piphyt

I think I would love to forget some of my favorite movies/books-- the chance to see some of them all over again without any preconceptions would be awesome.

"luke I am your father" WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT

That changes everything. My "stipend" for my funded PhD is 14k. ...to get that stipend, I teach 6-7 classes a year. I just finished classes this spring, so I've been doing a full courseload the entire time.

If you ever get the chance to visit Spain, the Camino de Santiago (Way of St. James) is full of hostels like these. It's a religious pilgrimage, but many people hike it for sport, and the sense of community is truly amazing. I'd walk by small towns where little old women would be sitting outside with a plate of breads for pilgrims to take as they walked by.

This is similar to my situation. I'm a "graduate teaching assistant" who has complete control over my syllabus and no help on grading or lecturing. (It was actually very hard to start teaching because of the lack of support or even an old syllabus to get me started.) I am basically an adjunct but would never call myself that because I'm a PhD student. (And hell, I make less than OP for the 7 classes I teach.)