Two Stories (Part One)

One:

Coming out of another meeting with the dean (to check the status of our prospective PhD applications) the Ox started thinking: is he doing the right thing by giving up on applying to leave this year? As usual there are no guarantees, with everyone urged to just get an offer of a place and then worry about the scholarship. Earlier this year, the Ox would have been rejoicing at this glimmer of hope. Right now, he's just tired of the whole bloody mess.

There are roughly two years left in his contract, and somehow he still wants to wait, wants to make a decision on his own, for once. Time moves on (sometimes seeming too fast) and he'd like to have a shot at a dream of his own, instead of someone else's dream, someone else's wants. He doesn't blame the dean. He knows the man's tried everything he can (and it shows). There are other things he blames, people he'd like to pin it all on but he realises it's useless and simply impractical. There are things he can complain about, and then there are things he just has to DO.

So more and more of his colleagues opt to do their doctorates locally. Some anticipate it eagerly, even. The Ox cringes from such a possibility. Four years, he thinks. Four years going head first into something I don't really want to do...

Sometimes he thinks he's spoiled, that he should grow up some more and just accept things and go with the flow, like everyone else. That he is not special and dreams are in his head and in books where they belong. That the only people who can have what they want are the people with the silver spoons and the rich parents. It would be so easy to slip, but for some reason he is incapable of doing that. He knows he would never forgive himself. So he holds on to that faintest of hopes, blocking everything else from his mind.

He recalls a friend's post. Like her, he doesn't have any other skills. He's jumped into this field, and the only way to survive is with a doctorate, and good research. So it all boils down to a choice: Will he succumb, do what is easiest and serve the uni? Or will he risk it to strike out on his own, for a scholarship, for a place, for a future?