Pajiba

Lately, no matter how many times i wipe my ass, I still get itchy donut. At home I can use baby wipes, but being a dude I dont have a purse to carry a travel pack with me. I need an itchy donut cure.

Still waiting for Armageddon.

My bunker is ready and my dogs will feed on your rotting carcasses. I will spare no one, if I find you gasping for life, in need of first-aid I will consider you fresh kill.

Otherwise, I'm GOOD!

I need a new girl, it's been a while and I'm pretty close to asking my old girl (who broke my heart... twice!) to take me back. But aside from that, everything is great! huh...

Hang in there, TWOP Fan.

I also have hypothyroidism. Testosterone cream did nothing for me, but soon after starting the synthetic hormone there were good changes. The lethargy I had been feeling (in everyday life and in the bedroom) dissipated. I had drive and verve, plus when my metabolism kicked back into gear everything went full bore once again.

The husband-unit definitely had his patience rewarded.

Posted by: TWoP Fan at December 19, 2009 5:10 PM

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I hear ya sister, hope the doctor can work with that.

While we are on the subject, here's a hypothetical:
Can your doctor get his hands on some estrogen? I have a ...ah...friend, who wants to grow some breasts. Says he can grow tits and spend his days fondling them... SO ANYWAY
Can we make this happen?

I got problems.

I am on the hook to sit down to Christmas dinner with (among other people) a narcissistic sociopath who has been a cancer on my family for the past 25 years. Like, consistently.

Also, my cat--who has been living with a giant tumour in her chest--has gone on some kind of terrifying crash diet; she's still eating, but not all that much. Her vet blamed it on stress, but the only new thing in her life is my black holiday mood.

Also, the cab driver who brought us home after our latest vet visit has taken a supa-creepy shine to me.

Someone here will have a serious cure for itchy donut hole. I just know it.

Zinc ointment, baby. You can look it up. Maybe not with your fancy-schmancy medical terminology, but still.

L.O.V.E - Travel wipes in individual wrappers. Put a couple in your pocket then you always have them. Godspeed!

SophieAnn, I've been there. It took me 4 months to get over it because of the daily contact thing. Really, the best thing I did was constantly remind myself that it was something I needed to get over, and that it was bad. I just shut down my brain whenever I started thinking about him. Good luck!
My problem: I have a final on Monday.

Posted by: BermudaSlender at December 19, 2009 6:19 PM

Welcome to the world of commenting, Bermuda! I don't have all the info you're looking at, but I can tell you that Dustin lives in Maine, and that his daily schedule looks something like this

8:00 wakes up, checks Pajiba
9:00-12:00 googles "Ryan Reynolds Shirtless"
12:00 lunch, checks Pajiba
1:00-6:00 photoshops pictures of himself with R2
6:00 dinner, rants for a while about Michael Bay
8:00-11:00 works on his "Dustin & Ryan 4-eva" mural (a life-sized fresco on his living room wall)
11:00 bed

Question for any students: How do you find motivation to write term papers when they're dragging on too long? I got sick a while back and deferred my coursework, and now that I need to finish it up, I'm finding it a horrendous task to get my butt in gear.

jkbdncr: I guess I'm not the only one losing hope about finishing school...
I too am thinking about staying in academia but am having some doubts. Best of luck to you!

I don't think anyone can solve my problems so I'll just vent. I'm applying to grad schools but they're mainly in the UK soooo it costs a bit more. I have yet to be accepted but I have a pretty good shot at getting into someplace. Anywho, I'd need to prove that I can pay for school as well as live overseas when I get to the visa application. Federal loans can only get me so far and I'd have to rely on some other means to help supplement my studies. I found out recently that the rest of the loans work on credit and I have bad credit...Basically, I'm hinging hopes on scholarships (eep...) and the GI Bill? If those two work out then woo hoo!! But sigh. It's all so up in the air.

(If I don't get in then this is all moot and I'd have a WHOOOOOOLE new set of problems to deal with aside from the severe depression.)

In response to motivation for papers, you can wait til the last minute and use the sense of urgency to get that poop finished. Other motivation: think of all the freedom gained once a paper is finished. Feels nice :)

My husband got fired a month ago - when our new son was eight weeks old (never mind our two-year-old daughter). I work for a sociopathic narcissist (theme?), but have to eat shit for now. We were working so hard to save up for a decent down payment and are so upset by the thought of hitting our savings for necessaries. There are laid-off laborers in the Rust Belt with no insurance, though, so we're keeping some perspective.

JK - I left grad school at your stage for law school. Best decision I ever made (psycho boss at present time notwithstanding!). Ultimately, I knew the reward (a low-paying, though fulfilling, job far from my family) of finishing and grabbing the golden ring just wasn't worth it to me. Just walk away - don't finish to finish. You can teach high school, open a studio, work in publishing, or change paths entirely and go to professional school. You won't be doing retail - don't let the naysayers scare you. It's just too tough an endeavor to stand on ceremony for. I've often been asked if my time in graduate school was a waste. No way - I am a completely different thinker now because of it (I was a doctoral candidate in history) and a MUCH better writer than most of my colleagues (at the risk of sounding like an ass). It took me a while to see the benefit, but it's there.

nice thought Utah which I'm sure everyone gets sometimes but the truth is if we could start over we will fuck up again. Repeatedly. Maybe not exactly in the same manner but we'll still make mistakes and have shitloads of problems. We are who we are. That would be like cosmetic surgery. Changes you a bit but leaves you totally the same. And starting over would mean denying and losing all your past, which would be a pity. No matter how bleak your life is/has been, there must be moments of beauty in there somewhere.

I am having troubles procuring documents from a certain, unscrupulous agency. I've been waiting for almost two years and every time I arrive in person to check on the status of my case I get the run around. I am seriously thinking of hiring a lawyer.

I have also developed a major crush on Mariska Hargitay so I'm watching lots of SVU. Can't. Look. Away.

"no offense but *blink*. They give out PhD's for criticism discussion of dance? Seriously?"

Posted by: frobme at December 19, 2009 7:30 PM

Now this is the kind of reaction people who don't study sciences or computing get. To a certain extent it's fair. A job in the real world requires math or law or some other subject which some of us find a bit hideous. Even if it's fair criticism, it's depressing to hear if you've spent a number of years studying an artistic subject or social science.

Sometimes I think it should be obligatory for young students to take a real world subject at college first and only allowed to take take "fancy stuff" when they're financially secure and when they can do it more as a hobby! Sometimes I fear that my years of study will just feel like a waste even if intellectually I hhave definitely grown. Depressing thought.

On the dissertation: If you want to use the degree, get the dissertation. You say you aren't sure about going into academia; if you haven't ruled it out, I'd finish it. If you are ruling it out, then you have to consider what non-academic jobs would like to see the doctorate. The experience is definitely a huge plus- I know my whole thought process has changed since grad school- but some people really want that piece of paper.

On writing: I am in a constant struggle with writing. The best advice I ever got was: Set aside an hour a day, and lock yourself in a room. Set an easily manageable goal, like "4 lines of text". Because it's such a small thing, you will have a hard time putting it off, so you'll see constant progress. Sure, it may take a while, but at least you will be working toward the finished product. Too many people are ABD because the dissertation is such a huge stumbling block.

I am on the hook to sit down to Christmas dinner with (among other people) a narcissistic sociopath who has been a cancer on my family for the past 25 years. Like, consistently.

Uh, mom?

There's the avoidance route, or there's the route whereby you find solace in others who feel the same way (like us idiots.) Good luck either way.

As for jkbdncr I dunno what to say other than my thoughts are with you. Seems like more and more these days education is less and less valued, which is sad. I applaud your pressing on even in the face of uncertainty and wish I had the stick-to-it-iveness you've shown already.

No major problems for now, at least none that stand out in comparison to what's been shared. On the lighter side, I've had a scab inside my nose that feels like a booger, then I pick it and it bleeds and scabs up again, then the cycle begins anew. To the small-minded, the universe is a ceaseless wonder.

Kiddo: I'm so sorry about your Grandmother. It's exhausting to be a caregiver for someone with Alzheimers. Do you have any other family that is willing to help you? If not there are all kinds of support groups through hospitals and hospice centers. Also, there may come a time when you have to start thinking about full time nursing care either in the house or at a nursing home. It's a tough choice to make but don't let others make you feel guilty about it.
My Grandfather took care of my Grandmother for as long as he could but eventually it was just too much for him. The final straw was the day he walked out to get the mail and came back and the kitchen was on fire. My grandmother had tried to make tea and put a tea towel on the burner.
Some of my family was critical of him putting her into a nursing home but I noticed they didn't volunteer to help!
Good luck to you and your husband!

Broken heart. Pretty standard. The bipolar makes it worse, though.

jkbdncr, I'm convinced the dissertation process is all about endurance rather than actual content. All the advice so far had been good. Try to write something every day, even if it's just one good sentence. I used to meet with my advisor weekly and that's quite a motivator, because after a few times of "I've got nothing" it gets a little embarrassing.

Last week, I was walking down the street to procure my daily caffine fix and slipped on ice and broke my ankle in three places. After four days in the hospital, I found out I have to stay off my feet for about ten weeks, and therefore can't go back to college for my next semester.

thank you for all the advice and support Phaeolus, JohnnyBoy, appwitch, and especially meaux!!

and Frob - sorry for the misunderstanding. Dance studies is a relatively new field, so it is completely understandable that you had not heard of it before. I guess my immediate response is always defensive because of its lowly position within academia and beyond. but you and meaux reminded me of my passion for the field and subject which I tend to lose sight of during the tedious tasks related to the dissertation process.

and bleujayone ... thanks for making me laugh ... that was hilarious!!

samantha t

When the going gets tough, the tough get going? - kidding, but not really.

Seriously, two thoughts:

1 - What we're seeing in the US & the world lately is closer to how things usually are than the clean run that came before. It's OK. We're up to this. So are you.

1.1 - You may win big eventually. You may do one, small thing right, one time. It turns out that doing one small thing right, one time, is enough.

2 - The other thing that comes to mind is something that Jim Collins the business author calls "The Stockdale Paradox." It's based on the experience of Admiral Jim Stockdale while a prisoner of war in Vietnam.

In net: "confront the brutal realities of your situation without ever losing faith that you will not just prevail, but turn your situation into the transforming experience of your life, which in hindsight you wouldn't trade."

It's worth getting the whole story:

http://www.jimcollins.com/media_topics/brutal-facts.html#audio=59

Or another take, with the story typed out (about 1/2 way down the page) here:

http://www.selfdiscoveryportal.com/arStockdale.htm

I've had a few scrapes now and then, and from my much smaller experience, I think he's right. People will fool you, even you will fool you. They - you - have reserves and abilities that you don't see until the going gets strange.

So, believe you are going to get through this, for any value of "this", confront the brutal realities of your situation.

Just my $ 0.02

BSlim ... thanks for so eloquently proving my point ... guess I should have saved my defensiveness for you

BSlim ... thanks for so eloquently proving my point ... guess I should have saved my defensiveness for you

Posted by: jkbdncr at December 19, 2009 10:29 PM
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No, thank YOU.

I also have thesis that PROVES this so called "planet" is just a continent of Venus.

Well, I went and looked at the old diversion and apparently my big problem was being unemployed.
I'm no longer unemployed, but it's a temporary, part-time assignment with low pay. Which sucks.

What's cool, though, is I'm really getting interested in the epub business (I convert magazines and newspapers at my job) and I want to go a lot further with this company. And I'm applying for permanent positions with them.

I got a dream job that I adore. It's stable (tenure-track!), I love my fellow faculty, and I have my own lab space (which is more than I ever could have hoped for). It's a job I could see working at for the rest of my career, but it's in a teeny tiny town, and the man that I love is having a very hard time finding any jobs in the area.

So he's been living in my old town, seven hours away, and we see one another once or twice a month, and it sucks. I miss him like crazy, and I'm worried he'll never be able to find a job here.

And it's not even that simple -- he was born there, his whole family is there, and even though I know he loves me, I'm asking a lot of him. Serves him right for falling for a grad student!

SO yeah, that's the major worry that's weighing me down. That, and I've been so busy at my first semester of full-time teaching that my (nearly finished) dissertation has been sorely neglected. I'm hoping with a final push to be done in February, but it can't be soon enough.

Kiddo: Support groups are a must, and adult day cares are wonderful if your grandmother can tolerate the strange place and strange people. I too would try and reach out (perhaps yet again) to family for additional troops. I would also look for area groups that offer volunteers to sit with your grandmother. For nearly two years I sat with a gentleman for several hours once a week so that his wife could get away. She used to say that just knowing she had a break coming helped her get through the difficult times. Caring for your grandmother is a 24/7 job. You need a break.

As for problems with writing grad papers, you can always do what I did and break a leg. You will write the bastard in no time at all. I started working while I was still in college and while I was able to pass exams like crazy, when it came to writing my final thesis, I choked. I would come home from work after commuting for 1.5 hrs and would be completely stuck after 2 lines. But I kept reading the damn literature on my way to/from work and I guess it stuck with me. A whole year passed like this. Then I went to a club and some drunk girl knocked a lounge bar table on my foot. I was on sick leave for 1 month and wrote my final thesis in 2 weeks. It felt like giving birth (w/o the pain, I guess). Sent it to my mentor with whom I hadn't spoken in 1,5 years about the thesis, and got an A.
Hey,it's an alternative!

Well, it seems that my big issue in the What's Your Problem 1.0 was whatever to do if my Ex's roommate asked me out. Problem solved: he blew me off. The little fucker. That's OK, I would have snaped him like a twig anyway. The little pussy couldn't even face me yesterday when I called him out on not inviting me to a Christmas party that ALL of my other friends are going to, just because it is at my Ex's house. We get along just fine, never a harsh word between us. Assholes.
Which leads me to a Problem:
I need new friends. ANYBODY in Portland wanna play?
I wouldn't have gone to their stupid party anyway, I was out with REAL friends, and then in with my My Pretend Internet Boyfriend, {winks at P.I.B, Hey Baby!} Which leads to another little problem: I have it pretty bad for the P.I.B. He rocks my world.

Anyway, VERY shortly after that thread, I hooked up with a guy, which was fine and dandy until this week. All hot and heavy for 2 months, then slowly dude is getting all remote. He has a lot of stressful shit going on, none of which has anything to do with me, so I am trying to be understanding, but I tell you what, Dude needs to raise his game or the Home Pussy Delivery System is going to revoke his membership. Lwa'e' is emerging and he will NOT like her if she is displeased. I mean really, what does a bitch have to do to have an Uncomplicated Screw? It isn't like we're in love or anything... Just take care of business and call me, how hard is that?

Also: It would seem I have become MUCH less proper and polite whilst posting on Pajiba since the WYP? 1.0. This is WAY more fun. :-}

"So I go to a pretty good college, and we have what we affectionately refer to as a "bubble," inside of which academia and knowledge are prized, and outside of which people live in the real world where usable skills are waaay better to have than the ability to write beautiful commentaries on russian literature.
I took a wonderful, gloriously enlightening English class this semester, and started daydreaming about becoming an English major. Reactions inside the bubble ranged from "Go for it!" to "That sounds amazing!" Reactions outside usually were somewhere between "And how exactly will you eat?" and "Learn a goddamn skill!" I'm a government major right now (English minor), and I love it. I'm also learning an actual, marketable skill (I'm basically majoring in geography-computer-mapping-stuff).
Point is, I know a LOT of people who majored in something useless or theoretical or (Godtopus forbid!) artsy. And they all do incredibly cool stuff now (or are clearly on track to doing incredibly stuff). It seems to me that, no matter how ridiculous your field is (Dance Studies? Really? Come on) you'll find a job so long as you get a degree, write well, know what you're talking about, and are an interesting person. The biggest pitfall I've seen is a person getting freaked out and overly defensive about their field, thereby revealing their innate belief that they're just doing bullshit work.
jkbdncr, who cares if people insult your field? Get over it. You're going to get to spend the rest of your life studying dance, and you know that BSlim only bitches because he has to spend his life doing something real. You're lucky and good at making stuff up. Own it."

Posted by: esme at December 20, 2009 12:46 AM

OK. Let's for a moment assume you find a job immediately after finishing your "bubble studies". Will that job have anything to do with what you studied? Yeah, I know the reasoning. It helps you learn how to think differently, be logical etc. Really? That's a pretty poor compensation for all your years of study, isn't it? I mean is it too much to ask for a job in the field you studied in? Apparently usually it is. Yeah, I know, you'll mention some genius painter, historian, sociologist or whatever who made it and everyone believes that they will be the next big thing when they start their studies but what are the chances of really making it? I see it around me every year. Students start all their 'fancy' studies with a lot of ideals about doing what they love and doing something amazing but when after a couple years of study look at the job ads they realise they have no real profession which they can call their own. Then panic sets in! Usually it ends up in what you euphemistacally call academia, which is basically teaching. The old saying goes "those who can, do. Those who can't teach" So after spenind years studying history they eventually become a history teacher or English teacher or social studies teacher or whatever. Some lucky few will teach at university (aka lecturing. Yeah, I know lecturers hate being called teachers. They think their profession is so above teaching but strip lecturing to its bare minimum and you're left with teaching and correcting exam papers, and yeah I know academia involves a certain amount of research, writing papers etc).

Sometimes I think we have elevated the arts too much. Think about it, dance. That's what people do for a hobby on a weekend night while out drinking! Theatre? Shakespeare wasn't writing to have his works studies centuries later. He was doing it for cash, and going to the theatre was just a bit of entertainment. Cinema? Cinema's the thing which produces stuff like Twilight and Titanic phenomenons. Enough said. Social sciences? Music? Many people learn how to play an instrument as a hobby but never really expect to make a living out of it. They don't really change society. They just study and analyse it. And it goes on and on. To put it crudely it's like elevating a bunch of hobbies and often not so well paid jobs and giving them this status which possibly they don't deserve. Academia just keeps giving this fake impression that there is a need for people to study all kinds weird and wonderful subjects.

What's more? Many people who work in these industries never actually set foot in a college but did it out of instinct and because it seemed to come naturally so if you spent six years studying about it, it makes you look lamer than these greats! Sometimes I wonder whether the arts at university should be restricted only to certain people who can prove they have a qualification in something in the real world already (business, medicine, law, nursing etc)! And many other jobs don't require a college qualification at all.

I mean when did we get the idea that you do "what you love". Doesn't it sound a bit spoilt to you? Try saying that to a starving family in a godforsaken third world country. No, you do something to get food on the table for you and your family. If I ever had a child I don't know what I would tell him/her. Part of me would want to tell that child do what you love, but if we tell children that and we know there's nothing realistic about it aren't we cheating that child from pointing him/her in the right direction to study something a bit more useful? Maybe we've watched too many movies and believe that the American dream is a reality?

I don't know people. I'm just putting these arguments out there for you to discuss. I know I'm putting things crudely and I'm simplifying things. I myself have studied arts and social sciences so here I'm arguing a case against myself! These thoughts bother me. They weren't thoughts I used to have a couple years ago but these pass through my mind now. I know I'll probably be insulted about this but I'm just genuinely asking for opinions and discussion about this.

barf: You make some excellent points.

I admire those who have the courage to focus on pursuing studies on what they love while eschewing worries about future financial freedom. Simply put, it's just a ballsy move to spend all that money on an education which, most likely, will not lead to any related employment opportunities. Too many of us now regard further education as a means to an end without any appreciation for the pursuit of knowledge.

Having said that, I do think it can be a dangerous, even selfish move to fixate on academia, but my opinion may be biased. I have friends who have done this, and they're now pushing 30 and serving as giant warning signs to future generations. Half of them were coddled by parents who paid their entire college tuition, the other half amassed a massive amount of student loan debt.

All of them, and I do mean ALL of them, graduated with their shiny degrees in Japanese Lit, Folk Music Theory, New Media, etc, and then pretty much hit a giant wall. Some of them are now steadily employed in customer service positions, two of them are jobless and living at home with their parents while considering technical schools, and one of them, who just received his masters, is now pursuing his phD. An impressive endeavor, to be sure, but a bit worrisome when he confesses he's only terrified of leaving academia because he doesn't want to search for a job.

I'm rambling now, but this topic is just interesting to me. I don't point and giggle when someone reveals themselves to be an arts major. I don't roll my eyes, either. But it does bring up emotions of both admiration and pity. I wish that the group I have to draw personal observations from were a bit more varied; it would be nice to know at least one person who pursued such studies to some degree of success. Perhaps the only true marker for success here is four+ years spent engrossed in a world devoted to something near and dear to you, and the rest of us are just too shamefully cynical to appreciate that.

Hi MB. Thanks for your response. Interesting. I would also like to hear other points of view. I've also been at university more than I should probably have been. To me it does look a bit like a wall. Sometimes I feel that I've got very little to show for my years of study except shiny degrees. I'm also a bit biased in these thoughts because my family all have medical qualifications and even in a motherfucking recession, they don't have to look for jobs but jobs chase them. They just choose the best pay-packets.

Maybe I'm just becoming bitter but believe me I appreciate and admire studies in wonderful subjects but I'm becoming skeptical because lately I'm becoming more grounded in reality and I have seen too many people like those you mentioned who spent so much money and energy into a subject only to work some low-paid job which has nothing to do with what they studied or found no freaking job at all.

Somehow my Sociology degree translated into joining the Military, my problem is I have no way of knowing is the grass that much greener. Everyday I think of how much I miss my friends back home..being that it was Austin does not help. Either way I have a pretty cool job that let me fly for a living and pay that is pretty sweet(Not to mention a work environment that welcomes dick and fart jokes…because that fact alone is the only reason why my bosses like me.) My advise for anyone out there that is having trouble with school/life/love is that…you are stronger than you give yourself credit for..people limit themselves out of fear of pain. These post alone have many common threads one of the biggest is that those who have climbed that mountain realize that it was not as nearly as tough as they originally thought it was once on the other side….oh yeah my other problem is that life seems like groundhog day…only its in the desert…and everyone is back at home….and fuck me sideways…face book is the biggest cock tease to deployed folks.

GLM, you're further proof to my firmly held theory that all anthropology students are messed up in the head. Welcome to the club motherfucker.

barf, are you an anthro student yourself? This is one of those fields, where if you don't have a graduate degree, then you don't really have any career. I can probably survive by teaching human anatomy at med schools, but I am not going to get any permanent job. It'll be adjunct and part-time positions only.

I mean when did we get the idea that you do "what you love". Doesn't it sound a bit spoilt to you? Try saying that to a starving family in a godforsaken third world country.

Eh, while I understand where you're coming from, barf, I've got to disagree on this point. At the risk of sounding a bit entitled, why shouldn't people take advantage of the wide array of available fields of study if they have the means to? Isn't that kind of like saying you shouldn't buy a nice TV or go out for a nice dinner because the poor starving kids can't have one?

Your choice of thesis topic doesn't lock you in to a lifetime of working in your chosen field. If you want to stay in your field, sure, you could try your hand at a career in academia, but most people do not. They wind up finding something that makes use of their brain, hopefully doesn't bore them, AND puts food on the table for the family. It's a compromise, sure, but it doesn't make the grad school experience a waste. In my field of environmental consulting, a graduate degree is absolutely a career boost--even though I'm studying fish populations and writing environmental assessments for a living, not watching seabirds fuck like I did in grad school (ah, good times!).

So I maintain that if you can afford to do the degree you love, you should go for it. You may find you want to spend the rest of your life in academics, as many of my friends have done, or you may come out of the "bubble" into the real world with a graduate degree and a sharp mind, ready to kick some ass.

linny, I wish you much luck! I have a friend who was having similar problems. It's certainly a reminder that the academic route isn't always easy--but with patience, things will hopefully work out. Full disclosure, I didn't walk right out of grad school into my current job, I did spend quite a few months looking for work while the mister supported me. If I was on my own, I could have moved to larger city with a better job market, but he was already established here. I didn't mind, it just took longer to find my niche. Hoping your situation works out as well.

After reading everyone's comments regarding difficulties in school, listing my own problems would seem redundant. I can only thank everyone for being so honest about theirs. It's a subject that I think about everyday as well, and I can't seem to find any answers yet either. For what it's worth to everyone, you can add my name to the list of hopeless cogitators.

Thanks again, everyone.

I just completed a Bachelor of Arts with a doub major in Literary Studies and Philosophy. Haven't ever had a job for more than 3 months at a time and am finding it impossible to get one now (it's been over 2 years since I last worked). And I'm talking retail, office admin, customer service jobs. Nada. I write a lot for a few websites and magazines but none of them pay me. I'm 22 and I live with my parents, I have no savings and no income. There, my problems.

I've got a doozy.

A few weeks ago, my uncle was diagnosed with cancer. He's undergoing chemotherapy and other treatments and the whole family has been there to help him. I've gotten doctor's notes from his doctors to get excused from classes when no one else could get off work for his first operation. That's not the problem.

The problem is the first snowfall happened last night and all hell broke loose.

My father has a plow attachment for his truck. For years, he has gone to all the neighbors, my grandmother, my brother, their neighbors, and my uncle to clear the driveways and shovel the sidewalks. Today, my uncle decided that we thought he was an invalid and went through his phone book, calling first my grandmother, then my mother, then my father, then my brother, and finally me, to scream at all of us for thinking he couldn't shovel out his driveway. He said that my father didn't even do a good job, actually making the situation worse in his driveway. Meanwhile, the town decided to dump all the snow from the street right in front of my uncle's driveway and my dad cleared out the driveway so he could leave if he needed to.

Now everyone is fighting. My parents and brother have been pitted against my uncle and grandmother a few days before Christmas. Everyone thinks they're right. I've tried negotiating a peace treaty and I'm being screamed at. It's a total nightmare.

Hi meaux. You're getting the wrong end of the stick and taking that sentence completely out of context. It has nothing to do with someone from a third world country not being able to pay for a degree. In fact if you look further down in that paragraph you quoted from you 'll see that I stated that maybe artsy subjects should be restricted to people who can prove they have other qualifications or a job, aka can afford to pay for the course (many students just get huge loans or have their parents pay for them). I never suggested that the courses shouldn't be held or that people shouldn't study and enjoy these subjects.

I'll break my argument down to you in a simpler manner. Let's take the earliest form of society, hunter-gatherer. In that kind of society you HAVE TO hunt or gather food. A member of that society who says "but I LOVE TO swim instead of looking for food" would be working against the good of that society and would be considered lazy. You can swim in your free time but you cannot substitute the hunting and gathering with swimming. It just wouldn't make any sense and wouldn't produce any food.

Although in our society there are more varied ways than hunting and gathering to gain food, the choices are still limited as to what is actually considered valuable to society. Many of the artsy subjects are what once used to be just hobbies. My example of someone from the third world country could easily be applied to a rich blue collar worker who only gained his/her wealth through back-breaking work. Any dock worker or builder probably didn't start because that what s/he totally loved and wanted since being a kid. You just do what you have to do for your family to survive. You'll grow to like your job in the process. Reading, music, dancing and cinema are strictly hobbies. Some courses are more suited for approximately middle-aged people who are living a comfortable life but want to do something different or for retired people who want to study, say, the finer points of Russian paintings just for the sheer fun of it.

Doing what you love comes after doing what is necessary. The idea that you do what you love and the idea of being an individual as opposed to one of the team (society) is a very post- modern thing, especially fueled by Hollywood.

"the choices are still limited as to what is actually considered valuable to society. "

Before everyone pounces on me I'll correct the sentence above, "valuable to the corporate world" rather than to society. As I said I above I never said anything against people studying but there's a difference between studying engineering where you become an engineer, pharmacy where you become a pharmacist, law where you become a lawyer and Japanese literature where you become a... you tell me. Yeah, we should look beyond the corporate world but that's just the way the world works. Even communist China is a capitalist country in all but name these days. Look at film directors. First they have to make blockbusters before they can make their labour of love and the film they always dreamt of.

meaux, you are working in something which is more or less your field of study which is why you talk that way. The posts underneath yours and millions of lost, broke students everywhere and the people I see around me everyday are witness to what I'm talking about.

Hey barf--sorry if I didn't take that sentence as you intended it, that's just how I thought it sounded. Er...thank you for simplifying your argument for me, though. Although I strongly disagree that there's any need to restrict the study of artsy subjects to people who can afford it, or to retirees who can do it in their spare time.

But you're missing my point as well. I maintain that you can study the artsiest arts there are (or, for that matter, the fluffiest sciences), and you're not excluding yourself from a job that puts food on the table, or from doing something that is considered "valuable to society". I don't study seabird sex for a living, but I've taken my grad degree and the thinking and writing skills that came with it into the private sector working as an environmental consultant.

"Doing what you love" and "doing what is necessary" are not mutually exclusive, and I think they can done simultaneously, not sequentially. This doesn't have to mean forcing yourself to like your job (although keeping a positive attitude towards whatever you do helps immeasurably), it can also mean playing to your strengths and your likes when it comes to choosing your career path after your education. It's one of the benefits of having choices and not being in that ol' hunter-gatherer society.

I'm not suggesting that every little boy and girl with a grad degree is going to get their dream career; of course people have to compromise in order to make ends meet. But in this day and age with so many possibilities, who says you can't study what you want, be it carpentry or the evolution of the Siberian sand snail, and then transfer your skills into a job you like (hopefully even love)?

Okay, I will concede that I'm very fortunate to have a career that suits my interests, but I don't think it's impossible for other souls to do same, provided their interests aren't too narrowly defined. There are lots of jobs where the good writing and thinking skills you pick up in your studies of, say, Japanese literature can be put to use. My career really isn't related to my grad work, other than that it's somewhat outdoorsy and requires a brain.

(Also, "valuable to the corporate world" = ah, that sentence sits much better with me now. Thanks!)

Hi again meaux. Your comments have that 'oh, don't worry. It will all fall into place once you graduate' feeling. Although they had the same feelings as you when they started, many students feel that they are graduating but now have no idea what to do with themselves with stuff not really falling into place. This is the reality many are facing. That is all.

btw, I only said your job is connected to your study because you studied about fish and are working in the environmental field. In a very broad way, it's connected. Many people don't even get that close.

It's interesting how many pajiba readers are graduates in English and Anthropology. I find this amusing for some reason. No wonder you've got a nerdy, weird lot Dustin. :-)

Word Sansho. Word.

Plus the ability to procrastinate effectively and substitute a well argued opinion for a poorly explained fact will take you FAR in this world. BELIEVE ME.

Well put, sansho1. (and LwaE, ha!)

As a graduate student finishing up a PhD in English Lit./ Creative Writing (I used to love it, now it's just WORK), I could pull out my soapbox and rant a bit about the relevancy of arts degrees. But this post started out to be about what's bothering us and, quite frankly, the validity of my doctoral candidacy doesn't bother me a bit. The thing that's bothering me is that my family isn't giving my fiance a chance. They loved my last boyfriend (he developed a relationship with my cousin with Asperger's, which is no small feat), and even though he and I agreed that we weren't right for each other, split amicably and remain friends-- my family misses him. My aunt told me that breaking up with him would prove to be the biggest mistake of my life. It wasn't-- we're both much happier as friends. However, now that I've found someone that makes me truly happy, someone whom I love and respect, someone that I can have a healthy, grown-up, lasting relationship with-- all my family can see is that he isn't my ex. They've only met him once (they'd only met my ex three times-- just part of the trouble of studying in the UK and having a family in KS), and now he's coming on Tuesday and I'm afraid they'll be snide, rude and unfriendly. He's giving up his life in Scotland to come live with me here, in Western Kansas (also no small feat), but how can I ask him to leave his family to be with me and mine when they're being so horrible? I'm needed here-- can't go anywhere else for the foreseeable future-- but how can I get them to give him a chance? He's not my ex, he's my now and he's my future.

I love nothing more than a good argument... anyway, I rest my case. I never said it cannot be done or that things don't work out but even you have admitted that you will probably have to stray from your field or go into teaching. My arguments still stand, not that I remember exactly what they were. Just scroll up and read. lol

krix, glad to know it might work out okay. I have no motivation for anything, I get the basics done and call it good. It seems like too damn much work to shower some days!

even you have admitted that you will probably have to stray from your field or go into teaching

What the--again, you're missing my point: Do what you want in grad school, real life will almost certainly be different, and that's okay. Haven't you been reading? Argh, this is why I generally don't bother arguing. Nobody ever listens. Okay, fine--go ahead and rest your case, only rich retirees should ever study the arts.

And another thing you misread from my comments (which I was going to let slide, but now that my dander's up): I studied birds, not fish. Big difference in that I'd have had no problems finding work in my field if I studied fish--loads of money there--but I didn't want to. Jeez, you should consider grad school! It'll improve your reading comprehension!

MB, really? Oh, that's sad.

Absolutely none of my friends from my undergrad went straight into a job relevant to their major (except those analysts, but even they eventually got MBAs). I know English majors who ended up at medical school, Math majors who are lawyers, etc. I was a Women's Studies major (gasp!) and a History minor and I'm duly employed. Indeed, I've never even had somebody comment on my major in an interview. There's really no liberal arts degree that prepares you for "the real world", but Amherst/Williams/Wellesley grads seem to be doing just fine. Check out Supreme Court justices - I doubt any of them had "practical" majors. It'll be a sad day when everybody majors in a "trade" out of fear. Young people are unemployed not because they studied Comparative Lit but because we're in a RECESSION, people. They've got 40+ years of work ahead of them.

Oh boy...here it goes...

My best friend and I had been attached at the hip for 3 and a half years. As close as two best friends come. And I'd been in love with him for just as long, however amongst all my friends telling me that we'd get married someday and that we're perfect together, I had always learned to push the feelings aside and come to terms with the fact that nothing would happen. Then this past May, he asked me out. I was so happy that we were giving things a shot and I was so happy.

At first.

The first week, things were a little weird to get used to. The second week...something weird happened. He was going to spend a lot of time with this new friend he'd made, much to my dismay. I mean...we were supposed to be building a romantic relationship here..and here were were spending less time then we'd ever had in 3 years. So at the end of the week, he tells me maybe we shouldn't do this, and I agreed, though I was a little sad. But we decided to have sex that night anyway. Well we tried. He couldn't get it up. Awesome.

Cut to three days later. Three days after he breaks up with me and then tries to have sex with me. He tells me that he's in love with the person he'd been going to see all week.

And oh yes. This person is a man that is 10 years his senior (we are 19).

So. Our friendship has been slowly deteriorating over the past however many fucking months its been. I've developed depression and anxiety. Depression and anxiety so bad its causing me to fail school. I'm 5'11'' and I weigh maybe 115 lbs. My libido equals zero. And I have to constantly be subjected to this stupid relationship that my best friend is in. This stupid fucking obsessive and unhealthy relationship with a 30 year old dude who likes to look up craigslist ads for young virgin teens and constantly watch really disturbing porn and doesn't allow my best friend to hang with his friends. And two weeks ago during a heated argument he picked my best friend up by his neck and tossed him.
But it's love so he's planning on moving in with him in April.

Fuck life.

*handshake* A'ight, chickie, 1-1 it is. Agreed, there are most certainly solid arguments to be made on both sides.

Cheers, my dear!

That sounds just like Barbado Slim.

Posted by: bop style at December 20, 2009 3:31 PM

Ha! That made me feel a little better already.
BSlim isn't French Canadian though.

Re: BM
Anyone wanna bet that Prescription drug interaction is involved? That is what killed my 32yo best friend. Found in cardiac arrest, goddamn fucking Pain Pills. My guess: Toxicology will reveal 4 different prescriptions in her poor starved little body, at least 2 of them anti-depressant.

I've come fairly late to this thread but here we go:

I was engaged to the man I thought was my soulmate. I gave up the lease on my place (he'd been living there with me too) to move into a new apartment that his parents had bought for us to rent from them. Two weeks later, he comes to me one night and tells me he wants to be able to see (and sleep with) other women, but that I should know that he's still going to come home to me at the end of the night. These other women are all 18-21 year old bimbos (and I'm only 25 and have been told on previous occasions that I'm a pretty hot girl, so go figure). So naturally, after many tears and arguments and me asking him when he got so messed up in the head, we broke up. He didn't understand why I thought his behaviour was completely unacceptable. Of course, I was devastated. I had also financially supported him for two years while he tried to figure out what he wanted to do with his life and kept dicking around with different degrees/courses, so now my savings are more or less all gone.

So now, I've had to move back to my parents place in the suburbs and try put the shattered pieces of my heart back together. Suffice to say, it hasn't been all that easy.

I've been living with my parents for the past tow years saving money for a new life I don't seam to have the balls to even start.
I happen to have an awesome job I don't deserve since I do very little with it because i not only have the self-esteem of a reformed nazy but I also happen to be lazier than Garfield and also incredibly dumb.
I haven't had sex in god knows how long, so long that by baptist church standards I probably classify as a second virgin or how the hell they call those.
I have the sex appeal of a dead rat.
I suffer from what I like to call the Hitchcock syndrome. Just as Sir Alfred imagined himself as a Cary Grant or a Gregory Peck trapped in the body of a english fat bold man I like to think I'm look like some kind goddess, or, more likely, a kinda cute girl, too bad my mirror reflects the image of a monkey with rabies.
so the real question is: what suicide method would you, good pajibans, advice for?

I'm a mirthless, useless fuck-up. There.

Hey rio. Are you cute? I bet you are. There's something about the way you write about your pain that makes me smile so you can't be as bad as you think you are. I nominate you for top comment on the next EE.

Hear, hear redhead; I know exactly how you feel. The only difference is that I did not have to move out of my place. In addition, I did not get any such text message, may be because I had blocked her number, and disabled all text messages (in and out...I never liked texting).

Honestly, I'm a bit in love with you all right now. This is the strangest but loveliest thread ever.

Robert Keep your chin up. My mom was diagnosed with cancer two months ago and this heinous disease can make people act in strange ways. Your uncle is in a weird place, and everyone is going to side with him, no matter what. Ride out the madness my friend. I'm sending you good vibes.

Like Nieve I never really discuss my problems but today stuff kinda snuck up on me. My mom is sick and lives in the States, I'm in Europe as a poor student and can't afford visiting her more than once a year (I already went to see her after she was diagnosed) My impromptu trip led me to hand in my thesis proposal a little late and since my uni is the birthplace of all bureaucracy I have to stay in school for another semester because they won't accept a tardy proposal. This was all fine. I mean there are more important things in live and I don't regret going to see my mom one bit. Her treatments are going ok and I talk to her on skype every day, but the distance man...I didn't think it was getting to me that much until I randomly saw some pictures my sister put up of my mom. She looked so gaunt and just..sick. I've spent the entire evening trying to figure out ways to stretch out my studentloan so I can buy another ticket to see her. I don't think it's going to happen but right now that's the only way to deal. So yeah, fuck cancer!

KevinJ: If I knew you were anywhere near me, you'd be more than welcome to spend the holiday with me and my family.

The job. It's miserable...more miserable than I was several years ago when I was a bill collector. Yeah...I did that. It was hideous.
Every day at my current job is worse than the day before. I'm doing everything in my power to find something else, but I may go completely crazy before I'm able to leave.
And it's not only the job itself, which is awful enough and not at all within my skill set (the job changed after I started). It's also the people I work with. Never in my life have I worked with a more miserable and catty group of people.
There is no redeeming factor here.

Whorish Mouth, I feel for you, truly I do. I know what it's like to dread each day and how hard it is to drag yourself to a job you hate, to work with loathsome, mean-spirited people.

My very first job as a teen, I quit after four hours. It was assembly-line type of work, and every woman and man around me seemed to have spent considerable time in prison for one thing or another. Which was bad enough, but they found it funny to have been imprisoned for dealing drugs or drunk driving, and funnier still that they were still doing those things and not getting caught. They were hopeless degenerates with no future and no desire to change. I quit at lunch; when asked why, I simply said, "I cannot work with those people."

Which is easy to do when you're a teen trying to make extra some cash, not so much when you're an adult and need a job to just survive. I hope you can find a better place soon. Is it possible to wear an iPod or something while you work to drown out the cattiness? I worked with a despicable guy once and finally brought in a personal CD player to drown out the rants. Asshole gave me a migraine even when he wasn't talking directly to me, just because he was so hateful.

I'm so, so thankful to work with nice people now.

Robert, cancer does nasty things to families. My grandmother died ten years ago and I still can't look at my aunt without wanting to beat the everloving shit out of her. She did some horrendous things to my mother at that time. All I can say is that your uncle is probably feeling very powerless at the moment, and is lashing out at those closest to him because it's easy.

As for me, if anyone in Toronto is hiring...

I need a job.

My contract is ending soon, and it's a scary world out there.

@ Whorish Mouth & DeadBessie:

I work with some catty people too. I don't understand how they can get so worked up about such menial work, but they do. It's literally like it's everything they've got left in their lives to swipe at co-workers over the most inane, inconsequential nonsense.

Conversely, the morning after election night I asked them what they thought. No one had any idea why I was so talkative; no one cared. Just incurious, glassy-eyed, vaguely annoyed replies. How the fuck does this happen to people?

Betes Litis. Sigbot. All of the apathetic franks, cranks, and snickering parsecs. That about sums it up.

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