Sunday, August 30, 2009

The Impure Science

A couple of weeks ago, I met an old school friend for coffee. We were catching up and started talking about what other people from school were upto. He mentioned another friend, and mentioned how hard his life as a Phd student is. I made the mistake of saying, 'Yuck. I understand'. He corrected me promptly - 'His Phd is pure sciences dude. Its hard core.' To which I smiled politely and said, 'and what is mine, an impure science?' but my brain really said '@#$%^&*@#$*&^%!!!!!!'.

I have great difficulty, I repeat GREAT difficulty explaining to people what I do for a living. Most of the time it doesnt bother me that people dont get it. I'm spending five precious years getting a Phd in Sociology. Of course it makes no sense to anyone. It fails to make sense to me sometimes, so I cant blame them entirely. The standard response is usually '...Aha! You can tell me all about the functionings of my brain then!' No. I'm not a psychologist. '..Oh wait, so its like social service stuff?' No. Unless you're talking about all the free labour they extract from me at grad school. '...then what is it about? what do you really do?' Well, I sit on my ass, and watch the Onion news all day, and whem I have the time, I pick up jargon from fat books written by dead or dying sociologists and talk in extremely complicated ways to my fellow sociologists over drinks in the middle of the day (or night, or afternoon, or evening) so that no one can understand what I'm really saying. And guess what stupid f***s, its more fun than waking up in the morning, wearing a business suit, and looking important while you sit on your ass and punch in obscure numbers in obscure spreadsheets, breaking in between only to inquire about the box seat tickets to the next baseball game you cant even make it to because of all the new obscure numbers that need immediate punching in on a Saturday night.

Phew!

Blogging = therapeautic.

1 comment: