This post is for all of you who think nobody else knows.
If you can’t recall what uninterrupted sleep feels like…
If your nostalgia for another time and place borders on homesickness…
If you’ve lost your temper with beautiful, perfect small humans who are doing their best the only way they know how…
If all the fun, beautiful, and exhilarating moments of your day blur at the edges due to frustration and drudgery…
If your current career renders you advanced degree superfluous…
If your lower back is frozen from having an increasingly large person draped on your body a substantial portion of the day (and night)…
If you bristle when other people (especially those under four feet tall) touch your stuff…
If you choose daily between exercise, shower, and reading, since you may only have one…
If you are pondering *multiple* advanced degrees, at any age, because that’s simply how you’re built…
If it feels as though there is not one thing in your house that is yours and just yours…
If you look back at the day and find that you’ve only eaten cheese…
If you really need to start saying no so you can find the more important yeses…
If you feel like a jerk every time you’re feeling sorry for yourself while people in the world are starving, killed for their beliefs, and struggling to do their best but failing because of capricious or cruel forces outside themselves…
If you burst into tears every time you hear a sad story…
If you also burst into tears every time you hear a joyous tale…
If your colleagues make you want to change jobs…
If your boss makes you want to change jobs…
If you can’t change jobs because yours is not, technically, a job…
If shock and nausea washed over you when you realized that any time you spend out of the formal workforce to raise children, write a book, or pursue education meant a huge hit to your ability to save for retirement…
If you need the world to stop for a day or two so you can figure things out…
Holla!
NaptimeWriting 
HOLLA!!
Seriously, holla!
The Empress sent me here, and I’m glad she did.
Hey, Alison. Glad to have you here, where I holla back.
This is like warm tea with a dollop of whipped cream. Lovely warm and sweet. And yes, I have thought about an MBA or PhD because…. That’s how I’m built. To learn and study.
I wrestle daily with the impracticalities of, yet iintense draw toward PhD.
/oh shit
HAVE I TAUGHT YOU PEOPLE NOTHING!?%^%$#$%^&*!
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO PHD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SAVE YOUR BRAIN NOW. Do. Not. Do. It. My PhD was fun and awesome. EVERYTHING SINCE THEN HAS SUCCCCCKKKKKKKEEEEEDDDDD ASSSSSSSSSS.
The next time anyone dreamily longingly states they want a PhD after their name, I will dreamily longingly ask you to hire Me, Unicorn PhD… and hope to all get out that you aren’t dummer than me and you won’t screw me over on salary because everyone wants someone smart doing the work for them and they want cheap labor which is really swell in an economy in the shitter where there are like FUCKZILLION unemployed workers, many with the glorious PhD after their names, who want to put food on their tables after having wasted so much time pursuing intellectual pursuit while everyone else who can’t add or substract made their way up the chain to management because employers value loyalty and incompetence (in that order)!
/rant
Ok, now I will HOLLA about my superfluous degree.
HOLLA.
and Yeah, my boss makes me want to change jobs.
HOLLA AGAIN.
And there’s definitely nostalgia for another time and place.
HOLLA BACK.
I will always holla back, Unicorn.
Holla!
I will see your PhD rant and raise you Nora Ephron “You’re right. You’re right; I know you’re right…but.”
Hello! Um, cheese, advanced degrees, tears – you have a fine way of summing me up. Still lurking here and loving your writing. xoxo
Always good to hear from you Macondo.
Hope you’re well.
Giving you one now!
;)
Holla! One of my favorite things about dipping into this here blogosphere has been finding people who are feeling the same about any number of things. And who can articulate it so perfectly. I like your words.
Thanks, BananaWheels. I like yours, too.
Isn’t the internet wonderful?
I am so grateful computers came to be, the www began, and someone thought of BLOGGING.
A pleasure to always be here.
Thank you.
It *is* wonderful. And when it feels as though we should be using it for a better purpose, I think, “But we’re connecting on a human level about things we can’t say to people who refuse to go there.”
Thanks for going there!
Ah, do I hear you. And I would add: you clean up the whole house and not a single thing you put away is yours. I’m ready to rent a bulldozer, scoop the whole mess up and dump it in the backyard.
Backyard? Jay, that’s your place. Dump it all in the street. Added benefit of blocking access.
;-)
Right. This. Minus the advanced degree thing, because I pretty much never want to go back to school again. But the rest of it, yes.
;-)
That’s okay. Your geographical and architectural guts parallel my school lust. Just replace “school” with “farm” and “degrees” with “livestock.”
A to the Men!
Add me to the list of people who, when things get tough, head straight to Google to contemplate which degree program I’ll try next. Do you think there’s a support group for people like us? We bring a whole new meaning to adult education…
We should absolutely start a group to talk each other off the advanced degree ledge. Wait, I mean to support further study. Wait, I mean…oh, dear. Well, maybe a degree in psychology would take care of my inarticulate indecision.
1-800-UNI-CORN
We have our licensed group leader right here. Dr. Unicorn, your above rant will play on a loop for the entirety of every meeting.
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