The Chronic

Anyone who has worked in a campus post office is familiar with the Chronicle of Higher Education, the massive newspaper that deals with all things related to academia. The arrival of the Chronic, as we lovingly referred to it, would add what seemed to be several hundred pounds to the amount of mail to be delivered around campus. Honestly, though, I never really minded the Chronic because there were quite a few interesting articles in it, and I enjoyed leafing through it in the post office.

I've been giving serious thought to bonking on my PhD studies recently, and I've been reading through a lot of information on the attrition rate of doctoral studies. Yikes. A recent NYT article said that the average length of time to finish a PhD is almost 9 years, and the dropout rate is about 50%. And this article in the Chronic puts the social sciences flop rate at over 60%. Sweet! Apparently what is puzzling to people is that there is no discernible, significant difference in the academic profiles of people who finish PhD programs and those who don't; the GRE and GPA numbers are essentially the same between those who finish and those who don't. What caught my eye was this passage, because it sort of sums up what has been in my head the last few weeks:

Yet the pot of gold at the end of the Ph.D. rainbow may not be there for every candidate. For many of them, despite their love of the subject and their dreams of reveling in the life of the mind, the most logical decision may be to leave.

After a year in a Ph.D. program in history at City University of New York, Nicole Kalian left to take a job as a publicist with a book publisher. Hers was the sort of early attrition that almost everyone agrees is the best kind.

"I didn't see any prospects for when I graduated," says Ms. Kalian, who was shocked to read an article about new Ph.D.'s who couldn't find jobs as adjuncts on enough campuses to earn at least $25,000 a year. "It was frightening, and I could never really shake that thought from my head."

Yup, that is about the size of it for me too. What I found bizarre, though, and rather alien to me, was this part:

The most important reason to care about attrition, most researchers agree, is the effect it has on students' lives. "This is tremendously painful," says Barbara E. Lovitts, who left two doctoral programs before finishing a third one, in sociology, at the University of Maryland at College Park in 1996.

Now a research scientist at Maryland, she is the author of Leaving the Ivory Tower: The Causes and Consequences of Departure From Doctoral Study (Rowman and Littlefield, 2001). She saw several people who had not completed their degrees cry during interviews about their grad-school experiences and the effect it had on their lives -- no matter what their reasons for leaving.

"There is a tremendous opportunity cost," Ms. Lovitts says. "These are people who have never failed before in their lives. They were summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa. And for the first time in their lives they've experienced failure. It takes people a lot of years to get over it."

Thankfully, I've become intimate with failure in my life, so dropping out of a PhD program and seeing my entire plan for my life crumble into dust in less than 6 weeks is hardly the worst thing I've gone through. I guess I have never really known that many people like this in my life, or at least known them that well, these fortunate souls who have never had to brush up against abject failure or complete and devastating heartache. I wonder what that is like, to live a life so devoid of trauma...

Teh kewtnuz

I know I've posted some of these before, but I just have to put more up. Darling.

Does this help?

Lodged in my inbox today was an email from a professor that was sent to everyone in my class, in which she responded to two student questions asking for a point of clarification before a quiz on two readings we did for class. Anticipating something useful, I read through the questions and responses. Note my careful word choice here: I used "responses", not "answers". And with just cause. Her response to both questions was, essentially, "read the material and make sure you can answer the questions in your own words." Seriously, that's all you can give us? Advise us to read the material again?

Not helpful.

Lesser of two evils

Is it wrong to have vague aspirations of getting in a car wreck or being falsely arrested just so you can avoid a class you really detest?

Infringement

The inspiration for genuis can come when you least expect it, and so Ross and I were pleasantly surprised to stumble upon a brilliant idea for a film. His wife, Rachael, dreamt that all the constituent parts that combine to make Ross were partitioned up, and there were two Ross Morans in the world. Let us be clear here: I'm not referencing clones or doppelgangers, but rather one man who has been disaggregated, so his singular personality now has different parts residing in two identical bodies sharing the same name. For instance, one body may get his love of his dogs, while the other body gets his hat affinity. And so on, until he is completely split into two. Rachael, in dreamland, falls in love with Ross Moran A, while simultaneously having an affair with Ross Moran B.

Brilliant! Ross put out the dream director for the project: David Cronenberg. We were both immensely satisfied with this choice, and amazed at our own brilliance at marrying concept with director most capable of handling it. Anyone seeing the problem with our genius yet? That's right movie fans. We apparently just heard the plot to Dead Ringers, and decided that David Cronenberg was best suited to direct it. Which he already did.

Stay off drugs, kids.

The Great War

I made the mistake of visiting Portland while wearing sneakers this weekend. Dumb. My feet were soaked for two days straight. I think I have trenchfoot now.

There was actually a guy in our building in London who claimed to be an EMT who specialized in foot and hand injuries. This was one of his more transparent lies. A girl sprained her foot while drunk, and he attributed her continued bruising and pain to trenchfoot. Diagnosis wrong, Dr. Dumbass. If memory serves I asked him if he was qualified to treat elbows as well as hands. I don't think he ever gave me a clear answer.

Shell shocked

Portland, like many cities, has undergone gentrification over the past few decades, and the neighborhood my friend Ross lives in is no exception. Whitey has moved into his neighborhood, in abundance, over the last few years, and the NE Alberta to Fremont area has gone from shady area to only slightly shady area. Still, there are remnants of the hard-knock life in the area. There are still streets nearby that are notorious drug spots; I, for instance, had a man wave a bag of crack at my from the sidewalk as I drove through the area one night.

A few weeks ago, I got a taste of the thuggish-ruggish life, when Ross and I got shot at in my car. I had just pulled up across the street from his house when my car came under fire--two kids on their porch had lit a bottle rocket and let it loose just as I was pulling up, and it skipped off the roof of my car, caromed into Ross' yard and exploded. So that's what it is like, growing up in the hood, coming under fire on a daily basis. Respect.

Edit: Changed NW Alberta to NE Alberta cuz I am dumb with typing directions.

U see those diamonds? U haul them out.

I don't know how many of you have had to move around the country before, but I know all of you have at least a passing familiarity with the U-Haul trucks that have ads for particular states on them. Has anyone taken a close look at one of these recently? Apparently their traditional understated ads for locations isn't enough for post-literate modern man, because their graphics have gone completely over the top. My friend Andy was helping his friend Cathy move some stuff across country, and Saturday morning her U-Haul truck showed up in front of Richard's house, giving me the chance to see these new graphic first hand. This one, in particular, was for Arkansas. Here is the classic design I was used to:

Not bad, all in all. Fishing seems like something I would probably go to Arkansas for. Truth in advertising, yeah? Well, here is the new advert for that same state, and I have to admit that I cannot bloody wait to go to Arkansas now:
Yes, that's right, the new campaign for Arkansas shows a volcano exploding with diamonds shooting out of it. Note that it says acres of diamonds are there. Acres! Although the text is missing, the truck said that an average of three diamonds a day are found at this state park, and you get to keep any diamonds you find. This is the greatest tourist attraction in history: a state park with an actively erupting volcano that showers you with diamonds. At the earliest opportunity I'm heading to Arkansas. If you are in the area, keep an eye open for me, I'll be the one running around with a bucket, laughing like a school girl as I catch diamonds from above.

How can other states compete with this? Pennsylvania is going to have to start advertising cities with streets paved with gold or, even better, platinum. Missouri needs to have show cloudy skies with thousand dollar bills raining from above. Florida needs to promise sex with busty University of Miami co-eds to every tourist. How else can they possibly compete withe promise of diamonds from heaven?

Note: If you want to see all the new state graphics, they are posted here, along with their traditional designs.

No help

Saturday I received a pleasant surprise: Brian called up to say he was in Eugene for the day. Even more pleasant? The fact that he somehow found his way to my apartment without me having to get in my car to drive and meet him somewhere. Truly world class, that chap is.

However, I now realize that he is, much like myself, someone you don't want around if you need a voice of common sense and reason on your side. There was a man at the almost entirely hippie-run Eugene Market with a sign that said "Free Hugs" on it. Deciding I badly needed to hug a complete stranger, I set off in pursuit, with Brian goading me on. This must be what it is like to hang out with me sometimes, as I'm known to push people into doing very questionable things.

The strangest part was that I had to barter with this guy to get the advertised price on the hug. Here is how the exchange went:

Andy (A): Hey, how much are those hugs going for?
Free Hug Guy (FHG): 5 dollars.
A: Really? How about I give you a high five and call it good?
FHG: Actually, high fives costs a nickel.
A: Damnit.
FHG: Hey, we go a long way back, though...remember that time we did that stuff!
A: Yeah, it was awesome.
FHG: For you? You can have it for free.
A: Come here you.

When using a turn signal is not enough

On my way to campus this afternoon, I was driving in the left lane behind a woman in teal Ford Explorer who had decided she needed to get into the right lane. She put her turn signal on, to no avail, since traffic was fairly thick in both lanes. Since just using a signal didn't remedy the situation, she inexplicably started to point wildly into the right lane with her hand; how she expected this help I can't imagine, since nobody in the right lane could possibly see her doing this. But being behind her, I could quite clearly see her grow increasingly agitated, and she began to absolutely lose all control of herself. She began to point more and more forcefully at the other lane, and her wild gesticulations caused her to begin to swerve wildly in her lane; at one point she nearly went up on the concrete divider on her left. I have never seen anyone flail about so while behind the wheel, and it was pure comedic platinum.

The Slump

I admit I'm a bit worried about myself right now. Last night I woke up in a sweat, and stood up to turn the heat down in my bedroom. I distinctly recall turning the knob all the way to the left, but what happened next is mainly a blank. Apparently I blacked out while standing up, because I have a foggy recollection of banging my head on the door, and the next thing I knew I was waking up slumped against the corner in my room. The back of my head is a bit tender, so that would jive with my impression of falling backwards into the door. I wonder if there is a gas leak or something at my place, it just doesn't seem normal for me to suddenly pass out and lay in a lump against a door like that.

Red Rain

Anyone familiar with Peter Gabriel's Red Rain? It's a great song, covered (in part) fantastically by R.E.M. One of the lyrics near the end goes thusly:

I come to you, defences down
With the trust of a child

Last Friday we were at my man Ross's house, enjoying a few drinks and some food, when Richard decided he needed to warm up some spicy soup in the microwave. Let me back up for a moment to set the scene: Ross's microwave is perched on top of his refrigerator, like some sort of electronic god on Mount Olympus, so Richard had to approach it almost as a supplicant with his soup. In his stupefied state, his only apparent plan of attack was to randomly stab at the buttons on front, mashing them in hope that his soup would heat up on its own accord. In a stunning display of situational awareness and intelligence, the microwave rendered judgement on Richard, and the phrase "Child" began to blink on the front of the screen in green letters. The room froze. You could feel the seething disgust roiling off the microwave, and the awkwardness this caused.

It could be worse, I suppose. At least it didn't label him "Sexually Inadequate".