in which one girl's peach is another girl's poison

I'm vaguely sad -- not about my own course, but about the fact that other people are unhappy in theirs. I must admit that my vicarious sadness is due partly to the worry that people I like might quit school and leave me, and then I'd be short two friends more than I'd already have been given the fact that a percentage of my friends in college are here on one-year courses. I'm not entirely unselfish about this.

But the thing is, I've been unhappy before at the prospect of people leaving grad school before they were done, and they weren't in school with me in the first place, so leaving school didn't equate to going away from where they could be my local friends. I find it sort of depressing when a dissertation doesn't get finished. (I feel the same way about bachelor's degrees, now that I think about it.) In some part of my mind or my heart, I feel disappointment on behalf of the student, as if s/he had wanted this thing and worked so hard for it and then given up in the middle of the home stretch.

Hi. I'm Fox. I project. Nice to meet you. :-]

In passing, I'll note that this is the main reason I have never -- I mean, never, y'all -- been able to watch "The Sentinel, by Blair Sandburg" all the way through.

I know a number of things perfectly well, two of which follow:

that in many, if not most, cases of not finishing a graduate degree, it's not that the student gives up on something s/he still wants at all; instead, people tend to reach places where they realize they want different things than they wanted previously; and

that very few, if any, people -- least of all me -- are harmed by the non-finishing of someone else's degree, so it's actually none of my [damned] business if or why such degrees don't get finished.

Partly, I suppose, I want what's important to me to be important to other people besides me. (In the abstract, I mean. I don't want or expect other people to be consumed by linguistics. But I'm sure there's some level at which I want people to agree with me that an advanced degree is worth having and worth striving for and worth not giving up; but see above re giving up.) Again with the lack of unselfishness.

[eta: In the current instances, I'm also feeling sad that people I like are evidently having such difficulty with their courses at the same time that I'm not having much difficulty yet with mine. I identify this as good old-fashioned Liberal Guilt, but it's harder to assuage than the ordinary kind. If I had cash in my pocket and people I knew were hard up, I'd [at least offer to] buy them a sandwich. If I had the means to fund something worthy like textbooks in city schools, I'd write a check and also give of my spare time, if I had any, to make it happen. But there's nothing I can do to level out the degree of ease with which people are dealing with their schoolwork, and it makes me feel unhappy and guilty. The guilt is misplaced -- it's not my fault someone else's course is difficult (although it is to some degree my fault that mine is easy, since I've had all this before) -- but it's there all the same.]

I have learned, over the years, not to try to talk people into staying. I've learned, I mean to say, that when people ask me what I think, I've learned how to separate what I would do from what I think they should do (from what I think they want to hear [g], though I usually share both the second and the third of these). I've learned that the impulse to talk people into staying tends to come from my own feelings about what I'd want, which is neither helpful nor called for.

But I can't really get rid of the sympathetic distress. Even if the people abandoning their degrees aren't distressed or even particularly sorry, and don't need or even want my sympathy. I don't feel this way when unhealthy marriages end in divorce (though I do feel sorry -- less viscerally so, for some reason -- that the marriage was or became unhealthy, I don't feel sorry when it ends); why should I feel this way when unhealthy graduate programs end in the boneyard?

Q: what's a minor second?

A: two altos singing the same note.

okay, okay, not actually true. (but funny! from the same joke series: Q: what do basses use for birth control? A: their personalities. Q: what do tenors get on their IQ tests? A: drool. Q: how does a soprano change a light bulb? A: she holds it in place and waits for the world to revolve around her.)

(corollary: Q: how many sopranos does it take to change a light bulb? A: five; one to do it, and four to say "i could have done it better.")

all of this is by way of noting that, as of today, i am singing alto in my college's christmas carol choir. i have never actually been an alto; i was in the alto section of my high school chorus in seventh grade, that being because i could read music, which was apparently the only criterion. (the boys were divided up even more easily: if your voice had changed, you were a baritone; if not, you were a tenor.) but every time in my life i've been in a chorus where parts were separated according to where the voice was? yeah, i was all the way at the top. every time. in three-part children's choirs? i was on the top line. in high school, i was a soprano in the mixed chorus and a sop1 in the women's and a sop1 in the fancy-schmancy youth chorus downtown. in summer theatre, where the cast age range was about 11 to 16, mainly girls, and we were doing gilbert and sullivan (no, it's true; don't worry about it, it's not the point), and the cast was therefore divided into two parts rather than four?

actually, that was a separate case. with a cast that young and not a lot of time to work on the show, the director normally just cut out the men's lines in the choruses altogether. an understandable decision. but sometimes you need those lines, man. so a friend and i -- both strong singers, and both able to read music -- took it upon ourselves to be the men's chorus. and even then, we put her on bass (an octave up, sure, but down in her chest voice) and me on tenor (not an octave up, but in my chest voice). (practical upshot: i sang the tenor line on "hail, poetry" in the pirates of penzance. ha!)

anyway. we lost a couple of altos to scheduling difficulties, so because the choir was soprano-heavy, i offered to drop down and the director leaped at the suggestion like a happy person. so it's an alto i am, now, and i can read the music and sing the notes, but man, does my voice not belong there. in my head voice, i can't quite support it like it ought to be supported; and if i try to get more volume, my voice breaks and i switch into chest. at least it's low enough that it doesn't sound belt-y.

meeting sebastienne's chapel choir director tomorrow to go over stuff so i won't be totally at sea on sunday, in the choir where they were pleased at the idea of having a soprano who was confident in the top of her range. much more happiness for singer!fox. am willing to do this alto thing for the team. :-)