I wrote this email to Casey, but I kind of thought it'd make a good LJ entry too.
Hello Casey,
I spent a good part of the evening a little disheartened about my decision to dedicate the next 6 or so years of my life to grueling graduate work. I know I'm going to be over-worked and over-stressed, and I'll be nearly thirty by the time I leave school and enter the "real world." It's a scary prospect! Do I even want to be a professor and put myself through all these years of school just to not make that much money (that is IF I get a job in the competitive market!)? I thought that perhaps just getting a real job (9-5), making money, starting a savings, leaving work at work and coming home after the work day's over and relaxing until the next work day (instead of coming home and researching, writing, reading, and grading before the next academic day), might have been a smarter choice....
Then I asked myself, WHAT 9-5 job could I or would I even DO, hypothetically, that would excite and intrigue me and feed my passions? I already learned museum work isn't really for me, opening up a pottery studio spells financial suicide and I wouldn't get to use my academic brain as much, I couldn't deal with high schoolers nor does any high school teach medieval history... there really is no career out there that I can think of now that would excite me like spending my life engrossed in the medieval, being an academic, learning, working, writing, challenging myself... It may be a ton of work but it's the only option that really drives and excites me.
Plus, I was forgetting that I won't be setting out on this crazy quest alone. I'll have you, and we're going to be a team. I realized that both of us have set high goals for ourselves because we each want nothing less than our dreams. We dreaming big and aiming high! We're trying to break into two of the most competitive job fields out there, and I know we're both going to succeed, somehow.
I know that you'll be there for me through the papers, the lectures, the conferences, the sleepless nights, the readings, the latin/german/french, the tests, and the obnoxious undergrad students. And I know that I'll be there for you for the auditions, the headshots, the stupid reviews, the student loans, and all the bad times that I'm sure aspiring actors must also struggle through! But, Casey, we'll see each other through to the published papers, the opening nights, the advisor praise, the director praise, the successful lectures, the standing ovations, all of it. I love you and I know that there are hard scary times ahead, and great times ahead. But I can't WAIT to go to Saint Louis with you! We'll find a little apartment, make it home for the next two years, deal with acting/grad school, decorate, learn to cook, go dancing, eat sushi, learn the city, watch our shows, etc, and live life there! I love you, and this is going to be a big adventure, and I'm SO GLAD I'm starting it with you.
Love,
Amy
I spent a good part of the evening a little disheartened about my decision to dedicate the next 6 or so years of my life to grueling graduate work. I know I'm going to be over-worked and over-stressed, and I'll be nearly thirty by the time I leave school and enter the "real world." It's a scary prospect! Do I even want to be a professor and put myself through all these years of school just to not make that much money (that is IF I get a job in the competitive market!)? I thought that perhaps just getting a real job (9-5), making money, starting a savings, leaving work at work and coming home after the work day's over and relaxing until the next work day (instead of coming home and researching, writing, reading, and grading before the next academic day), might have been a smarter choice....
Then I asked myself, WHAT 9-5 job could I or would I even DO, hypothetically, that would excite and intrigue me and feed my passions? I already learned museum work isn't really for me, opening up a pottery studio spells financial suicide and I wouldn't get to use my academic brain as much, I couldn't deal with high schoolers nor does any high school teach medieval history... there really is no career out there that I can think of now that would excite me like spending my life engrossed in the medieval, being an academic, learning, working, writing, challenging myself... It may be a ton of work but it's the only option that really drives and excites me.
Plus, I was forgetting that I won't be setting out on this crazy quest alone. I'll have you, and we're going to be a team. I realized that both of us have set high goals for ourselves because we each want nothing less than our dreams. We dreaming big and aiming high! We're trying to break into two of the most competitive job fields out there, and I know we're both going to succeed, somehow.
I know that you'll be there for me through the papers, the lectures, the conferences, the sleepless nights, the readings, the latin/german/french, the tests, and the obnoxious undergrad students. And I know that I'll be there for you for the auditions, the headshots, the stupid reviews, the student loans, and all the bad times that I'm sure aspiring actors must also struggle through! But, Casey, we'll see each other through to the published papers, the opening nights, the advisor praise, the director praise, the successful lectures, the standing ovations, all of it. I love you and I know that there are hard scary times ahead, and great times ahead. But I can't WAIT to go to Saint Louis with you! We'll find a little apartment, make it home for the next two years, deal with acting/grad school, decorate, learn to cook, go dancing, eat sushi, learn the city, watch our shows, etc, and live life there! I love you, and this is going to be a big adventure, and I'm SO GLAD I'm starting it with you.
Love,
Amy