Dilemas, Dilemas

Hello all,

Lately, in addition to working here in Kathmandu and preparing to finally return to the field, I've been contemplating my future and desperately trying to decide on that next step. And I know I've had discussions on this already with many of you, but I'm still finding myself to be torn to such a point that I've already spent 30 min this evening in serious conversation with the web's best version of the magic eight ball. (Interestingly enough, it's hosted by Purdue...maybe I'm not the only one who had grad school decision making dilemmas.)



In any case, in order to minimize my stress levels, at least a bit, I'm currently only considering two options. Of course, all of my fretting is based on the assumption that I will be admitted to both of these two schools and that enormous amounts of funding will be delivered to my door by grad school elfs (or is it fairies?) In any case, as I'm preparing to formally request recommendation letters in order to get the application show on the road, I'm using every spare moment to torment myself over what my future ought to hold. So I thought, instead of keeping all that delicious torment to myself, why not share it with all of you? That way you can contribute your thoughts, and suggestions, or at least sadly shake your head and sigh, "Oh silly silly girl". Either way, it's better than continuing to brew over it in solitude.

So here they are, thing 1 and thing 2:

Thing 1 (Aka Why go home just yet?) The School of Oriental and African Studies in London, a school of enormous merit and recognition in my field, offers a one year masters program in Anthropological methods. Despite the fact that a masters is not a pre-requisite for my career track and that I may need to take out a scary loan, the program is attractive because:

1. My resume up to this point is very vanilla. It basically reads: U of M blah blah U of M blah blah blah blah U of M blah blah in collaboration with U of M professor blah blah blah. Maybe that wouldn't be so bad, except for the fact that I'm almost 100% sold on getting my Phd from U of M.
   
2. Despite constant re-assurances from my professors and my own growing confidence from experiences in the field, my lack of formal training in methods is a concern for me. I've been told that having experience in the field is training enough, but I think methodology is too important to be learned entirely experimentally and I've yet to be fully convinced of the strength of U of M's methods program.
   
3. Did I mention that SOAS is an remarkably impressive school. Yeah? Well, I'm just reminding you then.
   
4. It's a year in London. I won't even bother to illucidate this point.

But then there's thing 2 (the path of least resistance). This plan involves me immediately entering into a PhD program at U of M and spending the next 3-4 years back in A2. (Followed immediatly by more fieldwork here in Nepal) As I said, at this point, I can't see myself doing a PhD program anywhere other than at U of M, so the question is merely one of timing.

Admittedly, I originally had some reservations about the program because it's already very clear which proffessor would be over seeing my work, and while I adore that proffessor, our work styles are very different. But just this evening, I've finished reading his latest publication and saying that I was impressed would be a gross understatement. The piece was phenomenal and more importantly for me, reflected an attitude about anthropology and a writing style that I identified with immediately. I've read works by this proffessor before, and I was always disappointed that the way he spoke about our work and the way he wrote about it didn't seem to match up, but in this piece...wow. I work from the belief that as anthropologist we have 2 major responsibilities; the first is to stress the human aspect of our social science, and the second is to continually use (and openly acknowledge that use) of our fieldwork as a means of coming to know ourselves and in any discussion with my professor it was clear that we agreed on these points. But it was not until this most recent publication, that these views became explicit in his writing as well. And now, despite my complaints about disorganization and over commitement to numerous projects, I can't see myself working long term with anyone else.

Ok, so without sounding too silly, I'm thinking of this as a romantic relationship. I know U of M is the one for me, and if U of M will have me, I'd be foolish to consider a long term relationship with anyone else. The problem is I'm just not sure if I'm ready for the commitement. A big part of me still wants to play the field a little, and one last fling with London is just so tempting...

Sigh. what to do? or as Nepalis would say "Ke Garne?"

Oh and just because I think it's funny:
I've recently come to realize that the Nepali equivalent of "How's it going?" or "What's up?" is (in nepali of course) "Have you eaten?". I'm not sure why, but no matter how many times I recieve a text message from any one of my friends that says "Hi Sarah, Have you eaten?" it makes me laugh. Fortunately, I'm able to supress my laughter in conversation. Anyway, just a tidbit... And yes, yes, I've eaten!