Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> I guess it's just that I've spent my entire life surrounded by people 
> telling me how stupid I am, 

They're wrong. All my teachers thought I was crap too. I was just bored for 
the most part, and uninterested.

>> Know what? My wife has a PhD too. Know where I met her?
> Heh. What do you have a PhD *in* though?

Both our PhDs were in computers.

> I rather doubt there are many females who have a PhD in anything 
> remotely related to computing. 

In my university, it seemed pretty close to even, IIRC. At least in the PhD 
program.

> Like I say, I couldn't figure out the application process. Maybe because 
> I don't have a clear idea of how this stuff is supposed to work...

Oh. You mean, you were blocked by HR? That's not unusual.

> That's pretty impressive... I've spent years writting silly scraps of 
> text, but I've never yet managed to write "a paper".

Did you ever take an intensive 3-year class in "how to write a technical 
paper destined for an academic journal" taught one-on-one by someone who 
does that regularly for a living? :-)

>> It's not "no apparently reason."  Think of it like taking a job doing 
>> something fun, for not quite as much money as you might like, but 
>> probably still more than you're making now. :-)
> 
> Well, if you put it like that... ;-)

I'm serious. Don't look at it as a destination. You want to get out of where 
you are, so think of the PhD as a place to go, have fun, meet people, and do 
exciting stuff. It doesn't matter if you finish or not, any more than 
running a marathon is about whether you come in first.

> I think spending all day in a brand new, possibly hostile environment is 
> quite enough to be dealing with, without living in a completely random 
> country on top of all that. (Quite apart from the fact that I have no 
> desire to leave the UK in the first place.)

That's fair.  Part of the fun is living in a different country, mind. (Not 
that I did, but ...)   I can completely understand if it isn't fun, tho. Do 
take advantage of the fact that you speak one of the languages that ran 
rampant all over the world not too long ago, so you can get by language-wise 
pretty much anywhere. China was the only place I've been that people 
generally didn't know enough English to get by.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   My fortune cookie said, "You will soon be
   unable to read this, even at arm's length."

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