The annoying thing is no matter what happens now, I can't go back and get a Ph.D. I can't give them that victory, fulfill that "I told you so." Stupid sexy life-changing decisions.
You could get a Ph.D. in Sexology. That'd flip 'em out.
Willow, check you out! Witch-Fu!
Buffy ,'Lessons'
Spike's Bitches 24: I'm Very Seldom Naughty.
[NAFDA] Spike-centric discussion. Lusty, lewd (only occasionally crude), risque (and frisque), bawdy (Oh, lawdy!), flirty ('cuz we're purty), raunchy talk inside. Caveat lector.
DavidS - Jun 14, 2005 9:24:34 am PDT #4646 of 10001
"Look, son, if it's good enough for Shirley Bassey, it's good enough for you."
§ ita § - Jun 14, 2005 9:24:47 am PDT #4647 of 10001
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.
Just as you shouldn't let your parents force you to do a PhD, you shouldn't let them prevent you from doing one, if you want it. Otherwise they're still controlling you.
askye - Jun 14, 2005 9:33:56 am PDT #4648 of 10001
Thrive to spite them
PC, my Mom went a bit crazy when she heard my brother was planning to go to New Zealand to study Outdoor Education.
Even though my brother had done the same thing for the past 5 yrs and earned a nice living and was well liked by his employers Mom still kept saying "But what's he going to do! He'll get this degree and won't be able to get a job and then he'll starve!"
It seriously freaked her out becuase it's so different from anything my brother ever expressed doing and it was something out side her comfort zone. Finally after reminding her about my brother's job (at the time) and that he had skills she stopped flipping out. But it took months. And I think she still has these panics but she doesn't mention them.
-t - Jun 14, 2005 9:34:39 am PDT #4649 of 10001
I am a woman of various inclinations and only some of the time are they to burn everything down in frustration
ita is wise. And, to cross-pollinate a little, there's no need to for you to be figuring out what you'll do if the writing doesn't work out. Just try to make it work out, for now.
Connie Neil - Jun 14, 2005 9:36:22 am PDT #4650 of 10001
brillig
Many years ago, my oldest sister decided to go to Finland for some semester abroad business school thing. She decided to take a side trip to the Soviet Union, as it then was, and my mother desperately tried to talk her out of it. She was certain my sister was going to disappear into a gulag somewhere off this carefully organized and guided tour to St. Petersburg.
Parents are not always level-headed.
brenda m - Jun 14, 2005 9:37:17 am PDT #4651 of 10001
If you're going through hell/keep on going/don't slow down/keep your fear from showing/you might be gone/'fore the devil even knows you're there
And was she?
Strix - Jun 14, 2005 9:45:44 am PDT #4652 of 10001
A dress should be tight enough to show you're a woman but loose enough to flee from zombies. — Ginger
I got the job, y'all!
Connie Neil - Jun 14, 2005 9:45:46 am PDT #4653 of 10001
brillig
Oldest sister is currently alive and well and living in the Bay Area as a mortgage analyst. If there were any adventures in Cold War St. Petersburg, she never shared them with me.
Fred Pete - Jun 14, 2005 9:45:51 am PDT #4654 of 10001
Ann, that's a ferret.
Parents are not always level-headed.
To say the least. When I came out to my parents (at age 28, not to mention 10 years after I went off to school and, really, stopped being an everyday physical presence in their lives), their response was to (1) tell me that I was not gay, because they knew me too well to believe that was possible, and (2) to seek psychiatric treatment.
I spent several days writing back, to make sure I was being reasonable (and both of my beta readers told me I'd succeeded). Their response to that started, "We don't know how you could have written such a mean-spirited letter."
The situation went downhill from there.
Sparky1 - Jun 14, 2005 9:46:20 am PDT #4655 of 10001
Librarian Warlord
Congratulations, Erin!