Talked to my advisor this week and we got my comprehensive exams on the calendar for mid-February. Lots of studying to do. Then I need to update my dissertation proposal and present that to my committee, and then my research can start. Oh, after Institutional Review Board approves it once they decide I'm not going to harm anyone.
But that wasn't the interesting part. We talked a long time, as we do. He was in a bad mood which we turned around, talking about wide-ranging topics. And then he asked if I wanted to join with him and another colleague in writing a paper. And we discussed me teaching next academic year.
Since walking the dog there on campus recently and seeing a bicycle at the library, I have been longing for being just a full-time student. Not working full time AND going to school AND everything else. The happiest times I remember are when I could really focus on just being in school. It opens this portal for me to creativity and new experiences. I make lifelong friends in these times, develop new hobbies and life goals.
And to clarify, I always worked while in school and that's how I paid for things like tuition and rent. But I worked as an ancillary; a research assistant between classes, grocery bagger in the evenings, university office assistant, that sort of thing. I do not mind work and in fact quite like it. But when I work full-time, that is my focus because I am in a white-collar professional world. And I have very good boundaries now and my work is almost all confined to the 8-5 hours, but it still denies me any flexibility. I am not allowed to work from home even though I could completely do my job remotely, and I cannot take off time during the day to go do other things even though leadership people do. So doing things like conducting my research will be difficult. And when work a demanding full-time job like what I have now, my bandwidth is tapped out. I put my sparkles of brilliance into my job and it demands all of my brain, so when I come home to work on academics I have very little left. I am very good at my job, but that takes all of me.
So when my professor and I spoke, we realized that I could make this fantasy come true perhaps. I'm living very frugally now and can make further cuts, and I save a good chunk of what I make. I have savings that I'd wanted to use to pay off my house but that doesn't really make much sense as I have a low interest rate and we're in time of inflation.
I have two coworkers who are retired from other careers, and I have asked them both WHY DO YOU WORK HERE IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO. What I hear from them and others is that they don't want to sit home. A year off was good but then they itched to have an office job and interactions again. I know this is a common refrain among retirees. And I don't think I'll have it myself because I have always enjoyed not working, but at the same time - I enjoy working. A lot. I have pride in my work and enjoy learning new things. It's nice to have someplace to go, people to chat with over the water cooler and king cake. While I dream of being financially independent and quitting work entirely, and that's the main reason that I live so frugally, I anticipate wanting to work well into my 60s. I just want flexibility and gaps - whether it be summers off again or taking extended time off between jobs to do things like spend a couple months with close friends in Australia and New Zealand. I don't want to be a wage slave, but also I don't want to fall into a TV coma on my couch. Which isn't really possible for me, but it's still a concern.
I'm in pretty good financial shape regarding retirement if my plan is to work another 10 years and especially if potentially in higher paying jobs again.
So what if I quit my job in August-ish and took off an academic year to just really focus on my studies and near completion of my PhD? Maybe doing some contract work to pay the bills but mostly just doing things in my area of study such as teaching? I have savings enough, and I haven't ever really had a hard time finding a job except when I finished grad school at the peak of the recession and unemployment was surging, and even then I was fine for a few months until I found a great job, which I left for an unexpected opportunity of a lifetime. I sure do like my safety net of savings and the freedom it allows me. And I am incredibly lucky and while I get nervous about money when it's not flowing in, I have no reason to believe that my luck isn't going to hold another 10-15 years. My health is not the best but I have no reason to believe that I will be fully infirm anytime soon. As I had ardently hoped, moving out of a job with unreasonable hours to one with less demands has made all the difference - my heart issues went away completely and I no longer feel like I'm pushed beyond what is possible for me, making mistakes because of exhaustion.
I well understand compound interest now and wish that I had better saved in my youth, but even without that benefit, I now understand retirement savings. If I delay my retirement by one year because I take off a year now, it will not derail me and leave me destitute. And I would really enjoy my last year in New Orleans to be one with the freedom of time and energy to explore again like I did when I first came here. There is so much volunteering I want to do and just can't right now.
There is no guarantee that I will finish my dissertation in a year even if I am doing it full-time. So much depends on my committee being timely, and ... like most committees, they are not. But if I can be on campus and interact with some of them there, it could help. I will be able to interact with other doctoral students, because right now I know none. Zero. It's been a weird thing to be a part-time evening student and then away for three years. I have no cohort and that is problematic.
So, this is how I'm leaning. To quit my job in about seven months and be a full-time student for a year.
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