It’s really the only way to live life successfully – knowing that any 5 things you’re anticipating could fail and you’re still set. This is important because people can fail – states can change – events can fall through. And since they can, Murphy’s Law says they will :).
Some options aren’t as good as others – but the important thing is to always have options.
The process that will ultimately result in the loss of approximately 40 hours of freedom per week has begun – several months earlier than I wanted, but now is when everyone is looking to hire.
It’s going to test my balancing abilities like they were never tested before. I somehow have to fit everything I’m doing now into the small window of time I’ll have left afterwards.
That or I’ll need to finish it very quickly.
Now I understand why I felt like I was past my prime at 23. I can’t go back and do any of the things I want to do anymore. Biology training? It’s not happening. Music? Nope. Mathematics? I can pick it up, but I’ll never be supported while learning it.
This is why I want to start a school that trains polymaths. Anything less is just such a waste, because it cannot be done sequentially.
I think I may have just came up with the very distilled essence of secondary integration in the process of sorting my own feelings out:
Defiant
I swim against a prodigious current,
and I know that I must falter.
It draws me towards the fall,
the inexorable fatal plunge.
But each stroke I take,
I count a small victory,
a stand.
For my right to exist.
For the betterment of the world.
For those who came before me.
And for everyone,
who has ever screamed,
defiantly at the heavens:
“No! There is a better way!”
For them,
For us,
I swim against the current,
because I am right.
I submitted 5 papers to conferences last month. I’ve heard back on 3 of them, all of which were accepted to their respective conferences. I should hear back on one more today, which I think stands a good chance. I’ll be extremely surprised if the fifth is published, however, since it’s not a good paper.
I still think the peer review system is broken (and will continue to do so irrespective of what fate my own papers meet).
Two of the biologists we’re collaborating with at the lab brought up a good point today: we’re submitting papers that are written from the perspective of computer science to biomedical informatics conferences. No wonder we’re getting so many reviews in the neighborhood of “Why does this work?” when discussing topics that are assumed to be background! (Although I still don’t consider this a valid excuse to reject a paper; another’s lack of understanding is not a problem with my idea). I suppose we really should be submitting to different conferences, or including different sorts of information in the paper.
Another one of those “I’m so glad I know where I’m going” posts. No, I’m not manic depressive. Really – it’s just the emotional roller-coaster that is grad. school, combined with my strong drive for independence and the heady realization that just contemplating such things as lecturing on my own means I’m again in control of my life 🙂
I was an idiot to suspend what I was doing pending completion of my Ph. D. That I could manage my time so well as an undergrad. and then drop it all to retreat inwards in the horror of being suppressed at every turn as a graduate student is my own great error during this tumultuous period. I fought being consumed by the Ph. D., but in the wrong ways.
The idea to lecture – and the fact that I am coming up with so many productive ways to spend my time again in general – indicates to me that I’m finally getting my life back on the track it never should have left. I’m no longer considering what I can’t do or don’t have time to do… now I’m back to considering what I can. I know I can lecture on my own time because I have so much of it. I know I can work during my third year because I didn’t need a third in the first place. I know that my duty lies not in my research, but in my overall vision of how the world should be. Ultimately, the Ph. D. is just a tool to pursue it, not an end in itself.
It was stupid to forget who I was, to accept a bitter and painful existence as a tolerable norm, to forego the exaltation of making my own decisions based on my own values in exchange for servitude to the less competent; an anchor to a preordained track leading only to mediocrity. The choice was mine from the beginning; I am a fellow, not a research assistant.
I won’t allow this to happen a second time. I’ll do the research required to gain my degree and I’ll do the research that interests me… but I will not drop my entire life in the name of a degree.
It doesn’t matter how much progress I make on my dissertation; Temple won’t fund me to finish in two years, which is why they only allowed me to register for 4 credits this semester. Three it is, then. I’ll be done in May 2009, which is still a unprecedented length of time at Temple.
Since I’m going to have way more time than I need to complete my dissertation, I’m going to start a full-time job in the summer, after my second year of the fellowship runs out and my support switches from school to departmental. I’ll be almost done by then anyway, so there’s no point in sitting home bored for the entire year.
As for now, since I’m only getting half the credits I signed up for, I’m strongly considering doing only half of the work. I have some other research questions of my own to pursue.
After completion of fixed in-class coursework, the notion of “credits” becomes meaningless. One credit or twelve, I’m still doing the same research.
I am beginning to notice artificial impediment in my progress towards the Ph. D., since I am meeting no impediment inherent in the work. I have crossed the halfway mark on my dissertation, but now I’m running into issues with the department itself. I’m not sure to what extent I’ll tolerate this, but if I’m forced to stay here for more than one additional year (through whatever means used, such as putting me on a 4 credit schedule), I’ll likely drop out of the program immediately. It would be very easy; I have about 15 recruiters waiting to hear back from me. My service was given freely in exchange for scientific training. My dissertation is being written in exchange for a degree. If the terms are changed halfway, it is not I who have reneged.
I think I’ve figured out why I never get just one contact from a recruiter in a given day anymore. There must be a schedule that recruiting firms and/or HR departments operate under.
I received two today: one was from Bloomberg, the other from a company that appears to do VPN and network cryptography.
It would be so easy to just leave academia! Industry has received me so warmly (some of the recent offers have six figure starting salaries), while all academia has done is make demands of me… demands for ever greater effort with ever diminishing rewards. I can’t even pursue my academic interests within my field, much less the wide spectrum of interests I have overall. Ironically, several companies have promised me precisely the sort of training I can’t attain in an academic institution. If I want to truly do research, though, I need to see this through to the end. Once I graduate, I’ll be free!
I think it’s time to get back to seriously working on my dissertation. So long as I worked on it alone without someone else’s inefficiencies constraining me, I made very good progress… but waiting for a review of the first draft shattered my momentum.
I apparently now have a family history. Though my migraines are without aura, my mother just got what has to be the most classical case of a migraine with aura that I’ve ever heard of.