http://www.idkfa.com/v3 idkfa: syndicated http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=439&msg_id=1048 thanks Ashley! it makes me feel a lot better to know other people are feeling "crisis-y" too! I haven't figured out whether this whole thing with Dave's accident is making life MORE crisis-y, or whether it's forced me to take a step back and re-evaluate what's important. things are still up in the air lol... semblance@idkfa.com (semblance) Status Report, 2010 Sun, 17 Oct 2010 02:38:24 -0800 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=439&msg_id=1048 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=439&msg_id=1047 yah... now that I'm not actually there I can look back at it and think "holy shit, that was an amazing experience!" I think I'll have to wait until our next Ice Age, however, before I try to repeat it. semblance@idkfa.com (semblance) Status Report, 2010 Sun, 17 Oct 2010 02:34:52 -0800 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=439&msg_id=1047 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=439&msg_id=468 YES. I did. In response to your question about the quarter life crisis. The only thing is that mine has been on and off for about 4 years now. It's only been in the past year or less that I've finally started feeling even remotely un-crisis-y. So you are most definitely not alone on that. I too have been having a similar internal struggle about whether or not I want to commit the next forseeable future to being a student. I'm extremely torn. I see so many of my friends starting what I see as real lives with real jobs and real homes - and here's the kicker - TIME TO ENJOY IT ALL! haha. But it seems so far off for me. But I've starting feeling a little better about it recently... I've come to realize that grad school - especially PhD level grad school - is a completely different animal than undergrad. People actually do have lives while they go to school. So don't think that you can't do both if academia is the route you end up choosing. You can still have the personal life and the academic/professional life. One of the things I have really enjoyed about grad school is the fact that the faculty actually treats us as adults. You're a professional; just a professional student basically. They expect us to have a life outside of school, rather than my college profs who would make us feel like shit for straying from studies for more than a second. And if you finish it all and decide you actually want to go into a federal job, you definitely won't be out of luck with that. If there is one thing I have come to learn while living around here it is that the feds LOOOOOOVE over educated people. Dan's sister in law finished her PhD in bioengineering last year and couldn't find a job in the private sector, but the fed just scooped her up and she's moving out here this month. I've been told this whole quarter life crisis thing does in fact settle down, and life does in fact get sorted out eventually. Hopefully CapitolZebra@idkfa.com (CapitolZebra) Status Report, 2010 Wed, 08 Sep 2010 01:39:06 -0800 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=439&msg_id=468 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=439&msg_id=455 Your pictures from Kenya are pretty amazing. kaiden@idkfa.com (kaiden) Status Report, 2010 Tue, 07 Sep 2010 16:07:13 -0800 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=439&msg_id=455 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=439&msg_id=444 Ah, the mid-life mid-life crisis. I chose to quit grad school instead! So good luck to you. Scrotor@idkfa.com (Scrotor) Status Report, 2010 Tue, 07 Sep 2010 13:43:22 -0800 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=439&msg_id=444 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=439&msg_id=440 Additionally, two of my friends had babies (thankfully both Ian and Leo are handsome boys who don't look like demented prosimians, as many babies do), and one of my oldest friends is currently 3 months pregnant. Eep! semblance@idkfa.com (semblance) Status Report, 2010 Tue, 07 Sep 2010 04:56:47 -0800 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=439&msg_id=440 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=439&msg_id=439 I spent the majority of the past year dealing with a quarter-life crisis. (Anyone else spend their 25th year in a similar situation?) Namely, do I really want to be an archaeologist? Do I want to spend 6-10 more years in graduate school, just so I can get a job in academia that I could actually live off of? Would it be possible to be happy as a career federal employee, instead? Should I just say to hell with the past 7 years and try to open up a bakery/coffe shop/brewery/used book store? Would that even work as a business model? Do I every want to get married/reproduce, and if so, is the guy I've been dating for the past 4 years "the one"? etc... The following is a brief synopsis of the past year's events: I passed my Comprehensive Exams for my Masters of Anthropology (at UAA) and have submitted my Thesis Prospectus. I went to the Aleutians for the first time, and decided that Unalaska and Akutan are the most beautiful places I've ever seen. I spent 6 weeks in northern Kenya, excavating 1.5 mya fossils/artifacts, and learned that I cannot function in 110 degree weather and also that I hate the desert, scorpions, solafuges and paleoanthropological excavation techniques. I spent way too many hours being aggravated about my thesis and being angry at the people associated with my project. I presented a paper and a poster at the Annual Meetings of the Alaska Anthropological Association and the Society for American Anthropology (respectively). I found out that my cat will try to kill any kittens that I bring home. I spent an unhealthy amount of time in a closed lab surrounded by the remains of dead animals and humans. I did not get outside as much as I wanted to. One of my landlords developed Alzheimers. My boyfriend broke his femur; two weeks after getting metal screws drilled into his leg, his father died. My best friend's little sister got married, and my two roommates from college are getting married in the next 4 months. I've looked at semblance@idkfa.com (semblance) Status Report, 2010 Tue, 07 Sep 2010 04:40:03 -0800 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=439&msg_id=439