Tales of a graduate school dropout (no regrets)

I never open up this part of my life to just anyone, because some things I don't like to retell. The funny thing about it is that with time, you look at what you did with a bit of amusement, something like, "man, that was really dumb, but funny!"

I would consider dropping out the first semester of graduate school similar to not answering the $64,000 ($50,000 in the daytime half-hour version) question on Who Wants to be a Millionaire? You don't lose much money, but sometimes losing higher up in the game sets you up for a huge fall. You don't want to go back to $32,000 ($25,000 daytime) if you muff the $500,000 question...so sometimes you give up for your own good and to protect what self-respect you do have.

Let me begin my story in 1994, after I had graduated from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. I was well on my way to a fulfulling graduate career at the University of New Hampshire, where it would finally lead to a PhD in Mathematics Education ca. 1999-2000. My brother was already at St Anselm's college in Goffstown, so why not have two New Hampshire graduates?

Strike One came when my mother would have preferred me to stay in Massachusetts, or at least around the Boston area. Since UMass Dartmouth didn't have a graduate program, and I had already received a "thanks, but no thanks" from Boston University, I thought UNH would be a good fit. It wasn't. UNH was very, very expensive, and I can understand why my mother was displeased for being there; for an entire year, non-resident, it was $20,000. If I became a New Hampshire resident for a year, my tuition would go down to around $8500 or so. Not a good deal at all.

Strike Two was a corollary of Strike One. The UNH Financial offices were, to put it generously, hounded me for weeks for missing paperwork and payments. The second day full day I got moved in, I got a notice that I was to pay $209 in some kind of fee, or else they
would continue hounding me. Opening my mailbox was an exercise in terror sometimes, as I never knew I would be getting a card or a care package, or a UNH notice asking where my payment or paperwork was.

Strike Three came when my own graduate work suffered at the hands of Strike 2. In graduate school, you are to maintain a minimum B average, or else you go on academic probation, or get dismissed from the University. I had already taken a three course workload, but one particular professor (whose name I'm withholding because he's actually a good and well-respected professor) told me, without hesitation, "I can only hope you do better to make up for the poor effort this semester." That was it, and I was devastated. A week later, I filled out my papers to withdraw from UNH and handed them into the Admissions office. My final day at UNH ended appropriately on a snowy December day in 1994, giving my dead graduate and PhD career a proper burial.

(I also heard rumors that further along the path, you had to submit and pass an oral examination. If you didn't, your graduate career was finished, and you were escorted off the UNH campus. I knew with the two C's I had received at UNH, and one class I had withdrawn from was also a C, so the chance of getting a notice from UNH not to bother returning, or being put on immediate academic probation, was good enough reason to give up the ghost.)

Now we come to the present day, thirteen years later. My final payment to the loan company for this one-semester disaster will be paid off in full. I consider the thirteen years of $100 per month payments penance for making the wrong decision, similar to the young teenage girl who gets pregnant after a quick fling with her boyfriend or the Big Man On Campus, and then must endure nine months of pregnancy plus eighteen years living with the results. Some succeed and raise wonderful children, but others do not. To them, a screaming three year old child is enough to smack them into silence, scream in their faces, or neglect them completely.

Do I consider my actions selfish and capricious? Yes. As Willy Wonka said to Charlie Bucket and Grampa Joe in the original 1970 film, "perhaps they (the bad kids who got their poetic justice) will be wiser for the wear" as they were leaving; but not before getting a dose of anger from stealing Fizzy Lifting drinks. Charlie summoned his own honesty and returned the Everlasting Gobstopper to Wonka, who said "so shines a good deed in a weary, weary world." Wonka knew that Charlie was being honest all along.

My return of the Everlasting Gobstopper to Wonka is to say yes, I'm a graduate school dropout. To this day I have zero regrets leaving UNH, and furthermore, I have no regrets not going back to finish my PhD or Masters. I may go back and get an undergraduate degree in Music, but not until I actually save the money and find a good program.

Note to self: latkes, blintzes and potato knish at the Carnegie Deli

Hanukkah is this week and the only time I had latkes was in college; in fact, the first Sunday in September when we moved the freshmen into the dorms. Those latkes were great, although they didn't offer us sour cream and applesauce.

Margalit from What Was I Thinking? is celebrating Hanukkah with those delectable latkes...so that reminds me...the next time I head down to Carnegie Deli in New York, I would imagine those latkes will probably be triple, even quadruple, the size of regular latkes. The blintzes could be the size of giant burritos, and I almost always get the huge potato knishes that are a mountain of mashed potatoes with lots of spices, wrapped around in a doughy crust a la Beef Wellington...

Publicity the Lottery doesn't need, especially in its time of low sales

You have to play...unless you're a criminal.

Then, even if you've been a model citizen in prison and got out with good behavior, spent a little time at the local funny farm to straighten out the demons, and have the fortune to win $1 million, previous records don't lie - we have to declare your win null and void.

MSL's new slogan: You Have To Play - Clean Criminal Records Only!

Cleary Squared, Dorchester, MA 02136?

Cleary Square, believe it or not, was actually part of Dorchester.

Hyde Park itself was carved out of parts of West Roxbury, Dorchester, Milton and Dedham. According to this map, the town of Hyde Park didn't exist until 1888, and in 1912, it was annexed to the City of Boston.

I have an idea on what parts of Hyde Park came from where...and it looks like the Neponset River was considered the border between Dorchester, Milton and Dedham

Readville: Dedham's contribution was likely from the current Boston/Dedham line at Sprague Street, West Milton Street, and River Street, and formed an island of sorts between Neponset Valley Parkway and River Street. Milton's contribution was from Paul's Bridge east to the present Wolcott Square, and then to the Dedham Line. Had these borders not been changed, Readville could have also been called West Milton.

Cleary Square: Dorchester contributed all of its land from Fairmount Avenue down to near Turtle Pond Parkway, near Kelly Field.

Hyde Park west of Cleary Square: Dorchester and West Roxbury ceded new land to Hyde Park as follows: Dorchester gave up land from around Metropolitan Avenue east of the railroad tracks, Huntington Avenue east of Clare Avenue, and West Street past River St and all the way past the George Wright Golf Course on West Street (where West St changes to Poplar St). West Roxbury contributed everything from Bald Knob Road (now Enneking Parkway) east to Cleary Square, up to and including Gordon Avenue, Georgetowne, and Turtle Pond Parkway west of River St.

Hyde Park east of Cleary Square: Milton gave up almost all of its Brush Hill section east of Fairmount Avenue and north of Beacon St to Hyde Park. Truman Highway, formerly called Water Street, straddles the Neponset for almost its entire length, and ends about 1/4 mile east of Paul's Bridge. Technically, it crosses the Milton line right before the T intersection at Neponset Valley Parkway.

It is also likely that Metropolitan Avenue, currently divided into three seperate sections, formed the basis at least three sections of Hyde Park. 1-440 Metropolitan Avenue is within Roslindale (a part of West Roxbury); 450-800 Metropolitan Avenue is in Hyde Park (formerly part of Dorchester), and after crossing the river, 801-1000 Metropolitan Avenue is in the former Milton section and is bisected by Beacon St. Hence, the name Metropolitan.

We have met the enemy, and s/he is us (and our egos)

Pogo said it, but Jon Keller gives us an example of that very phrase: pick up with momentum of dissatisfaction with the other side of the aisle, and then bring that momentum to a screeching halt with a war surtax.

I don't think it will happen, because it will bear even more people already displeased their income taxes are going to the government for reasons they don't agree with. But if it does go through, the sacrifice should go both ways. If taxpayers are shelling out an extra 2-15% in surtax to fund the war, the senators and representatives are required to surrender 70% of their paychecks into a tax-free fund that will directly assist the soldiers' families.

At $150,000 per year, that's $56 million diverted to soldiers and their families - not chump change. With interest, this can grow into the billions, and give the families a much needed break when the savings and checking accounts are depleted. It will also call the bluff of those senators/representatives of who really does "support the troops" - literally putting a 70% tax where their mouth is, and taking note of who weasels out. With their salaries cut deeply, the senators/reps may then appreciate the value of wealth, and see the folly of socialism - through the iron gloves of income redistribution and punishing people for working hard and generating wealth.

To quote Jon Keller, they do it for "...[s]ymbolism. Grandstanding. Scoring what may well be a valid political point at the potential expense of gaining the political power to effect real change. In other words, doing what baby-boom era pols (of both parties) are notorious for doing, feeding their egos while progress goes hungry."

Jules Crittenden adds his 2-15 cents, with the money quote, "Conceptual flaw. Poor drafting skills, if you will. Lack of perspective. Dems understand that people hate taxes, because someone told them that once. But because they love taxes so much, they don’t get exactly how much people hate them, and therefore, how dumb this idea is. Nobody’s going to get, “Gee, this war costs a lot” off of this. They will get, “Those [jerks] want another 15 percent.”"

Speaking (Real) Truth to (Corrupt) Power

Jon Keller is on a roll: he points out to the right-hand side of the aisle that Lee Bollinger's smackdown of Ahmadinejad was not only wholly appropriate, but also about time someone put the phrase "speak truth to power" into more accurate use. (Two "finger quotes" up, Jon.)

I graduated from college many moons ago, but my major was in the "hard" sciences. You could not refute, argue or dissent from anything that read "Proof," "Lemma," "Corrollary" or "Postulate." I think this is still true for the "hard" sciences today, as professors of that stripe are somewhat more apolitical than the liberal arts professors - I can't imagine a physics professor marching around campus with the sign "EMF is not the answer!" or a electrical engineering professor screaming "Stop the Illegal Occupation of the Wheatstone Bridge!"

On the other hand, I don't think my political leanings would endear the liberal arts professors of today, especially the ones who believe in the so-called dogma of "social justice." That's shorthand for "highly educated, elitist, condescending white people so guilty of their good fortunes they fake piety to make themselves feel superior." In fact, I would write in the professor's review, "Looks and acts like Marx - and I'm not talking about Chico, Harpo or Groucho."

Our new shingle...

Here's as close to a press release as I'm ever going to get...

Only in Boston, Kids! (onlyinboston2.blogspot.com) is no more. It's now Cleary Squared (clearysquared.blogspot.com.) Please change your bookmarks, links, next of kin cards, etc.