I will never write the Great American Novel

[psocoptera]

I've never intended to; I don't write novels, I don't even believe The G.A.N. exists. But I will never write the Great American Novel. Nor will I ever see my first paper published, present a poster at my first conference, be addressed as Dr. Sw*ft, or even know how satisfyingly well I did on my comp exams. On the other hand, I'll also never be sitting in the lab again, completely alone, staring at my lab notebook thinking, so should I do it that way or this way? do I need to do that first? where do I even *start*?, having absolutely no one around I can ask, panicking before I've even gotten anywhere knowing I can't possibly get it right without a little guidance I'm just not going to get.

So, you know, it's not without its compensations. And I get a Masters as a consolation prize. And it seems reasonably likely that by the end of the year I'll be somewhere being generally more content and productive, earning a good bit more than I was, grinding my teeth and thinking hateful thoughts as my time and actions are directly controlled by someone else, because apparently I get a choice of extremes, and after three and a half months of silence I finally heard from my advisor, and what I heard was that I'm out. So I don't have that choice any more.

Or, you know, maybe I'll write the Great American Novel or something ::grin::. Teach high school? Proofread textbooks? Anybody need a Master of Biochemistry, good bench skills, excellent written English, creative, quick learner, may think hateful thoughts at you if given too many drop-that-other-thing-and-do-this-now commands but "thrives in a team environment with plenty of communication" or whatever nice spin we're going to try to put on it? Ze dept. head suggested "found I wasn't really interested in basic research", but while I may not actually ever be *engaged* in it again, I'm still quite *interested* in the questions and methods of basic research. Just not in trying to do it in total isolation. I suppose now it is a sort of spectator interest; me and my busted knee will follow the careers of my contemporaries and wonder how it might have been.

I'm totally serious about the job thing, by the way. I don't have any particular plans - I'm open to pursuing anything that sounds interesting.

Comments

[stowaway-geek.livejournal.com]

Sympathy.

I left Maryland CS with a large portion of a Masters degree, but not the whole thing, which was bad, in terms of me having it lurking over me without having decided definitively "no, I don't want this."

So in hard-headed, practical terms, seems as well that you're finishing that chunk.