," or "Maybe I should be more like that dance teacher on Dance Moms who yells all the time," or "Why work when I can get paid to wear tight clothes and pick fights with pretty people?"

3. I'd never be able to deal with the fact that in real life, the bad guys sometimes win. They're the ones who get away with crimes that should have put them in jail, or they betray the people who love them and show no remorse for it. But writing fiction gives me a good outlet to deal with people like that, because I can write stories that end the way I think they should have ended, and the bad guys (or girls) lose.

4. I'd have to let go of all the characters I created who have become real to me and who often surprise me with what they say and what they do.

5. I might lose interest in reading, and then I wouldn't get to travel to different places, meet new people, and see them through the eyes of writers that I admire.

6. I might become less observant of the world around me, and then I'd end up missing out on so much of life and the world.

7. I wouldn't have that hope that my dream actually can come true, and that all this work that I've been doing for years really could lead to something good.

8. I wouldn't experience that sense of satisfaction and joy I feel after writing several pages in one session.

So I have to get back to writing more regularly, even if I don't always feel like doing it. I know that I would regret it forever if I were to give up writing altogether.

What about you? What are the reasons that you can't live without writing?