The things I think when my brain hamsters

[feuervogel]

I grew up ... not poor, I guess, but definitely working class. My mom's a secretary, and my dad drives an 18-wheeler. (They divorced when I was about 9.)

This informs a lot of my insecurities and greatly affected my career path. Rather than study something I really enjoy (German language and literature), I took a rather more mercenary approach: there are jobs in chemistry, which pay decent money. Then after I went to grad school & learned that I suck at research-oriented things, I went into pharmacy.

This is definitely not to say that I don't enjoy pharmacy. Far from it, really. How drugs work in the body is pretty darn cool. I really don't like working in pharmacy, which is rather more problematic. (Interacting with the public? No. Working shifting hours in a hospital? Hell no. That sort of limits my job opportunities, there.)

But after I quit my job last year, I was much happier, even if I stress out over money frequently. Or at least when I haven't had a contract in months and could really use some income.

Where was I going with this? Hell. One problem with hamster-brain is that it goes in weird directions that don't always make sense.

In my quest to be financially stable and the like, I've become ... bourgeois.* I'm a fucking yuppie. I have a 4-bedroom house on 1/4 acre in suburbia. We have 2 cars in a 2-car garage. We shop at the co-op, and are owners. We buy locally-grown produce. We feed our cats the best cat food (made from actual meat).

But there's this part of my brain that worries that someone will figure out that I'm just a prole in bourgeois clothing.

*Technically speaking, petit bourgeois, since I don't own the means of production, just the knowledge inside my brain, which I use to generate income by contracting with those who own the means of production.

Comments

[ladydreamer.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I feel guilty for having gone the English/comp/gender studies route and being okay. I'm by no means financially stable, although it is one of my goals (shakes fist at Discover and the credit union). I do more or less "own" (or at least it's in my name) my own car and computer, and I don't have to rely on credit cards to eat; on the contrary, I can afford to be a vegetarian with a pretty varied diet instead of peanut butter and ramen. And our heat and air works. This all makes me vurry happy. I don't know that will be the case when I move to do my doctorate, but they'd better damn well have good heating because GODDAMN Nebraska!

I could live out of my car. It is a nice car. It is very strange for me to own an SUV (got it from friends), but I probably could live out of it, if I had to. I lived in one house that was less comfortable than my car (slightly more room, but the locks on my car actually work, as does the heat).

It does worry me because I know that some departments are insanely competitive, and I am NOT insanely competitive. But I also know I couldn't stay sane in a job I don't enjoy to some degree. I just know that you have to find some way to exist in the world, and it isn't a bad decision to go the route of having stability.

[feuervogel]

You're going to Nebraska for sure, then? Cool :) Stay warm XD

Sometimes I wish stability weren't such a driving force in my decision-making process.

[steuard.livejournal.com]

Hey now: Nebraska's not that bad. :) Are you going to UNL? (My experience growing up in Lincoln was that people in Nebraska take their heating pretty seriously, so that's probably not a big worry...)