It finally came to me.  It's only taken two years for me to figure it out, but at 1:15 a.m., I finally understood why I've not been comfortable as a doctoral student. I always knew I was a slow learner, but this is ridiculous.

In the early 1970s, Studio D (the women's film section) of the National Film Board made an animated film about X's and O's.  It was intended to explain why some of the few women who had reached postions of power looked and acted a lot like the men who had held power before them.  It showed women as O's, and men as X's.   As O's tried to enter a crowd of X's, the sharp edges damaged the O's, and forced them back. But slowly the O's started to adapt, and develop their own sharper and harder edges.  And eventually they were tortured into the shape of X's, and then they were allowed in and could compete.  But reverting to O's would just make them susceptible to be jostled out of position.  So they remained as X's.

I was trying to explain this to my life partner at 1:15 in the morning, and bless him, he was trying to understand.  Finally, when I thought he had the gist of it, I said, "I'm on O (a practioner) trying to torture myself into becoming an X (an academic).  The other X 's are trying really hard to help me become an X, but I DON'T WANT TO BECOME AN X."  Hallelujah! I finally understand!

I spoke with the director of the doctoral program, who tried to peruade me that the worst is behind me, and I'll be less tortured from here on in, but I told her my mind was made up.  Firmly.  Period.

"But," she asked, "what about the oral comp on Friday?"  I said, "I don't want to be an academic; I don't need to do it.   Period."  She said she thought I should do it, and that I might enjoy it, and that it would help the "boys" understand that there are different ways of knowing and analyzing.  And then, should I change my mind, it would be easier to pick up where I'd left off.  In the future.  Maybe.  Just in case.  I said, "I don't think so."  She said she wouldn't cancel till she heard from me tomorrow morning, in hopes that I'd at least do the oral. 

Later in the afternoon, I heard from the director of the school, another woman I admire.  She told me she'd learned of my decision, and wanted to tell me how sorry she was that I'd not be part of the school  And, of course, she too suggested I do the oral, so that I'd be ABD (all but dissertation), and keep more doors open.  She also asked if I'd like to teach master's level course.  (Funny how no-one asked me that until after I'd decided not to become an academic.  What does that mean??)

So, tonight, having decided to end the torture, I am left only with the decision of whether to spend the hour with the "boys" on the assumption that I have nothing to lose.  I'm not sure whether that's true, since I know they don't want to fail me, and I don't believe I can offer them more than they've already seen from me before now, and I think they might give me a satisfactory in the absence of the oral (rather than an unsatisfactory, when the incomplete status runs out), whereas the oral may convince them that they should give me an incomplete.  But that's not a good reason not to do it, now matter how tempted I am to call their bluff.

One more decision.  At most, 36 more hours of torture.   Life is looking up! Send champagne!

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