I saw HAMILTON. It was a life-changing, transcendent experience. I wish every single high school student in the nation could see it. I wish you were seeing it right now. No praise is sufficient. It made me feel better about art, and the United States, and I both laughed hysterically and sobbed and it was better than CATS. (That part is a joke. I have good taste in musicals, I promise.)
I saw it with my two dearest NYC friends, and we both worried that we would only really like it, and that all the hype would prove burdensome. But instead, we kept giving each other glances to have our own outsized reactions mirrored back to ourselves, and then after it ended, we stood in the street and hugged and became teary at having shared such an incredible experience together. I do not regret that I have now put some enterprising young StubHub scalper’s kids through their post-graduate studies: perhaps those children will grow up to be Lin-Manuel Miranda. If you can POSSIBLY see it, please do.
Now I want to talk about the GQ piece that Mallory wrote about on Friday, and the process of being wrong about something.
So, I read that piece on Thursday when I was waiting for my flight to take off, and I thought it was so funny, and so well-written, and I knew it was snarky, but I thought of the snark as being directed at dudes who think they’re better than the sort of people who hire sex workers, and also at these women who do not self-identify as sex workers, and I airily shared it on Twitter and said nice things about it and then turned my phone off and left for my vacation.
And then on Monday morning, I was on Twitter, and saw that Mallory was horrified by the piece, and had written about it, and then I saw that two women I respect like WHOA were just exceptionally, exceptionally upset and angered by the piece, and not just by the piece, but by it having been read delightedly by people they had worked with (like me.)
And I just hate being wrong, obviously, more than anything, so I immediately emailed everyone I knew who had liked the piece and said “am I wrong? These women aren’t sex workers, right, and this is funny and not bad?” and because I had deliberately just emailed people I knew agreed with me, I received back very reassuring messages of agreement, including ones from people who had done sex work or sugar-babying, and this was nice and reassuring, and I was like, oh, perhaps Mallory and I will just disagree about this.
But I didn’t feel great about it, because I knew I was probably wrong, and I read it again, and I read Mallory’s thing, and called Mallory like four times without reaching resolution, Mallory being a wonderful pillar of “this is not good, this is hurtful, this is hurtful to people” against my equivocations and counter-arguments, and then I called Mallory a FIFTH time and told her she was right, and then I emailed some people to apologize, and said I would write about it, but wouldn’t delete my tweets bc I didn’t want to pretend it hadn’t happened, and then I felt a lot better.
I don’t think the writer is a bad person, or that she realized she was being a dick to sex workers, but my reading of it was wrong, and the humor I derived from it came from a bad place, and I feel terrible that women I love and respect were hurt by my thoughtlessness and that’s really all I wanted to say. I fucked up.
Oh, and this was helpful to me, and might be to you, should you ever be wrong about something: I thought to myself, okay, if you HADN’T already said something positive about the piece, and you read Mallory’s thing about it, would you have disagreed with Mallory’s thing? Or do you have your back up because you said something positive publicly and hate walking things back? And I knew that if I had read Mallory’s thing before having said something, I would have been “oh, yeah, that makes a lot of sense,” and that would have been an immediate end to it. So it was that my back was up. Because I can be a real dick. So I am sharing my process of getting my back back down in the hopes that it might be useful someday for you.
This is a picture of my friend Carrie’s new puppy taking a nap:
I saw Mad Max: Fury Road on the plane. It was the most romantic movie I have ever seen. It suffused me with pleasure.
I can’t stop thinking about the poor men and women and kids who died in that truck they found in Austria (this article is horribly disturbing, FYI.)
We’re going to miss Roxane so much!!!
This is a really good Captain Awkward.
A friend of mine who is an actual medieval art historian posted this illustration of a peacock on FB and said “it’s not just me, right?”
Deleted comment of the day:
I have no idea what you are talking about with that nice medieval peacock who just looks like his display makes all the peahens happy.
I mean….it is right there in the name.
It’s the smug facial expression. Definitely.
Nicole, your self-reflection and humility is something we should all aspire to. Thank you for sharing. It’s OK to be wrong sometimes–I hate it and would rather be right always, but this is a valuable and painful lesson.
Agreed! Plus, I know it’s going to help me in the future to think about the grace and honesty with which Nicole is talking about her own mistake, because it’s going to remind me that “hey, if Internet celebrity Nicole Cliffe, whom you admire and love, can make mistakes and then admit them and apologize for them, then you, too, can do it, self.”
I’ve learned a lot about owning my mistakes and apologizing both from the toast overlords and the commenters. Which is not something you expect to learn on a humorous website, or really any website at all.
Thank you for tackling the feelings of “wait, is this wrong?” head on, and being transparent about it, because that’s such a wonderful critical life skill and one I can always become better at myself.
Oh god, Nicole you saw Fury Road on a PLANE? That…aw man. It’s like only watching a tenth of the movie.
But how great is it that they’re showing Fury Road on planes??
I mean, that is true, they should be showing Fury Road basically everywhere, I would spend money and run it on a billboard if I didn’t think that would cause massive car accidents.
You may have meant causing massive car accidents by virtue of people watching the movie instead of the road, but I choose to believe you mean massive car accidents because every driver would be inspired to instantly engage in an epic car chase/battle with all of the surrounding drivers, to climb onto the hoods of their cars and play electric flamethrowing guitar, to make all passengers ride by pole or grappling hook, etc.
WITNESSSSS
I mean, I already live in LA we are basically there except for the flamethrowers
It was a combination of both, really.
That is definitely how I interpreted it.
This idea makes me wish I was watching Fury Road right now. Replaying my favourite bits in my head is not enough.
it’s … not just Nicole’s friend.
….. Just sent that picture of the peacock to *my* favorite medievalist&bestie, and thought to myself that there are few greater joys than getting into work, reading the-toast link roundup first thing, and then immediately sending a dick pic to your exboyfriend. Cheers!
He then sent back the first dick pic I’ve received!!!
OMG…how did I not see that? Like, how? I’m an Old with a Fine Art degree*. So disappointed in myself.
*okay, diploma, but it would have been a degree because the year after I graduated, Emily Carr College of Art and Design got University status, so there.
Being wrong sucks, and reading Toast I’ve realized I was wrong (or held vaguely wrong headed ideas) about a lot of things. While it is never pleasant to be wrong, it is a wonderful feeling to confess wrongness and start over.
I had a similar reaction to that piece as you did. I realize that I read it from a place of virtuous superiority, which is never a good place, and while I only snarked to my husband, afterwards I told him I was wrong.
PUPPY TOES!!!
I woke up in a post-Hannibal world and I honestly don’t really know what to do with myself. I feel so bereft.
Can someone recommend some episode recaps/reviews to tide me over until Cleolinda finishes hers? I usually stick to the AV Club but their season 3 recaps have been so weak. In the line that Hannibal speaks — “Did he who made the lamb make thee?” — there’s also a duality. How could the creator make a creature such as the sweet lamb and the killer tiger? Like wow, good job picking up on that! I didn’t realize I was reading a grade 10 English paper as opposed to a piece that a professional writer got paid real money to write.
great show, awesome ending! I’m just going to start watching it over from the beginning.
I need to rewatch it too because I’ve forgotten really basic stuff, like the fact that Hannibal tried to frame Will for Abigail’s “murder.”
It’s hard to compare insta-takes like AVClub’s weak season 3 stuff to Cleolinda’s incredibly thorough amazing write-ups. I haven’t found an alternative to tide me over in the meantime, but I have been tearfully listening to that new Siouxsie track…like a LOT. (It is so going on my “Emotional Devastation” playlist.)
LOVE CRIME THO
I AM WRECKED
I kept thinking, “That’s it, the next scene can’t possibly be any better,” and being wrong. Will and Dolarhyde, Hannibal and Alana, Will and Hannibal (“…Please?”), Bedelia and Will, and then then last five minutes holy cow how can I be simultaneously so delighted and traumatized?
AND THEN THE POST-CREDITS SCENE
I ALMOST MISSED IT, I read the AV Club review and went Wait, What? then went back and finished letting the credits roll. Bryan Fuller, you magnificent bastard.
That was another strike against the AV Club in my book – the reviewer’s assertion that Bedelia was so terrified to hear that Hannibal was at large that she pre-emptively amputated and cooked her own leg, because not only did Bryan Fuller explicitly refute that theory, but it also doesn’t make an ounce of goddamn sense even in the slippery logic of the show.
(I tried to make the spoilery part in white font but it looks like that’s too much HTML for intensedebate, sorry if I spoil anyone!)
Yes that was super odd – Bedelia has always looked out for her own skin first and foremost.
I would like to know what the timeline was on that though, and exactly whose dining room she was sitting in.
I think I saw on tumblr that the dining room was Bedelia’s therapy office.
I’m kind of surprised by how many people only thought that Bedelia cooked her own leg, as opposed to thinking maybe she did it, maybe somebody we don’t know yet did it, and maybe (probably) Hannibal and Will did it.
It’s kind of fitting that it’s a Schroedinger’s cannibal scenario tho
“Somebody definitely cooked Bedelia’s leg, which we saw on that table. Okay, somebody almost certainly cooked Bedelia’s leg, and that was it on the table. It was probably…Hannibal? Will? Bedelia herself? The vengeful ghost of Auguste Escoffier? IDK, something definitely happened, and it was probably done by a person.”
That ending, tho. I almost can’t believe that it was all filmed and finished before they knew the show was cancelled. It’s kind of a stunningly good series finale (though I have the utmost faith that Hannibal will continue someday).
Me, 3 or 13 or 30 years from now: “So, when season 4 starts…”
The only thing getting me through the end of Hannibal is my unshakeable certainty that this is NOT the end. It’s too good and too many shows have been brought back to life in the past few years for it not to happen eventually.
Fuller has said that because of when renewal announcements happen, he wanted every season finale to conceivably serve as a satisfying series finale if they didn’t get renewed.
So apparently he thought Mizumono would have been a “satisfying” finale to the show.
(looks into the camera like I’m on the Office)
TIMING! Cleo’s “Aperitivo” recap just went live.
The AV Club recaps have been SUPER weak lately. I also miss the week by week walkthroughs with Bryan Fuller we got last season.
If you’re still looking for recaps/reviews, may I direct you
here?
They’re not as indepth as Cleolinda’s (but then, I don’t think anything could be!) but are definitely better than the AV Club – and bonus! The writer is a huge fan of the show and her enthusiasm makes the recaps really fun to read. She’s done all the episodes of season three except for the finale but that’s probably going to be finished today.
well there goes my afternoon
Tor, which very rarely tackles TV, has a pretty great recap/summation of the series.
(If you love Sense8 also, they have several really good pieces about that show.)
http://www.tor.com/2015/08/31/hannibal-series-fin…
I agree that the AV Club reviews have been… Not Great, Bob this season.
I am so jealous of everyone who has seen the finale! My boyfriend has been out of town for the past three weeks for work and after watching the episode where Dolarhyde comes after Will’s wife and stepson, I was awake for hours on a work night, alone in my house, terrified and unable to sleep. So… I am waiting for my boyfriend to come home before I finish the season/series.
“I woke up in a post-Hannibal world and I honestly don’t really know what to do with myself. I feel so bereft. ”
Welcome To Night Vale attributes its sudden success at least partly to Hannibal fans on Tumblr who were between seasons and needed something to fill the gap in their hearts.
Matt Zoller Seitz’s Hannibal articles/reviews at Vulture are great, as are Emma Dibdin’s at digitalspy.co.uk (seriously they’re my fave). There was also an amazing series farewell on Tor.
Nicole, I had the same worry when I went to see Hamilton at the Public back in April – what if I’m the one person who doesn’t like it? What if the hype is too big? What if it’s ALL hype?
It is not hype. It is not too big. This show is a magnificent achievement and everyone on stage is working to the fullest capacity of their talents. (I saw Javier Munoz as Hamilton rather than Lin-Manuel but he was spectacular and also a total sweetheart when I spoke to him in the lobby afterwards.) Soundtrack’s out in 26 days and I cannot wait.
How many times did you cry? I cried three times, although the third time was “the entire finale”.
I am still crying.
ACCEPTABLE ANSWER. I made myself start getting teary out of nowhere the other day thinking about the finale!
I saw it at the Public in January, and I’ve been basically stalking this project since Miranda sang the opening song at the White House in like 2010. That is 5 years of hype, and my goodness, does it live up to it.
I’m glad to hear that Javier Munoz is awesome too, since I’ll be seeing him when I see it again in September.
I can’t remember how much I cried, but I do remember thinking that if Renee Elise Goldsberry doesn’t win the Best Supporting Actress Tony, I will set something on fire.
I saw it at the Public in February, and again on Broadway earlier this month, and it is AMAZING. I’ve now seen both Lin-Manuel and Javier Munoz in the leading role and Javier is the better singer but the show is incredible no matter what.
But just – what Nicole said about wishing every high school kid could see this show? I took my dad with me for the Public, and he took me to Broadway so that we could bring my mom to see it too. My dad teaches US history. And he teaches it at a Washington, DC public magnet high school that is 98% black. He’s going to start incorporating the cast recording and whatever video he can find into his lessons next year, but it’s not enough. His kids need this show.
I know there’s been a push to get high school kids to see it – I would reach out to either the theater or Lin on Twitter (although he was dark yesterday and been quiet today, after the death of Kyle Jean-Baptiste) to find out more about what that process in. I know it’s been incredibly important to Lin and the rest of the team to help local high schools get their kids there.
Unfortunately, getting a group of kids from DC up to NYC for a show is not an easy thing. Paying for the buses is probably not in the school’s budget.
Ah, I need to read more slowly, since I read right past the DC part. I hope it gets to tour sooner rather than later.
FYI, there was a 10 minute highlight reel that was posted and got pulled and I have a copy of it. Let me know if your dad wants it and I’ll get it to you/him somehow.
I really love the thought that in 5-10 years Hamilton may actually be done as the high school musical.
CAN WE TALK about the soundtrack? It comes out on digital on the 25th but not on disc until OCTOBER 16th. I HATE buying things digitally – I bought the Heights soundtrack the day after the Tonys at my local independent record store and I really really wanted that experience with Hamilton, but it seems CRAZY to have to wait another three weeks. What is that about???
I cried from “Burn” until the end, pretty much. The sobbing started during “It’s Quiet Uptown” and basically didn’t stop until the end (I saw it in March at the Public). When we were stage-dooring, my friend asked Leslie if he could see us crying and he was like “ooooooh yes” because apparently the girl sobbing in the second row isn’t inconspicuous.
Yes, Burn is when I started crying too.
We saw Pippa’s understudy (who was STUNNINGLY good) so I can’t even imagine what it was like seeing Pippa in the role. Even just thinking about that song (and “Quiet Uptown”) makes me almost start crying.
My three times were as follows:
1) Philip’s death
2) Burn (trying not to GASP FOR AIR as tears stream down my face)
3) Hamilton’s final soliloquy to the end
Oh, wait, 4) Meeting Lin-Manuel Miranda in the lobby and trying to explain how much In the Heights and this piece and his entire career mean to me (did NOT sob uncontrollably, got some amazing selfies with him, highlight of my life)
I’m in tears for that whole section too. It’s SO GOOD. And SO HEARTBREAKING.
I saw it twice, and both times I started crying at “Satisfy”–not because it’s all that sad, although it’s pretty melancholy, but because it’s just such a good song and every single element of the staging and the performance and music was working perfectly. Then I got a hold of myself up until “Burn,” when the tears came again and did not stop until the end.
The way this show activates the tear ducts is something special. When I saw the show at the Public the audience was completely silent at the end of “It’s Quiet Uptown” except for the muffled sobbing; there was this general sense that it would have felt disrespectful to applaud something THAT sad. On Broadway the space is to big to make the grief feel quite that intimate, but instead the grief becomes big, which is just as effective in its own way. Every single person in the audience was applauding through sobs at the end of that number.
OH MY GOD “SATISFY”. I didn’t cry at that song, but mostly because I was in such awe at its very existence. It’s utter perfection and if Renee Elise Goldsberry doesn’t win a Tony I don’t even know what I’ll do.
I’m gonna need AT LEAST TWO of the Schuyler sisters to win Tonys or I will be forced to take drastic measures. Renee Elise Goldsberry just kills everything about that song. And I love how every time someone asks Lin-Manuel Miranda about it he always says that it’s the most lyrically complex thing he’s ever written and he could never perform it himself; it makes the complete effortlessness with which REG does it just that much cooler.
Question–For those of us who cannot make it to the show any time in the forseeable future (me), should we purchase the soundtrack or hold off so that whenever we do see the performance, we’re going into it fresh?
I think this is going to vary a lot from person to person, and probably has more to do with the listener than the show! I know that I grew up listening to musicals on cast recordings without any expectation of ever seeing them, and I still do that and enjoy it a lot (I have yet to see Assassins but how great is The Ballad of John Wilkes Booth, right?), but I have a bunch of musical-theater nerd friends who can’t stand to do that. At any rate Hamilton is sung-through, so basically every word of the show is going to end up on the cast album. I don’t know if that’s a plus or a minus for you?
I don’t know either! I have done both “grow up listening to musical soundtrack and then finally see it” (Les Mis, Phantom) and “see musical with no idea what I’m getting into” (Wicked, Into the Woods), and they have both worked out very well for me. Basically I want the Toast to help me with my indecision. I am leaning towards “yes,” because who knows when I’ll be able to see it live?
If you are leaning towards yes then I will gladly peer pressure you more in that direction. I think it will probably play really well on the cast album because a lot of the rapping is so fast you can’t catch every word–I spent a fair amount of the show thinking, “I can’t wait for the cast album so that I can find out what the lyric was because I’m pretty sure it was hilarious.”
This is an excellent question! My husband was going to try to avoid the soundtrack until we see it at the end of March, but I think he’s changed his mind. The only show I’ve seen that I actively chose not to listen to ahead of time was Wicked, on the advice of my dad, which I thought at the time was a great suggestion, but I don’t remember specifically why now.
Oooooh, that’s a tough one. I’m usually the kind of person who enjoys a show regardless of whether I’ve listened to the music or not. My inclination would be to say yes because it’s stunning and it’s worth listening to a billion times, but I think it’s more of a person preference thing.
Soundtrack for sure! Cabaret has been my favorite musical since high school and I never actually saw it until last year.
I knew the soundtrack to Cabaret backwards and forwards, but when I finally saw it on stage (with Michael C. Hall!), the end…I basically couldn’t speak when it was over.
That peacock looks like it’s also saying
“it’s not just me, right?”
“I mean look at me.”
HAMILTON OH MY GOD NICOLE I AM MELTING WITH JEALOUSY. I want to go see it in January but tix are already just starting at $177, and I have a problem with that both financially and morally, so I’ll probably try my luck with the lottery and if I lose go see-some off-Broadway fringe show that could really use my money. Bah.
Ugh yeah live theater is all complicated. I’m in DC, and not really much of a Broadway human, so I have literally *no* skills about how to acquire tickets to the most popular show in a few years. But also I’ve been ranting for literally a decade about how Alex was one of the cooler of his contemporaries (mostly because he stood up to Jefferson, who was a BAG OF DICKS), and a quick weekend hop to NYC is very doable from here and nnnnnnngh I wants it.
Oh God, you really really need to try and see it because HOLY CRAP THE JEFFERSON PORTRAYAL IN THAT SHOW. Daveed Diggs is a revelation.
Holy crap…we should be friends? I am also in DC. I have also been a Alexander enthusiast ever since 10th grade when I had to argue from his viewpoint (against Jefferson’s) in a HS debate class and yes I really want to see this musical. (Of course I mostly want to see it with the dick that argued for Jefferson back in HS and laugh and point in his face.)
This is why I REALLY appreciate the toast editorial policy of only publishing pieces about trans issues written by trans people, pieces about sex work written by sex workers, etc. Because sometimes, when you are not a member of a group/profession/identity/community, your mind doesn’t make connections to how a story or article creates or reinforces destructive stereotypes and narratives. I also read the GQ piece and at first was, as others said Friday, distracted by the humor and sharp writing, and didn’t connect it with sex work- because I am not a sex worker, and that’s not where my mind goes right away. If it had been about queer issues, or dis/ability, I would have been much more attuned to the icky making fun of people’s identity//profession.
SO this is to say, I love that The Toast Dot Com has policies in place that would prevent a piece like that from ever getting published here, even if it had been pitched and Nicole had read it with a positive impression. Because even the best editors and site curators don’t have every lived experience to make the connections of how harmful a piece can be. This whole GQ snafu illustrates how important and progressive that policy is!
Hmm that didn’t come out right. What I meant was, part of what it means to be part of a marginalized community is that much of the public will not identify how a certain article/event/etc affects your community! Their mind is frequently not calibrated to consider that perspective! So having editorial policies in place ensuring that pieces about marginalized communities are written by members of that community helps the entire reading public by raising up the voices who are able to speak from within a community.
HAMILTOOOON
To tide you over until the soundtrack comes out, may I recommend tracking down the Ham4Ham performances? They’re little musical numbers sung before the lotteries on double performance days.
I’m going to link specifically to the performance of ‘Confrontation’ sung by Lin and Kyle-Jean Baptiste who died tragically young this weekend. He was the first black Valjean on Broadway, as well as the youngest Valjean ever and it’s really so very, very sad.
Also, Oliver Sacks is gone and my whole graduate program is in morning. I think very few of us would be quite where we are without his writing.
I watched that and laughed and cried at the same time. Incredibly sad.
I had never heard of Kyle-Jean Baptiste before his death, and that was a tragedy, because every video I watched of him this weekend suggested a titanic talent in the early stages of blossoming. The world was robbed of genius.
(I was also sad about Oliver Sacks, but I had more time to process the reality of his death in this last year.)
HAM4HAM!! I need to start hitting the lottery so that maybe I can see it again. The problem is that I work 10-6 so even though my office is BLOCK AWAY from the Richard Rodgers, I would need to leave work a little early to enter. Totally doable, my office is chill about flex hours, but I can’t do it every single day. And I totally would, if it were possible.
Just made some scalper’s day yesterday, and now I have to sit still for a month while I wait to head to New York. Not sure if this helps (hooray! Ham will meet my already high expectations!) or hurts (expectations raised even higher). Either way, excited!
Serena! Serena! Serena! I’m so excited! I really hope she gets the Calendar Slam!
Good reading to get ready, Claudia Rankine: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/30/magazine/the-me…
Brian Phillips: http://grantland.com/the-triangle/serena-williams…
Wes Craven 🙁
Agreed.
I think I may have to watch Nightmare on Elm Street when I get home tonight . . .
This is such a sad day in our house, and that is exactly what we are planning to do this evening.
To badly quote someone else, there is nothing worse than the moment in an argument when you realize you’re in the wrong.
Damn. That was a really good point. When I started this discussion, which quickly turned into an argument that I keep demanding be called a “discussion,” I had no idea that you felt so passionately or had such a well-reasoned stance. Not only have you been calm throughout this ordeal, but you have skillfully dealt with my flailing attempts to “win” by concocting straw men of your points. You also seem to be putting forth a genuine effort to understand my position while explaining yours. And, can I just say (well, not so much say but rather think to myself as you make another well-reasoned point), that you are doing an excellent job. It’s been, maybe, 15 minutes that we’ve been talk-yelling, with you mainly talking and me mainly yelling, and not only do I agree with you, but I’ve come to the conclusion I have sounded like an idiot for years about this subject.
Thank you for that!
Hey Toasts, Sorry for posting this not in an Open Thread! Long story short, I’ve recently gone from kinda-sure to really-sure that I don’t want to be an academic, and so should probably drop out of my PhD program when I get my masters in the spring. Have any of you done this? Reassurances, please. Are there downsides to telling my adviser right away? I kind of don’t want to get pushed into doing things because they’ll look good on my CV if I don’t want to continue… But some corners of the internet have suggested that telling too early is bad.
Help?
Hey, so I have not dropped out of a PhD program specifically, but I have dropped out of law school and left a career in teaching (both before I was 30! I am an advanced quitter) So I just wanted to offer my reassurance: you will be ok, you are not wrong, you have to follow your heart in this. Both of my decisions to leave things that I thought would be my life turned out for the better. I am happier and healthier and do not regret either, although both choices were brutally painful at the time, and it felt like I was destroying my future and going wildly off the map. That turned out to be my jerkbrain talking. Good luck!
Yes, you’ll be okay. How and when you tell your adviser depends entirely on your field/school/program/adviser. There are plenty of situations where you should DELAY. This may be especially true if you are currently consuming some of your department’s limited resources, and they will be pissed at you leaving after the masters.
However. You’ve got a year left. You want to use that year in a way that will benefit you most. You want to make sure you’re doing all the things that make sure you’ll walk out with the masters when you ought to, that you’ve got the classes and experiences and connections that are most likely to maximize your happiness after, and it would be sad if you weren’t getting the things you’re working for and deserve just because you’re trying to pretend you’ll be there for the PhD.
If you think you can tell your adviser, do. If you’re not sure, tell an abridged mostly true version– that you’re not sure if you want to continue, so you want to make sure that all your ducks are in a row in case you stop after the masters. If your adviser is really passionate about you staying, or thinks there’s an upside to staying you’ve overlooked, they’ll get a chance to pitch you on it. And if they get really grumpy about it, well, then you can tell them you think you’re probably staying (and then stop talking to them about leaving!).
If you have a gut feeling you shouldn’t tell your adviser, still tell someone. Know anyone else who left after the masters? Or a friend a year or two above you? Anyone else who considered leaving? Some other prof? Department secretary?
In a lot of fields/programs, there are some classes that are more helpful to take if you’re planning on leaving than if you’re planning on staying. Or classes that are more helpful if you want to switch fields entirely, or just pivot a bit. (For example, I wish that I’d taken more statistics in undergrad, it would give me more options now, even without a concentration or degree). People who can help you avoid the administrative pitfalls (ie, do you need to submit a specific form by a specific date?) and help you figure out what to do to best use your time will be important. That is nice when it’s your adviser, but it doesn’t have to be.
(i think i probably repeated myself a bit there, but NO NOT GOING BACK NOT EDITING NOT GONNA). (…. sorry).
That was amazingly helpful, thank you! It really helped me focus my thoughts. I have one lab mate who is, I think, non-gossipy enough that I could put out some feelers – she was friends with one of my adviser’s previous students who left after a masters, and can probably give me some information on how that went.
I haven’t, but in the program I did, usually 1 person a year dropped out after the masters. It wasn’t at all uncommon. The two people’s decisions I know about: they’d both decided to leave by january (we finished in september), but didn’t say anything definite until about a month(ish) before the program finished. They were like ‘oh, I’m thinking about leaving and doing xyz, but I’m not sure..’. They had definitely 100% made that decision long before, and both of them had everything lined up in terms of what they were going to do next. Everything worked out fine for them. Good luck!
I dropped out of my program after my MA for various reasons and I have survived! I have a career on the admin side of higher ed that I quite enjoy (even though right now in the thick of orientation I am ready to throw things). A lot more people do this than you might realize.
I’m also a PhD dropout and a librarian. My experience and the master’s I earned in that program allowed me to move into a professional academic librarian position while still working on the master’s in library science. No regrets.
Good luck to you!
I’m not a PhD dropout, but I’ve seriously considered leaving Academia and recently faced exams that required me to come up with a backup plan just in case. Thankfully, I passed at least one exam, so I’m staying on for now, but it helped to talk to someone I trust. In that case, it was my adviser (the DGS for my program), who is openly supportive of students pursuing careers outside of Academia. So my advice is find someone in your department that you can talk to in confidence. I promise: it’ll help so, so much.
Classicist here, who’s officially proved she’s FLUENT in Latin. Heck, yeah! Even if I don’t stay in the field, I’m pretty freakin’ proud of my accomplishment.
Don’t think of it as dropping out of the PhD. Think of it–and present it on your CV–as finishing your master’s. Whyever would you spend however many years for another degree when you don’t want to have the career it prepares you for? Go find your real work and do that.
I’m currently in the process of dropping out of my masters program because it was making me miserable+kinda suicidal, and just making the decision made the sun come out and the birds started singing. I realized I was only doing it to get my parents off my back (not even to make them proud, just so they would stop talking at me), and the physical distance allowed me to disregard their opinions. I am super fortunate that I inherited some money from my grandparents, so I have a little time to get my mind in order, but even without that I still think that it is the best decision I could make right now.
I was very depressed while doing a Master’s program as well and “dropped out” by ceasing to go to class and moving out of the state. I am much happier now and I bet you will be too!
I legitimately ran away from my Master’s program. As in stopped going to class and moved out of state.
I am now very happy and I think you will be too! Especially if you actually get the Master’s before you leave!
I have no specific advice about the academic process, b/c it’s not my area, BUT if you think you need to leave that’s a good decision for you. As with a job you intend to one day leave, I would say don’t get too worried about telling your advisers too soon; map out your plan for yourself, figure out what resources you want to capitalize on in your remaining time, and determine if there are any projects you really want to dedicate your time and energy to that would be both beneficial to you as well as leaving your department in a good place. Choose a good confidante, maybe even someone not in your program, so you’re not stewing or second-guessing alone. Once all of that is in place, do think about approaching your adviser. Also: I have had good friends “fade out” of jobs by hedging their bets and taking an extended unpaid leave before their quit date, where there was benefit to their maintaining seniority during a transition period. Perhaps consider whether there isn’t a similar option for you; your adviser may be able to offer advice as well, particularly if they have a helpful re-direct. For example, if you have some clear career goals that you know don’t require a PhD, can your adviser suggest a post-grad class or training that would supplement your masters’ and give you an edge? If your contributions to your department have been beneficial or well-received (and I’m sure that is the case!!!) then having you as a well-positioned graduate remains in their interest even if you complete at the masters’ level.
do NOT talk yourself into taking your qualifying exams if you’re planning to quit. it’s a huge huge waste of your time and resources and no one will care.
Has anyone read the beautifully stupid Guardian article on Terry Pratchett, mediocre writer, Charles Bukowski, voice of an angel coming to you straight from Hell? http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanj…
This guy. My goodness, this guy.
Has never read a single book by Pratchett. Spends almost 500 words denouncing Pratchett as symptomatic of mediocre literature, because the good stuff that makes us think is apparently too tough for the masses.
Spends end of essay bragging about his own reading this year – 2 books I’d read by 16. I’m glad he’s tackling the tough stuff, because apparently we’re doing literature wrong.
I can feel a forehead vein twitching now. Thank you.
Honest to god, I saw the words “Terry Pratchett, mediocre writer” and my eye twitched.
when i got to these lines: Their [not Pratchett] books, like all great books, can change your life, your beliefs, your perceptions. Everyone reads trash sometimes, but why are we now pretending, as a culture, that it is the same thing as literature? The two are utterly different. I honestly thought, wait, is this article just troll masterwork, because that’s like 90% of the greatness of Pratchett, is EXACTLY THIS THING that you’re saying his books (which you’ve never read) don’t do.
My first response was to hope that he would be left in the black desert like Vorbis without a Brutha to come along to walk with him, but then I realized that Brutha wouldn’t wish that on anyone, and I shouldn’t either. So…ugh, this fucking guy (for now), but I do hope someday he reads some Pratchett and realizes what he’s been missing out on.
Right? I cried in public when Pratchett died because reading his books as a teen changed who I am as a person. And it’s incredibly…condescending, and short-sighted, to assume that books you consider ‘middle-brow’ can’t do that.
How did that even get published? “Please, let me rant about how horrible this author is whose work I once briefly flipped through in a bookstore, and the superiority of my literary tastes.” Sorry, dude, I am a grown-ass woman and Imma read whatever I want.
ugh, the only reason for publishing I can think of is the editors want hate-clicks. Seriously, how is “you have to have read/watched/eaten/etc the thing you’re reviewing” not a basic requirement for publication?
Every one of these “you shouldn’t read so-and-so” articles makes me want to find the books with the hottest pink & neonest green covers at the library and settle down with them & a bottle of white zinfandel & a Taylor Swift album. And I don’t even like white zinfandel.
His tone reminds me of a former Facebook friend who wrote a series of posts right after Amy Winehouse died scolding people for mourning her death and telling us we should be talking about Ella Fitzgerald instead.
Also, I love Jane Austen but cannot stand Mansfield Park.
Hahah this fucking guy. Man, what good is all this amazing literature that changes your perceptions and alters the very fabric of reality if it doesn’t change you from being a dumb asshole? What’s it fucking for then?
Why did I read that article? I knew it would just enrage me, and yet I clicked. Whyyyy?
And what is with this idea that changing your perceptions and beliefs must be this Great Difficult Undertaking full of Struggle to Engage with the Deeper Meaning of the Text? Terry Pratchett is brilliant because (among other things) his works give you new perspective and make you go “Oh” just as easily as the proverbial lightbulb switching on. A thing that perhaps this article writer would have realized if he had *actually read a single Pratchett book.*
Exactly. I love that you can read Pratchett at any age and get something from it; that I can talk about his books with my nine year old cousin and my 90 year old grandmother and we all got different things from it, but we’re all reading the same book and able to talk to each other about it, and that’s vanishingly rare. I wonder how many of the people who whine about things being easy to read realize how hard it is to craft something that’s easy to read and funny and smart and kind.
this x1000. I love Pratchett’s ability to write a single sentence that sums up a big complicated thing. Also, as many people have observed, humor can do so much more to change minds and provoke thoughts than a convincing reasoned argument.
this article also points out how Jane Austen’s work was dismissed in her own time for the same reasons! that + this thread has me thinking about future generations reading Night Watch or The Truth or Monstrous Regiment as classic literature, which is such a heartwarming thing to imagine.
Seriously. Insightful, thought-provoking writing doesn’t have to be painful or unpleasant to read
So that’s the Bukowski who wrote Fight Club, a.k.a. the biggest self-indulgent manifesto of whiny white men since Catcher in the fucking Rye, right?
You’re thinking of Chuck Pahluniak (not sure if spelling right, don’t care), but Bukowski did write a bunch of self-indulgent bullshit.
D’oh! My bad. Should have Googled; my only excuse is not caring enough. 😉
yeah, he’s the one who wrote Fight Club, Tropic of Cancer, Catcher in the Rye, Portnoy’s Complaint, among others.
No, I kid, I kid. He’s a poet and writer of sometimes autobiographical fiction, inspired by John Fante (an even angrier angry young man) and he’s actually got some good lines but is so proud of himself for fairly general misanthropy (plus some very specific women are evil stuff).
My favorite thing about Post Office is that he winds up in a situation where a beautiful heiress falls in love with and marries him, wants to give him lots of sex and money etc. And he writes it out as THE WORST THING EVER. Bukowski, I can think of many worse things, I promise you.
Hee! Yeah, should’ve Googled that one.
But God, do I have no patience for the Angry Young White Dude school of writing. Yes, it’s so very very hard to start on the easiest level of society.
the only one i still have time for who might qualify is Philip Larkin, more problematic on his letters than his work.
but seriously:
A car radio bleats,
“Love, O careless Love. . . .” I hear
my ill-spirit sob in each blood cell,
as if my hand were at its throat. . . .
I myself am hell;
nobody’s here—
is just such a wonderful set of lines. i like Larkin. i even liked Pahlaniuk and etc as an angry young tween, but then i grew up and moved on 😉
oh my GOD. oh my god. oh my god. I can’t believe they published this HIT PIECE of a garbage article.
Besides it *not being a review*, what sort of poisonous human do you have to be to WRITE AN ARTICLE on the premise of “it looks like thousands of you all are mourning the death of an author whose work touched you personally & enriched your life, & I gotta say IT’S A DISTURBING TREND because you’re wrong & stupid & stop crying.”
#palewithrage
update: found this lovely rebuttal in the comments. 🙂 http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2015/a…
Thank you for the rebuttal link!
I…. what? what? ….asdkfja;sdklfja;sldfkja????
“I have never read a single one of his books and I never plan to.”
THEN WHY DO YOU CARE????????????
ugh, ugh, why??? Why is your opinion relevant at all??
Just…. http://the-toast.net/2015/07/23/opinion-bad/
Years ago at the height of Pottermania George Will wrote a similar piece decrying “the infantilization of American culture,” aka Why Were We All Reading YA Instead Of Literature To Improve The Mind, Approved By Me?
Christopher Buckley’s Little Green Men uses a thinly-disguised George Will as a protagonist.
So, when you think of Jonathan Jones, imagine him as I always imagine Will: after he’s been taken to a lab and probed by aliens.
It bothers me that this guy apparently got paid to write “I decided I don’t like these books I have never read, and you shouldn’t either, the end.” Like…you would think that would be so much of a non-issue that the editors would just be like, “Okay, we get it, you didn’t come up with a column topic this week, why don’t you just take a few days and then pitch us a real story” rather than PUBLISHING IT.
Ultimately, I have to feel sorry for someone who can’t figure out why a writer who isn’t placed in the pantheon of literary giants is nonetheless regarded with huge amounts of affection by his readers, and his passing mourned accordingly. Whatever or whomever Jonathan Jones becomes in the future, it’s exceedingly unlikely that he will become that kind of writer.
P.S. GNU Terry Pratchett
Hehehe. I’ve quietly dropped the gem for this into the three projects I’ve worked on so far this year. Nobody else at work does Rails, so no one’s noticed so far (except maybe our sysadmin, but he’s a Pterry fan too, and if he’s noticed, he’s keeping mum so far). A man’s not dead while his name’s still spoken.
Me tooooo.
(I kind of want this to become A Thing, and not just for Pterry. Aaron Schwartz comes to mind.)
Hope this isn’t OT, but I had a lot of” similar-to-Mallory’s-but-not-as-articulate-more-rarrrgghh” feelings about the GQ piece when it came out, and one of the things that strangely turned me from livid-angry to just kind of sad-angry was this NYT piece about the author’s wedding: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/02/fashion/wedding…
I still don’t know WHY exactly. My guess is that, since my major beef was the author’s complete lack of empathy for homelessness and bill paying and women who are on the boundaries what certain parts of society find acceptable, knowing that she comes from a very Orthodox family from Huntington….I don’t know, it’s a perspective. And I do love a good adult briss story.
I HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL MARCH FOR HAMILTON AND I AM NOT SURE HOW I WILL DO THAT. My husband checks tickets every day, just to see what’s been selling and how much they’re going for on StubHub and to pat himself on the back for getting first row mezz seats the day after opening. It’s adorable but sort of obsessive.
BUT MARCH.
Less than a month until the cast album now! You can do it!
I bought tickets to see it at the Public with my sister and some friends as soon as it was announced, right before the buzz started to build up, and we were all extremely smug when we saw that our tickets were worth $4000 on the black market. “But I’d never sell mine,” we told each other. “We’re about to witness theater history.”
“$4000?” said my sister’s boyfriend. “I’ll sell mine!”
She gave him a withering glare. “I didn’t get one for YOU. I knew you wouldn’t appreciate it enough.” And she was right.
I’m seeing it in December and I’m having the same reaction, even though I live in California and even if I could miraculously get tickets sooner there is the whole cross-country plane flight to deal with. Also I’m seeing it with my dude and he is really pushing for an all day Hamilton extravaganza (starting at Weehawken at the site of the duel, then to his gravesite, then to the play).
He might be interested in this.. .http://broadwaydirect.com/feature/hamilton-tour-new-york
He will probably be VERY interested, I will pass that along
I live in Australia and I am DYING to see this and it will never happen
:((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((
I feel that there will be some interest in this app project from the commentariat here. And possibly from the editorial side. This is good work, and it is work that needs to be done.
That already exists actually, or at least there is currently one period tracker app without flowers or other things chosen because they are stereotypically associated with women (my favorite color is pink but it doesn’t mean I don’t find it annoying when it gets half heartedly slapped on a ‘lady’ product). It’s called Clue, I use it and it’s also one of the best period trackers I’ve found: http://www.helloclue.com/ . It’s also free and on iPhone and Android.
ETA I should clarify that Clue doesn’t currently have the option of setting your own colors, the app is white blue and red (white background, red for period, blue for fertile window). But otherwise it seems to be what that tumblr is requesting.
I just clicked around through some of the links on this persons page and I see now that the fertility tracker (they estimate when your fertile period is and when you’re ovulating and show it with a blue line on the calendar/circle) in clue is an unwanted feature so never mind with my original suggestion!
I actually emailed the Clue people to ask if they would add the ability to turn that off, and they said it was on their to-do list, though that was a while ago and they haven’t done it yet so I don’t know how far down their to-do list it is.
I’ve just moved over to Clue because I used to use Period Tracker lite and I finally SNAPPED when I logged in to check ‘am I ovulating yet is that why I feel like I’m going insane’* and I had little fucking FLOWERS on the fucking BRANCHES because apparently I’m fucking FERTILE ARE YOU KIDDING ME
* I really appreciate the ovulation bit because I actually need that more than I need the period tracker – PTL lets you set a pop up warning you it’s approaching ovulation time and clue… says it does but I can’t get it to work for me. But I definitely understand why you wouldn’t want to see that, and it would be great to be able to turn it off.
One of my several “work on this when you’re done your degree” projects is a straightforward, aggressively unpink, and not fertility-oriented period tracker, and I am bummed that I can’t help with this from the get-go. (Also because I was thinking it’d be a good project to learn how to code practical things instead of ocean and climate models, and foisting my learning process on someone else’s project is not a good plan.)
Man, that just made me think how great it would be if schools used period tracking as a project to learn coding.
I took a Master’s in a program where the DGS was openly dismissive of the value of even having a Master’s program in the department, and who also taught a class on the utter impossibility of getting a job in academia (that was not the title of the course, but was 90% of the content). Yes, of course it was a liberal arts program–English Literature. End result? Realizing that the department looks better if people drop out, because then their post-degree placement statistics look better. Conclusion? Drop out! Get a degree so you get something valuable to you, and you aren’t hurting the department any, and possibly helping it as well.