danieleWrites

I use They Say/I Say as a textbook in comp 1 class these days. It's really too simplistic for a grad student in a lot of ways. If you're one of those people that need help writing to begin with, that would be a good book. It has some really handy templates for transitions, signal phrases, and so on. But if you're that uncomfortable with writing itself, take a class instead.

Zinnser is a good book on writing clean prose. I prefer Joseph M. Williams' Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace since it's aimed more at academic writing while Zinnser is more about commercial writing. Buy the MLA style guide (or better, join MLA and they'll send you one with your membership). If there is a point of contention on writing rules, that's the only rule book that matters. Yeah, the OWL at Purdue has the MLA formatting guides, but the book is better. After that, this website rocks as basic grammar rule book: http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/index.htm

Anyway, writing texts come in two basic flavors: rule books and rhetorics. Don't buy a rule book, other than your field's style manual, unless you hate using websites as a rule book.

On a complete side note, you might find Willims' article "The Phenomenology of Error" very interesting.

As for doing research itself, the MLA handbooks has some helpful hints. The problem is that research in an English department is different than most places. First of all, English houses literature and comp/rhet. They do research completely different.

Look for books that discuss how to do literary criticism. Read PMLA and journals in your particular specialty.

err i wasn't saying capitalism is postmodernism, but that's an interesting idea. i was saying that this mixed pro-capitalist anti-capitalism seems like a postmodern perspective to me. 
 
what's Das Kapital? is that by Tom Clancy?
 
but yes, i do appreciate your thoughts on the job market, preparing for it in diverse ways, and especially the bit about how to use knowledge our field is creating. 

Thank you all. I contacted my uni's disabilities department and I have an appointment this week. I have a regular doctor's appointment scheduled as well because my last anxiety attack was physically painful. 

I totally disagree that the first year is the worst.  For me, the first year was one of the BEST.  Everything was new and shiny and I was still pretty excited.

Here are some thoughts: While my first two years of grad school were okay, towards the end of my second year I started to feel "done" and burned out, and I had a miserable third year and a pretty bad fourth year.  I still loved my field and wanted to do research, but I realized that I probably could've done most of what I wanted with a master's in my field or a related one.  I was tired of being on a grad student stipend, tired of a lot of politics of academia.  I contemplated dropping out.  Ultimately I decided to stay for a variety of reasons.

When I was seriously thinking about dropping out, I learned a few things:

-Everyone feels shame upon leaving academia, whether it's done leaving after the first year of grad school or leaving after having achieved tenure.  The academic system brainwashes you into thinking it's a vocation, a calling, a higher state of being that defines your identity and establishes the base of your worth as a person.  IT'S NOT.  It's just a field, just like any other - it's not really that different, inherently, from business administration or nursing or accounting or nonprofit work.  People move in and out of it all the time, much more than senior professors make it out to be.  The primary goal for anyone who has sincerely decided that they want to leave is to overcome that feeling of shame.

-So here's the tip to it: For me, there were three primary sources of shame:
--The internal.  Deal with this first.  There's the idea that you "worked so hard" and that if you just spend a little more time, you'll get the PhD.  F THAT.  Life is too short to be miserable and the time you've already spent is a sunk cost.  Regardless of whether you finish or not, you're never going to get it back.  So if you feel like you will be miserable, don't extend the misery for 4-5+ more years just because you've already spent a few months there.

--Perceived shame from friends and family.  I found that this was largely nonexistent.  My family of non-academics didn't really care what I chose to do to make money, and didn't value academia the same way I did.  They were nothing but supportive no matter WHAT I wanted to do, and were very sympathetic to not wanting to be a student anymore.  Same with friends.  I had friends who listened to my rants, volunteered job search help and offered to make connections.  Your real friends and family just want you to be happy; most of them do not have the hang-ups academics do about the line between a PhD and an MA or BA.  Venture out - talk to someone you feel really close to about your feelings, just one person.  You'll probably be surprised by what you find.

--Perceived shame from the department.  There are two ways this can go.  There are some departments that genuinely won't care - and I mean that in a good way.  They want all of their doctoral students to be happy, and they are made up of sane people who realize that academia is not for everyone and that it is completely healthy and normal for some students to choose to leave.  Although they won't be happy to see you leave, they will support you and be understanding.  Bless these departments.
Then there are the ones filled with egos who believe the party line about academia being a measure of self-worth, people who don't finish as being "lesser" beings who just "couldn't cut it," and will try to shame or guilt you into staying.  F THEM.  Seriously.  Forget what they think - you won't need them.  Just be polite and keep pushing.  Who cares what a bunch of old senior professors think of you when you're off having a fabulous career doing something else?  In 3 years you won't care.

-I also suggest seeing a psychologist.  For me, the psychologist helped me in two ways.  One, she helped me realize that there was no reason for me to feel ashamed or put so much pressure on myself for not liking academia the same way my colleagues and cohort mates did.  Two, she made me realize that I wasn't "trapped" in academia, and honestly that made ALL the difference.  Once I started looking for jobs and realizing that there were PLENTY of things I could do without a PhD, ironically, I felt happier.  No more was I a doctoral student simply because I couldn't do anything else; instead, I was making an active choice to be here, and I could leave whenever I wanted to.

You have no idea how much that improved my self-esteem and happiness.  I started treating graduate school as a regular job/career choice rather than the hallowed realm of austere scholars, and to be perfectly frank it is not my first priority in my life.  I am now, as is my husband and my friends and personal and mental health.  Strikingly, this has made me MORE productive rather than less.  I look forward to working on my dissertation (sometimes) because I give myself permission to NOT do it sometimes.  I like discussing the finer points of theory in my field and am passionate about my work because I give myself permission to not think about it when I don't feel like it.  Once I did that, I realized how often it comes to mind unbidden, and realized that I do have a true passion - I just needed to put it in the right perspective.

Also, realize that identity confusion is really common in the mid-20s.  It's not just because you're in grad school; the mid-20s are a prime identity establishing time in the work world these days.  I have lots of friends in that age range and most of us are going through it or have went through it.  I only have one friend who knew exactly what she wanted to do from college through grad school and into her career, and even she had a tough time in grad school.

The point from that is - I'm not saying that you should quit, and I'm not staying that you should stay.  That's a highly personal decision and there's no right or wrong answer.  What I'm saying is that you can probably be happy either way.  You're not trapped; you can figure out what to do if you're not in grad school, as you are a smart and talented individual.  Don't worry about that just yet.  Worry about figuring out whether staying where you are, or doing something else, is the best fit for your personal needs and goals.

Some people choose to go the lower-risk route of taking a leave of absence and getting a job doing something else for a year, just to test the waters.  For some, the break recharges them and they return refreshed and finish up.  I suspect most, however, wanted to leave all along and the full-time job helped them ease out and realize that yes, there really is a world out there besides academia.
 
[i want to write a book about getting through graduate school, and your post amongst others has inspired me to write a chapter on deciding whether to leave in the book.  So many students ask the question, many more probably wonder without outright asking, and I've found that most books about getting through grad school don't address it.  It gives the illusion that everyone slides through easily.  Ha!)

I agree with a good deal of the advice that you've been given in this thread, but I want to add one thing.  People have encouraged getting away from your location more often, and I agree - you need to go see your friends and family to stay sane, and if you have people who are willing to let you sleep on their couch you have only the cost of a plane ticket to contend with.  I have hosted friends from all over the country in my apartment before I moved to one too small to do so.
 
BUT I also wanted to add - learn to love, or at least make your peace with, the place you live.
 
Even if you were able as a grad student to flit off to an exotic locale every weekend, you STILL have to be around M-F to do your work.  But I'm guessing that in reality the most you'll be able to get out will be once every month or so, so you're still going to be spending the majority of the next 3 years of your life in Small Southern Town.  You've got to make your peace with where you live, otherwise you will be miserable and counting the days until you move somewhere else.  And trust me, this is not productive for work - I remember in the middle years of my program, I started to hate the place that I lived and everything about it and I desperately wanted to move somewhere else.  My program is in New York City.  I had dreamed about coming to live here.  Most happiness research shows that people tend to grow where they're planted, and the majority of people can be at least content in most places.  That's not saying that location is not important.  Indeed, I am one of those who would rather give up academia than live somewhere I don't want to live.  What I'm saying is that I think that a lot of us need to change our ideas of what's "undesirable" and open ourselves to embracing a culture that may be slightly different than we envisioned; conversely, we may be a bit wrong about what we think we really want.  I thought I was a big city girl who would thrive in the vertical concrete jungle that is NYC, but I miss trees and cars and horrible shopping malls more than I ever thought I would.
 
My point is - perhaps your feelings about your small Southern town are unconsciously biasing you towards being unhappy there?  (In my middle years of the program, my general unhappiness in my program was definitely directed into anger at NYC.)  There may not be anyone who shares your intellectual interests, but in my experience people are more alike than they are dissimilar, so maybe there are some other hobbies or things you enjoy that you can find friends through.  Or perhaps you discover a new hobby or interest - I joined a social sports league to meet friends in NYC, and I recently started running and there are running clubs EVERYWHERE.  Many of my current friends are employees of the university, actually; many entry-level employees at the university are in their mid-to-late 20s and early 30s.  I met them through working at the school, but if you go to some of the school's sponsored social events you might meet people at all levels.  In fact, at this point in my life I think I am the only one in my close friend group who's still in graduate school.  Perhaps get involved at the university level - run for grad student senator (nobody ever wants to do this!), work in residential life (where I met most of my current close friends), join some other grad student group around.
 
So while I agree with getting away every now and then, you also need to make sure that you are at least content on the days that you're in town.

I started writing a response telling you to leave and why you should leave, but then I realized: I know nothing about you, your values, your area of study, or your future plans. This is a judgement call. As someone who was repelled from a "perfect" research opportunity due to location (also in the south), let me just say this: I don't think your unhappiness with the location is silly. If I were in your situation, I would start looking for opportunities in different locations.

You might be in a 5 year program, but you don't have 5 years left! You're a 2nd year, so you have, what, 3 1/2 or 4 years left?

Now, mental health is a serious issue. It does you no good to stick with the perfect program if you end up needing in-patient therapy. Your program has a selfish interest in your mental well-being, as well. They don't want to be known as the school that gives their grads anxiety disorders along with a degree. Of course, you're getting a PhD. Jobs for PhDs are more along the lines of "beggars can't be choosers" than anything else. There is no guarantee that you will get your PhD and then find a job opening in your comfort zone. There are more Podunk Us than there are cosmopolitan universities.

So, what can you do? That kind of depends on your ability to adapt to your environment. You've been there for a year, probably a year and a half (not counting the time you've been home during break, right?). You've made friends and you've done some things. Cow tipping isn't much fun if you're used to opera (and vice versa). You're, no doubt, still experiencing some culture shock. You're in America, but not like any American you're used to. (These people are totally alien, amirite?)

I think that the first thing you need to do is go to the university's counseling center and get some counseling. You're feeling trapped, rather than bored. A person with a social circle, but not a lot of options for entertainment, would be, in general, bored. That's not you. Trapped is not just feelings of boredom, or feeling like a stranger in a strange land, but also feeling rejected and rejecting at the same time. Trapped is a loss of power, perhaps even a sense of fear and/or distrust in the natives. I was married to the military before I joined it myself. I've moved a ton. Some places felt like a noose around my neck. Other places were just dull.

Once you've spent some time with the counselor and worked your way through your feelings (are you unable to adapt? or do you just need a safe space to work through a foreign subculture?), go speak with your adviser. You're not the first person in the program to have trouble adapting to the small town in the South lifestyle. Tell your adviser that you're having trouble adapting to the culture of the area and ask if s/he has any suggestions for a big city person in a small town world. This will do two things for you: 1) it will give you another person who might have some ideas on how to help you adapt, and 2) your adviser is getting the heads up that your life isn't perfect, so if things do get to the point where you just can't stay a second longer, your adviser won't be surprised by the information.

You obviously have a great student work ethic, so the usual clues about a student in distress aren't appearing. The program likely thinks your world is gravy. If you find a way to diplomatically let them know your life isn't cake (asking for advice is a great way) while also showing (not telling) them that you're doing your absolute best to overcome and adapt, you will have a method to continue to develop their respect and their help, and, if worse comes to worse, they won't get as snitty if you have to leave. This is, of course, assuming that your adviser and professors are normal human beings that have the usual amount of caring for others. Some people are just plain mean and there's nothing you can do about it.

Lastly, see if you can organize a regular trip into the nearest urban area for some fun. A once a month trip to a big city can do wonders. I have a buddy who moved from Brooklyn to Manhattan Kansas. We'd go to Topeka two or three times a month and we'd drag him along once a month. While we did our thing, he'd ride the city bus for an hour. It was enough of home for him to adapt.

A seminar paper is like a regular paper, only longer. A thesis is like a seminar paper, only longer. A dissertation is like a thesis, only longer.

You can get how-to books on writing a thesis, and they can be helpful. You can (and totally should) go to the library and read other comp lit theses. ProQuest runs a searchable, full-text Thesis and Dissertation database. Though really, this sounds more like an invention problem, not a convention problem. Your thesis will have a central argument that you're developing. Do you have that yet? If not, start by writing a list of questions you're into exploring and then do some research to answer those questions. Once you've got that central argument, then create an outline or plan of some sort. You can take the central argument and the plan to your adviser before you get deep into writing. Though, you probably know what you want to do your thesis on. The problem is then how to develop the thesis (what kinds of things do they expect to see)? Make a list of what you think you should cover to develop your argument and take that to your thesis adviser, along with your central argument. That gives you a framework with which to talk about what he wants in your thesis and what you want in your thesis.

Make a bibliography, while you're at it. Annotated can be helpful. Your thesis adviser probably asked for that right off, anyway, or has a reading list from you.

A thesis is a conversation, both in the final product (you and the discourse) and in its creation (you and your thesis committee). Don't be in your thesis adviser's office every single day, but don't do huge chunks without some input. Revision is always necessary, but if you don't have to delete half of it and go in a different direction because you didn't communicate as much with your thesis adviser as you could, that would suck.

So. Can't really help without knowing where you are in the process.

There are a few things you can do.

First, explore non-teaching career options with your current degree and with a PhD in your field. Don't get tunnel vision (it's a psychology degree, see only psychology jobs!). Be a bit creative with it. Someone with a psychology degree might find themselves uniquely situated to be a lobbyist, work middle-management, become part of the blogorati, become a movie director, do international diplomacy, and so on. The lack of debt puts you in a wonderful position, particularly if you can keep it up. If all you have to look forward to is a job you're less sure you're interested in (teaching at a university) that you'll have to compete with everyone and their dog for, of course you're going to get depressed and think you're not interested in your field. Stifled prospects means stifled creativity. Being a first year, this also gives you options to take courses that might help you out. Our hypothetical psychologist could take political science courses to broaden their job market appeal. Departments are very aware of hiring situations and they're ranking and prestige depends on not only quality graduates, but quality, employed graduates. If you can find some potential employment prospects outside of academia that interest you that might require a few non-departmental classes, that's something you need to discuss with your adviser so you can get into a more interdisciplinary route, if you like.

Second, take the summer off and turn it into your 'gap year'. Instead of hitch-hiking across Europe (it was the thing to do in the 60s) or going home and taking up a part-time job, use that time to explore further interests. If our hypothetical psychologist was interested in lobbying or diplomacy, spending a week or two in Washington DC or NYC and the UN might generate some ideas and, perhaps, a renewed interest in the program. If you can't come up with any interests at all, use the summer to do nothing at all. Go lay in a hammock and read trashy novels all day long. Plan to go back in the fall, but don't make it a gotta-do thing. If you find yourself getting completely sick at the thought of going back once August rolls around, give yourself permission to drop out, or to go talk to your adviser about sitting out the fall semester for your mental health. (Your psychologist can help you with this.)

Third, keep in mind that for the 24 years you've been around, you've been in school for, what, 20 of them? Everyone gets burned out. I have no idea of it's possible, but you might see if there's a way for you to take a gap year of sorts. Maybe get into the Fulbright Scholarship program where, instead of going to school, you go to another country and teach English for a year, or some other "study abroad" or "humanitarian" thing that universities are always encouraging students to do. Doing something interesting, worthwhile, and, more importantly, not your program of study, can give your brain a break. This break might be enough for you to get enough distance so that you can make a decision about whether or not to drop out without wondering if you're doing it because of First Year Blues or whatnot.

Fourth, check out what kinds of opportunities are available to you with the degree you have. What jobs are out there? What can you do with it if you drop out? Don't just think "Join the Army!" because, really, the Navy is less stressful on your joints. Maybe you need to move to a different field. Maybe you need to open a small business. Maybe you need to join the Peace Corps.

Fifth, you're seeing a counselor, great!, but don't listen to the people who tell you that it's just a first year thing. They mean well, but it doesn't feel good to have your feelings dismissed like that. Sure, most first years go through this kind of existential crisis. Sure, all of us get burned out at some point and wonder WTF am I Doing to myself! We daydream of the joy that baristas must feel. Whether or not you're feeling the perfectly normal thing we all feel at some point or not isn't nearly as material as the fact that you are feeling it. There is nothing wrong with feeling the way that you do. Give yourself permission to feel that way. Give yourself permission to realistically consider changing your life trajectory (don't call it dropping out). Give yourself permission to do what's right for your future, not what other people think you need to do, or worse, what you think other people think you need to do. The people who matter, the ones who really do care about you, are the people who would rather that you have a life where you feel good about yourself rather than a life where you're suffering because you got backed into the "can't quit" mentality based on plans you made when you were a teenager. Only in a PhD program would someone feel horrifically guilty for not sticking to long-term, expensive plans based on teenaged dreams. Give yourself permission to make mature, adult choices based on realistic assessments of yourself, your future, and your interests. There is a catch: right now, you don't have any interests, so you can't make mature, adult choices. I'm intensely interested in physics and I regularly mourn my not-in-a-physics-program life. However, if I dropped my English program, I could do so in a reasoned out way supported by evidence and research because I would be able to say that as much as I love writing, I also love physics, and I notice that the work that I'm doing know is focused on physics. (It's not, because I'm actually doing sociology in an English program, cool, huh?) You can't do that because you've lost interest.

Sixth, consider medication. I'm assuming that the word psychologist means that you haven't seen a psychiatrist. A lot of people reject anti-depressants for a variety of very good reasons. However, you're well aware that you're depressed and that you have no interests, not even in whatever it was that drove you to start a PhD program. Depression will suck the life right out of you. Medication for depression can return your body to the proper chemical balance it needs in order for your thoughts and feelings to function optimally. Your lack of interest is likely to be more of a chemical problem than an emotional one. A few months of your body being un-depressed can help you get into a place where you can make decisions for yourself. Talk to your psychologist or your doctor.

You might be in a 5 year program, but you don't have 5 years left! You're a 2nd year, so you have, what, 3 1/2 or 4 years left?

Now, mental health is a serious issue. It does you no good to stick with the perfect program if you end up needing in-patient therapy. Your program has a selfish interest in your mental well-being, as well. They don't want to be known as the school that gives their grads anxiety disorders along with a degree. Of course, you're getting a PhD. Jobs for PhDs are more along the lines of "beggars can't be choosers" than anything else. There is no guarantee that you will get your PhD and then find a job opening in your comfort zone. There are more Podunk Us than there are cosmopolitan universities.

So, what can you do? That kind of depends on your ability to adapt to your environment. You've been there for a year, probably a year and a half (not counting the time you've been home during break, right?). You've made friends and you've done some things. Cow tipping isn't much fun if you're used to opera (and vice versa). You're, no doubt, still experiencing some culture shock. You're in America, but not like any American you're used to. (These people are totally alien, amirite?)

I think that the first thing you need to do is go to the university's counseling center and get some counseling. You're feeling trapped, rather than bored. A person with a social circle, but not a lot of options for entertainment, would be, in general, bored. That's not you. Trapped is not just feelings of boredom, or feeling like a stranger in a strange land, but also feeling rejected and rejecting at the same time. Trapped is a loss of power, perhaps even a sense of fear and/or distrust in the natives. I was married to the military before I joined it myself. I've moved a ton. Some places felt like a noose around my neck. Other places were just dull.

Once you've spent some time with the counselor and worked your way through your feelings (are you unable to adapt? or do you just need a safe space to work through a foreign subculture?), go speak with your adviser. You're not the first person in the program to have trouble adapting to the small town in the South lifestyle. Tell your adviser that you're having trouble adapting to the culture of the area and ask if s/he has any suggestions for a big city person in a small town world. This will do two things for you: 1) it will give you another person who might have some ideas on how to help you adapt, and 2) your adviser is getting the heads up that your life isn't perfect, so if things do get to the point where you just can't stay a second longer, your adviser won't be surprised by the information.

You obviously have a great student work ethic, so the usual clues about a student in distress aren't appearing. The program likely thinks your world is gravy. If you find a way to diplomatically let them know your life isn't cake (asking for advice is a great way) while also showing (not telling) them that you're doing your absolute best to overcome and adapt, you will have a method to continue to develop their respect and their help, and, if worse comes to worse, they won't get as snitty if you have to leave. This is, of course, assuming that your adviser and professors are normal human beings that have the usual amount of caring for others. Some people are just plain mean and there's nothing you can do about it.

Lastly, see if you can organize a regular trip into the nearest urban area for some fun. A once a month trip to a big city can do wonders. I have a buddy who moved from Brooklyn to Manhattan Kansas. We'd go to Topeka two or three times a month and we'd drag him along once a month. While we did our thing, he'd ride the city bus for an hour. It was enough of home for him to adapt.

You might be in a 5 year program, but you don't have 5 years left! You're a 2nd year, so you have, what, 3 1/2 or 4 years left?

Now, mental health is a serious issue. It does you no good to stick with the perfect program if you end up needing in-patient therapy. Your program has a selfish interest in your mental well-being, as well. They don't want to be known as the school that gives their grads anxiety disorders along with a degree. Of course, you're getting a PhD. Jobs for PhDs are more along the lines of "beggars can't be choosers" than anything else. There is no guarantee that you will get your PhD and then find a job opening in your comfort zone. There are more Podunk Us than there are cosmopolitan universities.

So, what can you do? That kind of depends on your ability to adapt to your environment. You've been there for a year, probably a year and a half (not counting the time you've been home during break, right?). You've made friends and you've done some things. Cow tipping isn't much fun if you're used to opera (and vice versa). You're, no doubt, still experiencing some culture shock. You're in America, but not like any American you're used to. (These people are totally alien, amirite?)

I think that the first thing you need to do is go to the university's counseling center and get some counseling. You're feeling trapped, rather than bored. A person with a social circle, but not a lot of options for entertainment, would be, in general, bored. That's not you. Trapped is not just feelings of boredom, or feeling like a stranger in a strange land, but also feeling rejected and rejecting at the same time. Trapped is a loss of power, perhaps even a sense of fear and/or distrust in the natives. I was married to the military before I joined it myself. I've moved a ton. Some places felt like a noose around my neck. Other places were just dull.

Once you've spent some time with the counselor and worked your way through your feelings (are you unable to adapt? or do you just need a safe space to work through a foreign subculture?), go speak with your adviser. You're not the first person in the program to have trouble adapting to the small town in the South lifestyle. Tell your adviser that you're having trouble adapting to the culture of the area and ask if s/he has any suggestions for a big city person in a small town world. This will do two things for you: 1) it will give you another person who might have some ideas on how to help you adapt, and 2) your adviser is getting the heads up that your life isn't perfect, so if things do get to the point where you just can't stay a second longer, your adviser won't be surprised by the information.

You obviously have a great student work ethic, so the usual clues about a student in distress aren't appearing. The program likely thinks your world is gravy. If you find a way to diplomatically let them know your life isn't cake (asking for advice is a great way) while also showing (not telling) them that you're doing your absolute best to overcome and adapt, you will have a method to continue to develop their respect and their help, and, if worse comes to worse, they won't get as snitty if you have to leave. This is, of course, assuming that your adviser and professors are normal human beings that have the usual amount of caring for others. Some people are just plain mean and there's nothing you can do about it.

Lastly, see if you can organize a regular trip into the nearest urban area for some fun. A once a month trip to a big city can do wonders. I have a buddy who moved from Brooklyn to Manhattan Kansas. We'd go to Topeka two or three times a month and we'd drag him along once a month. While we did our thing, he'd ride the city bus for an hour. It was enough of home for him to adapt.

Ohhh. I see. As in, structure ect. Well one thing you might ask your advisor is a copy of his/her previous students thesis. You might also skim other thesis from your school, usually they are published online or at the library. http://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Master's-Thesis that has a quick and dirty guide. I would also do a bit more googling.

Before you get a dog, find out what the laws are about dogs. In my current town, it's against the law for a dog to be chained up outside to a fixed object (post, tree, fence, whatever) for any reason for any length of time, even if supervised. A dog may be tied to a trolley system, but only while a person old enough to be responsible is on the premises. So, people with dogs in my town have to make plans for that. In my previous town, the rule was that if you let the feral cat live on your property for more than 3 days, it was legally your responsibility. In most locations, it's against the law to own a snake longer than 6 feet in length without a permit.

And so on.

Most people never think to check city ordinances about pets before blithely getting one.

This is true, but in the sciences, the whole point of the PhD program is to train you to be an independent researcher, producing new knowledge. You don't have to be at this stage to get into the grad school. You just need to demonstrate ability and potential to be an independent researcher. One step at a time!

Emily Post roolz. The general etiquette when it comes to addressing someone is to use the last name until invited to do so otherwise either directly or indirectly. If a person introduces themselves or is introduced by their first name, that's an invitation. I have one professor who said grad students use her first name because we're colleagues. I have another who is Dr. ____ only to students, and first name to other faculty.
 
It's best to err on the side of etiquette in a new situation.

Significant? That isn't an issue. Anything can be significant. What might be an issue is repetition. For example, I once had a great idea for a paper. I had my argument, and what I wanted to discuss planned. I spoke with the professor about it, and he liked it. Then I went out and did some research for the theoretical background. And found out that 8 other people had already written that paper. They were all different, but the arguments were the same and so were the points. The topic itself was very narrow, so there are very limited ways to talk about it, and those ways had been done several times. I would not have added anything knew to the topic. I wrote a different paper on a different topic. Right now, there is a lot of academic discussion (in the form of papers and theses) about the use of social media in the revolutions that have taken place in the Middle East. Many people are writing about the same thing, but in different ways. It's a broad topic with a lot of ways of looking at the same thing. Unlike my paper, which had a topic too narrow to not repeat someone else's argument completely, social media in the Middle East is very broad, and there are many view points that can add to the topic.
 
When you choose something to study, it doesn't matter if other people think it's important enough to study or not. When Isaac Newton noticed that an apple hits the ground when it falls from a tree, many people would have thought this insignificant and not worth study. It happens all the time, right? But he studied it anyway. If it's important to you, it's important enough to study. The question then becomes, can you add something new to the discussion on your topic? Even if it may not seem like it immediately, it's almost always possible. Very few topics are so narrow that they've been done to death. People have been writing papers about certain topics for thousands of years. The Talmud, the Hadith, and so on. Adding to the discussion does not mean doing something no one has done before, but looking at it in a different way.
 
pears is correct. The topic you're looking at, cyberspace in your homeland, is huge. The problem with cyberspace in a single country is that there are many, many, many things to study. pears is advising you to focus on one thing about cyberspace. Pick a few things about cyberspace and your homeland that interest you. For each thing, write an argument, that is, write a single sentence that tells your opinion of the thing. For example, if my topic were about video games in my culture, I might focus on things like: how online game environments change the way players define friendship, or how some game players emulate the personality of their favorite video game character. I could then write a sentence (argument) like so: Online game environments, like Call of Duty or Halo, change the way game players define friendship because game friends are also allies in a war simulation, and these allies are people that game players must trust to work with them to accomplish the game's objective.
 
Take the sentences (arguments) that you are most interested in to your adviser. If you cannot express your argument in one sentence, the topic should be narrowed down so that your thesis will have a strong focus.

This makes some sense.

It is illegal for a school to require tuition for nothing. If courses are not offered in the summer, tuition should not be paid. Period. Tuition is the costs of taking classes, not the costs of maintaining a certain status. If they want to charge a fee to maintain admissions status, that would be different. But you can't charge for classes not delivered.

There are no serious tax implications involved in not taking classes in the summer and not maintaining full time status in the summer. The only tax implications I could possibly think of for not taking summer classes is not having that semester's worth of tuition as a deduction on annual taxes.

However, since a school can get in all manner of trouble from the federal government for playing fast and loose with financial thing, I think that either the OP got her wires crossed about having to pay tuition, but not having any classes to take, or the OP needs to drop by the school's finance office before heading over to the ombudsman, or the Department of Education.

The school sounds very strange, the way they do business.

I'm a good wife and mother.

My qualities as a wife: I am a whole person without him. I love him and I have trouble sleeping without him there (seriously, it's a pain), but I do not need him to be happy and fulfilled. I am also smart, funny, loyal, cute, cook and back, and have a great rack. I am also mean, sadistic, spiteful, and love to wallow in a good bout of schadenfreude. I don't do laundry and I have been known to throw all of the dishes out rather than wash them.

There is nothing worse than being in a relationship with someone who cannot be whole by themselves. There's a difference between being lonely and being so desperate for a relationship that the other person has to be the source of a person's self-worth, sense of value, and reason for living. (Before you protest, Pinkseter/Corrupted Innocence, print off your statements on this thread and show them to your therapist.) Lonely people are not so desperate for a relationship that they'll do anything to be in one (your words, not mine); lonely people want a relationship, but they don't need one. Desperate people want a relationship and they really, really don't need one because a relationship based on emotional dependency is toxic.

My qualities as a mother: He made to legal adulthood in good health, no trouble with the law, with prospects for the future, and isn't (currently) a burden on society. He can balance his checkbook and find the DMV by himself. He also drives like a little old lady and can do his own laundry. He has no idea where the barber is, though. Can't win 'em all.

I popped that slime-coated ur-human out by myself. He was a bit early, but the placenta was tres cool looking. It was like a purplish, deflated basketball with veins. I could totally see the horror movie thing going on, just give it eyes and teeth. Vagina Dentata for realsies!

But. He wasn't mine, completely and totally mine. He was his own person. Sure, I taught him that there's no such thing as bad sci-fi, but he won't watch Star Trek TOS; he prefers Godzilla (good gravy, where did I go wrong?!) and he doesn't know who Surak is. I kid you not. He's got my eyes, my intelligence, and my ADHD, but he did not find Fight Club amusing and he hates math (yeah, I'd think he was switched at birth, too, but he was the only boy on the ward). I love him dearly and he loves me dearly, but he's still not mine. He's living in another state, now, and it hurts, but it's right for him.

Kids grow up. Husbands have their own lives to lead, their own work, their own friends, and their hobbies. What do desperate people do when their spouse wants to go watch the game with friends (try to tag along or, worse, provide a curfew)?

Pinkster/Corrupted Innocence (this new name is very Twilight Fan Girl), you might have great qualities that make you great (as Loric put it) husband-bait. But you have one singular quality that makes you husband-bane: desperation. You've consistently shown desperation and you've said you're desperate. Not using hyperbole to talk about being lonely and looking to change that situation, but actually desperate. If anything, your use of the word desperate is an understatement.

You are not speaking of your future man in terms of a real relationship. You're speaking of your future man in terms of an Edward and Bella and Jacob relationship. Which you probably think is romantic and wonderful and cried at the end. Edward and Bella have a horrific relationship of manipulation, co-dependency, and a mutual inability to be healthy. Jacob is even worse. Men are not stupid people and the kind of man you want for a husband (a good man who is caring, loving, and will provide for the family) is the kind of man that runs screaming, the other way, when a desperate woman starts making cow eyes at him.

Seriously. Print off this thread and your other I-want-a-relationship threads and take it to your therapist. Or send him/her a link.

First, my credentials. Well. I can spell my own name, though I don't usually know exactly how old I am. I'm within a year or two, but I'm usually wrong until I've done some subtraction. I teach composition and like to write calculus equations on the board when I take classes in poetry writing. But, here's my real credentials: consider what is written herein in conjunction with what the various instructions on SOPs that you've read have said, with the requirements the program you are applying to has put forth, and with your own experience as a writer. Do you think I know what I'm talking about? Should you pay any attention to it? Is any of it useful?
 
Second, I'm not going to give you a formula for what the standard SOP is like, or a list of things the various thousands of admissions committees will be looking for. There are plenty of prescriptions on the internet, many of them written by professors who have presumably gotten sick of badly written SOPs.
 
Third, I'm not promising that SOP writing be easier after this. It'll be harder, actually. I'm not promising that you'll get in to any place you desire, or that there is any one best thing to put in the SOP to get noticed. That would be totally impossible. Each discipline has its own needs and values, as does each university, each department, and each faculty member on the admissions committee (adcomm). There is no one size and it doesn't fit most, let alone all. There are conventions (use Standard English, for one), but other than include your research interests, I won't advocate that any one thing is strictly necessary. I leave that up to the more knowledgeable.
 
The advice:
 
First thing is to deeply understand that you should write an SOP for each program. Most people take this to mean write one master SOP and then tweak as necessary to make the one SOP applicable to each university (U of A becomes U of B, Professor X becomes Professor Y). You can do that. You can be very successful doing that. You most likely, really shouldn't do it.
 
The next thing to understand is the SOP's purpose. Why do the adcomms want to see SOPs? Shouldn't transcripts, letters of recommendation, and a writing sample do it? After all, transcripts and samples show the actual scholarship and the letters verify it. The SOP isn't for showing scholarship off, or to act like a resume, or anything. So why do the adcomms want an SOP? Why are the SOPs one of those make-it-or-fail things? What is the SOP's purpose? In job hunting terms, the SOP is like a cover letter. The cover letter is to make clear connections between the resume and the job ad. For you, its primary purpose is to make the adcomm offer you admission with full funding. For the adcomm, its primary purpose is to help them see how you would fit into their program (make connections between their program and you). By fit, I mean do they have faculty (or enough faculty) in your area of research interest that can advise, mentor, supervise, and/or committee you through the program to get your degree? Do you have the kind of understanding of the discipline, your research interests, and their program that would make you successful? Do they have something to teach you? Offer you? What can you offer them? They want to brag on you as much as you want to brag about them. If they offer you admission, will you be a good scholar? A good student? Here is the most basic question the SOP should answer: What is it about you that makes you a better prospect than everyone else who's applying?
 
Understanding the SOP's purpose, in practical terms, means that you will know what to put into it and what to leave out of it. And how to phrase it.
 
So, with the purpose in mind, there comes the question: what should you put into it and leave out of it? What format should you use? (MLA? APA? Is footnoting okay?! What about citation?!) Should I stick in a personal story that everyone seems to recommend, except for the half that don't? My research interests? The story about why I got on F in that one, very important class? I'm not going to answer those questions because I can't. Every discipline and department is different. I will give you an answer you won't like: research. Find out the requirements each program you're interested in has for the SOP, think of the SOP's purpose: and now research.
 
Research is one of the basic keys to writing an SOP. It's no different than the writing sample you'll be including in your application packet. For each program you apply to, do some research. How much research you need to do depends on a lot of things, the least of which is your personality. More research does not automatically mean a better SOP. Less research doesn't automatically mean a better one, either. What makes the right amount of research? The ability to craft an SOP that is specific for the program that you're getting into. Here's some ideas (not an exhaustive, inclusive list of what to do) on what to research:
The program itself. Look at the recent graduates and, if possible, read their theses and/or dissertations, at least in part. The acknowledgements can give you an idea about the program's culture. The introduction can give you an idea about what kind of scholarship the program produces and expects. It will also, and this is very important, give you an idea as to how the program uses language. If you speak to them in their own language, that helps your case. You've likely done this, if not, seriously, you should have done this. Look at the program's website and read it all. What kind of classes are offered for both undergrad and grad. Who are the faculty, the tenured, the assistant, the visiting, the emeritus, and the graduate students. What kind of ties to the community (both academic and their local town) do they like to talk about? Do they talk about how their graduate students are working with community partners? Do they host conferences? What happened at the last one? This gives you a taste of the program's culture. The faculty. All of them that might be on the adcomm and the ones that are relevant or somewhat relevant to your interests. Crack open JSTOR etc. and search for recent faculty publications. If you're basing your interest on a faculty member on the interests they've got listed on the site and a reference to them in an article from a decade ago, or worse, only their reputation, you don't have a strong basis to establish clear reasons why they have anything to offer you. Read their recent publications, see who they name drop in terms of theory, other faculty, and so on. Make a list of what each faculty member can offer you in terms of research, not just the ones that are directly related to it. If you're into studying apples, but Dr. V works with oranges, think about how Dr. V's work might help you out. Take notes when you research. Each program has a bunch of people, and you're likely applying to multiple programs. It's easier to refer to notes than to go back and look it up all over again. What's happening in the field with your current research interests, if necessary. This is so you can situate your research interests in the discipline, and then situation your research interests in the program. You can just tell them what you're research interests are and leave the situating to them, but you can lose that chance to sell yourself as the best amongst the rest. Research you. Yup. You. Scribble out some lists or paragraphs or whatever that inventories you. Who are your influences? Who are the theorists you keep coming back to? Who are the theorists you loathe, mock, and/or ridicule? What are your research interests in general and specifically and anywhere in between? Some SOPs will need to be more general, some will need to be more specific. Length restrictions, what you found out about the program, the faculty, the state of the discipline, and so on, can alter this for you. What kind of scholar are you? Student? What's the difference? How do you manage your time? Stress? Health? Do you expect to bring your dog? Do you have health issues? Do you have any academic things that are a negative? If you do, how negative are they? It's easy to see that as an either it's entirely bad, or it's somewhere in the huge good category, but some things are negatives that need to be addressed for certain programs, while other negatives can be ignored, or you should discuss with the one relevant letter writer so they can address it. While Sam ultimately received a C in the Research Methods course, the grade doesn't reflect the actual scholarship as Sam fell ill during the mid-term and consequently failed it; my course policies do not permit re-taking the test. What are the good things about you? Not just the grades, awards, publications, and presentations, but also the character traits. What are you weaknesses? Don't do the job interview baloney, my greatest weakness is my perfectionism. Of course, the important, probably ought to be on the SOP questions: why grad school? What will you do with the degree you want? Why are into the research you're into? Why that particular school? Why are you worth admission and funding?
 
Research the assistanceships. Some SOPs will want you to write a bit about teaching or research with assistanceships in mind. So, do a bit of research on what these entail in the programs you're looking at. What do they do and how do they get it? Have you done assistanceships in the past? If so, what were they like? Do you have a teaching philosophy? If not, make one. Have you done anything that can be discussed in terms of the assistanceship? I taught kung-fu to white belt children, so I have teaching experience. I was part of the state herpetological society and went out to help them with their field counts twice a year. I learned that licking petrie dishes is always a bad idea, no matter how much they resemble pistachio ice cream.
 
Research SOPs. You're doing that, right? Go on to forums (like this one) and read the SOPs people have posted and then read the responses. Look particularly at SOPs in your discipline or related disciplines. Psychology might look at other social sciences. Physics might tell the joke about the Higgs Boson and Sunday mass. Bear in mind that the people responding to and/or criticizing the posted SOPs are likely not on an adcomm. Some have been  or will be, but it's not likely they'll be on the adcomm you're hoping will like you best. However, you can start to get a sense of what SOPs are like. What format is it in? Does yours look like everyone else's? Do you have the exact same opening sentence as half of the people hoping to get into a program in your discipline? I've always wanted to be a librarian since those wonderful, summer days I spent in my (relative of choice)'s home library. 
 
So, to take stock. First, understand the purpose. Second, research. A lot. Let the purpose of the SOP guide your research efforts.
 
Next, get the specific requirements for the SOP from each program. Make a list of similarities. If they all ask for a statement of your research interest, score! One sentence fits most! Most of them will be of different lengths and will have different ideas of what specific information they want. Most won't tell you enough, aside from length and one or two "should have" things. They mostly won't tell you if you should use APA or if you should footnote, or how to format it. Single space? Double space? They will tell you whether it should be on paper or what kind of file format to use. I have only one suggestion: consistency. Okay, two suggestions: unless otherwise specified, don't include anything other than the SOP. No bibliography or footnotes. If you quote or paraphrase someone, cite them in the text the way they do it in the average newspaper article. As Scooby says, "Ruh-roh!"
 
Now, start writing. Create something of a master SOP, or a set of master sentences for the SOPs. Some things should be in every one of them, like what your research interests are. Because length requirements are different for each program, you should work out more than one sentence or set of sentences for each thing you plan to put into more than one SOP. Have a more detailed explanation of your research interests and a more concise one. Even though this might be central and, perhaps, most important to the SOP, you don't want most of a short SOP taken up by one thing. Make these sentences do extra duties. If they can explain not only why you're into what you're into, but also why it's significant to the discipline/program, and how the program factors into it, bonus! The more functions one sentence can serve, with clear, readable logic, the more room you have in the length requirements to bring in other things. Think of this master SOP as more of a set of sentences you can hang on the individual SOP's unique structure. A flesh and skeleton metaphor can work here. You can order all SOPs at this point, you'll probably want to put research interests in the middle or toward the end, rather than in the first sentence, but the key here is that the skeleton of the individual SOP and most of its flesh will come from the needs of the program you're writing it for, not from some predetermined formula. No generically applicable, master SOP that has a few tweaks here and there.
 
Here's the thing. The SOP is one of the most important documents you'll write in your life. It's not something that should be done in a few hours, after looking at the program website and spending some time on the net searching for a how-to-write-an-SOP-guide. It takes work backed by research. The readers can tell quite easily how much research you've done on them by the way you structure and write your SOP. They can tell if you're sending out a generic SOP to several programs because it will be too general. You can't change faculty names in and out, along with a detail or two that makes it seem tailored to the program. The individual SOP should be tailored from the beginning. Some sentences won't change much, so you can pre-write them. But how they fit into each SOP, the reasoning you'll use to try to convince the adcomm that you're the best applicant, and the perspective you'll take all the way to the words you use should be done with the program in mind. It shouldn't be generic. Even if it doesn't seem noticeably generic to you, that doesn't mean that the adcomm won't notice it. They read many, many SOPs every year. People who read SOPs develop a sense about the generic, the cut and paste work.
 
How to name drop gracefully, or bring up the theory and histories and whatnot you're working with when there's only a teeny amount of space for everything? That's a bit easier than it might seem. It's not in the explanation; it's in the usage. If you can use the relevant theories and people and methodologies correctly in a sentence, you don't have to show the adcomm that you know how to use them, or how they're related, by explaining it. Trust them to have enough education to make a few connections for themselves when it comes to the discipline. Example: Novels such as Twilight exemplify how Marxist alienation can be applied to childbirth. My research interest lies in the alienation of women from the product of delivery in Modernist American fiction, such as Faulkner's Sound and the Fury. (Huh, I wonder if that would really work?) Two sentences and I've referenced theory, period, history, relevance for today, and some methodology (it's literature, not science). Use it, don't explain it.
 
If possible, have a professor you know read the SOP to your preferred school and give you some advice. They know more than most other groups of people. If not possible, your current university's writing center can help, or other people who are familiar with the field, or with writing. Your high school English teacher or your English major buddy can probably say something about your grammar, but might not be as helpful as expected. Example, in English, the convention is to speak of historical people in present tense. Shakespeare writes, "To be or not to be," because he thinks it is the question. History has kittens. Shakespeare has been dead for centuries, he can't write! Past tense! Shakespeare wrote, "To be or not to be," because thought it was the question. Someone in the field is preferable!
 
Finally, a word about my real credentials. The adcomm is going to do to your application what you've just done with this post. They are going to judge your credentials (your ethos, trustworthiness, veracity, credibility, knowledge, and so on) based on the impressions they get of you from what you've written. So, be knowledgeable about you, your field, and the program, and use that knowledge well.

I'm a good wife and mother.

My qualities as a wife: I am a whole person without him. I love him and I have trouble sleeping without him there (seriously, it's a pain), but I do not need him to be happy and fulfilled. I am also smart, funny, loyal, cute, cook and back, and have a great rack. I am also mean, sadistic, spiteful, and love to wallow in a good bout of schadenfreude. I don't do laundry and I have been known to throw all of the dishes out rather than wash them.

There is nothing worse than being in a relationship with someone who cannot be whole by themselves. There's a difference between being lonely and being so desperate for a relationship that the other person has to be the source of a person's self-worth, sense of value, and reason for living. (Before you protest, Pinkseter/Corrupted Innocence, print off your statements on this thread and show them to your therapist.) Lonely people are not so desperate for a relationship that they'll do anything to be in one (your words, not mine); lonely people want a relationship, but they don't need one. Desperate people want a relationship and they really, really don't need one because a relationship based on emotional dependency is toxic.

My qualities as a mother: He made to legal adulthood in good health, no trouble with the law, with prospects for the future, and isn't (currently) a burden on society. He can balance his checkbook and find the DMV by himself. He also drives like a little old lady and can do his own laundry. He has no idea where the barber is, though. Can't win 'em all.

I popped that slime-coated ur-human out by myself. He was a bit early, but the placenta was tres cool looking. It was like a purplish, deflated basketball with veins. I could totally see the horror movie thing going on, just give it eyes and teeth. Vagina Dentata for realsies!

But. He wasn't mine, completely and totally mine. He was his own person. Sure, I taught him that there's no such thing as bad sci-fi, but he won't watch Star Trek TOS; he prefers Godzilla (good gravy, where did I go wrong?!) and he doesn't know who Surak is. I kid you not. He's got my eyes, my intelligence, and my ADHD, but he did not find Fight Club amusing and he hates math (yeah, I'd think he was switched at birth, too, but he was the only boy on the ward). I love him dearly and he loves me dearly, but he's still not mine. He's living in another state, now, and it hurts, but it's right for him.

Kids grow up. Husbands have their own lives to lead, their own work, their own friends, and their hobbies. What do desperate people do when their spouse wants to go watch the game with friends (try to tag along or, worse, provide a curfew)?

Pinkster/Corrupted Innocence (this new name is very Twilight Fan Girl), you might have great qualities that make you great (as Loric put it) husband-bait. But you have one singular quality that makes you husband-bane: desperation. You've consistently shown desperation and you've said you're desperate. Not using hyperbole to talk about being lonely and looking to change that situation, but actually desperate. If anything, your use of the word desperate is an understatement.

You are not speaking of your future man in terms of a real relationship. You're speaking of your future man in terms of an Edward and Bella and Jacob relationship. Which you probably think is romantic and wonderful and cried at the end. Edward and Bella have a horrific relationship of manipulation, co-dependency, and a mutual inability to be healthy. Jacob is even worse. Men are not stupid people and the kind of man you want for a husband (a good man who is caring, loving, and will provide for the family) is the kind of man that runs screaming, the other way, when a desperate woman starts making cow eyes at him.

Seriously. Print off this thread and your other I-want-a-relationship threads and take it to your therapist. Or send him/her a link.

I know a dude with an IQ that got him into Mensa and the Triple Nine Society (or would have it he'd been more on the ball). He's a complete moron. He's the opposite of smart. He makes smart look like an achievement only rocks fail at.

I've got the same kind of numbers (inherited genes, go figure), but what difference does that make? Well, it's easier for me to read and understand a scholarly journal. And. Yeah, that's about it. I'm better at reasoning things out in a shorter period of time than the other 99%. Big. Fat. So what? Who cares? Last semester, I created an exam that was worth 5 points. It had three sections to complete. Section One was worth 1 point, section two worth 2 points, and section 3 worth 3 points.

I may be quantitatively smarter than most people. I am not, in any conceivable way, better to anyone else. I am better at being me, but that's about it. Sure, I can get all snooty about my IQ, but my IQ is not my fault so it's kind of like acting as if I'm somehow a fabulous person because I was born with eyes.

I'm a good wife and mother.

My qualities as a wife: I am a whole person without him. I love him and I have trouble sleeping without him there (seriously, it's a pain), but I do not need him to be happy and fulfilled. I am also smart, funny, loyal, cute, cook and back, and have a great rack. I am also mean, sadistic, spiteful, and love to wallow in a good bout of schadenfreude. I don't do laundry and I have been known to throw all of the dishes out rather than wash them.

There is nothing worse than being in a relationship with someone who cannot be whole by themselves. There's a difference between being lonely and being so desperate for a relationship that the other person has to be the source of a person's self-worth, sense of value, and reason for living. (Before you protest, Pinkseter/Corrupted Innocence, print off your statements on this thread and show them to your therapist.) Lonely people are not so desperate for a relationship that they'll do anything to be in one (your words, not mine); lonely people want a relationship, but they don't need one. Desperate people want a relationship and they really, really don't need one because a relationship based on emotional dependency is toxic.

My qualities as a mother: He made to legal adulthood in good health, no trouble with the law, with prospects for the future, and isn't (currently) a burden on society. He can balance his checkbook and find the DMV by himself. He also drives like a little old lady and can do his own laundry. He has no idea where the barber is, though. Can't win 'em all.

I popped that slime-coated ur-human out by myself. He was a bit early, but the placenta was tres cool looking. It was like a purplish, deflated basketball with veins. I could totally see the horror movie thing going on, just give it eyes and teeth. Vagina Dentata for realsies!

But. He wasn't mine, completely and totally mine. He was his own person. Sure, I taught him that there's no such thing as bad sci-fi, but he won't watch Star Trek TOS; he prefers Godzilla (good gravy, where did I go wrong?!) and he doesn't know who Surak is. I kid you not. He's got my eyes, my intelligence, and my ADHD, but he did not find Fight Club amusing and he hates math (yeah, I'd think he was switched at birth, too, but he was the only boy on the ward). I love him dearly and he loves me dearly, but he's still not mine. He's living in another state, now, and it hurts, but it's right for him.

Kids grow up. Husbands have their own lives to lead, their own work, their own friends, and their hobbies. What do desperate people do when their spouse wants to go watch the game with friends (try to tag along or, worse, provide a curfew)?

Pinkster/Corrupted Innocence (this new name is very Twilight Fan Girl), you might have great qualities that make you great (as Loric put it) husband-bait. But you have one singular quality that makes you husband-bane: desperation. You've consistently shown desperation and you've said you're desperate. Not using hyperbole to talk about being lonely and looking to change that situation, but actually desperate. If anything, your use of the word desperate is an understatement.

You are not speaking of your future man in terms of a real relationship. You're speaking of your future man in terms of an Edward and Bella and Jacob relationship. Which you probably think is romantic and wonderful and cried at the end. Edward and Bella have a horrific relationship of manipulation, co-dependency, and a mutual inability to be healthy. Jacob is even worse. Men are not stupid people and the kind of man you want for a husband (a good man who is caring, loving, and will provide for the family) is the kind of man that runs screaming, the other way, when a desperate woman starts making cow eyes at him.

Seriously. Print off this thread and your other I-want-a-relationship threads and take it to your therapist. Or send him/her a link.

There's some good news: you have better odds of getting into an Ivy than you do of getting a job at the new Washington DC Walmart stores.

I don't have a problem with it, but I can see why it's annoying. It's slang at worst and jargon at best, which makes it too informal for professional communication. "Best" does not express the full thought, leaving the reader to choose a completed thought for themselves. Best wishes? Best of luck? Best Buy? What? Frankly, it's lazy, but academia does have its own version of corporatespeak.

ur lyk sooooooooooo rgt brosef y shud ne1 uze email dec0rm 2 wrt a pr0f itz no bigD 2 rit lyk u tak r txt cuz decorum iz wht 0ld p33ps do whn dey try 2 b cool

FYI: Digital Natives are worse at being "tech-savvy" than Gen-X. I have to teach too many of them how to use a UI that doesn't resemble the home screen of their smart phones. One (not the CompSci guy, either) knew what rooting an Android meant. None of them knew how to do more with Word than open, type, and save in the native format. Many of them don't know what the word "browser" means, unless its referred to by its app name (firefox, chrome, etc.) so most of them fail hard with unfriendly apps like Blackboard and then whine and cry about it. Tech-savvy my shiny hiney. Digital Natives will use devices first, and will expect instant access to anything. Just because they're more comfortable reading Moby Dick on an app than in a book doesn't mean that they know jack about how to actually work tech better than us old farts.

Get off my lawn! Damn whippersnappers. Back in my day, I actually had to use paper. And share a single phone line with everyone in the house. And it was attached to a wall in the kitchen. And nobody could text. And no Call of Duty! Not even the first one. And we had to walk to school uphill, both ways, in blizzards, and beat off starving bears with our trapper keepers and pencils. It's that yellow thing with the point on one end and pink rubbery thing on the other. It's a stylus for paper. Really.