Boot Camp and Parents

A doctoral program is hard. Let me tell you. There are no two ways about it. It is hard, sometimes grueling work. Sure, I'm studying something I enjoy and find fascinating but sometimes the cost benefit doesn't seem worth it. Here I am, barely scraping by financially (and I have a generous financial package) while I have friends and family members that are buying homes, building careers, taking family trips. At times it seems unfair, like "Hey, I want that, too. Hey, I deserve that, too." Sometimes the long hours of reading, writing, and teaching don't seem worth it. Sometimes it seems like the doctoral program is hard just for the sake of being hard...like academic boot camp, but it lasts five years. I mean, almost anybody could do boot camp. Working for Featured Films for Families (or as I like to think of it "How I ripped off old ladies for a summer by selling them poorly made family-themed movies) taught me that I can do anything for two months. Also, serving a mission taught me that I can just about do anything for two years. But can I keep doing this for another three? I suppose so.

I think I could do boot camp. It would hurt. It would be painful. I would probably cry and swear and want to kick a dog the next time I saw one just because I could. But you know what? I already feel like that. And although I haven't kicked a dog during my time in Nashville, I've sure felt like crying and swearing, mostly at the same time. So when I raise my fists at the heavens and yell at God and say, "Hey, when is this going to end? Huh?" I usually realize how silly I must look while shaking my fists in the middle of the grocery store and I stop. But then I come home and call a friend, or talk to my wife, or I call my parents. They are patient and understanding especially since they've been through a lot of this crap. I mean, they don't know what a doctoral program is like, but they certainly know what its like to raise a family with all the problems that entails.

Hmm...I actually feel a bit better. My situation is still the same. Nothing has changed in the last ten minutes while I've been writing this...correction: nothing external has changed; but, I do feel a bit better.

(And I have a friend that wants to get into graduate school. Should I tell her what it's really like? Nah...then I'll have somebody with whom to commiserate. [See that, I even know how to use direct object pronouns correctly. See what this fancy-pants ed-u-muh-kay-shun has given me?])