what the fuck am i getting myself into with this grad school stuff

presenting my thesis tomorrow

scared, yo :(

yah but it will b awesome and excellent!

you'll do great!

just got accepted to present my research paper to a conference! at a swanky hotel! with, like, other doctoral professors and shit! experts in the field!! WHAT IF I SUCK?????

nice! i've found the "old guard" is pretty welcoming/accommodating of new ppl in the field, for the most part, so don't sweat it (also i should probably take my own advice, here)

hey plax you should peep my thesis topic why because its intersting (to you, at least)

good luck tomorrow. you'll do great.

wtf i didn't know u wrote ur thesis about jeremy blake!!!

kindof supporting my awesome and excellent hypothesis here

ok that wasn't so bad

those sound like strong words! congrats. :)

so long AHRC application (as of one minute ago), you are out of my hands, which I'll now spend a couple of months crippling with crossed fingers. God I hope these butterflies don't last till August.

so I'm an MA as of tonite. Kinda anti-climatic, esp now that I'm not planning on following thru on a PhD (at least not for a bit). RL employment time. Wish me lux.

Congratulations!

have just quit my course

: (

ah fuck

well, i've pulled out but i've tried to leave it open-ended in case i don't feel like a bag of shit at some point and actually get off my ass and do stuff that fills me with visceral self-loathing (i.e. journalism)

i was hoping so. take a few days, let the breeze into ur head and maybe look at it anew.

good for you. doing grad school "just because" is the worst.

chin up old boy, the world awaits.

and congrats Mordy!!

glad your defense went well, that has to be rough (i wouldn't know)

have just quit my course

woah. only just saw this. I'm sure you're doing the right thing for you right now, but woah. have just submitted my application for p/t MA in human rights. also quite woah about this.

I didn't quit my course after all. I even flaked on quitting. Anyway, I've done it now and God I feel fucking apathetic about it. At least my final project was a nifty bit of radio.

Folks, say no to grad-school. You'll be destitute and completely unfulfilled by the end of it.

Now to get rejected from every job ever for being 'overqualified'

does an lj has a qualification is what i want to know?

well I might need to retake Media Law, is a thing

but other than that I ought to have a Pass in MA Science Journalism

go fucking me

hearty congrats. you'll get over your apathy with distance, i hope. it's not an ideal time for anyone to be graduating, but that's not necessarily a reflection on the course you chose

good work I say. As soon as I 1. get rejected for PhD funding, and 2. finish my Masters (yeah in that order) I'll join you on the overqualified-for-every-job-ever train.

I mean 'overqualified'.

the sad thing is I'm not qualified for fucking anything - I have an English Lit degree and a Journalism degree. I don't have any applicable skill except 'blagging it'

fuck

wait did you finish the science journalism thing then?

i opted for business instead of english or physics to avoid the same fate. srsly, no difference- at least you got to study some interesting shit.

xpost - that I did - as with my Eng Lit degree, the only thing of worth I did was my final project/dissertation. this time it was on the subject of Britain's fluctuating bird populations - what might be causing declines and shifts, a sort of state-of-the-nation report and quite a comprehensive one given the 15-minute duration

also lol you made a physics dig in caek's presence THIS WILL END WELL :D

I don't have any applicable skill except 'blagging it'

king of skills in this wacky world, I say.

it wasn't a dig, it was lol @ me for doing a shitty safe degree at a local second rate institute

ok but watch it, i am figuring out important stuff about how much iron there is in the stars in a galaxy 100 million light years away that we will never visit, this is important stuff. all these assholes wasting their time on blocking oil wells, drinking water, bringing up children, etc.

how much iron is there? a lot or a little?

tbh if man stopped wondering how the universe worked we might as well push the red button now

is how I break it down to an extent

xxp jeez it's a living ain't it? an interesting living, that's maybe tough to tie down to everyday practical stuff, but still kinda noble in a way?

i mean, i do everyday, necessary practical stuff, and it sucks so hard that you could study the vacuum tbh

xxp jeez it's a living ain't it?

tbc :/

see, lj- everything sucks for everyone right now.

ilx commune is becoming an inevitability imo

a job would be nice. perhaps I should look for one. out there in the massive world of jobs.

if you can afford to eat without one, you're better off not bothering tbh

um in all seriousness things are fucking tight, and that's with me at home

as part of graduate degree program 2.0, i am taking my first online class. it costs $400 less than the in-class version of the same syllabus, and i am incredibly frustrated by the "virtual salon" atmosphere. like ILX without the penis jokes.

xp eliminate unnecessary public spending

hey talking about public worth, I'm studying philosophy. What a wanker I am.

Re. jobs I'm in an unpleasant limbo at the moment - my current job ends tomorrow, and in the highly unlikely event that I get funding I'll be starting my PhD at the beginning of October, but I won't know about the funding until August. So any job application I make comes with the proviso "btw I may be fucking off in about five minutes", which probably doesn't go down well. Ah well I'll enjoy the jobseekers and the starvation and the being hung drawn and quartered under our glorious new regime while I can.

i had to turn down a job in new york last week ;_; because (i) couldn't make start date because of these fuckn galaxies and 2000 undergrads wouldn't wait and (ii) it was a lame offer, 21 month contract (i.e. one summer), would have been de facto the end of my academic career. been hustling for that job for ~three years.

man that sucks

ps was 21 months really such a bad offer, in current sitch?

21 months = 3 months for research = no chance of a job at the end of it. still got some irons in some fires, but this year was a bloodbath for astronomy jobs.