Thoughts, ramblings

[annie24]

Tinu - it will be fine, he will sign the papers, you will never have to see him again. it is in HIS benefit to get you out and have you find a good job. when he submits his grant renewals, he has to say how many students he graduated, etc... you will get the approval, it will be fine. it's all paperwork at this point after the defense.

[LAYAAN]

Thank you very much Annie for your encouraging reply. I have been working on my 2nd paper today and all the anxiety came right back. I had an intense desire to pack my bag and leave the country, once again.

I told myself that I'm out of the program now, so if the paper takes 2 more years to get published, my life doesn't stop. But I still feel scared. The way my boss has acted... it will take a while for me to forget everything and come back to normal.

[LAYAAN]

The secretary of our graduate school has posted our photos on facebook. Is it okay if I request her not to tag me there? My stalker ex from UK is on facebook and I don't want him to know anything about him. I plan on telling her that this is for my safety and sanity.

[marshmlofluff]

The secretary of our graduate school has posted our photos on facebook. Is it okay if I request her not to tag me there? My stalker ex from UK is on facebook and I don't want him to know anything about him. I plan on telling her that this is for my safety and sanity.

 

Sure. Doesn't Facebook also let you untag yourself?

[LAYAAN]

Thank you Marsh. Long time no messages. How are you doing?

I dont have an account on facebook yet. But the secretary does under the department name. So, its easy to find me on facebook.

[marshmlofluff]

Thank you Marsh. Long time no messages. How are you doing?

I dont have an account on facebook yet. But the secretary does under the department name. So, its easy to find me on facebook.

 

Hi Tinu! Sorry to hear about your ex. Certainly there is no problem with asking your secretary to untag you. Anyway I'm really happy that this grad school chapter of your life is coming to a close. I think within six months after leaving you will have healed so much from the whole thing that it will seem like a distant bad time.

 

I've been doing OK! As you know I largely stopped posting on eNA when I stopped being able to edit/delete posts, but I'm still here and lurking on your journal. Again, I'm really happy for you that you graduated.

 

The new job is OK. As to the boyfriend, things have been going well. We celebrated our one year anniversary a few months ago. I saw your posts a few posts ago about going on EHarmony or somewhere and I have to say go for it; yes, it is a risk, but sometimes NOT doing something is just as much of a risk, no? If you don't feel comfortable with the men then don't take it farther, but you can just try and go on a few dates and see if it works better than what you have been doing; at worst, you will get to visit a few new restaurants.

[LAYAAN]

Hi Tinu! Sorry to hear about your ex. Certainly there is no problem with asking your secretary to untag you. Anyway I'm really happy that this grad school chapter of your life is coming to a close. I think within six months after leaving you will have healed so much from the whole thing that it will seem like a distant bad time.

I really hope so too. I told the senior student (now a PhD) who is visiting the town today, that I don't feel that I'm done yet. But your words give me hope. I'm still in state of fear. I've turned hypersensitive and super cautious as a result of how things went down in last 7 years. Honestly, I'm even afraid of getting married because of the way how I was treated in this PhD program and how I wasn't able to leave PhD. I'm starting to see marriage in a different light because of all this.

 

I've been doing OK! As you know I largely stopped posting on eNA when I stopped being able to edit/delete posts, but I'm still here and lurking on your journal. Again, I'm really happy for you that you graduated.

The new job is OK. As to the boyfriend, things have been going well. We celebrated our one year anniversary a few months ago. I saw your posts a few posts ago about going on EHarmony or somewhere and I have to say go for it; yes, it is a risk, but sometimes NOT doing something is just as much of a risk, no? If you don't feel comfortable with the men then don't take it farther, but you can just try and go on a few dates and see if it works better than what you have been doing; at worst, you will get to visit a few new restaurants.

I'm so happy to know that the relationship is going strong! I'm very happy for you, Marsh! May God bless you. I hope that you two get married. I'm not sure about EH. Sometime I think that I should go on there and try, sometime I wonder, whats the point? My previous experience has been bad already. Plus right now I dont have a job so I have no money to pay EH and have these men turn me down. I might as well just stay in arranged market and keep getting turned down for various reasons mentioned before.

[annie24]

Tinu - Don't worry - your committee passed you. The rest is just paperwork. it will be ok.

 

As for EH - I totally understand if you do not have the money to go on there. However, it's ok if 99 men reject you. Don't look at it as rejection. You are looking for the right fit. you are looking for the 1 man who is right for you.

[LAYAAN]

Thank you Annie. Yes, you are right. I agree, I should look at all this in more positive way.

[LAYAAN]

The univ thesis editor is taking his sweet time to give me a feedback on my thesis. I can't get my thesis printed until he gives me a 'go'. Hate this ... hate this... Grrrrr.... Why? I submitted my thesis on the 23rd (if I'm not mistaking) and its been 2 weeks I haven't gotten any corrections on that. The quarter ends on the 10th. He told me that all printing must be completed by then. How do you want me to get everything done when you even haven't okayed it from your side. First my boss delayed it. Now this man.... Grrrrr.....

 

I may not be able to stay in the dorm.... I dont know... I will have to talk to the dean tomorrow and find out what exactly is going on. If she tells me that I can't stay after graduation for my practical training period, I will have to move.

 

I was quite down and discouraged in the middle of my walk today. I started feeling really very lonely. Met a girl from dorm walking with her husband and dog. I smiled and kept walking. I'm proud of myself for finishing the 4.3 mile walk.

 

Today has been a rough day, but I'm hanging in there. I am trying my best to stay positive.

[annie24]

Wow, that's weird. We have a person who will 'check' your thesis with you for 15 minutes. they don't take it. they just look it over with you and let you know if it's ok.

[penelope13]

When you feel that someone is taking longer than average (for that given process), then you start calling them on a daily basis. yes, they may get annoyed and it will take up some time, but it's in your own interest to make sure that everything gets done. I have experienced again and again, if you are proactive in these things you may annoy someone, but in the end you get your needed results.

[LAYAAN]

I sent him an email last week to which he didn't reply in timely manner.

So I called him, he didn't answer, I left a message.

Then he replied to my email, "yes, I got your thesis right. I have a lot of work pending. thank you for your patience."

I waited for 2 days and called him again "What is happening? Do you have a few pages that I can start working on?"

Him "I have too much work from science and technology students. Their deadline is tomorrow. Your deadline is 10th. Thank you for your patience."

Me "I'm not sure how I'm expected to enter all the corrections, get the thesis printed and keep 3 copies on your desk on the 10th?"

Him "Don't worry about it. It will get done. We will work with you."

 

I am going to show up at his office today. I have no choice. He told the other girls from my program that there really is no deadline for submission of printed thesis.

[annie24]

yeah, that sounds really unprofessional. i would show up as well. how long does it take him to do this?

 

my program had a deadline - that's for sure. we had a 2 week 'grace period' in which we could submit the thesis after the end of the semester, but then our graduation date would be in the next term, but we wouldn't have to pay for that term.

[LAYAAN]

I dont know what to write. Everything is closing in on me now.

Out of nowhere the housing problem erupted. I think the dumbest thing I've done is to talk to other grad students who also live in the dorm. Each student has a different answer. Someone even told me "To live in the dorm you should register for the summer quarter". How stupid is that! you graduated and you are registering for summer quarter? You dont' do that nonsense as a foreign student (especially). I spent yesterday's evening crying under stress and house/room hunting. But its my fault. Finally made up my mind that I'm going to talk to the dean and find out for myself what I'm expected to do. Showed up and got my Qs answered. She said "Its okay if you live here for a year more. Just pay at the beginning of every quarter by check."

So that problem is solved.

[LAYAAN]

Now the thesis madness and school madness.

So I showed up at the door of the thesis editor. I dont get a good feeling about this at all. But here is the good news. He showed me a list of people. I saw a few students from my program as well. So, I'm not the only one. He is not running on the deadline. He said "I know you may not be able to get the thesis printed on the 10th and its because of delay from my side, but until then, you go find out if your degree compliance report is complete. I will give you a week extra to get your thesis printed. Don't worry, you will still be able to get your degree in right time."

I don't believe him. HE is not telling me all the details about how he is going to work with the University Records, but I can't push him to ask all the details. I have email records and thats all I have to prove my case, if there is any problem.

 

I went back, checked my degree compliance report, found unmet requirements. Called the secretary, she is out on sick leave. Alright, so have to wait until tomorrow and have to be after her for the 2 forms. I may have to go collect additional signatures until the form is completed. We will see tomorrow what happens.

 

I'm really hanging in there, doing my best, trying to stay positive through all this.

[annie24]

Talk to the managers, not other grad students. it's good that the dean is on your side. i would just pay the check, and if the manager at the dorm says something, forward it to your dean.

 

as for the guy - he's very unprofessional. i would keep on him and cc these deadline infos to your professor. just so you know. or the chair of your department. they should be aware what is going on. how long do these 'checks' take?? what is he checking for??

[LAYAAN]

Now this is really bad news.

I booked my ticket to India. My parents have been creating a lot of drama.

"You have to come back, come back atleast for a week to visit your dad. He is not keeping well. All these years we tolerated this madness because your degree was on the line. Now all that is over, you have to come back. "

Finally I decided to book my ticket. Talked to the professor. He said its okay if I visit my parents for a while.

I thought my mom would be happy to know. But here comes the surprise! I have been trying to reach her since yesterday. I called her later in the morning today, she answered "Why are you going back to the US? We were under the impression that now when you come back, you will come back for good. We have men lined up for you here. What are we going to answer them? When (the hell) are you going to get married if not now?"

I was mad from all the stress already "Alright, I wont come back then. If this is the attitude you are going to give me, I might as well stay here and try to fight it out. Something that you simply don't understand is that I don't have anything lined up in India either. These men whatever you think are waiting for my arrival and are going to say yes to me, haven't actually said yes to me yet. You have to understand that. What if they say no? I emailed the guy you told me, he didn't even reply to my email. Let me come there. Lets sit and talk. Let me get my visa restamped and we will decide what to do. Do you really want me to marry someone after meeting them just twice? I think both of us know enough about how my previous relationships have gone down, don't we?"

Her "What are we going to say to these men that are lined up for you here?"

Me "How many men have you lined up for me? Just 2. I already told you about 1. He hasn't replied back. The other one, I told you doesn't know what he wants to do. He told me he is open to entering into politics."

Her "So what are you saying? You want to go back? for what? What do you have there? You weren't able to snag 1 man in last 7 years."

This hurts so bad.

Me "ITs because I have been standing in the wrong market for last 7 years mom. Men in arranged market dont' want to wait for me to finish up my degree. When they want marriage, they want it, if not you, someone else. They go back to India, get married and come back to the US. Those women are available. But the situation is different now. I'm done with school, so they won't be able to give that reason at least. As far as job is concerned, I need to pass my boards still. I have wasted so much time and money on this mom. Whether I stay in India or somewhere else, I WANT to get this license. It makes no sense to complete 2 step and not finish the last step to get licensed. Do you understand that?"

Her "So now if you work with that professor again, he wont' let you go. He won't let you get married."

Me "Really, is that so? And how did you come up with this theory that my professor won't let me get married? Mind you. My professor didn't hold me hostage for my PhD. Noone did. I could quit anytime. I couldn't because the economy went down since mid 2007. I knew I couldn't get a job outside. At that time, I didn't know my papers wont get accepted. I didn't know I will face real hard time with my papers. I decided to hold on and complete my PhD instead of leaving with a terminal MS. You don't understand my challenges. I have taken the best decision considering my situation at that time. You don't know anything to do, but to play the blame game."

This is exactly what my mom did in 2003 when I was back home in India, preparing for my GRE. I told her repeatedly "I genuinely don't want to get married to anyone in India now. I've put in thousands of rupees to take GRE, to send applications. I want to complete the process. I want to do my best. I want to know what the outcome is going to be."

Then she said "Alright. Sure, you continue studying for GRE, we will continue to look for boys that are here. If you happen to get accepted, you go, if you don't you marry. We are not going to wait for 2 more years until you finally have an answer on your admission."

I remember those days when I couldn't even focus full-heartedly on my GRE because I was constantly afraid what if some guy here says yes to me? Noone said yes and I finally got to come here. Now its again the same story all over again.

 

I DO NOT KNOW WHAT TO DO. I want to give this a shot. I want to do my part. Study, take boards. If God is willing I will get a job as a pharmacist, if not, I will go back to India and get married to whoever. My mom thinks "Noone is going to wait here for you. You will be turning 33 in a quarter. You want 6 more months to find out if you are getting a job or not. You don't have any taker in the US. Come back to India, get married, stay with us, take care of us."

I told her "I may not be able to stay with you. If you get me married, I will have to go wherever the guy is. That means you won't be benefited from my being there. What is 6 more months going to cost you or me? I want to try, take my boards and then let God decide. If its not meant for me, I will get nothing like you predict. Who knows, I may get lucky and pass my boards and get a job. Who knows? I may even find a taker here, because I finally have a job. I think we should try and find out."

My mom doesn't agree. I dont think I will be able to live with myself if I dont take the boards.

[LAYAAN]

Talk to the managers, not other grad students. it's good that the dean is on your side. i would just pay the check, and if the manager at the dorm says something, forward it to your dean.

as for the guy - he's very unprofessional. i would keep on him and cc these deadline infos to your professor. just so you know. or the chair of your department. they should be aware what is going on. how long do these 'checks' take?? what is he checking for??

Only formatting changes, Annie. I don't know why it should take so long. He said it normally takes him 1.5 days once he starts to work on a thesis. He makes no content changes.... only formatting.

[annie24]

weird. so at my university - we do our own formatting changes. we just schedule a 15 minute appointment, they flip through it and tell you yes or no. do you know what needs to be changed? this is annoying.

[LAYAAN]

He finished my edits and sent me a copy today. He says there are many corrections. I'm going back to the lab now to incorporate the changes.

[annie24]

ok, glad you got those!! good luck

[penelope13]

This system doesn't make any sense to me. You have someone checking the formatting; didn't they tell you in advance what the requirements are for the format???

 

Anyway, just focus on each little step forward. Now that you have the edits you can tick that part off your list.

 

Sometimes it seems, when it rains, it pours: so many thing seem to be hitting you at the same time. As hard as it is, I believe sometimes this means life is trying to force you to focus and really deal with things. Since so many things are going on at the same time you don't have any more opportunity for procrastination or doubting, you just have to keep going.

 

What strikes me most about the last posts that you made today is the clear indication that your education and your degrees are really what you truly want for yourself. These are the things that motivate you and that you want to accomplish for no one else, but yourself. Since you started posting this thread it seemed that you were going back and force between education and marriage, however (as I suspected and mentioned before), your PhD and your pharmacy exams is truly what you want, while your struggles with the marriage market are probably indicative with your struggles to keep in touch with your roots although you are striving away from them.

 

Now is the time to admit to yourself what your dreams and aspirations for your own life are. If you want to make a life for yourself independent of other people's expectations and independent from if you will be married or not.

 

True, it must be scary to let go of a lot of preconceived ideas about how your life should be, to make a conscious decision to live a different life than your parents, especially your mother and it will be hard to not only admit it to yourself, but also openly to your parents and extended family. But the way you described your last interaction with your mother strongly seems to indicate that the chance of finding a job here in the US is really what you want.

 

In combination all the challenges that you are currently facing also seem to be saying that it's time to fully grow up and become an independent adult. It's time to truly start depending only on yourself. To take charge of all the different aspects of life: living situation, making sure all the ts are crossed for your paperwork and starting to emotionally disentangle yourself from your parents. No more hoping or expecting that other people will know and tell you what to do or that a situation will dissolve by itself. No, it's all your responsibility. Sounds scary, but it's also liberating.

[LAYAAN]

This system of university editor doesn't make sense to me either. I just have to complete the requirement. The good thing is that, my committee doesn't want to do anything with my thesis anymore. All 5 of my committee members (including my boss) have signed the approval form. Truly... God is merciful! I just didnt' think that my boss would sign without giving me any extra stress. Now the thesis editor got back to me... I have to turn in corrections soon, so I'm clear from my side.

[LAYAAN]

Penny... thank you for your reply to my post. Honestly, I don't know what I want, but I have put in a lot of money and a lot of time to complete my pharmacy steps in addition to my PhD steps. Its okay if men in India are asking a sarcastic Q to my parents "What was the need to take pharmacy exams? That delayed her PhD. She should have just focused on PhD." The world is more global now. India has a lot more multinationals now than ever before. Whether I stay here or not, if I get a practicing license it will not go waste. I can use it or keep it active and who knows I may be able to come back to the US. If I fail the exam, then its a different story (I still dont want to give up. There are 3 attempts.), but I dont want to leave that stone unturned. I want to give myself a chance. I honestly dont think that 6 months is going to make a whole lot of difference in Indian marriage market and if it does, the real Q is "Will I be able to live with myself if I pack my bags and go back to India and get married to someone? knowing that I should have taken boards and I didnt?" No... that doesn't sound right to me. Even if I do get married to someone in India, I'm still going to talk to the guy and tell him that this license would help me even in India and I want to go back to the US and take my boards.

By God's mercy, I could finish my PhD (which I still don't believe and I definitely don't think *I* did it. I believe that He carried me through this phase. The emotional struggle was just unbearable to me. A few months more and I would have gone psychotic, I feel. But its over now.)

I believe in trying. I believe in doing my part. If things don't work, so be it. I take it as His will and move forward through whatever door is left open. But to just go back to India and get married to anyone because I'm turning 33 and not take my boards, logically doesn't make sense to me. It just doesn't.

So, what I'm gonna do is not fight it at my parents' level. But if at all a man says yes to me in India, I will sit down and talk to him and see what he has to say about my taking exams.