PTSD

Questioning my vocation

I think I am about ready to give up PhD-ing and go off to try find a proper job (which makes money, which can then be used to do other things). Things that contributed to this:

1. I am not sure I am cut out to defend my project every time. I reckon if I am to do this PhD thing, I should do it well, which means doing it right. Doing it using a certain methodological orientation and working within it (while being aware that explanations are necessary). People giving me instructions on how my PhD will be "sellable", though v helpful are not exactly inspiring me with confidence about my PhD.

2. I got rejected from this workshop thing I applied for. What is one rejection, you ask? Well, I sort of wanted to go to this one. If I can't make it for a not v well known workshop in a small-town VA University, how am I ever going to be
famous, eh? Or, more seriously, how to be in the security field and yet be accepted despite not talking "conventional" security stuff? Maybe it is easier to give up and go find work.

3. Various other stuff which I won't get into but which led to massive questionings of PhD-ing. Or at least the next year or two part of it when I will be without a fellowship and with no job.

I thought I had a vocation for academia. After all, I "worked" in the proper world for nearly two years and hated it. I like research. I like talking about what I do and how to do it (though I don't agree with many of the other views :-)). But, is that enough? If academia would somehow make it possible for me to survive, I would be doing it my whole life, I think. However, other considerations prevail: the necessity for food and lodgings, the need to clothe oneself, help out family, etc. And, if I have to get a job to do my PhD-ing anyway, how is it different from working without a PhD? So, I am questioning my vocation. After all, is it a vocation if what you really really want to do is not enough to make your and your family's life comfortable? Probably not. If the goal is to have a better life, however one defines it (not much need to worry about food, clothing, and medicines, being it for me), then academia is probably not a (quick) way to do it. Though searching for quick ways to do something might also lead to unintended consequences (see ROTS). But, right now, as I finish off an abstract for a conference that I do want to go to next year, I wonder whether academia is even a way to have a future (Personally, I can bludge off friends for ages. I have no shame but for how long is this possible?). In less than a month, I will be back in Washington with no job, no fellowship and no home. Do I still have a vocation for academia? Or is now the time to become Foucauldian and move on to other things? I don't know.

On a less bleak note, Liverpool won the Champions' League on Wednesday. Like many thousands (millions) of supporters, I have waited my entire life for this. Or what seems like my entire life. The manner of victory was astounding: 3-0 down at half-time, winners at the end. I watched the match in the middle of a pub full of Italian supporters in Copenhagen and my delirious jumps (to those who know me, I am not used to jumping. Or any form of strenuous physical activity) were appparently highly annoying. But, oh, the moment was pretty much fantastic. It was brilliant. Unbelievable, really. Later, I joined a group of Liverpool supporters, including those from Ghana, Spain, South Africa, New Zealand, India and England at my hostel in having an all-night party in the back lawn singing really terrible songs about Liverpool. The transformation from utter despair at half-time ("please, don't let it get worse") to delirium at the end of penalties was something that my English is inadequate to describe. And, in the midst of questioning my vocation and wondering about the future, moments like that make it seem that perhaps things will somehow work themselves out after all.

And, even if not, I won't bore yous with it from now on and will post on other, less angsty stuff. Or try to do so anyway :-)

posted by Priya @ 7:35 AM