so yeah, making it all official and stuff...

[chibirisuchan]

Just a general public service announcement since it's been a long time since I've posted anything fic-like here (as opposed to communities), and it's probably going to be a while longer before I get back to anything fic-like

Comments

[peacewish]

Good for you, preemptively taking action to ensure your own career stability, instead of just waiting for the hammer to fall like your fired coworkers. It's not their fault, of course, but real life just happens and it's the people that plan ahead who survive the Happens part. I admire you very much. I personally can't even face the thought of grad school, even though I've been in and out of unemployment for 5 years and my family has begged me to do it. I just can't. I hate the thought of going back to being a student, instead of working to contribute to the GDP. All I want to do is work, and the world spits on me because I only have a bachelors degree. The college-degree job market has become overcrowded with us, and that's why only masters people get interviews. It's frustrating and unnecessary, but a couple decades of politicians insisting that 'everyone' deserves a college education and cheap publicly financed colleges have resulted in a glut of interviewees. Here in Austin, a university town, doctoral candidates are still waiting tables.

I'm not trying to discourage you in the least, by the way, though it may seem so. I'm very happy you have the means to pursue a higher degree and the sense that it's the only guarantee you have for steady work, I just resent the hell out of the fact that you have to. You're right that you won't have much free time for the fun stuff. But it's like exercise - once you get it over with, you'll feel much better and be glad you did it. How Aeos will play into this, I don't know. Maybe you'll update, and maybe you won't. But you can't let a fanfic distract you from a pressing demand to work and pay for your home, food, and kitty litter. Reviews gush and praise and make us feel great, but they don't balance the bank book. Something you can point out to the next thirteen year-old whining about your lack of updates (on the iphone her parents bought her). Anybody who bitches about slow updates should try their own hand at a full-time job/family/classes and political activism before casting stones.

Good luck!

[chibirisuchan]

I am right there with you on being mad that I have to. I'm really not doing this through any great passion for the subject. I'm doing this for the cold hard bottom line, which makes me feel a bit like a sell-out. (I was the starry-eyed gonna-be-novelist in college the first time around, before I learned that no one actually makes a living writing fiction and if you want to make a living writing, you do it with what other people will pay you money to write for them, which is nonfiction.)

I wish I was still enough of a dreamer to go to school for what I'd really love to study, rather than for what I hope I'll be able to use to get a better job after studying. I also wish I was nervy enough to quit my current job and go back to school full time and be able to get it over with faster! But as it is, I've still got my full-time-plus job and I'm going to be adding the master's degree program work on top of it. I'm not sure whether the word for that is "pessimistic," "masochistic," or just plain "insane." ^^;;;

But right now the state's talking about slashing every last one of our job benefits, including health insurance, the joke of a pension system that we've had to pay into out of every paycheck but they haven't contributed their part to for 30+ years (so I'm basically throwing my retirement money into a black hole that will default before I have any chance of retiring myself), and now there are rumblings about not letting employees take classes anymore. That's on top of not having had a raise for most of a decade and having furlough days assigned so they can take money back. So I'd better get the masters' courses as much out of the way as possible while they're still offered... sigh.

Thanks for the luck! I have a feeling I'm going to need all the luck I can get! ^^;;;;