Very smart, Kenkwan. And yeah, JJ, I hear ya. I wanted to sandblast my face off before grad school too - my point was, jeezis, I had to get an MFA just to be lower-middle class?
And I have to spend hours on the phone just to get Sallie Mae to let me pay $500 a month (they want me to pay $750), but that's because they're crooks, and until recently were way in with congressional Republicans.
I'm mostly mad because my program hasn't done s hit to help me, and because of that I think they really misrepresented themselves. Seriously, I had a well-publicized reading there last month and no one from the department bothered to take the elevator down a few floors and attend. When meanwhile most of my friends went to Brown where they got paid, and their careers have taken off because the head of that program (who just took over Yale and actually made them make it free) really hustles on their behalf. If I knew then what I know now. I'd actually like to drag NYU's name through the mud a little, except that if I ever became well-known enough for it to have any impact they might hire me to teach.
I frequently have that same thought about how double-f'd the people who made the conservative choice will be once this all comes down, though I don't think that's gonna be great for guys like us either. But you're right that I chose this life, and I like it, except for the money stuff.
I might still become a Scientologist, though.
