Dissertation + Family

I am the one who took the temporary vow of poverty called getting a PhD. I quit my job, found a fellowship, and commenced excelling as a student doing the coursework phase.

It was what I called early retirement with expectations. My family called it school.

When the coursework was over my mother got the cancer and I put some things on hold for a bit. like my candidacy, but I even managed to get that done too.

I tried to take time off, but figured, I suppose I can get it done. So I pushed until the end of the funding stream. Is it done? No, but that's my fault for adding oral history to the process as an anthropology minor. Do you know that people expect to get paid to transcribe...?

And now my family asks, "So, are you done with your little paper?"

Those disrespectful cads! Do they know I am writing a book and not a "little paper"?

Yes! I've told them time and time and time again. Pretty much every time I see them.

"It's not a paper. It's a book! A 170 page book of non-fiction I'll have you know. Which means I have to read, quote, and cite, about a hundred books to prove I've gotten my facts straight! And you jerks don't seem to be writing anything at all! Just stop asking if you're not helping!"

So now they think I'm crazy since I haven't just quit and gotten a good government job instead. And I have confirmed that they are the bougiest there ever were. Maybe the next book will be about them instead of the 60 plus year history of an African American community theatre company.