so by now, everybody's bracket is pretty much fucked.
HA-HA!
that's for all the chumps who put $$$ on duke. i hate you.
i pretty much suck at predicting, but i'm seriously thinking it'll be a florida/lsu match-up, with very gritty, kinda ugly, physical play. lsu on top but not by much. cross your fingers and give me money if i'm right. :)
***apparently, yesterday i blew somebody's mind to the nth degree. excellent. i win.***
i should win a prize for the longest period drawn out without doing laundry; almost a month. how does she do it, you ask? simple; have a pair of underwear for as many days as you want to avoid the boring-est chore ever. # in my drawer? 36. thank you. *--> drawback of waiting: having to tote from the basement to the 2nd floor and then fold a month's worth of laundry. truth be told, i should have burned half the clothes, seeing as how i was laying around in my own pool of plague for five days last week. but whatever.
so i read this article in the post today (soooooooo much better than the b. sun, and i miss it) that talks about 20-somethings who just aren't really seeking out marriage and everything. apparently, researchers our parents' age did surveys and crap and saw that not as many of us are getting married as young, at least not as many as they thought were. a lot of the people they interviewed cited career as the number one pursuit, and i definitely see that. i think it's a huge benchmark for my peers to hit solvency doing what they WANT to do for a job, and other things can be seen as a distraction. relationships take time and commitment, after all.
after reading this, i realized that i'd had this internal struggle for a long time. i've always felt torn because the professions i've really been drawn to require an almost excessive amount of commitment, an amount that might push having a family back for some years until i'm more settled and/or established. and only now, ten years after first feeling this conflict, i'm realizing what i really want to do and that it's really what i want to do. in about two years or so, i hope to be off to grad school again, getting in over my head in a PhD program. who knows how that will affect my current relationships.
is this a really selfish thing? i would hope not. i talk about it with chris because this is definitely his mindset, and his view is that we're probably the first generation to truly pursue the dreams we've been told we can have and can come true since we were little. that, of course, comes with sacrifice, and i think we both realize that we can choose the extent of that sacrifice.
this comes as a big surprise to my mom. granted, i'm 26, but in the past six months or so, i've started to push in my own direction (philosophically) from my family, and i'm choosing something really different than they might have predicted. maybe i used to be chomping at the bit to have more when i was in my previous relationship, but at the same time, i am so much more independent now, and i'm really enjoying it. she said, "i thought you were tired of 'always the bridesmaid...', etc.," and that really surprised me that she said that. yeah, it's something i want someday, but i don't see that for years yet, and i'm certainly not going to go husband-scouting or be all pressure-y in a relationship. that's just silly.
so for now, yeah, there are things i want to change as far as career and finances and things like that. but i really like this idea of breaking through and exploring things on my own. i like not being in the beatty mold. i'm making my own path, and that's a thrill in itself. i'll admit that sometimes it's scary and lonely, but in the end, it's incredibly enriching, and i don't believe that it'll always be a solitary journey.
when life is ready, life is ready. and i'm fine with that.
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I say that if this is what you really want to do, then knock yourself out and follow your bliss. But, I think a lot of people our age make the mistake of thinking that they can devote all their time to establishing their careers in their 20s and then be able to back off and have lots of time to pursue relationships/families, etc. when they are a bit older. But life stops for no one. All of the emotional stuff won't just necessarily go away and then come back when convenient.
And the emotional/social side of life needs as much time and attention to evolve as does one's professional and educational sides. I, unlike some people, don't think there is anything wrong with prioritizing true vocation over marriage/children, but, I would say that if you *really* are committed to being married with children at some point, you may want to think even harder about the Ph.D. track. This is one of those things that for biological *and* societal reasons impacts women much more than men. Especially if you have a future with Chris and pursue the 2 academic route.
Me, I find much about academic work to be isolating to the point of crazy-making and the politics of the typical academic department to be supremely distasteful. I could tell you stories. So my job has been extremely helpful in helping me figure out the source of my discontent. But I've also discovered along the way that I don't need my work to be vocation, I just need it to be not soul-sucking and provide enough extra time and money for me to pursue other things, which is where I'm at now.
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