i’m on my housewife rotation

March 22, 2006

why, oh why, hasn’t my dean responded to the email i sent her yesterday? it was honest, it was straightforward, and it was pretty blunt (i quote: “i think i want to leave my program.”)

as i wrote to one of my post-doc-mentoring-type-people:

“so as you probably have guessed from my absence, i am still dealing with all of the stuff i told you about on monday. i think — actually i know — the right decision is to leave my phd. i wanted so much to love what i was doing, and to be as interested in science as you are (and others like gsmg (my former grad student mentor, while i was on rotation) that i admire so much) but i’m not. i don’t think that interest can be ‘made’, it has to just be there.”

and it isn’t.

so i’ve thought about this. i’ve ruminated. and now i need help to take action.

BUT my dean — a nice, smart, and thoughtful person — has not replied. does she know how much i’m writhing in agony over here? does she KNOW that i’m, like, paralyzed work-wise right now (because, uh, this ‘prelim’ is probably not going to ever actually, like, HAPPEN?), and does she know that TRANSITIONS LIKE THIS MAKE ME CRAZY??? does she have some sort of passive-aggressive streak i don’t know about? is she using fancy psychiatrist ‘tricks’ on me?

or did she just not check her email? unlikely, but i suppose possible.

and so, you ask, ‘what exactly are you DOING then, if you’re not writing your prelim, not talking to your dean, and not in lab?’

and i would have to answer:

– reading the archives of a new blog i am currently obsessed with (http://www.intueri.org)
– assembling extremely belated christmas presents for my friends
– agonizing
– nothing of value to society (except the friends who will get aforementioned presents)
– feeling very guilty about that fact

i can’t believe all of this is happening. but it needs to and it is.

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