Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

I'm living my life backwards

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    I'm living my life backwards

    I'm going to be sixty in a month and a half and today I got home to find I'd been accepted as a PhD candidate. I'll be retirement age before I finish it — if I do. Sometimes you've just got throw your head back and laugh at the magnificent absurdity of it. What else can you do eh?

    #2
    I'm living my life backwards

    Not to be rude, but why do you want to get a PhD? Don't you already have a teaching job?

    Comment


      #3
      I'm living my life backwards

      I'd like to do a PhD. I could do one on the life and career of Jack Nicklaus and its impact on the Vietnam War (would Saigon have been evacuated in April 1975 had Johnny Miller won that year's Masters? It's the elephant in the room for many other historians).

      I'd also be able to introduce myself as "Dr Rogin" to girls at cocktail parties.

      Comment


        #4
        I'm living my life backwards

        I suspect our learned colleague from the west would like to be none as Dr Amor aka Dr Love.

        Comment


          #5
          I'm living my life backwards

          That's terrific, Amor. Age is the absolutely no reason for not doing a ph.d. My mother started hers in her mid-50s, but sadly hadn't finished her dissertation before she became ill.

          Comment


            #6
            I'm living my life backwards

            Thanks Ursus. Age is irrelevant — at least it is intellectually and emotionally, physically is ... ummm ... another thing — but it's something other people will raise either with me directly, or in their own minds so it can't be entirely ignored.

            Reed: First, I hope a doctorate will provide cred when submitting course proposals and program suggestions in my area of specialty.

            Secondly, I value peer appraisal very highly; few people work successfully in a vacuum and, to be worth anything, my thinking must be challenged at a high academic level. I've learned enough about myself to realise that I'm essentially externally motivated. Left to my own devices I'm liable to dream and doodle my ideas away. On some level I need to know I'm pleasing other people in order to please myself. In that respect the program provides impetus.

            Also though I've taught for ten years my courses are based primarily on my previous experience as a professional designer and I'm a long way from that now, my interests have grown into other areas — watch for the dissertation on The Cultural Vocabulary of Sport Uniforms.

            Comment


              #7
              I'm living my life backwards

              Nice one AdC, best of luck with it.

              I'm one of the oldest PhD students in my department and I'm doing it because I always wanted to, primarily. I've not yet worked out if I want it to be part of a career or anything (I'm probably too old, anyway).

              Comment


                #8
                I'm living my life backwards

                Brilliant, Amor. I'm absolutely certain you'll find it hugely fulfilling.

                Comment


                  #9
                  I'm living my life backwards

                  I'm probably too old, anyway

                  Lyra and Andy thanks a bunch.

                  I don't know your how old you are Lyra, and it's impolite to ask but you're assuredly not.

                  The age thing is decidedly bollocks. I've known people who spent until thirty being "too young" then, after forty became "too old." The ten years between they were raising kids so didn't have time to pursue other interests.

                  Yes, people will use age to sideline you but only if you let them. It's a only socio-cultural reflex, and indefensible if made explicit and challenged.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    I'm living my life backwards

                    Oh only in my actual department - it's a pretty small one and most of the students are 22-year-olds from Greece.

                    The age thing is bollocks you are right but I can imagine people thinking I was less serious about it having gone about it this way. But I can argue I'm *more* serious because it's not easy working and doing this part time...

                    Comment


                      #11
                      I'm living my life backwards

                      Lyra wrote:
                      Oh only in my actual department - it's a pretty small one and most of the students are 22-year-olds from Greece.
                      With, I trust, a thirst for knowledge...

                      Comment


                        #12
                        I'm living my life backwards

                        Lyra: Yes you can, and rightly so. The pressure to gear-down intellectually as we get older is insidious. I've friends who used to be passionate, engaged thinkers well into their forties but are now starting to let the wheels spin ( apologies for the Clarkson metaphors.) it's disturbing and sad.

                        SR: He he!

                        Comment


                          #13
                          I'm living my life backwards

                          By the way, Amor, you mentioned that you were planning to go to some of the exhibitions in London when you're making your forthcoming visit. I'd very much like to tag along if it can be arranged and if that isn't a bit presumptuous of me.

                          Comment


                            #14
                            I'm living my life backwards

                            That'd be fantastic Andy. Tubby and I have taken in a couple together in the past and plan to this time, we could make it a threesome perhaps? I'll PM in a couple of weeks when my itinerary is firmed up.

                            Comment


                              #15
                              I'm living my life backwards

                              What are you doing up at this hour? Feeding the chickens?

                              Comment


                                #16
                                I'm living my life backwards

                                With, I trust, a thirst for knowledge...
                                Completely off topic, but I had always assumed that St. Martin's college was a place for toffs. Then it comes out in a recent Times Higher Education Supplement that St. Martin's is the school which, proportionally, spends the most on bursaries for low-income students. Who knew?

                                Tangent over. Amor, my congrats. UBC? SFU?

                                Comment


                                  #17
                                  I'm living my life backwards

                                  At the age of 80, and having been diagnosed with cancer, author June Callwood bought herself a new Mazda Miata convertible. One of the more sensitive souls interviewing her on the CBC asked "Um...why?" and she said "Well, if not now, when?"

                                  So, yes, congrats A de C. As long as you're still eating solid foods and sitting upright under your own steam, I don't think it's ever too late for anything.

                                  Comment


                                    #18
                                    I'm living my life backwards

                                    "Watch for the dissertation on The Cultural Vocabulary of Sport Uniforms."

                                    Put me down for three copies.

                                    I think this is how it should be - the PhD as the "Big End of Level Boss" for a mature scholar - instead of forcing kids to slave away for their advisors for four, five, six, seven years subsisting on Ramen and beer.

                                    Comment


                                      #19
                                      I'm living my life backwards

                                      Age is no barrier. You can be appointed as manager of England's national football team aged 61, for heaven's sake, and still make a decent fist out of losing 1-0 to France.

                                      Comment


                                        #20
                                        I'm living my life backwards

                                        Amor, my congrats. UBC? SFU?

                                        SFU, Education Faculty.

                                        As long as you're still eating solid foods and sitting upright under your own steam, I don't think it's ever too late for anything.

                                        I'm getting two of my six custom-made new teeth in a couple of weeks so I'll be up for digesting anything.

                                        Thanks everyone, OTF's collective support means a lot. In fact I'm not sure I'd have had the cojones to apply to the program if I hadn't been honed into shape by this forum's discourses and disputations over the past years.

                                        Shit, it's snowing like Christmas in Flin Flon outside! OK, WOM and AG can stop that sniggering right now.

                                        Comment


                                          #21
                                          I'm living my life backwards

                                          "Boo hoo hooo....my marijuana plant's got frostbite and my bungalow's only worth $600,000."

                                          Comment


                                            #22
                                            I'm living my life backwards

                                            Aaagh, for the next three days, this was supposed to be my refuge from thinking about PhDs!

                                            Excellent stuff, AdeC. And you're dead right. An intellectually honest person is never, *ever* done learning.

                                            Comment


                                              #23
                                              I'm living my life backwards

                                              At the age of 80, and having been diagnosed with cancer, author June Callwood bought herself a new Mazda Miata convertible.
                                              My father, having been now confirmed with inoperable liver cancer, has decided to sell his Jaguar saloon and buy a Lotus Elise. A damn fine idea, methinks.

                                              Oh, and good luck John.

                                              Comment


                                                #24
                                                I'm living my life backwards

                                                Good for him, GO.

                                                There are probably two or three of those in Canada, and I saw one of them smacked into the fender of a minivan. I'm fairly certain I saw the traffic cop and the tow-truck operator crying.

                                                Comment


                                                  #25
                                                  I'm living my life backwards

                                                  Lyra wrote:
                                                  Oh only in my actual department - it's a pretty small one and most of the students are 22-year-olds from Greece.

                                                  The age thing is bollocks you are right but I can imagine people thinking I was less serious about it having gone about it this way. But I can argue I'm *more* serious because it's not easy working and doing this part time...
                                                  Employers that can see you've studied and worked full time will take it a lot more seriously.

                                                  Which reminds me. Globalization...

                                                  Comment

                                                  Working...
                                                  X