2018 venting thread

[a_sort_of_fractious_angel]

6 minutes ago, katie64 said:

Is there anyone on here who is very close with a parent that I can PM in regards to fear of moving away/homesickness? 

Hey! So I moved home after my MA and have been living with my rents for 2 years. We were always close during college/grad school and the living-home part has re-established some (awesome) bonds that we're now (starting) to talk about "extending" to wherever I move. If you want to chat about it, shoot me a PM!

[ashley623]

3 minutes ago, a_sort_of_fractious_angel said:

Hey! So I moved home after my MA and have been living with my rents for 2 years. We were always close during college/grad school and the living-home part has re-established some (awesome) bonds that we're now (starting) to talk about "extending" to wherever I move. If you want to chat about it, shoot me a PM!

Thank you! I will take you up on that - warning, longgg ranty PM coming your way. 

[a_sort_of_fractious_angel]

2 minutes ago, katie64 said:

Thank you! I will take you up on that - warning, longgg ranty PM coming your way. 

Love it. Send it. Rants are good - ESSENTIAL - to, like, this human thing. Definitely this grad school thing.

[la_mod]

53 minutes ago, katie64 said:

Is there anyone on here who is very close with a parent that I can PM in regards to fear of moving away/homesickness? 

I still live with my parents! PM me and we can commiserate. 

[toxicmoss]

This is my first round through the grad school ringer and I suppose my one comfort is everyone else I see on the forum who applied to the same schools as me hasn't heard back either 

I'm already bracing myself for a second round, between only applying for 4 programs (oops), not applying for any MA programs (double oops), and- well, anyway, hopefully the UCs don't kee us waiting for much longer. I see UChicago and Stanford have sent a bunch of rejections already so hopefully the time is soon. 

[la_mod]

7 hours ago, toxicmoss said:

This is my first round through the grad school ringer and I suppose my one comfort is everyone else I see on the forum who applied to the same schools as me hasn't heard back either 

I'm already bracing myself for a second round, between only applying for 4 programs (oops), not applying for any MA programs (double oops), and- well, anyway, hopefully the UCs don't kee us waiting for much longer. I see UChicago and Stanford have sent a bunch of rejections already so hopefully the time is soon. 

Try not to beat yourself up about it too much! There's no shame in aiming high and reapplying, though you definitely have a few weeks before you start considering that. Hopefully the UCs will all be next week, based on last year's timeline

[Crow T. Robot]

I am presenting at a conference next weekend and am finding that I cannot bring myself to write my talk. Zero coherent thoughts are forming, and the lure of refreshing all my app portals every few minutes is too strong...

[FreakyFoucault]

9 minutes ago, Crow T. Robot said:

I am presenting at a conference next weekend and am finding that I cannot bring myself to write my talk. Zero coherent thoughts are forming, and the lure of refreshing all my app portals every few minutes is too strong...

Crow T., sounds like you need a break! Is there any feasible way between now and conference day that you can squeeze in a Netflix binge session? Or maybe take RisingStar's advice and have a tech-free Sabbath? Or go to a gun range and shoot something? 

Deep breaths, you'll be fine, and your conference is going to be a breeze! 

Additional anecdote: my undergrad school is pretty well known for insane workloads, and I unfortunately had to pull double all-nighters with some regularity. The only way I stayed sane was by taking the occasional do-nothing / Netflix-binge day. It literally is for your health. Of course, there's that nagging thought that do-nothing days are counter-productive, but, to me, they were indispensable. 

Edited February 8, 2018 by FreakyFoucault

[nichts]

2 hours ago, FreakyFoucault said:

Or go to a gun range and shoot something? 

This is such a good idea. Sign me up.

[WildeThing]

I KNOW it’s not, but it feels like with every school I applied to, it’s the department I didn’t apply to that has notified first. UPenn English? Comp lit notified. Stanford comp lit? English notified, and so on. 

I am so glad to be back in school so the days go back quicker and every day more and more dominos fall.

[la_mod]

11 minutes ago, WildeThing said:

I KNOW it’s not, but it feels like with every school I applied to, it’s the department I didn’t apply to that has notified first. UPenn English? Comp lit notified. Stanford comp lit? English notified, and so on. 

I am so glad to be back in school so the days go back quicker and every day more and more dominos fall.

I wonder if they have fewer applicants? 

Also, I envy your full days. 

[WildeThing]

You would think so but English always has more applicants than comp lit so I think it is a PERSONAL VENDETTA AGAINST ME SPECIFICALLY.

[mads47]

On 2/6/2018 at 6:59 PM, katie64 said:

Is there anyone on here who is very close with a parent that I can PM in regards to fear of moving away/homesickness? 

Hi Katie, I know others have already responded and hopefully you are getting lots of useful advice, but feel free to PM me if you wish about this. I am extremely close with my parents, though I currently live 400 miles away from them. It's okay to be afraid and be homesick, but its also important to learn healthy ways of dealing with these feelings. Like sometimes it's okay to break down and cry and call your mom, but its important to set boundaries for yourself so those days are the exception not the rule. It can be a hard process, but it's an exciting one, and you will become a stronger, more self-reliant person for it. 

[Crow T. Robot]

12 hours ago, FreakyFoucault said:

Crow T., sounds like you need a break! Is there any feasible way between now and conference day that you can squeeze in a Netflix binge session? Or maybe take RisingStar's advice and have a tech-free Sabbath? Or go to a gun range and shoot something? 

Deep breaths, you'll be fine, and your conference is going to be a breeze! 

Additional anecdote: my undergrad school is pretty well known for insane workloads, and I unfortunately had to pull double all-nighters with some regularity. The only way I stayed sane was by taking the occasional do-nothing / Netflix-binge day. It literally is for your health. Of course, there's that nagging thought that do-nothing days are counter-productive, but, to me, they were indispensable. 

Very wise advice indeed, @FreakyFoucault! There should definitely be time to squeeze one of those in. More and more I wonder if "growing up" is just the process of learning how to resist that nagging thought that you need to wrangle some kind of "productivity" out of every waking moment....

[Yanaka]

21 minutes ago, Crow T. Robot said:

Very wise advice indeed, @FreakyFoucault! There should definitely be time to squeeze one of those in. More and more I wonder if "growing up" is just the process of learning how to resist that nagging thought that you need to wrangle some kind of "productivity" out of every waking moment....

Days off are indispensable. I get so much salvation through just one day of not thinking of school. Usually Fridays are those days (even though I work in the afternoon), and even Thursday evening after class. I Netflix and chill so hard!! No guilt. 

[Melvillage_Idiot]

I don't think my dad has forgiven me for applying to Ph.D. programs so far from home. I've already been living away from home for four years now, so it's not a homesickness issue like some of the other parent comments here, but when I called home to tell my parents that I'd gotten my first acceptance, he couldn't even fake excitement. He even seemed mad.

For context, I'm from eastern Kentucky, and my acceptance came from University of Denver. My dad's never been particularly supportive of the Ph.D. pursuit in the first place, and outside of a continuous stream of "You should apply to University of Kentucky" (which eventually turned into the passive-aggressive "Did you ever even look at UK?") he's never offered any comment on the process. I had a phone call with the graduate coordinator at DU yesterday to chat about the program in more detail which went really well, and I didn't even think I could tell Dad because he'd just get mad and sulky.

I don't really know what to do here. I've tried to have a longer conversation with him about it, because he's clearly sad I'm going to be moving further away from home than I already am, no matter what school ends up being The One, but he always shuts down a few words in. I know a lot of it, for him, comes from this being really unknown to him -- on his side of the family, I'm the first person to get a Bachelor's degree, let alone try to go all the way to the doctorate -- and I really try to keep that in perspective, but it's difficult when it doesn't feel like he's ever made an effort to be in my corner.

Anybody else dealing with a parent/loved one who is, we'll say, less than enthusiastic about the grad school hunt?

[JustPoesieAlong]

53 minutes ago, Melvillage_Idiot said:

Anybody else dealing with a parent/loved one who is, we'll say, less than enthusiastic about the grad school hunt?

My grandmother, especially. To make matters worse, my degree-seeking is not only moving me away from family, but moving my kids and husband away too. So, basically, I've got two families mad/sad at me for this. It doesn't help that this is a career few of my family members really consider a valid pursuit. Fortunately, I got accepted to a school closer to home for my PhD, but my top schools are wayyyyy further away than we already are (we moved a few states away for my master's degree). I'm lucky because, even though they'd be sad to see us move further, my mom and sister get it. My  grandmother, on the other hand, does not. She's not mad and sulky, which maybe would make things easier (my in-laws are, but that just makes me want to be further from them...). She's just sad about it; she doesn't understand the impulse to pursue a career that would take you away from the place you were born or from your family--not further than a few hours drive, anyway. 

If I get into my top schools, it's going to be really hard to explain that to everyone since I also got into a school in Texas. I haven't told my grandma about the Texas school yet because I don't want to get her hopes up...

Edited February 9, 2018 by JustPoesieAlong

[Melvillage_Idiot]

30 minutes ago, JustPoesieAlong said:

My grandmother, especially. To make matters worse, my degree-seeking is not only moving me away from family, but moving my kids and husband away too. So, basically, I've got two families mad/sad at me for this. It doesn't help that this is a career few of my family members really consider a valid pursuit. Fortunately, I got accepted to a school closer to home for my PhD, but my top schools are wayyyyy further away than we already are (we moved a few states away for my master's degree). I'm lucky because, even though they'd be sad to see us move further, my mom and sister get it. My  grandmother, on the other hand, does not. She's not mad and sulky, which maybe would make things easier (my in-laws are, but that just makes me want to be further from them...). She's just sad about it; she doesn't understand the impulse to pursue a career that would take you away from the place you were born or from your family--not further than a few hours drive, anyway. 

If I get into my top schools, it's going to be really hard to explain that to everyone since I also got into a school in Texas. I haven't told my grandma about the Texas school yet because I don't want to get her hopes up...

That's rough. I don't think my dad gets the whole "I'll go somewhere different to pursue my career" mentality, either. He doesn't like that I live only one state away in Tennessee (on the other end of Tennessee at that), so the prospect of going as far afield as the Rockies just seems unfathomable to him.

I hope you make your top choices, though, and go do all the things where you'd love to! Gotta go where the chances are and do what you can to smooth family tension over, I guess.

edit: Forum etiquette question: Is upvoting your post in this context an acceptable way to say "I'm glad to hear I'm not alone," or does it look like I like your difficulties? It's the whole "people who 'Like' obituaries on Facebook" issue here

Edited February 9, 2018 by Melvillage_Idiot

[Ufffdaaa]

4 minutes ago, Melvillage_Idiot said:

That's rough. I don't think my dad gets the whole "I'll go somewhere different to pursue my career" mentality, either. He doesn't like that I live only one state away in Tennessee (on the other end of Tennessee at that), so the prospect of going as far afield as the Rockies just seems unfathomable to him.

I hope you make your top choices, though, and go do all the things where you'd love to! Gotta go where the chances are and do what you can to smooth family tension over, I guess.

fwiw My mom tried to guilt me into staying in my hometown/home state for years and was angry when I moved. My family never traveled. They were content with sitting on the front porch and watching the cars drive by. However, my mom quickly realized that it's relatively easy to visit me (and I live in a big city by the ocean, so she also discovered her touristy side).

You can always stress the positive: Denver is one of the big airport hubs, so flights will probably be pretty affordable! My mom has come to visit me more times now (when I live 1600+ miles away) than when I lived 200 miles away for my undergrad. 

[Yanaka]

I’m super curious about the topic. What makes them so angry, exactly? I get sadness, but being mad means that it’s more than being sad you’ll move away. I don’t know anything about that reaction!

[la_mod]

On 2/9/2018 at 3:25 PM, Yanaka said:

I’m super curious about the topic. What makes them so angry, exactly? I get sadness, but being mad means that it’s more than being sad you’ll move away. I don’t know anything about that reaction!

This is not my experience, but I imagine the anger would come from feeling abandoned? I must admit that I felt lowkey resentful of some of my friends who were able to move away for college, and a lot of it was jealousy. 

[renea]

On 2/9/2018 at 4:23 PM, JustPoesieAlong said:

If I get into my top schools, it's going to be really hard to explain that to everyone since I also got into a school in Texas. I haven't told my grandma about the Texas school yet because I don't want to get her hopes up...

This is potentially also my situation. I'm from Tx as well, and my husband and I moved away to pursue my MA in Michigan. This past year and half living across the country has been tough, but we have both honestly enjoyed living on our own in a new place.

This season, we did choose to apply to one school in Texas. Originally, I did not want to tell our families we were applying, because I also didn't want to get their hopes up. It's not our top program, and it would mean moving really close to our family (which has its benefits, but also its drawbacks). Husband accidentally told his mom, and now we get *subtle* comments about how when we get in (bc our families think that's a given) they're excited about us moving home. My mother-in-law in particular makes a lot of comments. If we talk about other programs, she basically says that there's only one program they care about. 

On 2/9/2018 at 6:25 PM, Yanaka said:

I’m super curious about the topic. What makes them so angry, exactly? I get sadness, but being mad means that it’s more than being sad you’ll move away. I don’t know anything about that reaction!

I think that it depends on your family dynamic. I know for us, my family was mad when we first made our decision. My grandmother was openly unhappy about my acceptances. I realized though, that anger is usually just a cover for sadness and confusion. I'm first generation. No one in my family has gone to college, much less graduate school. No one in my family moves away either. For some families, graduate school or moving away is totally normal. Families expect their kids to go to college out of state, they expect study abroad, grad school, moving away for jobs. But for other families, these choices look like turning your back on your family or thinking you're better than them. Also distance is a lot easier for middle to upper class families. My dad doesn't get paid vacation or time off. He doesn't have a retirement fund like a lot of other parents of my cohort members. Coming to see us means taking off almost a week and paying for travel. So we have mostly been going to see them, but that's also hard on a grad student stipend as well. 

For my husband's side of the family the dynamic was a little different. They're all pretty highly educated, but they mostly stayed in the area. My husband was basically shut out, so he took a gap year and worked while I did my MA. We graduated college, got married, and moved away for my program all in a 6 month span. I see his family's sadness/passive aggression as tied mostly to him growing up and leaving them to start his own family. 

Overall though, the anger can be really hard to deal with. It belittles your accomplishments. It makes you feel guilty. It causes tension in your family. Sometimes it results in growing apart.  No one has perfect relationships with their families, and grad school is just another wrench thrown in. But at the end of the day, we both know our families are good and loving. They want what is best for us even if they don't like or understand our decisions. They also started trying a lot more once we actually moved, I think because they realized the decision was no longer up for negotiation.

For anyone struggling with your family, just know that if your family loves you they will support your decisions, we just don't always get to choose what that support will look like or how long it takes them to get there. On the bright side, my dad just told me a few days ago he would be taking off work to come see my graduation, eventually most people come around.

[Mise]

A rejection from a journal. Desk rejection with a pretty stinging tone kind of hurts  I want to throw my manuscript away I hate it (NO I LOVE YOU!)

[mk-8]

43 minutes ago, renea said:

This is potentially also my situation. I'm from Tx as well, and my husband and I moved away to pursue my MA in Michigan. This past year and half living across the country has been tough, but we have both honestly enjoyed living on our own in a new place.

This season, we did choose to apply to one school in Texas. Originally, I did not want to tell our families we were applying, because I also didn't want to get their hopes up. It's not our top program, and it would mean moving really close to our family (which has its benefits, but also its drawbacks). Husband accidentally told his mom, and now we get *subtle* comments about how when we get in (bc our families think that's a given) they're excited about us moving home. My mother-in-law in particular makes a lot of comments. If we talk about other programs, she basically says that there's only one program they care about. 

I think that it depends on your family dynamic. I know for us, my family was mad when we first made our decision. My grandmother was openly unhappy about my acceptances. I realized though, that anger is usually just a cover for sadness and confusion. I'm first generation. No one in my family has gone to college, much less graduate school. No one in my family moves away either. For some families, graduate school or moving away is totally normal. Families expect their kids to go to college out of state, they expect study abroad, grad school, moving away for jobs. But for other families, these choices look like turning your back on your family or thinking you're better than them. Also distance is a lot easier for middle to upper class families. My dad doesn't get paid vacation or time off. He doesn't have a retirement fund like a lot of other parents of my cohort members. Coming to see us means taking off almost a week and paying for travel. So we have mostly been going to see them, but that's also hard on a grad student stipend as well. 

For my husband's side of the family the dynamic was a little different. They're all pretty highly educated, but they mostly stayed in the area. My husband was basically shut out, so he took a gap year and worked while I did my MA. We graduated college, got married, and moved away for my program all in a 6 month span. I see his family's sadness/passive aggression as tied mostly to him growing up and leaving them to start his own family. 

Overall though, the anger can be really hard to deal with. It belittles your accomplishments. It makes you feel guilty. It causes tension in your family. Sometimes it results in growing apart.  No one has perfect relationships with their families, and grad school is just another wrench thrown in. But at the end of the day, we both know our families are good and loving. They want what is best for us even if they don't like or understand our decisions. They also started trying a lot more once we actually moved, I think because they realized the decision was no longer up for negotiation.

For anyone struggling with your family, just know that if your family loves you they will support your decisions, we just don't always get to choose what that support will look like or how long it takes them to get there. On the bright side, my dad just told me a few days ago he would be taking off work to come see my graduation, eventually most people come around.

Not that anyone asked, but I want to speak to this too.

Going for my MA, I picked the program closer to home because one of the reasons was that I wasn't sure I could be happy so far away from home. It ended up being the right decision, but at the next level, I'll definitely be farther from home. There is no question about that. When I told my mom about my first acceptance this year, the first thing she said was "That's really far from Virginia." It hurt the first thing she said wasn't that she was proud or congrats (that did come later, though). When I think about it from her view, though, I realize what this means: I was her first kid to leave, my sister (who finishes undergrad this year) will also be moving far, and her whole life she has worked to allow us to pursue these opportunities. It's hard for her to let us go.

She's always supportive though, in the end, even if she constantly tries to guilt me into staying close to home. My 86 year old grandma doesn't quite understand what I'm doing, but she knows I'm in school and her motto is "education is #1," so she's always really happy and excited for me when I tell her I'll be getting a PhD. Being away from my grandparents is kind of scary to me, because everyday I think about how old my grandma is and how every time I visit my family could be the last substantial amount of time I spend with her (not to bring the mood down even more). 

My grandpa (on other side of family) is very concerned with the money. He's carefully looked over all my offers, asked someone he knows at a PhD program if they're "good," and given me his recommendations. It's a bit frustrating because it makes me feel like I matter less than the numbers, but I know he just wants to me to be okay. It's also quite frustrating that he doesn't take my opinion on "this is a good offer" or not because I'm not yet in a PhD program. I have been living off a graduate stipend for the past 1.5 years. He is, though, at the end of the day, really proud of me. 

So, I'd like to re-emphasize @renea's lovely point: your family will be proud of you. They might not understand your choice, but they'll get there. Explain why this is important to you. Explain why it matters. They may not listen at first (looking at you, mother-8), but they will.... eventually.

[M(allthevowels)H]

On 2/9/2018 at 3:37 PM, Melvillage_Idiot said:

 

I don't really know what to do here. I've tried to have a longer conversation with him about it, because he's clearly sad I'm going to be moving further away from home than I already am, no matter what school ends up being The One, but he always shuts down a few words in. I know a lot of it, for him, comes from this being really unknown to him -- on his side of the family, I'm the first person to get a Bachelor's degree, let alone try to go all the way to the doctorate -- and I really try to keep that in perspective, but it's difficult when it doesn't feel like he's ever made an effort to be in my corner.

Anybody else dealing with a parent/loved one who is, we'll say, less than enthusiastic about the grad school hunt?

I commiserate with this so much. My family doesn't believe in higher education for religious reasons, (I hesitate to use the word "cult"...but only just), and so I am constantly going through this cycle of "Just don't tell them your plans" but then eventually telling them because I'm too excited at my first offer, or because we're having a phone call in which my family seems particularly open, and only to end up getting utterly shit on. I've finally landed on a decision to just absolutely, resolutely not mention academia at all, despite how tempting it is to share my life with people who, I know for a fact, love me. It's not worth the stress it puts on either participant of the conversation. Sometimes it is easiest to accept that they will never be proud of the things that make me proud, because we have different standards for what makes a successful life.

I am fortunate enough to have the most supportive partner in the world and one sister who remains fully supportive, so I have somewhere else I can espouse hopes and frustrations with the process. 

Edited February 11, 2018 by M(allthevowels)H