Comes Autumn

I hardly feel like I've had a summer and now it's gone. But with fall always comes refocus, and I need that right now.

I just calculated my projections for my GPA when I graduate in June. If all goes well, I should end up with better than 3.9. Not perfection, which was my initial hope, but certainly beyond respectable. This realization has kicked my butt a little. I've gone too far, and way too far into debt, to not begin filling out applications for Ph.D. programs. Since this all started, I've had my eye on four programs here in Chicago. There is only one that I think will be a bit of a stretch to be accepted. Of course, that's the one I want. There are two that I think I've virtually a shoe-in. One of those, if accepted, I'd really have to consider, the other I'd really have to consider passing. I'm too old -- and not old enough -- to go to school simply to go to school. I have to keep a financial pay off in sight and the questionable program would really leave me in serious doubt of landing a teaching position when I was finished.

And then there are the financial considerations. I took my current job thinking there would be a big pay day at the end of three years. I'm beginning to doubt that. And with no serious pay off, I see no reason to stay around if I can get into a good Ph.D. program. But, how will I support myself while I'm working on the degree? These are all questions I can't answer today, and were questions I couldn't answer when I started my master's. You just plow ahead and trust that the answer will present itself.

Do not believe in dead ends.