Thank God I don't have to ______ anymore.

  • Deal with the INS / USCIS.
  • be unemployed (knock on wood)
  • teach English
  • make 80 to a hundred dials per hour
  • clock out for a thirty minute lunch

Und du? Feel free to elaborate.

pay for all my medical expenses (well, in 58 days when I get Medicare).

Be pregnant/go through labor
Go through the newborn phase again (first six weeks or so)

Put up with the pain, unholy mess of and hormonal swings of the female menstrual cycle.

Now if they would come up with a pill to make me lose all the excess weight and cure the diabetes it would be nice … or maybe clone me a new body and pop my brain into it.:slight_smile:

-worry about academics: I had been planning on applying for a Ph.D. following completion of my Masters. I decided I don’t want to go through all that stress. It’s been incredibly liberating.

-work in food service: This is how I financed myself through the first 23 years of life. I hope I am never so desperate that I have to go back to it. Demoralizing, thankless, messy work.

-deal with IBS: 10 years of excruciating pain, inconvenience and invasive medical procedures when all I had to do was change my diet.

-deal with PMDD: I found a magic drug that makes me* never have a period again*.

-ask permission to eat candy: One of the many benefits of adulthood. Ice cream for breakfast? If I feel like it. Stay up until 3am? If I feel like it. Blow off chores and play video games? If I feel like it. Etc.

Edit incomprehensible papers under a tight deadline when I would rather be doing basically anything else

Wear a suit and a tie every day for work. It’s not a biggie in the grand scheme of things, but everytime I used put a tie on I felt like I lost a little more of my inner free spirit.

Good for you! I feel irrationally pleased about this. Every time you mentioned your desire to do a Ph.D., I would think “nooooo you don’t want to do it!”.

I may have been projecting a little.

I don’t know what to answer for myself. I have ended up going back to do things I never thought I would in the past, so it’s hard to say for sure.

Get up at a certain time.
Go to work
Stay in hotels/motels
Fly when I don’t want to.
Stay in the same location.

I am retired and live full time in a motor home so I can go where I want when I want - well as long as my wife agrees I can.

Live with my mom, dad or younger brother ever again.

wear a condom (he and she both fixed)

try to pick up women in bars (happy and in love)

-breastfeed

Wake up and go to school.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved school all the way through high school. But the hours sucked. And so did the pay!

Work for BP.

'Nuff said. :smiley:

Making the decision to not pursue academia further is probably one of the most powerful choices I’ve ever made. I’m on summer break, and I’ve had all this time to think and reflect. I was finally able to accept that my real motivation behind wanting a Ph.D. was to finally become a worthy and important person, to prove something to myself so I could finally stop the hate.

So rather than trying to cover up my insecurities with more accomplishments, I’m sort of doing the opposite-- taking away everything external and seeing what I have left at the core of me. And it’s been amazing. I found all these parts of me I’d forgotten about. I feel like I can build a life of real value rather than one just driven by fear, and learn to define success by quality of life rather than achievements of social status.

To think that in one year I’ll actually be free to just get on with the rest of my life, which includes becoming a mother, something I have wanted for years… it’s without question the right choice.

-clean out dog cages smeared with poop
-perform necropsies (i.e., autopsies) on horses & cows

I don’t even have to do necropsies on lab animals at my current job. There are technicians to do that, and I just sit there and watch every once in a while. :slight_smile:

How’s about an “Ask the Guy . . .” thread on this?

  • Change diapers

  • Be obese

  • Go to bed when someone else tells me I have to

This is old, because I’ve been married for quite a while now, but nevertheless I thank God I don’t have to be in the dating “scene” anymore.

spend holidays w/ the family.