it's christmas..well 10 minutes left of it at least. we always spend christmas day with my dad's family who i am slightly (this is an understatement) disconnected with for various reasons which include generally that we are just not on the same wavelength. I have lots of cousins my age but most of them are having babies or getting married or dropping out of jc colleges and stuff and here i am thinking...how irresponsible but then i think...well technically they have way more real world responsibilities so who is really the irresponsible one? and then i think, how can these young people be getting married! i can barely take care of a plant. but again, who is the irresponsible one?
i was talking to their kids who are like 2 and 3 and they are such smart kids. These are the kids i'm trying to help in my research and then i talk to their parents and it's like...the parents love their kids so much they just do'nt have teh tools to know what it is they are supposed to do to help their kids succeed in life. And it's just so heart breaking. and then some of them can't believe i went to stanford mainly because they really can't fathom what stnaford is. So they say things like "wow isn't that like a really good school? you must have had like a 4.0. did you have a 4.0 all 4 years of high school?" They still even after graduating ask me how life was in boston. And i hvae to respond that in fact stanford is in california. imagine, in their own state. and then everyone thinks that i'm gonna be a therapist and i'm like, no i do educational psychology and htey say "oh so are you going to be a high school counselor" and i'm like...ugh no i do research so i can fix the problems in the education system. And then i get blank stares. Finally my cousin's wife was liek "wait so when i read that stuff about like 'statistics say' are you the one who comes up with those statistics?" and i was liek YES!! THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT I DO! but really how do you explain to peopel with barely a high school education what exactly a phd is. liek they really don't know what it entails or what it means or anything. and they ask why i'm in michigan and why i didn't just go to cal state LA for grad school since it's close. And i can't be like "well cuz it's the 3rd best ed psych program in the country" because i just can't say that. And i just always feel so....out of sorts around them. LIke i've literally lost the plot. like we are reading completely different books. And i want so much to give these kids the tools and to help their parents on a daily basis but it's so hard and it makes me feel kind of hopeless. Like, how did i end up here.
and then there is the whole gift giving thing. technically i am an adult, but in my family you rae not an official adult until you get married (blahhhh) so some of my aunts and uncles still give me money as gifts and i feel like, ok i'm too old for you to be giving me money like i'm one of the younger kids. adults don't get gifts/money. but then on the other hand it's like, but i actually really do need the money so i end up taking it and it all feels mildly humiliating. I mean, will i still be taking money when i'm 28? probably.
how does a phd explain what they do!?? like seriously, how. med students can say theya re gonna become doctors and law students can say they are gonna become lawyers. i say i'm getting my phd and peopel are like..."oh so wait, you didn't graduate from stnaford? oh so you are getting your ba again?" and i'm like...um no it's like a whole different degree. ok i can't put this into words anymore
merry christmas and all that jazz
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