inside joke

Wacom Tablet Reloaded

You're drunk and acting tough.

I'm a quitter. By Natalie Dee.

I quit blogging. and more importantly - I quit grad school.

It was really more of a damage control thing than anything else... But I can get into that later.

the important thing - is that I am now a scientist for a Fortune 500 company making consumer products - which is where I always wanted to end up - and i have arrived.

My life is infinitely better than it was in graduate school. I am amazed at this - at the fact that your environment can influence you that much. I had always been of the mindset that who I am internally has more influence on me than my surroundings... but I guess I can see that both matter to some extent.

I also have a new belief in Luck. In graduate school I was unlucky and unsuccessful. I also think that the professors that I worked for are dumb. Now, I find myself in a new situation, still working out new technology, but I am already wildly successful. It has got to be luck that I have ended up here - and that the senior scientist that I am working with is smart. Smarter than most of the professors I knew in graduate school.

And although I have been away from blogging on the internet, I have still been on the internet.

This video by Alain De Botton (scroll to the end of the post) resonated with me.

Leaving my program with out a Ph.D. was hard for my identity. So much of who I was- was wrapped up in getting a PhD and staying in graduate school at all costs.

It was easy for me to physically leave - because I have this gift of seeing the truth of situations - and I knew I was being forced out.

And the most important thing I learned in graduate school is that a Ph.D. doesn't mean anything. Lazy idiots can have them, hard working idiots can have them, etc. It doesn't even distinguish if you can think or not.

My manager said to me about me "she acts like she has a PhD" meaning I can think, and come up with new technologies, and design experiments, etc. I just don't have the stamp.

(And for the record, yes I did leave with a Masters, but it is still quitting in my eyes.)

Hello again, blogging world.

paging all penguins

Hey Ladies and Gentleman!

Greetings from the brink. Shit's been hectic the past couple months. I'm assuming we all can relate what with the lack of activity over the past four months or so.
I finally finished my teacher certification program and am eagerly awaiting the arrival of one, shining, glorious piece of paper. The certification itself. The crowning glory. The cherry atop the heap of steaming crap that my life has been since beginning the ordeal of getting it. Any day now.
So, things have really changed in ole Skuh's world and will only serve to change more. (This is awesomely promising and hopeful.) At the end of my student teaching experience -- which was bananas, what with four months of twelve hour work days -- I moved out of the loggin, cause shit got real, I guess you could say. There was strife with the family who owns the property, so I decided to get the hell out of dodge so as to free up some space for them and resentment for me. Which means that I am back living where the west begins with the parentals. BUT. And this is a BIG BUT (heheh) I will very shortly be picking up and moving out to Chattanooga, Tennessee to see what that corner of the (not so) south has to offer. Which means, among other things, that I'll be within visiting-Fermi range. And in the midst of some most excellent hiking trails and other outdoorsy activities that white people (like me) so love to do. I've got a job lined up with the Sylvan out that way, which should make for an easier transition. I've been fretting about finding other employment once there, but have decided forthwith to cut that shit out. I'm smart, capable and qualified to lots of things and I KNOW that I will find a substantial source of income once I'm there. I'll be living with my brother and his *swoon* AMAZING puppy dawg, in his impossibly cute neighborhood. His house is nestled on this block that seriously could be out of the textbook of American dreams . . . lots of trees, which make for dappled sunlight, and neighbors who bake cookies n shit for each other during the holidays. Oh, and the hills! How I love the hills, hills, hills. They are just what my exercise-deprived body, mind and spirit have been aching for!
Yes, dear penguins, Skuh is moving out and on. But Chattanooga, I foresee, shan't be the last stop. Nope, not at all. I have a feeling that I am about to set off to see the world. To embark on an epic journey that will last for years and years and take me to all locations imaginable. I've been applying for teaching assistantships in Europe and I'll keep you posted as to who wins in the fight: my application to teach in Germany or my application to teach in Austria. If it's a tie, the victor shall probably be Germany. If it's a wash, then I'll apply for some other program, like JET, or *fingers crossed* maybe I'll get offered a sweet job from my old language school in Germersheim and then I'll start my graduate studies. The possibilities are endless, and I'm just so pleased that I can say that about my life. It's a blessing which I fully acknowledge and hereby choose this venue to shout from the rooftops that I am a grateful lady! Twenty-ten be lookn HOTT ;)
Those are my headlines, mistresses. What are yours??