Hello again
admin September 10th, 2007
Hello Internets [sic]
I know it has been a long time since I have updated this already very short blog. Do not think I have forgotten you, no; you are always on my mind. You were always there, a small, but palpable kernel of guilt, because I know I should be tending you, updating you, keeping you alive. I know that if I wanted to have any readers at all, that if this blog was ever going to be something other than my own private space, I needed to give at least a little, and often. I have not done that, and I’m sorry. But now let me tell you what I have been doing. I have so much to tell.
There has been much going on outside myself that is of note as well, but for now, I want to let you in on just me.
The short version is I’ve decided to finish my PhD (if only due to sunk costs, which I know you are supposed to ignore, but this time I think it makes sense, and those econ people change their tune every decade or so anyway and I still get off on the idea of people calling me “doctor”) and then completely change my career path. I am going to become one more leak in the pipeline, not because I am forced, or can’t cut it, or am unsuitable due to some gender pre-disposition, but because I’ve decided that I want to do something else. It is not a goal I can’t achieve, just a goal I no longer desire. In fact, my success at being a science PhD student is what I foresee will be one of my largest obstacles. People will not understand. So I am going to try to explain it to you.
I want to do the things that I would do if only I won the lottery. But I won’t win the lottery because I never play. So I’m going to do them now. And it is going to be wonderful. And I am so excited. But now a little background….
To an outsider I have been doing very little. In fact, both my advisors are pushing me hard to get some real data, to have a deliverable, to achieve real (rather than incremental) progress. I do want data, I do want progress, but the doing is getting more and more difficult. Some days I accomplish quite a bit and others nothing, but on average, I really could be accomplishing more while at work. It is a struggle. But I am at work every day. I’m here. So what am I doing?
Reading. Reading all kinds of things. I love reading. And the internet lets you read all the time about anything you want. I usually enjoy reading things with no real purpose, or at least reading about topics that are completely different from my work. But lately, I’ve been doing more directed reading. I’ve been reading blogs. Lots and lots of blogs. I find that blogs are a direct route to honest day to day information. Blogs are the memoirs of real people. I’ve been reading about happy academics, disillusioned scientists, people who love and hate their lives, mommy blogs and daddy blogs, dog blogs and business blogs, career blogs, and even sex tips blogs, which by the way are not porn, and always entertaining. And I thought to myself at the end of yet another very unproductive day of internet reading (sorry employers), “Why am I doing this?” And the answer came back “Because you’re unhappy.” And there it was. I wasn’t unhappy in the way you are unhappy after some small setback, or someone says something nasty about you, or you step back into a nasty pile of dog shit. I was reading about other people’s lives and careers to escape mine. (Oh except for the sex blogs. Those are just really interesting, and useful.)
And so I decided to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, which is a change, because a few months ago I would have had a definite answer. (The reason as to exactly why I no longer want to be a high-profile academic I will leave to another post) And that took a while. It took more reading, and lots of thinking, and talking to my husband. It took evaluating and re-evaluating and flip-flopping and second-guessing. I just couldn’t find something that I was crazy about. I took all kinds of quizzes, but discovered nothing new. I was interesting in many things, I was creative, I like people but not all of them, and I could do what I am doing now or something completely different. Great.
And then, I don’t know how, but I linked off of something to some books. And I read their descriptions, and I thought, SHIT this is me! I like keeping many things going at once. I love learning. I revel in new experiences. I love meeting and talking to new (often strange) people. I get bored easier than most people. Boredom is torture. I like change. I often wish I was born in a time when Renaissance Man (or woman?? – well, there are some good things about the present) was actually a career choice. Ben Franklin is the coolest dead white guy I don’t know.
It turns out I am a Scanner, a Renaissance Soul, or whatever else you want to call it, and there are others like me, and we actually can do what we like AND have an income. And this book will tell you all about it. Fuck. I bought the books. I never buy the books. (Self-help books are pointless and boring.) I bought the books. And they really are good books. If this sounds like you, go and check them out. I bet lots of you are like me. I bet you just don’t know it yet.
And now I am ready to quit my job (after the degree) and start off on a completely different path. My degree will always be my safety net, but I am giving myself the freedom to really do what I want. This is great! I am happy! And I have realized that the parts of me I really love, the spunky, creative, laid back parts of me have been getting buried under disenchantment, and boredom.
I’ll tell you more about it all, what I am going to do and how, what I have come to believe about the academic system, and my fears about telling the people who have seen me come this far later. Right now, I just wanted to re-introduce myself. I’m a scanner. How do you do?