I have kind of a lot of miscellaneous feelings, and maybe writing about them will help sort them out. Or maybe I'll just free-associate for a while
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+1 to the list of people that feel your pain, maaan.
Plus, last time I complained on lj about my woes, (and fretted intensely that I was being whiner) someone actually provided a possible solution. Jury's still out on whether it will work, but.
The real moral is: I hope you feel okay discussing your feelings, even when they are negative. The polarity of your feelings is orthogonal to their legitimacy. Your job isn't to like the vegetables on your plate unconditionally.
I may just read Bowling Alone on your recommendation, since I had heard of it before and it sounded interesting. So far I hadn't gotten enough activation-energy to actually track it down and read it. My default position on people these sorts of sociological judgments of specifically "how authentically connected people are" is one of extreme skepticism. (my prejudice is to hear an implied "rrrragh kids these days are so superficial and have no sense of community" and to doubt that in the absence of clear trend data
( ... )
So, IANASociologist, but from my lay perspective, the book looks like it's very thoroughly researched, and it's got some convincing quantitative measurements of social connectedness. Skepticism is certainly warranted, but to me, his case seems good.
And it's not just KIDS THESE DAYS -- it's been happening gradually for many decades, he argues!
Other people have already said it more elegantly, but I agree: You shouldn't feel bad about complaining when things are annoying :-)
Someone was just telling me earlier this week that, apparently, when you write a grant proposal you don't actually have to do any of the work you say you're going to do. You just have to do something to please the funders enough such that they don't hate you forever and refuse to give you any more money ever again. I found that very odd: if a professor isn't inherently interested in the work you guys decided to do, I would have at least thought that the spectre of the final report would provide some motivation.
Maybe not the most relevant story, but there it is. Do you feel like you're getting little enough support from your advisor that it's worth taking it up with the department head -- or your advisor himself? I feel like I'd be too afraid to, if it were happening to me, but one can only take so much...
A confounding factor here is that he's retired now :-\ Conveniently, though, he moved out here to California! He's just over the mountain, in Santa Cruz.
Even before he retired, IU has been known to have professors who... just kind of never bother to get grants. Their (foolish) students end up being a TA every semester to pay the bills.
I think of the purpose of comments on LJ as "bearing witness." So: I read this; your feelings are [always] valid; the things you are sad about sound really tough.
Re: online interactions, you could always come hang out on Zulip. :) (it's still a huge time sink as opposed to actually going and doing stuff, but at least the people are curated, you get a bigger text box, and you can filter by topic.)
(I mean, I'm not saying that Zulip is the best thing for all use cases -- I myself am clearly also on Twitter and LJ! -- but maybe for the specific case you're looking for?)
I seem to remember once upon a time you told me--"Emily, in person you are so happy and positive but on LJ you are so emo". I think thats what LJ is used for best--to gripe and complain and vent and let it all out.
Thinking of you. I completely get the isolation and frustration! Power to the people! Suffer through it and push through it, and be the Doctor we all know you are--with or without a blue phonebooth. It sucks, and in the end will somehow be worth it.
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Plus, last time I complained on lj about my woes, (and fretted intensely that I was being whiner) someone actually provided a possible solution. Jury's still out on whether it will work, but.
The real moral is: I hope you feel okay discussing your feelings, even when they are negative. The polarity of your feelings is orthogonal to their legitimacy. Your job isn't to like the vegetables on your plate unconditionally.
I may just read Bowling Alone on your recommendation, since I had heard of it before and it sounded interesting. So far I hadn't gotten enough activation-energy to actually track it down and read it. My default position on people these sorts of sociological judgments of specifically "how authentically connected people are" is one of extreme skepticism. (my prejudice is to hear an implied "rrrragh kids these days are so superficial and have no sense of community" and to doubt that in the absence of clear trend data ( ... )
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So, IANASociologist, but from my lay perspective, the book looks like it's very thoroughly researched, and it's got some convincing quantitative measurements of social connectedness. Skepticism is certainly warranted, but to me, his case seems good.
And it's not just KIDS THESE DAYS -- it's been happening gradually for many decades, he argues!
Reply
Someone was just telling me earlier this week that, apparently, when you write a grant proposal you don't actually have to do any of the work you say you're going to do. You just have to do something to please the funders enough such that they don't hate you forever and refuse to give you any more money ever again. I found that very odd: if a professor isn't inherently interested in the work you guys decided to do, I would have at least thought that the spectre of the final report would provide some motivation.
Maybe not the most relevant story, but there it is. Do you feel like you're getting little enough support from your advisor that it's worth taking it up with the department head -- or your advisor himself? I feel like I'd be too afraid to, if it were happening to me, but one can only take so much...
Reply
Even before he retired, IU has been known to have professors who... just kind of never bother to get grants. Their (foolish) students end up being a TA every semester to pay the bills.
IU CS has a known issue or two.
Reply
Re: online interactions, you could always come hang out on Zulip. :) (it's still a huge time sink as opposed to actually going and doing stuff, but at least the people are curated, you get a bigger text box, and you can filter by topic.)
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Thinking of you. I completely get the isolation and frustration! Power to the people! Suffer through it and push through it, and be the Doctor we all know you are--with or without a blue phonebooth. It sucks, and in the end will somehow be worth it.
Reply
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