living, thinking and writing
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| PRACTICE living, thinking and writing |
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Wednesday, February 19, 2003 Tired, Empty I was sitting up again Monday night. I had to finish the IQ-quiz-like assignment from statistics class. When I went to bed at 6 o'clock in the morning, I could not sleep. I felt something wrong about my life. How could a 30-year-old woman not able to go to sleep at night because she did not finish her schoolwork? If she had to sit up to take care of her crying baby, or if she is such a successful careerwoman that she has a hell lot of workload need to do at night, or if she has fabulous night life in NYC or Miami, Ok, I think all the sleepless nights are making sense, for a 30 years old woman. But what about me? I don't have a baby, I don't have career, I barely have financial independence, I don't have exciting night life, at the age when my mom had worked for 10 years and had a daughter of 6 years old. My husband Bin is also a Ph.D student, and thanks God he is looking for job now. He is a very devoted and productive reseacher and is willing to dedicated to academic research, but it is still difficult to get a decent job under such grim economy: he has to compete with veteran professionals retreating from industry to schools as result of the IT slump.Bin is 100 times hardworking than I am, but he is still keeping his spirit high although he is 5 years older than me. When Bin's father was at this age, he got four kids and the eldest one was 16 years old. Though he did not have successful career, he enjoys big family surrounded with lots of grandsons in his sixties. In opposite, Bin's enjoyment will reside on being offered a decent, well-paid and respectful job, which should at least match all these efforts he had made at higher education for past 15 years. All these are frustrating, and it boils down to waver my belief about higher education, even just for now, a transission time. There is no doubt that it alters my natural biological call, and I'm gambling with my normal family life, the pleasure as humanbeing and as a woman, even the promising carrer that I assumed I could have. I'm worried about our life when we are in our 60s: while still uptight, we are lonely and pathetic, and sighing about the too many years we spent at school. posted by lmeimei @3:00 PM| permanent link| | |
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