Like many other wiser bloggers before me, I'm seriously considering switching to Wordpress. OK, I have mostly decided, I just have to work out the details. I even got the URL already (same name).
I'd spent all day thinking about this -- mostly for other reasons, the desire/need to have password protected posts -- and then came this "lovely" anonymous comment which totally pushed me over the edge. I don't know how Heather Armstrong could take the hatred for all those years (I totally supported her "profit from the hate" initiative [it had another name]). And I, a thin skinned stupid over-sharing person should have watched my mouth, but didn't. Good thing, I say again, that I don't have many readers, or else it would be much worse. Please forgive me if I become truly aggressive in the next paragraphs. I just have to get this out of my system. I don't know how to write for nothing. It's the only weapon I have in life. The writing.
What's hurtful to me is that it sounds like this commenter was not an occasional reader. I wonder if it's someone who's commented before and whom I may "virtually know." That's why I think it's so annoying to me that people always hide behind anonymity to criticize others. Or do it behind their backs in "real life." Of course, earnest, idealist me wants to be always honest. And, YES, you're right, commenter, I AM, have always been a whiner. Unfortunately. It's what my husband hates the most about me (good thing he likes pretty much all the rest). This is my blog, however, and I have never asked you to read it. You're reading of your own volition. I've also been known for blaming others, but my husband and I talked this subject over hundreds of times and I really wasn't the one making the decision. I just stood by whatever decision he made. Are you angry that I'm writing about this? (And I know that I could talk about other things in the blog that could be "blaming others" -- like blaming others for not having a job or for the PhD being useless. I'm not really doing that, since I haven't even looked for a job, and a humanities phd is useless after all, but I would still have done it).
And another thing. I don't think your tax dollars are going towards my mortgage, did you hear me? I'm pretty sure that all of the principal that's not paid now is being deducted from our equity and we'll end up paying for it all in the end. And besides, I have already paid enough taxes in this country, you hear me? And not been eligible for most everything that other tax-payers are. And I've always been here legally. I have spent thousands of dollars paying your consulate to get a visa to travel back and forth to my country. I didn't want to be an immigrant here to begin with and it's encountering people like you that make me feel like this is indeed a hopelessly lost land full of shallow, selfish people. I can go back to Brazil if you want to, but you have nowhere to go, right? You're stuck here and if this country unravels, then you're just going to have to face it.
OK, enough. I have a feeling that the commenter won't even read this, or, if he/she does, maybe he/she won't want to do a rebuttal. Whatever.
And I thought of deleting the post, but I won't. I don't like to take back any of my words. I'm not talking about anyone's life but mine. It's therapeutic to share these details. It will be better doing that safely behind a password once in a while, though. At least I won't need to waste my sons' sleep (we were going to bed when I came and saw the comment) and my adrenaline.
I'm done now. My apologies for all my other readers for this rant. Peace and love to all. Really. Even to anonymous.
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10 comments:
oh Lilian, that was a hurtful comment. I never understand the anonymous hate. :(
When someone goes through a string of difficult things, it is helpful to name them. i think it's part of the healing process. Like 2005 for us: surprise (but welcome pregnancy), our community/church in New Orleans fell apart, we moved 1200 miles, 2 wks later we had a baby 4wks early who turned out to be deaf, Katrina hit, the job that brought us to Philly didn't pay enough to live on so lived with ILs, and the job turned out to be miserable for hubby, and I decided to take a terminal master's. Hard year. We would just say those things over and over almost in disbelief. But then as the years went by, we say those thing less and less. It's more of a distant memory than sharp pain. (hugs) It's okay to say those things out loud. I'm sure people thought we were whiny, too. But it helped to say them.
(Sorry I don't comment more. I'm usually in the dark nursing an unsettled baby while I read blogs. And I hate typing onehandedly.)
Yikes! What a nasty comment. I suspect it was not left by a regular reader but by someone who just wants to go around causing trouble. Just remember, the rest of us are here supporting you.
Hugs!
Lilian, one of the reasons I stopped blogging was weirdo comments. I never got one that was so direct and hateful, but I got some strange, passive-aggressive ones, and one that was really spooky that suggested the commenter had been stalking my teenage daughter on the internet.
I read recently that there's a correlation between heavy internet use and depression. When I read hostile comments like that, I tend to picture a frustrated, depressed person lashing out blindly.
I think that I would just delete those comments. It's as if she walked into your house and took a dump on the floor. Honestly there is no excuse for a comment like that on a personal blog.
Comments like that are precisely why I don't allow anonymous comments. I know that by blogging we're putting our private thoughts into a public form and, thus, have to be prepared to deal with these sorts of comments. But I really don't get why it is necessary to personally attack someone you don't know (or even someone you do). If you don't like the post, just don't comment.
I'm sending your a virtual hug.
I always think of blogs as like sitting in a coffee shop. Anyone can overhear your conversation. But if a stranger came up and commented on your conversation in a destructive way, it is every bit as offensive. Just because a blog is "public" doesn't give license. Sitting in a coffeeshop is "public," too. Anyway..continuing to rant on in your behalf. Beautiful snow pics by the way. Where we live now is not nearly as picturesque as where we used to live.
It's obvious neither you or K can cut it in the private sector. Academia is known for coddling sub-par contributors, so perhaps that is where you both truly belong. Tenure exists so ridiculously unqualified people have job security. In the "real world" if you don't perform you get fired. Sound familiar?
And, if you had a bank loan modification, tax dollars ARE supporting your mortgage.
Anonymous, clearly you've never worked at an R1 university and know very little about what it takes to get tenure or a university environment or you wouldn't make such ignorant comments.
And really, what purpose do comments like that serve?
Ha! You're talking back! You obviously don't know anything about academia. It would be a relief to know you're not an academic person after all.
What makes you think that K's academic work and mine are sub-par? Do you think someone with sub-par work would be a postdoc in an Ivy League institution?
Sure, we don't have a bachelor's degree from the U.S. so that does make us outsiders (a BS from Harvard does make a world of a difference after all), but we went to the best university in Latin America, one which prepares its bachelor's degree recipients WAY better than most R1 schools in this country.
I haven't been looking for a job, that's why I don't have one, and the PhD is useless because I have chosen not to use it for now. I did do my PhD in a very specific area for which there's not much work anyway. That doesn't diminish the value of my research.
As for K, he left his big pharma job BECAUSE HE CHOSE TO. He walked away from a six figure job to go back to academia -- who would have done something like that? It takes true idealism and courage. How much of your tax dollars are going to support big industries and their money sucking employees?
I think that what you didn't understand in that post is that K would still be employed at big pharma had he not walked away. He did not have much to do there not because he was not capable, but because his whole group was shut down back in 2007 and his boss was scrambling to find a place for the four remaining people in the group.
On second thoughts, I guess you're not an old reader, or you haven't been paying close attention to the narrative.
As for the loan, the loan modification has not been finalized yet, we're in a trial period. If we sell the house, it's very unlikely that ANY of YOUR (or OUR) tax dollars will have been used towards it.
What do you say next?
Lilian, the only time I ever feed trolls is if I feel like the conversation would benefit OTHER readers in some way. I mean, if I think a troll -- however mean-spirited -- brings up a salient point or question. This person is not. Don't feed her. Who cares what strangers on the internet think?
If he's so great and his degrees are so highly valued from the "best" university in Latin America, why didn't K get the job in Brazil? And yes! Ivy League degrees make someone a genius. I'm sure you would agree that about George W. Bush.
His group wasn't going to be shut down, by the way. It was a back door way of firing him. Sorry you don't recognize that.
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