On Quitting Grad School

I am going to talk with my advisor and the Program Head tomorrow regarding my status as a graduate student. I am scared to death, angry beyond words, joyous and jubilant, and everything else in between. I know I'm done with grad school. I just need some authorities to shove my face into the truth.

I don't know what to do about jobs. I have started looking, and there are a few jobs online that I qualify for, and I would much rather work in academia teaching than do research and blowing things up. But maybe I need to fall back on my Engineering degree, if such a thing exists. I was a terrible Engineer. I can't DO for shit. And as of late, I can't think for shit, either.

I want to do NaNoWriMo so badly this year. 

This internal struggle has been going on for too long. I'm tired of beating myself up about it, trying to make it through. I'm done. I just don't know where to go from here. That's what scares me the most.

I want to quit grad school, but my advisor's been too busy to talk with me. I haven't tried any research in almost a month, trying to focus on teaching and my one class that I'm taking. It's not going too well in my Stochastics class, but I guess it doesn't need to be?

I explained to my mom that I was done with grad school, though obviously not finished. I'm glad she was supportive of it, but it felt like I was talking to her Human Resources Supervisor persona as opposed to, you know, MOM. I still feel like shit about it. But I am at a point where grad school felt like a prison. I began counting the number of days until my theoretical graduation date. A thousand days no longer seemed like a long time. "You're not going anywhere," colleagues would say, indicating they'd see me around. I was so stressed out that I was depressed and getting high blood pressure (my few posts from this year definitely suggest that, too).

I still feel like I'm letting down everyone, but maybe this is what I need. Had I not gotten the G-TEAMS Fellowship last year, I would have left at that time. I don't care about Biology. I like teaching. Hard to say if I'd be a GOOD teacher at a regular school, but at the U I think I do an okay job.

I'm ruining everything. Happy fucking birthday to me.