I have had two separate friends point out / complain that I haven't been doing much writing lately, and specifically that I haven't updated This Unemployed Life in a while. It is sad, but true, and there is really no good reason for it. Thus, I attribute this lack of follow-through and creative drive to deadbeatery.
Urban Dictionary entry number 3 defines deadbeat as "A non-contributing adult." In our world (that of myself and my close friends), deadbeatery is the act of being a deadbeat, and a deadbeat is someone who is good-for-nothing, cannot be relied upon, and is basically useless. There is a whole lot of deadbeatery that goes on in the apartment where I currently reside. The deadbeat behavior is most commonly exhibited by my male roommate and dear friend, who has lovingly been named "King Deadbeat." Long live the King!
Apparently the deadbeatery has started to rub off on me. I have been here for over three weeks. I have probably spent about three hours of that time studying for the GRE, which I am allegedly taking in September. Not that I've registered for it or anything. I have probably updated This Unemployed Life two or three times, and have definitely written less iPinion articles than I should have. The one thing I have managed to do consistently is my weekly posts for the Saturday Poetry Series on As It Ought To Be, which have only occurred because I actually have a real-life deadline and my phone reminds me to meet this deadline every week.
This, my friends, is classic deadbeatery.
Remember a while back when I talked about the importance of routine? Well, I have that now, more or less, and apparently that's not enough. Apparently as a writer I need deadlines. And an editor breathing down my neck probably wouldn't hurt either... As for the GRE, I guess if I actually stopped being a deadbeat long enough to register for a specific test date that would (hopefully) put the necessary fire under me.
*sigh*
New York just has a lot to offer, a lot going on. There is yoga, happy hour, dinner with friends. There are nights out on the town, nights in recovering, and weekends away. There is work and there is play, and it doesn't leave a whole lot of time for extra curricular activities. Of course, to me, my writing life is not an extra-curricular activity. It's not paying my bills as of yet, but it is what I want to do with my life, what I love. So I should probably spend a little more time doing it and a little less time doing EVERYTHING else!
That's it for today. That's where I'm at. A deadbeat among deadbeats, with a nagging sensation somewhere deep inside me that I need to focus! I need to achieve my goals! I was worried when I planned to come to NY that my goals would fall to the wayside and living life would get in the way, and it has absolutely happened. New York, you are a seductive mistress. I have no power over you!
Recently This Unemployed Life featured an LA Times article and discussion on the bleak prospects for those with a PhD, particularly in the humanities. This post will be another uplifting look at the same concerns.
Okla Elliot, a Ph.D candidate, colleague of mine at As It Ought To Be, and the same person who helped me make the decision to go to graduate school for my MFA in creative writing, recently linked to an article published by The Chronicle of Higher Education.
This article paints a pretty dismal picture of pursuing higher education in the humanities. In fact, the main message of the article is "just don't go."
*sigh*
The author of the article suggests a person only pursue higher education in the humanities under the following circumstances:
"* You are independently wealthy, and you have no need to earn a living for
yourself or provide for anyone else.
* You come from that small class of well-connected people in academe who will
be able to find a place for you somewhere.
* You can rely on a partner to provide all of the income and benefits needed by
your household.
* You are earning a credential for a position that you already hold — such as a
high-school teacher — and your employer is paying for it."
Hmmm... Well, I am not independently wealthy. I think that's pretty apparent. I don't have a partner who can support me, nor do I want to rely on someone else if I can help it. And I'm not earning a credential I already hold. I do happen to have a very close friend in academe who may one day be able to help me get a position. But who knows. I certainly can't put all my eggs in that basket.
So I am back to the same square one I've always been on. I have to embrace the underlying truth that I am going back to graduate school first and foremost for the joy of the experience. I am going back for the opportunity to spend two-to-three years writing and reading and living poetry. I am going back to write a book that hopefully will get published and help put me on the map at the end of all of this. It would be great if this degree got me a job as a tenure-track literature professor, but that cannot be the be-all-end-all goal of the process.
I am blessed that, thanks to Okla Elliot, I am aware that there are graduate school programs that fund. I am blessed that I will not have to incur student loan debt to participate in this experience. And I am blessed to spend a few years doing what I love. Beyond that, it is in fate's hands. Like everything else.
The other night my girlfriend and I were having a conversation with a friend. My girlfriend was explaining to our friend that I am a lawyer who is no longer a lawyer. Later we were discussing my relationship status. My girlfriend said she couldn't refer to my boyfriend as my ex. Nor is he my boyfriend at the moment.
As I added up the sums of these conversations I realized that this non-status sums up my whole life at the moment. I am a lawyer who is no longer a lawyer. I have a boyfriend who is no longer my boyfriend. I am unemployed but working. I no longer belong to my old apartment in San Francisco, nor do I belong to my friend's apartment where I'm staying now.
I am a girl in limbo. Between my previous law career and my forthcoming career as a literature professor. I inhabit the spaces between. Not quite employed, not quite unemployed. Not quite single, not quite in a relationship. I have no idea where I will spend the next year until grad school, what city and state I will live in, what I will do for work.
There is a part of me that is completely comfortable with this in-between existence, and a part of me that is equally uncomfortable with it. The adventurer in me, the traveler, loves the freedom. I love that I am living in New York, that I may choose to stay here and fulfill a lifelong dream or I may choose to return to San Francisco, my lifelong home. At the same time I am a planner, and the planner in me wants to know what the plan is. Will I return to San Francisco, will I stay in New York? Will my boyfriend and I reconcile, or do I need to move on? Should I be finding work to sustain me in New York, or enjoy the freedom for a couple of months and focus on sustaining a life back home?
At the end of the day I have no answers. I would admittedly love a crystal ball. I would love to see the outcomes of all possible paths and then choose the path that looks like it will bring me the most happiness and success in life. But there is no crystal ball. Instead I have my eyes and ears open and am paying attention to the signs the universe provides. As doors open for me I enter them.
There is a unique kind of hardship to this existence as well. This weekend at a low point I distinctly felt the need to return home immediately. And at the moment I was making plans in my head I realized that I don't have a home to go home to, a life to go home to, at least not in the way I had a life before I left.
I cannot return to my boyfriend at the moment, who needs this time to himself. I cannot return to my apartment – there is a subletter living in my old room. I have no job there, nor do I have the same network of people offering me work as I do here. It was a sad and low moment for me when I realized I can't return to my old life now, even if I want or need to. Maybe I can return in a couple of months when some time has passed and some things have changed, but right now, at this moment, I cannot return to my old life. That is fine when I have a life here in New York, but in those rare moments where I fear I cannot live my life here either it is truly scary and sad to know I may not belong anywhere.
But I am an eternal optimist. If I can ride out the wave for a moment and get past a low point I come around to see that life is livable here or there. I have made the best of every opportunity I have had in this life thus far, so there is nothing keeping me from doing the same in the here and now.
In the end I truly believe that everything happens as it is meant to. And so I am open to the possibilities and resign myself to the fact that I am not in control, that I am merely along for the ride. Until choices are made and life becomes more settled, I am contentedly resigned to being a girl in limbo.
This unemployed life has taken a turn toward a new adventure, one that lies approximately 2,500 miles east of San Francisco. I am writing this entry on an airplane bound for New York. I purchased a one-way ticket, and, in truth, I have no idea where this journey is going to take me.
I am going to New York for work, sort of, for friends, definitely, and, as my dear friend and trophy wife likes to say, for a transition, that is, this journey is first and foremost for me. I suppose the 'why' of the decision is less important than the road ahead, than those things I look forward to and hope to accomplish while I'm there, and for those unknown experiences that lie on the horizon.
A number of invitations and various circumstances have brought me here. My personal life needed time and space to breathe, to choose a direction. In response my best friend of twenty-two years was kind enough to open her home to me. Then her brother/roommate (also a dear friend of mine) was able to get me an internship at his work. And so, one domino knocked down another until I found myself headed back to that city that has always captivated me.
I'll be living with my friends in Hoboken New Jersey, a vibrant youthful city across the Hudson River from NYC, just outside of Manhattan. Hoboken, by the way, boasts more bars per capita than any other city in the U.S. If you've never been, I strongly suggest it. It is a city filled with those successful enough to work in Manhattan but too young to afford to live there. Hoboken houses numerous boutiques, fantastic restaurants, and a vibrant life.
I'll be working two-to-three days a week in Manhattan proper. Thanks to good friends, good connections, and, of course, what I bring to the table, I'll be interning at the prestigious Demos, a non-partisan public policy research and advocacy organization. Whatever it is they need me to do, I'll be doing it, and no matter what it is I am going to experience both the structure I've been needing (five months of unemployment cooped up in my apartment writing has brought about its fare share of cabin fever) and the opportunity to work in an environment that will stimulate my brain and my passion.
Outside of the work and the living-it-up-in-the-big-city life, I bring to NY a few goals of my own. I plan to take the GRE in September, so I've got a fair amount of studying to do. And of course my grad school applications are due in the winter, and I've still got a long way to go editing my writing sample and preparing my applications. Truthfully these two goals alone can be the equivalent of a full-time job, so I'm going to have to exert a fair amount of willpower and resolve to get them done to my satisfaction in the midst of living and working amongst all this fabulousness.
I love New York. After I passed the California bar I had planned to take the New York bar, but decided instead to focus on getting my career rolling where I was already licensed. And we all know how that turned out, so it is appropriate that I find myself New York bound once again.
I plan to return to San Francisco in late September. I feel like two months is enough time to soak up new experiences, save up for and work toward grad school applications, and be ready to come home. But the truth is, who knows what the future holds. I am taking a step into the unknown of the universe. There is nothing tying me to one place or another. All there is is my willingness to see what doors open for me and where my path extends. I choose life, wherever it may lead.
Tomorrow I turn 30, and so today I am reflecting upon what it means to me to be entering my thirties.
My girlfriends and I have talked A LOT about our impending thirties over the past few years. Mostly we talked about how FABULOUS they would be. We all agreed that our thirties would be far more fabulous than our twenties for a number of reasons. Mostly the consensus was the following:
1) We would be more financially set than we'd ever been. After having spent our twenties in school and establishing our career paths, our thirties would be all about reaping the benefits of thriving in those established careers and making more money than we'd ever made before.
2) With that money we would have a more lavish lifestyle than we'd ever had before. We would be the thinnest and fittest we'd ever been because we would be able to afford nice gyms and personal trainers. We would be able to afford better food, maybe even hire a chef to come cook healthy low-calorie meals for us once a week. We would be able to take vacations at least once a year, and we'd have the money to take nice vacations, to trade hostels for hotels.
3) We would all wear right hand diamonds. As our thirties approached and it was pretty clear that many of us were not going to be engaged or married, we traded in the dream of a left hand diamond for the dream of a right. A diamond we bought for ourselves for our thirtieth birthday, a diamond that represented all we had accomplished and our dedication to ourselves.
Clearly I will not be buying myself a right hand diamond. Clearly I can't afford a personal trainer or a chef. And clearly I traded in the dream of the wealth and stability my legal career might have provided in exchange for the uncertainty of following my dreams.
In short, I am not where I thought I would be at thirty.
I've never been set on the idea of having kids, so, unlike some of my compatriots, I am not feeling a pull from my biological clock. At least not yet. And I have pretty mixed feelings about marriage - the realist in me in constant opposition to the hopeless romantic in me - so I am not really disappointed to be thirty and without a fiance or husband or a relationship that is likely to lead to that outcome.
On the other hand, it is odd to be turning thirty and be on the brink of being single, without a home of my own, without a job, and with a completely uncertain future.
It is not a disappointment, it is simply not where I thought I'd be at thirty.
The truth is I am a "glass half full" kind of girl. I see my career change as the opportunity of a lifetime. And I'm glad to trade in all the potential financial benefits of a career in the law for the chance to spend my life doing what I love, no matter the income.
In short, you could sum up my place in my life in one of two ways:
1) I am unemployed, my future is uncertain, I am unmarried, a husband and children are not in my near future, I don't have a home of my own, and I have not accomplished any of the things I thought I would accomplish at thirty; or
2) I have learned my lessons the hard way, and use the knowledge I've gained to my advantage. I made a tough choice to give up a career that might have brought me financial success but that brought me little inner happiness. I chose happiness and fulfillment and my dreams over money. I live life on my own terms, and the fact that I am not where I thought I'd be is thrilling, because I'm headed somewhere far better than I could have dreamed.
I choose the latter. Where I thought I'd be has become far less important than where I am, and all the possibility that lies in where I'm headed.
I recently read this very depressing LA Times article that discusses the bleak prospects for those with a PhD, particularly in the humanities. 
The article is titled "Universities are offering doctorates but few jobs." Well, really, in today's economy, who is offering a lot of jobs?
The article discusses the plight of universities and their current hiring processes:
"Many universities are cutting costs by reducing full-time staff and hiring adjunct or part-time professors. The number of full-time faculty members at universities was around 51% in 2007... That leaves many doctoral degree candidates stuck with adjunct work, which can pay as little as $2,000 a semester."
$2,000 a semester? A semester? Are you kidding me? That's nearly what I get in unemployment in one month! I would never be able to pay rent, bills, and student loan debt on that kind of abysmal income.
Those students with degrees in the humanities have the toughest road ahead of them:
"Graduates with humanities doctorates are particular[ly] vulnerable to the downturn in university hiring. In 2008, 86% of humanities doctoral recipients ended up in academia, whereas only 15% of engineering doctoral recipients did.
The number of jobs listed in the Modern Language Assn.'s Job Information List, a clearinghouse for English and foreign literature doctoral students, is down more than 40% over two years, the steepest decline since the association began keeping count."
And the graduates themselves are making personal pleas to prospective graduate school students:
" 'If you're thinking about going to graduate school, don't do it, don't do it, don't do it,' said Erin Williams Hyman. After receiving a doctorate in comparative literature from UCLA in 2005, she looked three years for a job as a professor but was unsuccessful...
Stover, the graduate-turned-poker-player, isn't bitter about switching careers. She said she was sick of the long hours and 'soul-sucking' world of academia. She still has friends who hold low-paying academic jobs who want out.
'In retrospect, doing a PhD was not worth putting in six years of my life, she said. 'But going through that whole process taught me a lot about how to work hard.' "
The funny thing is, these are exactly the things I say about law school! I warn people not to do it, that it's not worth it. And I also say that I learned a lot from the experience, particularly about hard work and accomplishing something.
So maybe it doesn't matter what you study. In today's market, if you're looking for a career, for a secure and well-paying job, higher education is not a guaranteed path to that outcome. In fact, I believe there is no guaranteed path to that outcome. And so I return to my mantra - if there is no guarantee of security and financial success, regardless of the career you choose, then do what you love.
That's what's in it for me. I am going back to grad school to do what I love.
My personal plan of action is to go back to school to become a literature professor. I want, someday, to teach creative writing at a university. So I fall right into the group of people the article discusses, and if present times are any indicator, my competition will be great and my chances of success slim.
How do I cope with the prospect of going back to school in the face of this job market? The answer is all about what's in it for me. Or, rather, what I'm in it for.
I am first going back to school for my MFA. An MFA is a terminal degree, which means it is not intended to be followed up by more schooling. An MFA is supposed to prepare a person for being hired as a professor if that is the career they choose.
But an MFA is also, perhaps more accurately, thought of as an opportunity to write. Given the competitive job market, given that creative writing teaching jobs often go to published and well-known writers, MFA students are encouraged to think of their time in graduate school as two or three years set aside for them to write.
This is how I view my impending time in grad school. Particularly since I plan to attend a school that funds, I look at this as two or three years that I have to write. Hopefully what I write will be good, will get published, will earn me a bit of a name, and will help me get a teaching position. Hopefully my MFA itself will get me a teaching position. But regardless of whether the degree produces the fruit of employment, what's in it for me is two or three years to write, and that itself is invaluable.
At the end of my two or three years of my MFA program I plan, like a groundhog, to poke my head out of my schooling hole and take notice of the weather. If it is a better time in this country, a better time for education, and thereby a better time to find a university professor position, I will put my effort into that. If, on the other hand, things look much like they do now and my prospects of finding a position are slim, then I will head right back into my study hole for my PhD. That will give me another five or more years to become an expert in my field, to be paid to be educated, and to allow the American climate some time to take a turn for the better.
If, after about eight or more years of schooling, the job market still looks bleak at the same time my law school student loans become due, then I'll do what I have to do to succeed. I may apply my expertise in the private sector, I may go back to the law, or, like Elena Stover from the LA Times article, I may become a professional gambler.
The point is that my decisions will not be made out of fear. Fear will not deter me from following my dream. One way or the other I always land on my feet. I am smart and capable and at the end of this road I will be excessively educated. I do not fear failure. I only fear not pursuing my dreams. Read More
The New York Times has done another expose on a person who is subject to excessive student loan debt. In this case the debtor is around $100,000 in debt, which is about a third less than my own student loan debt, and probably about fifty percent less than what my debt will be by the time I'm done deferring it.
Meet Courtney Munna. She is 26 years old, holds an interdisciplinary degree in religious and women's studies, and, despite being a graduate of the prestigious NYU, she states that hers is "an education [she] ... would happily give back."
I believe that when I was an undergrad my tuition cost about $14,000 for my entire two years at UC Santa Cruz. I have a girlfriend whose daughter was just accepted to Columbia, an offer she turned down at a whopping cost of $60,000 per year.
The New York Times article attempts to determine who is to blame for this young woman having a nearly worthless degree (in the words of Avenue Q, "What do you do with a BA in English?"), earning $22 an hour, and student loan debt she can't make payments on given her income.
Is it her mother, who only wanted her daughter to have a great education, who is to blame? Is it the school that encouraged her to take out these loans in order to attend? Or is it the lenders, who granted these loans knowing what Munna was likely to earn with such a degree, and thereby knowing the likelihood that she would be unable to make the loan payments?
Well, of the options given I'd hold the lenders the most responsible. The article repeatedly compares the lenders with the big banks that caused the mortgage crisis, and the parallels are clear.
Truthfully, however, I think the problem is bigger than the lenders. I think the problem is embedded in this country that allows schools to charge such high tuition, unregulated, without tuition being directly related to the likely earning capacity related to a given degree. The problem is that student loan debt cannot be discharged in bankruptcy. The problem is that the American dream comes at a price, and no one is being realistic about what that price is or how a generation as financially screwed as ours is going to pay that price.
My favorite part of the article, however, is the advertisement, built right into the text of the article between "just like the mortgage lenders who didn't ask borrowers to verify their incomes" and "Ms. Munna does not want to walk away from her loans in the same way many mortgage holders are," which states "[Click here to find an online degree program]." Because the answer, clearly, is paying for more education that cannot yield salaries worthy of the associated loans, and of course, incurring more debt to finance the endeavor.
