I'm going to take a lesson from Dooce:
You should know that I never say things on this website about my family that I wouldn’t say to their faces. That is a lesson I learned the hard way (what lesson have I not learned the hard way?).
Just got off the phone with my parents. They're coming to visit, which is nice, except for the fact that they are visiting the week before Thanksgiving. Why? I have no fucking idea. I tried to gently suggest that maybe Turkey Week was a better time, due to the fact that I won't have SCHOOL and WORK that week, but that was shot down. At least they are staying in a hotel and they are *not* bringing my sister with them, which is always a recipe for pouting (on her end) and a fight of some kind on everyone's part). No, she's not a teenager, she's 31. And still lives at home.
And every time they call I get the same thing:
"What are you up to?" Homework. "Still?" Well, it doesn't really end, I just have other assignments to work on. "What else are you doing?" Working, or other forms of schoolwork, mostly. Sometimes I actually go someplace other than campus, but not often, lately. "How much longer do you have until you are done with school" [gritting my teeth at this point] Well, I just started, so probably another year or so. "And then you'll get a job?"
That's when I start crying (no, not really).
They don't really get this whole "grad school" thing. I've dealt (still dealing with) the whole "you have to have a degree to be a librarian?" thing, but it was hard enough when I was "just" getting a Bachelor's degree. They really couldn't understand why I didn't magically get job offers stuffed under my door after graduation. Well, a BA in Anthropology just doesn't get you very far. Much less apparently prepare you for having to explain to the family every holiday just what anthropology is (professional people watching) and what kind of jobs anthropologists get (none, which is why I'm heading into Library-Land). Of course, none of this is helped by the fact that I've been working in libraries for the past decade or so. "So after you get your degree...you'll go back to your old job?" Oh, hell no.
Back to that thing I'm always doing.
