Just need to vent!! Agghhh!!!! I just got an email from a family member "back home" commenting on my recent conference ( where I gave my first paper on my PhD results so far in a venue outside of the university--so it felt like a big deal!) who only asked if the "trip" was "relaxing." Huh?!

A conference is not a holiday. Giving a paper at one is certainly not a holiday. It can be lots of things to go to a conference, but relaxing is not the word that comes to mind, and besides, what about asking how MY PAPER WENT????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

I know I am probably being over-sensitive or over-reactive, but HELLO! How about some realisation about how much WORK this is, and how much it means to be doing this--instead of trivialising it into some kind of adult gap year? That is what irks me the most, I suppose, is the refusal to recognise what it means to be doing a PhD. I have kevetched at this relative before about this sort of thing...maybe in a few days I will let them know that I found their comments really annoying and the old rule, if they do not have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.

Oh I do feel your pain I really do. I have 'friends' and relatives who seem to think I am a stay home mom who does a little knitting class on the side.

Your first conference paper IS a big deal. I haven't done one for my PhD yet - just posters.

That must be so annoying, Smilodon! Especially given that it has got to be challenging to balance a marriage, a child, a PhD and some semblance of sanity--why don't people try to understand that this is not exactly Xanadu's stately pleasure dome!

Some people will just be ignorant, I suppose, but those are not the reactions that I care about. Other people AREN'T ignorant, and I think that there is a level of jealousy and thus a sort of venomous passive aggressive response such as the one I got.

What is there to be jealous of? In some respects, little, if you look at living in a cold room in Bleak Towers, being glad to save 40p on a box of eggs, scraping up change for the luxury of a latte...etc...on the other hand, I am doing something that people do not do--that is pursue a dream, and something that is really important to me. And having the guts TO pursue it...even if it means living in Bleak Towers and having to be glad to save 40p on a box of eggs.

you're not alone olivia. just don't let them get to you. my working friends and everyone around me always asks if am sleeping when they call and its really annoying!!!! a lot of the time i work late into the night and get up in the afternoon. to them it looks like all i do is sleep and because am not working by nine like everyone else am just being a lazy student.

i just think most of these people are unsupportive and prefer to convince themselves that our 'hard work' won't amount to anything. the way to get back at them is to keep your cool and in time when you're done, the equilibrium will shift and reveal their most feared reality. you'll be a Dr!!

I read a book at one point that put some perspective into my own pursuit of a PhD...maybe time to re-read? Anyway, it was by Pahleo Coheleo ( that is not exactly the author's name) called the Zahir, and there was a particular passage about how society tries to rob a person of their dreams, and most people give in to this pressure, called the 'accomodor' I think in the book, and how the challenge in living a full realised life was to get past that phase of accomodor and do your thing.

I read it at a difficult point in time where the sensible decision did not look like going on with the PhD, but I had such an extreme reaction to the thought of not going on with it, carrying on in tears, as if something or someone had died, that I realised to not do it would be a death of a sort--the death of what I was dreaming of doing and had much so much had work and effort into...and so I had to carry on with it.

Anyway..

thanks JoJo and Smilodon for understanding!

that sounds like an interesting book Olivia. maybe you could post the precise title sometime. i'd love to read it.

I can definitely relate to that. When I was a teenager/young woman I didn't dream about marriage and children - I wanted to go into research. But then a lot of things went pair-shaped and I dropped out of grad school twice in my early twenties. Totally never thought I would attempt it again and went a different way.

A lot of stuff of a different kind has happened this time but this is the Last Chance Saloon for that dream and I am grimly determined to swim that ocean no matter what. And yes, I am a bit over-eager with the metaphors some times.

I can totally empathise Olivia! It's so frustrating!!! I do actually believe that jealousy has a role to play in this, really do. I actually lost a friend when I started the PhD. He and I were really close,but as soon as I got accepted for the PhD, he just stopped calling me. The couple of times I've spoken to him, he's made sarcastic comments about the PhD. He wanted to do a PhD, but didn't have the courage to go for it. I was always encouraging him to apply and never rubbed it in his face. In fact, I avoided bringing my work up because I didn't want to make him feel uncomfortable. I've since had to accept that our friendship is severed, and that it's not my fault.

And while some people a genuinely clueless there are a few sour grapes too. I think you and I are of a similar age (I would guess I am slightly older) - an age when we should be calling it a day and settling in for the downhill slide into old-age. We should be done with fancilful nonsense of this kind and lead sensible dull lives like some Other People.

I did go through a phase where I actually felt guilty about the PhD! (can you believe that?) I felt like I had no right to talk to him about it. It turned into this 'elephant in the room'--when we talked, he'd ask how everything was going, and there was nothing much going on for me apart from the PhD, but I avoided bringing it up. For a while, one of my friends would ask the same inane question like 'So, how long is this COURSE going to take to complete?', like it was some sort of conversion course or something.

Xeno - I often feel it is an elephant in the room too. It's interesting how differently some people react. Some people are really interested and excited about it - and some people definitely have some sort of problem with it (and treat my husband like he's a saint for 'allowing' it grrrrrrrrr).

Oh yes, I'm familiar with that type of thinking Smilodon. Do you personally think it's an issue of jealousy? The common thing is for people like this to try to make you feel like a scrounger, like you're sitting around wasting time when you could be doing something 'useful' i.e. a full-time job. The PhD gets treated as something luxurious and self-indulgent. What I often get is people accusing me of just trying to do anything I can to avoid getting 'a real job'. I'm sure you're familiar with this one. We all will hear it at some point in our PhDs.