But be very sure it's really YOUR BLISS you are following. I'll won't reiterate all of what's been said about the academic job market, but I do want to emphasize one point: you need fellowhips, assistantships, and grants. If you look like a worthy prospect to any of the schools you apply to, they will offer you one. However, if you can't qualify for assistantships, etc. before you begin grad school, I would honestly look into non-academic ways of pursuing your interests. If you aren't competitive with grad admissions candidates going in, the likelihood that you will be competitive with all the job candidates cmoing out is probably rather slim. It's not necessarily a matter of not having enough talent with the material either; a lot of what admissions committees are looking for is someone whose application shows that they would be compatible with the institutional environment.

I wish I'd looked closer at the academic life than I did before I went into grad school, instead of thinking only about my love for my particular field. Reading, writing, and teaching philosophy is a wonderful thing. Doing so under the conditions many academics have to tolerate (low-paying adjunct work, a "publish or perish" mentality that results in sub-par work from otherwise talented people, ridiculous teaching loads) is not so wonderful at all.

It kind of sounds like you picked a career path as a self-improvement excercise. You keep saying you should be tougher, pushier, less sensitive, a little more of x, a little less of y...

That just doesn't sound like a good way to choose a career. Maybe find something that meshes a little more naturally with your own groove? Maybe technical writing, or corporate communications, or some kind of PR job would be more comfortable and interesting for you? I mean really, who convinced you that you needed to find a career that would give you a personality remodel, anyway? Someone who is having trouble accepting the outcomes of the decisions they made with their lives? SOmeone who is happy to pick at you and never fails to tell you all about how and where you fail to measure up to whatever weird ideal lives in their fevered brain?

Geesh, life is short. Be who you are and do what you want to do. There are more ways to live an interesting life and be of great value to the world around you than many people would have you believe. And you'll be better if you are happy and comfortable in your own skin.

Really.

Every time you think the maturity level can got no lower in here...

No, LW, you better not have lunch with this guy, or Salon readers will accuse you of being a filthy ho. Or a tease. Or both, somehow. Because we're all in the seventh grade here. Yep.

Look, you're in grad school. You're in a male-dominated department. You need friends, people to spend time hanging out with, people to have lunch, and (GASP!) dinner, and go to movies with. Don't worry about whether this guy thinks it's a date. Even if it WERE a date, you wouldn't be obligated to sleep with him or anything anyway. What he thinks isn't your problem. He's the one responsible for himself. You worry about you. Just maintain the space bubble at two feet or so, and settle the "I'm in a relationship" issue starting with the opener "so, I don't know much about you outside of what goes on in the department. Where you from? Any siblings? Girlfriend back home?" Most people will naturally lob the same questions back at you; if they don't, it's still not out of place or weird to just offer information. It's just a simple part of getting to know you small talk. It doesn't have to be a "card" or any other kind of defensive ploy. And if he's the kind of silly little baby boy who won't takl much to a woman who won't sleep with him, you'll find that out.

Oh, if Ben Dover shows up, give him a good spanking. He's begging for it. Rude, spoiled little boy, butting in on the grownups' conversation like that!

Fairley's letter (should I have an affair since my dear hubby won't have sex with me?)

The letter from the woman who didn't want to have to act girly and "helpless" to get men interested in her, where you explained to her why people allow others to help them (from 2002 or '03). Your response to this was really excellent.

the only rational thing to do is flip a coin.

But come up with a better reason than that when you make your excuses.

Tragula, are you claiming there is some kind of hard evidence that women are biologically programmed to steer away from math and science? This is an innate tendency?

WHERE is that evidence? Show it to us. Or stop spouting bad, "just so" sociobiology.

you'd better not be so asleep at the switch as to write:

"a lesbian nightclub she occasionally frequented"

right after you cued up everyone's grammar and style radars.

Geez, Stephanie, do you want to rewrite and resubmit?

Wearing long dresses? Why yes, how very like your average man!

Of course, I know a few quite manly men who enjoy wearing such things now and again, but I doubt this old goat would be pleased to run into them at his local pub.

Buckeyejla, if your mother is married, she may want to check on the current legal status of her union. Since she may no longer technically be a woman, her union may no longer be legal if she lives in a state that has passed a law requiring marriage to only be between a man and a woman.

Pension costs are about to decline substantially with this redefinition, I'm thinking.