musings and a List of Reasons Why I Left Grad School

[emma_mage]

Last night I dreamed that I was at some sort of gathering with my former cohorts in the department. 
A party at someone's house, the grad students' lounge, a conference, who knows?  It was uncomfortable and I realized that I didn't know many of them very well after all, despite working alongside them for 3 years.  Out of 30-odd people, I'm in semi-

Comments

[nynaeve]

Hi there,

I surfed here via antsy. I just wanted to say three four things:

1. Good for you for getting out when it was no longer worth it. I'm sure the decision wasn't easy, especially when you had to deal with Asian guilt, too. ;) (I'm also Asian American, so I can relate on that front.)
   
   
2. You might find Straight Talk About Graduate School worth a read. It was written by another recovering academic who turned her bad experience in grad school into some really useful advice. Her personal story is linked there as well (though her server seems to be down at the moment).
   
   
3. Love your journal title and subtitle. I'm finally going to see Travis live later this month. :D
   
   
4. Happy (belated) birthday!
   

[emma_mage]

Hello and welcome. I surf through LJ comms too sometimes

[nynaeve]

Actually, the guilty secret thing doesn't surprise me at all. Been there. Anyway, at least you know now that you can always go back if you so choose.

Travis never fail to make me smile. I stayed at a hostel in Edinburgh last summer, and on open mic night, some (American) guy sang "Baby One More Time" with just an acoustic guitar. I was like, "Hey! That's Travis's arrangement, right?" Sadly, he'd apparently performed it there before without anyone noticing that, despite the location. So he was stoked that someone finally did. :)

By the way, would you mind sending me their cover of "Everyday is Like Sunday"? I've heard the original and the 10,000 Maniacs cover, but I wasn't aware Travis had covered it. If you don't mind, e-mailing my username @livejournal.com should work. If you aren't comfortable doing so, though, no worries.

Oh, and check out invisibleband if you haven't already. There are probably other Travis comms out there by now, but that's my favorite so far.

Thanks for the phdfusion.com link. I'll definitely take a look around.

[emma_mage]

I don't know if I'd go back to grad school ever. Maybe for a terminal, obviously applicable master's. But I do know that I am becoming more okay with being an alleged black sheep. Please, there are far, far worse things I could have done or be doing. :-P

*points at icon* I hope to visit Scotland someday!

I got "Everyday is Like Sunday" at http://travis.ography.co.uk/
I checked and it looks like the download link on the home page (2nd entry down, the Isle of Wight Festival Audio) is still active.

I wouldn't mind emailing it to you, except I don't know how to send a file that big. Oh, and I will probably join that comm -- it seems to be populated with nice, decent folks. Thanks for the rec.