#my phd story

[great-and-small]

Apparently the local university’s undergraduate entomology course sends students to catch insect specimens at the same place I like to go birdwatching, which explains why I saw three enormous frat looking dudes with tiny bug nets and overheard one emphatically say “bro BRO I told you we already have enough lepidopterans”

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

wanna ask how you feel about the eridan bpd headcanon/theory(?? not sure what to call it!) you're so good at your character analysis and i'd love to see your outlook on it

Since I don't have a degree or any formal training in psychology, I feel deeply uncomfortable diagnosing characters. I've made an autism joke before but only because I'm on the spectrum. He's definitely traumatized and anxious, but I mean those as descriptors of his behavior rather than capital-D Diagnoses. I try to focus on those when I can - the cause and effect of cognition, self-image, and behavior - and those factors may very well match up with DSM criteria, but I try not to touch an actual diagnosis with a ten foot pole unless the author has explicitly stated that X character has Y condition.

[francesderwent]

yesterday I said out loud for the first time that I’m dropping out of school. and today a parishioner came by the office and asked in passing if I was still working on my doctorate, and when I told her no she said she’d dropped out of her doctoral program too, and we talked about higher ed and how leaving was all about letting go of pride and how difficult it is to mourn that, and then she encouraged me not to totally give up on teaching and to find adjunct work someday. and I just. Jesus is near to me. He knows. He’s taking care of me.

[donut-entendre]

why are you starving your farmer's son to death. feed him

[astrumnoceur]

I think horikoshi has absolutely zero knowledge about how abuse works. or frankly human psychology in general. maybe don’t use child abuse as your flimsy plot device for drama if you literally don’t understand it bro

[thislittlekumquat]

ask me how my original fiction plotting is going

[anghraine]

me looking at other graduate programs while my current uni finalizes my current PhD: not that I would actually go back to school except possibly MANY YEARS from this hellscape ... I'm just looking ... maybe already having a PhD with a good graduate GPA would help with an application ... theoretically ... but getting a graduate degree in creative writing after getting a PhD in English while exclusively writing lowbrowish genre fiction would be completely impractical ... damn that's a cool class list, though ... oh hey, they do a lot with something I actually know a lot about, cool - but no you are done with grad school and you were so exhausted with years of being a student just a few months ago -

[namig42]

Thinking about my life right now trying to find the will to write music for my degree, but realizing I would much rather be a writer instead of a composer right now.

Fuck. What do I do.

[goyurim]

guy i have a crush on (gihaco) is leaving our uni on friday

[littleragondin]

omg dying to know your thoughts about the fact that sparkling water is what comes out of public drinking fountains in paris??

Well, I mean, it's only like what? 10, 12 fountains across the whole city who do deliver sparkling water? (edit: alright there are 17 all in all as of today's google search lol) And thanks heavens and what not, they are SO heavily advertised as such there is no risk of ever mistakenly getting The Worst Water Ever instead of the fresh nectar of the gods that is fresh plain water 😌👌

Couldn't deal with it being the standard though, like why would you ever do that to people, I ask. No one deserves this 😔

[smol-blue-bird]

my toxic trait is that I have about eleven thousand story ideas bouncing around my head at any given time, but I'm never happy with anything I write, so most of them just die in my documents folder

[misscrawfords]

Also, I went to Kenwood House today, the home of Lord Mansfield and Dido Elizabeth Belle. Belle's story is speculated to be an inspiration for Fanny, especially considering the name connection, and the West Indies colonial/slavery aspect of MP, so that was really interesting.

MP really demands so much research. Any sequel I tried to write would need to be thematically engaging. I don't mean I would want to say the same things as Austen (actually, my story would challenge some of Austen's conclusions as I think most MP sequels at least attempt to do) but I think it at least needs to acknowledge that MP is not a romance and it is exploring some pretty interesting things.

I also really want to study country houses. I know that in The Second Miss Price there will be a visit to Everingham in Norfolk and so I would need to really think that through. All of Austen's big estates Say Something about their owners. (It's actually something I really wished I was able to explore when I studied Austen but never got onto it - people have written a lot about it anyway.) Everingham clearly would Say Something about Henry and I really want to know if he ever makes his improvements! Or are they a metaphor? If so, for what? HMM.

So I really need to learn Everingham's history and get on top of the improvements of the early 19th century which sounds fascinating but also I have a job and I'm tired.

[ananke-xiii]

I'm 100% convinced that Mary left that bunker because it reeked. "I need time and... space" was a formal way to say that the place kinda sucked. She was way too nice about that and they didn't take the hint. I think she should have told it like it was.

Dusty, no fresh-air, no sunlight, probably mouldy underground military hospital/ sad gentlemen's club closed off for decades and exclusively inhabited by lonely, repressed men and their solitary hormonal needs and general locker-room-level of BO.

Yeah, if I were back from the dead you couldn't pay me to live there, my coffin would literally smell better. No thank you. Let my girl enjoy open, fresh air and feel warm sunlight on her alive-again skin. And nice perfumes and fragrant scents.

[ancientrimer]

i can't believe this keeps happening to me. i figure out a theory i think i might want to apply in my thesis, go look at the text that has the theory, and find that that text already mentions jane eyre

[struck-by-the-rain]

guy who is frightened and perhaps afraid:

[therentyoupay]

“This year has been kind of wild, hasn’t it?” Anna muses much, much later that evening, well into the second round of dessert. Elsa looks up, startled by the wave of somber thoughtfulness from Anna’s side of the table. She isn’t quite sure what’s going on in her own headspace, let alone her sister’s.

“I mean,” Anna’s face crumbles, and she hides it poorly, “between me moving around so much, and finding my new job, and. You know. Dealing with Hans.”

Elsa’s fingers tighten imperceptibly on the handle of her fork. She lets Anna talk, and offers her a single encouraging nod, precise and controlled. Anna’s mouth is brave, tiny smiles and courageous words, but her eyes glisten with disappointment, with fear, with countless questions that Elsa cannot answer.

“I guess I wasn’t expecting my life to really… turn out like this?”

That makes two of us, Elsa can’t help but think but doesn’t dare let the thought rise any closer to the surface. These thoughts are not fair, she knows. They are not real, or maybe they are, but perhaps they shouldn’t be; Elsa has made her own decisions, and Anna has made hers—because Anna is an adult, because she’s starting to think like one—and now the two of them are left to pick up the pieces.

“I can understand that feeling,” Elsa shares, reluctant to offer anything more encouraging, such as no one does, really, or there’s still so much more, and your life isn’t over yet. “Sometimes plans change.”

Anna makes a face. “Sometimes for the better,” she mutters darkly, grimacing into her cup of cold tea. Elsa faintly wonders when Anna will think to reheat it but lets her make that choice on her own; she tries to keep a tally in her head, these days, of how many choices she consciously relents to Anna. She knows Anna does not notice. “Like. A hell of a lot better.”

Elsa cracks an amused grin at the grit in Anna’s voice, of fire and violence, and you won’t fool me again, and allows herself a deep sigh of unexpected relief.

“It’s okay to blame me, you know,” Anna’s confession cuts through the contented haze of Elsa’s awareness. Her sister’s eyes are so honest, and all over again, Anna is breaking, breaking her heart. “You gave up your doctoral program for me.”

Elsa turns her gaze to the contents of her mug, still warm. Whatever she says next will stay in Anna’s heart forever; she wants to make sure the words are the right ones.

“I did,” she answers eventually. “But I left for me, too.”

“But you’ve been waiting for that opportunity your whole life,” Anna insists, and her cheeks are dry but there are tears in her voice, in her throat, in her essence. “You want it. And you gave it up, because I’m a mess.”

“No,” Elsa corrects. “I withdrew because life is a mess.” She thinks in sudden waves and flashes—of freedom, of feeling trapped by four walls and a bedroom set of furniture, of opportunity, of wanting escape but not knowing how to find it, of feeling crowded and alone, of realizing that control is relative and everything and nothing, and says, “It may not have been the best thing to do, but it was the best decision we could have made at the time. It happened because it needed to happen.” Elsa lets that sink in. “And I’ll go back someday.”

“When?” Anna wants to know.

But Elsa still doesn’t really have an answer.

————

start from the beginning of livable 🎄🎁❤️