I haven’t been sure how much to disclose in this newsletter, but: the not-so-great but maybe-manageable news I got in mid-March spiraled into essentially a torching of my relationship with my PhD advisor in the last couple of weeks. It’s been sad, because I do respect my advisor as a scholar and thought she was someone I could trust. (The specifics are internecine and tedious and probably airing them here will cause problems; it involves questionable decisions about grant spending and her leaving for a new job, and it affects multiple students.) This heel turn situation is, basically, a required rite of passage of doing a PhD. I cannot recommend it! It’s very destabilizing.
Maybe the more important part: while I kind of just have to write a pretty bad dissertation by the end of the year and I think I can do it, I also will be figuring out my next move because aside from academia being entirely on fire right now, this whole process has made me wary of trying to succeed in a field that so blatantly rewards sociopathy. Advice, strategizing, passing along gigs, and tip jar donations very welcomed in this shitty moment. (And, of course, always sentences.)
The Rohingya are people, not lessons.
