diving into the navel, courtesy of Sweden

[chickentimeschickenways]

Finding it rather painfully difficult to get out the door today, and I do have laundry to do. Ah, the curse of cold weather! I can't run my space heater at night because it makes me too hot, but I will be damned if I'm going to crawl out of my warm comfy bed into a frigid room.

Today someone on Twitter posted a grim little picture from the Battle of Visby, which sent me into a flurry because I, too, have a grim little image of a skull in chain mail from the Battle of Visby. Observe:




I took this in January of 2015, during a very odd three-week trip I took to do my final exam for my master's. The trip went Omaha -> New York -> Stockholm -> Milan -> Lausanne -> Milan -> Dusseldorf (well, the Ryanair "Dusseldorf" airport, which isn't actually by Dusseldorf at all) -> Stockholm -> New York -> Omaha. The "Lausanne" bit was the part where I was taking my exam, and the rest was. . . well. . . for my own benefit. It was very snowy in Sweden, as one might expect, and I wandered a lot around Stockholm in the dark.

The thing it makes me wonder is about some sort of different future -- well --

Right now the extremely vague idea I have is that I am going to try to get on doing volunteer research at the MIT Building Tech lab again, maybe ten or fifteen hours a week. I want to be in the same place until the 2020 elections, so that means that I'll be in Somerville until August 2021; that gives me two years and eight months to work up enough research to apply for a PhD. Right.

I mean, that was the idea. The extremely vague idea.

At [large box store] work they've put up a sign saying that "as in previous years, employees with more than one year at the company may take a four-week unpaid leave after the holiday season has ended."

I read that, and almost immediately another version of the future came up in the mind, based on that January trip three years ago: maybe I'd be less tetchy and panicky about how fast I can move on to the next thing if I knew I could take six weeks to travel a year. Saving the money is tricky -- saving the money is always tricky -- but [large box store] does regular $0.50/hour raises. After two years they have two weeks paid vacation, and after five years, it's three. If I could get to the point where I was supporting myself just on that job, I'd have a lot more brain space to apply to doing other stuff. Living a life, I guess.

I still want to do the research -- sure -- but it's easier to imagine having something that I could use to argue my way into a PhD program in five years, or eight. I don't know that many forty-year-olds starting PhD programs, but . . . well . . . whatever. I don't really know anyone who's doing the same sloppy job about life that I am doing.

Everything I can dream is pretty lonely, but for some reason the version of the dream where I can go mope about in Europe for most of January seems less lonely. Or at least less disappointing.

(And now, because I'm dreadful, a few more images from that January trip:)

Comments

[sebenikela]

For the record, I know some 40-year-old PhD students, it's not actually that weird. And I fully support the "poke into research things, see how that feels, build resume blah blah" plan. Seriously don't rush into a PhD if you don't REALLY want it. And make sure you're like "yes i want to be a PhD student for a while" not just "I want to have a PhD" because it's too long a process to just grit your teeth through. not like "this is going to be sunshine and rainbows and FUN :)" but like "this is a job i am interested in doing, and like all jobs it involves some bullshit, and i have considered that and am okay with it."

I mean, I'm not sorry I did it, but I'm also not sure I wouldn't be happier if I'd quit 4 years ago when my not-terrible Mali!boss left. (that's a lot of negatives in a row whoops)


sorry for the unsolicited advice feel free to ignore obviously

[chickentimeschickenways]

No worries about the advice! I am still rolling this around in my head.

I am interested in doing the research, so that's a start, right?

I couldn't say if my wanting to do a PhD is coming from the right place or not. I think there are definite benefits -- I enjoy the kinds of people that academia attracts, and I like having access to academic resources -- and I think that if I can get on at a Scandinavian or Dutch university, the quality of life doesn't have to be too bad.

The not-benefit is that academia has had two shots at killing me, so third time's the charm, yeah?

I'm going through a period of nihilism right now which makes decision-making awfully challenging. . . it doesn't really seem like MOST things matter because world is ending, I am trapped as a low wage earner and will never retire, etc. So it seems like I might as well, because why not? I sort of keep hoping that something else will REVEAL ITSELF to me and then I'll know what to do.

One thing I was sort of wondering if you had any ideas about -- I have a draft email in mind to send to the head of this lab where I want to work/volunteer, but the issue I have is "explaining why I took three years away from this field." "I had an emotional breakdown and had to relearn how to human" seems. . . nooooot a great thing to divulge.

Thoughts?

[sebenikela]

interested in doing research is a good start yes! and definitely it's better at a Dutch university than it would be in the US (I would assume the same holds for scandanavia but I don't have personal experience).

As far as the email thing, I think you can just be super vague, tbh, especially if (at least for now) you're volunteering to work for free. "I've been out of the field the last couple years exploring other opportunities and having an existential crisis/crying a lot/etc, and now I am back in this area and looking to get more involved in [thing that is cool which your lab does]."

or something along those lines. Head-of-lab people get a zillion emails, so short and sweet is good.

good luck!

[chickentimeschickenways]

That sounds good, thank you! I actually emailed this person about doing a PhD four years ago and he responded, but then I . . . sort of lost my ability to can and took the first job which presented itself to avoid sliding into total immobility.

[seldnei]

There was a 40-something woman in my MA group, so she was definitely a 40-something PhD candidate. :)

[chickentimeschickenways]

Excellent! . . . I need to make more friends who are older than me. I'm pretty sure nothing I'm doing is particularly novel, but it FEELS outlandish because no one in my social group is going down the same route.