Scary Numbers, or What is Wrong with These People: A Brief Discussion of Rape Stats

While driving home today, I saw a billboard posted by a group called FSU Measure Up. In short, it's a "social norms initiative" which aims to "correct misconceptions about male students in regards to promiscuity and sexual violence" (from their "About" page). Anyway, the text read something like "FSU Men understand the importance of getting consent before sexual intimacy." First of all, let me say that I certainly support the idea that the men at FSU have figured out this apparently esoteric piece of knowledge, but...so I went and poked around the Measure Up website and found the following bits of info:

"88% of FSU men have gotten consent before sexual intimacy."

"97% of FSU men would do something to help a woman if they Saw her being mistreated."

"93% of FSU men would respect someone who intervened to prevent abuse or sexual assault."

Again, good, but...Since when did the notion that one needs consent before sex become such a revolutionary idea? And who are these 12% that did not get consent? Because, hello, that's rape and a crime, and my first inclination is expulsion. Except of course, these were, I assume, anonymous surveys, and so the people conducting them don't know which ones were the miscreants. Who are these 3% who would ignore the mistreatment, and why did so many of the 97% lie on this question? I'm sorry, but it's a valid question here. And the 7% who would not respect someone who intervened need their asses beaten. Here's one more thing to ponder: Why don't these numbers add up? These appear to be all from the same survey, so in theory, the men who got consent would have answered positively on other questions.

I'm just absolutely floored by the need for this campaign. As my friend Eric said, "What ought to be basic human decency is now award-winning behavior: 'Don't I get pie for not raping you?'"

Book Life 22: Never Drink Your Rich Roommate's Champagne, or Rural Boy Goes Ivy League, A Semi-Tragedy (Plus One Awesome Chunk of News)

As a book geek of massive proportions, I have been suffering a deep blue funk over the closing of Borders. While I try to shop my local used bookstores for the most part, sometimes you gotta hit up the big shiny bookstore, you know? And Borders was the best of the ones I'm familiar with. I found the book I'm blogging on there in the bargain section slashed another 50% because my beloved Borders is going under. I'm glad to be able to afford a few books I've been wanting because they are so cheap, but I hate the reasons for it. But I digress...

Lost in the Meritocracy: The Undereducation of an Overacheiver by Walter Kirn

If you are at all familiar with this blog, you know that I am from a low SES rural background (and continue to be) and have had some difficulties adjusting to life in a town seemingly stuffed with entitled, pretentious people. (My previous rantings on the subject can be found listed under the "poverty" tag in the cloud to your right.) So when I saw this book, I snatched it up immediately, thinking I'd found some wonderful if distant authorial soul mate. Eh, not really.

Though I enjoyed the read, I found myself constantly searching for the thing the title and blurb promised. I understand why he included early memories, because after all, it is a memoir. However, most of it didn't seem to click with the expectations an initial glance gives you. Once he arrived at Princeton, it appears with his first roommates, a snobby group of over-privileged people I wanted to smack and other classmates wandering about in the background of the narrative. It falls away again shortly thereafter only to resurface here and there in the second half of the book, in between drug addled hazes and what looks to be an exhaustion-based disconnection with reality. As I've said about many a memoir I have read, I was not there and can make no claims about what did and did not happen and how it affected the author. But in many places, it seemed less to be the overwhelming nature of being thrown into the company of a class he was unfamiliar with than his own preexisting issues.

Knowledge is a reckoning...a way to assess your location, your true position, not a strategy for improving your position. (p.23)

Having said that, I did find a few places in which I was nodding in agreement. It isn't that it was a bad or poorly conceived book. (I think more people from rural, low income areas/backgrounds need to express these things, hence the reason I am always ranting on about them and reading this book.) I simply think that if he wanted to write a memoir about his discombobulation and how he dealt with the upper class twilight zone he ended up in, he could have done a much better job. I wanted more of the actual conflict and how he proposed to combat it. I don't mean to give anything away, but at the end when he finds himself deeper in an upper class arena than before, he makes no mention of it. It's presented as a moment of "whoo hoo! I got this!" rather than what could prove to be a shove into an even more pretentious pit of vipers. I know he couldn't conceivably go on forever; a book must end somewhere, after all. I just wish he could have acknowledged the depth of the issue and the effects it would have on him in the future or even how it has affected him now that he's all grown up and distanced from the actual events.

In the end, if you're looking for a more eloquent and extensive discussion of the problems I ramble on about on occasion, this isn't exactly it, but read it anyway. It does have its moments.

And now for something you'll really like...

In other book related news, it pays to follow authors you like on Facebook. Why is that, you ask? Because sometimes they post interesting and awesome things. Take yesterday for example. Chuck Palahniuk posted an opportunity for bloggers: all you had to do was email Double Day with your blog and physical address for a chance to read and review his new book Damned before it hits shelves in October. As you may have surmised, I will be one of the lucky ones. It isn't as if I've become entitled to an exclusive audience with the book, but it is pretty darn cool nonetheless. I have no idea when it may arrive, but rest assured you will know when it does. Stay tuned.

We Was Po' Revisited: Sign Me Up

Okay, so I've blogged about this before (see "We Was Po', part ii" from August 2010), but another article has popped up on yahoo related to this same topic. If you haven't seen it, it's a list of the worst paying college degrees of 2011. Of course, religious studies is included along with social work and several education degrees. For those of us lost in the throws of passion for the study of religion, this really isn't a surprise. As I've said before, if you come to the study of religion in any form expecting to get rich, you have been lied to, my friend. We do it because it's relevant and interesting and awesome, but this is not my point.

What made me come back to this again is a conversation I had on Facebook with an acquaintance. They asked me what I graduated with, and after I told them, they promptly sent me to the above article and basically declared me a fool in not so many words. Not only do I possess a degree on a list of so-called "low-payers," I have two other BA's in subjects equally (to their mind) as useless. Of course, by useless they meant that I will likely never become a millionaire doing it. My response was the following:

You ridicule my choices in degrees because they won't make me a ton of money and even pity me because of it, but I pity you because you seem to only be able to value the possibility of money. Yes, I need money to live in this society. Capitalism is mostly evil, but it is what it is; and I have accepted that fact. Yes, I know my particular areas of study, despite their salience, will not allow me to own 4 houses, a fleet of cars, and whatever else it is for which you need that much money. However, what you are looking at as a pittance of a salary seems miraculous to me. My first job netted me less than half of the lowest salary on that list in a year. My wife, though better paid than we were then, still makes less than half of that in a year. If I were to land a position teaching my subjects and managed to pull in the "low" salary of around $30,000, I would be ecstatic and suddenly be operating on twice the budget we have now. If I were to have a job making that much, my wife could quit work because we would be able to pay all our bills. She could do whatever she wished in school and take her time finding a job doing what she wants to do. Once she got a job (which would net her nearly $30,000 as well), we would be rich based on how we were raised, the areas we grew up in, and our lives up to that point. Life would be much smoother financially. Hell, we might be able to actually think about buying a house and a car made in a closer to current year. In short, I would be divinely happy with that. So, remind me again what the problem is with that figure.

Panic and Doom/Book Life 13: In Which the Recent Graduate Comes to Terms with Said Graduation and Buries Her Panic in Books

Well, here we are: the very first post-graduation blog post. As of about 10 pm Friday the 29th, I became an alumna of Florida State with a BA in Religion, minor in Women's Studies; a BA with honors in Women's Studies, minor in Religion; and a BA in Creative Writing, minor in Latin. Since then, I have had about 3 panic attacks and at least one minor breakdown. Yes, I'm happy and proud of myself; after all, this is something I've been looking forward to for quite some time now. The entire seven years I was out of school, all I could think of was getting back in and finishing what I started, and I finally did--three times over. But now, without homework and classes, I am utterly lost. When I graduated high school, I knew I was headed off to college, so everything was cool. Now, I have no plan. With the Religion department rejecting me yet again, I have been left to wander about in my own ruminations, and as anyone who knows me well will tell you, my ruminations are no place to wander aimlessly.

Thus, I have spent the last week or so since the official "hell no" from the department showed up in my mailbox going over and over my choices. First of all, I HAVE to get a job, which is much easier said than done in this town, open availability or not. Anna needs a break, and we need to pay bills. Second, I have to figure out what happens next. There is a short list of schools that I would love to attend for my MA/PhD, and there's also Teach for America, which embodies many of my most deeply held ideals about changing the world. Of course, any of those choices hinge on my acceptance to said program, none of which are simple to get into, and who wants to give me enough of a financial package. Right now, though, I just need a paycheck.

Okay, enough of my panicked existential angst about the future...since I am no longer writing papers and studying for tests, I once again have time to read whatever the hell I want for the first time in ages. :-)

Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus by Orson Scott Card

"Who cares if a mathematician calls us dirty names like 'unreal'? They say such slanders about the square root of minus two as well."--Diko, in Pastwatch

I first read this book several years ago and fell in love with it. Normally, I am not that much of an Orson Scott Card fan--not that he isn't great, but just not one of my favorites. This particular book, however, is neither part of any of his series nor like any of his other writings as far as I can tell. Written from a far future vantage point, the human race has just been through a century of warfare, famine, and other horrors and is now living in a time of peace and plenty. They've developed what is called Pastwatch, which has built machines capable of looking at the past. As it progresses, they figure out that they are actually capable of changing the past as well, and one scholar discovers that Christopher Columbus may very well be the point at which all future conquest and evil began. I won't go on, because, you know, spoilers, but rest assured it is worth the read. Even if sci-fi isn't usually your thing, Pastwatch should be on your to-read list, if for no other reason than Card has discovered the most seamless way of working historical research into fiction than I've seen in a long time.

I'm Pissed, Y'all: A Short Exposition on Ignorance

While waiting on my 19th British novel class today, a few classmates and I were discussing people with poor grammar--the ones with no idea what the difference is between it's and its, your and you're, etc. Another classmate decided to put her two cents in but in an entirely different vein. She began a short rant on her "hickey" boyfriend and his y'all's and yonder's. I proceeded to explain to her that those words and many others are actually descended from Old English, Irish, and Scottish dialects, the literature of which is taught in our department as classic. I also told her that "y'all" is basically the only elegant and efficient way to denote a plural you in English and that she was offensive. She looked shocked, and I walked off. After class, she came up to me and said, "I didn't mean to offend you." I responded, "Then you shouldn't have said it."

First, that isn't an apology. An apology would have been: "I'm sorry I offended you." "I didn't mean to offend" means you actually did mean what you said, but you're incredibly sorry you were overheard. So, just no...Second, when are people going to learn that country and ignorant are two entirely separate things. I am quite country most of the time, but I simply know how to write and speak in a more academic manner. My accent never really disappears, and I wouldn't want it to. But I am sick and tired of my extended i's and odd word choice calling my intelligence into question. For the record, there are just as many ignorant people from northern cities as from the rural south.

Dispatches from a Refugee in the Land of Privilege, Episode 1: Homelessness Isn''t My Problem

For article/essay technique class yesterday we read Barabara Kingsolver's "Household Words" (found in her essay collection Small Wonders), and I spent most of the class shocked and horrified. If you haven't read it, Kingsolver uses an incident she witnessed while in traffic (an apparently homeless man beating on an apparently homeless woman) and which she did nothing about to discuss homelessness in the United States and Americans' complicity in it. It's an excellent essay, of course; everything Kingsolver writes is amazing. She goes through all the American "fuzzy-blanket myths" related to homelessness, such as "anyone who works hard can make it in the US" and "most homeless people want to be that way." Statements like these seem obviously ridiculous to me, but the people in my class apparently disagree. They proceeded to give every one of the reasons she was arguing against as valid and reasonable.

Can we talk about apathy for just a minute? They pasted the "poverty is more complicated than just handing a dollar to a guy. it's way too big for me to fix it." argument over their lack of give-a-damn and expect that to cover it. I call shenanigans. No one ever said that one person can or should be able to fix poverty and homelessness single-handedly. I wish that was possible, but it's just not. However, it is possible to help one person at a time, thereby making the world just a little bit brighter in the process.

But this post isn't about my belief in positive energy and its ability to change the world. It's about privilege. When I spoke up and said, "Well, I've been so close to their position that regardless of what they eventually use the money for, I will always give them money if I have it. If for no other reason than I would hope that if it was me with the cardboard sign on the side of the road, someone would help me." They not only basically said that there was no way I had ever been close to homeless (because they themselves had never been) but also then spent the next ten minutes recounting tales of homeless people who refused to be helped, etc. I'm not sure where this line of thought is going except that I didn't think people actually thought this way. Where I was raised, people generally didn't think this way, and I don't know how to take this.

We Was Po', Part III: Choices and Possibilities

I've written about privilege and dealing with it in academia before, so I will try not to repeat myself. This past week I've had a sort of panicky time of uncertainty about my future in the academic world. While discussing Annie Dillard in religion class Thursday, we had a short conversation about her background and how this affects her writing. She was raised in a wealthy family, and my argument was that given this, her choice of a life of pure introspection and writing was possible. People who are raised in low income environments are less likely to assume that such a life is a career choice. Now, this isn't to say that it isn't possible, just that it is not necessarily seen as a choice. The rest of the class did not agree. It was at this moment that I had my crisis point.

How can I reconcile my background and beliefs with a life among people who truly believe that a low SES background doesn't generally cause exclusions from the beginning or that a privileged background doesn't mean more possibilities than low SES? This is the very reason I decided against a graduate career in women's studies. I was constantly interjecting a low SES rural perspective into conversations mostly to no avail. I couldn't stomach the thought of spending the rest of my life beating my head against that wall. Now, true to my fears, I am facing the same issue in religion.

The major problem is what to do about it. I love, I mean absolutely love, the idea of making a living studying religion, writing about it, and teaching people about it. That, to me, sounds like a good time. However, if I continue along this path, will it mean an eventual nervous breakdown when my brain has to repeatedly bash against these issues of privilege? If so, what else can I do? I don't want to do social work, because I fear ending up in some tangentially governmental office being forced to perpetuate a cycle I would rather destroy. Yes, I know there are plenty of other job possibilities within social work, but still...I thought about library science. I do so love books, and I could maybe work in a public library helping kids love to read. I could be a public school teacher, but it's a bit late in my undergraduate career to start that.

We was po', part ii: in which a low SES girl discusses salary...

A friend and fellow religion major posted this chart on his facebook feed today...As Religious Studies people we come in at 12th worst paid, and one of my other loves, Women's Studies (listed as Interdisciplinary Studies), comes in at 15th. His comment was that we don't do it for the money, and that's true. No one becomes a religion scholar hoping to make the big bucks. It just doesn't happen, and if you are someone who thought this, you've been lied to, my friend. So, I agree with him, BUT (you knew that was coming, right?) I have a serious issue with the entire thing...

The starting pay for Religious Studies was listed as $34,700. For someone raised in an upper middle to upper class home, this may seem a paltry amount. However, as someone raised in a lower SES home and an economically depressed area and who spent seven years in an even more economically depressed rural area, I'm here to tell you, $34,700 sounds like a fortune. That is, in fact, almost exactly three times what I made at my retail and hospitality jobs in the aforementioned rural area. As my lovely wife pointed out, I am aware that once you spend all this time and money (that you will be paying back until the end of time) getting a degree, maybe some people expect a lot more. I will also grant you that people from my background do attend college to make a better life than that of family who possibly did not get a degree and spent their lives struggling financially. All of this is true, but when I remind myself of this, there is a little nagging at the back of my mind that still protests...

When I returned to college after my little hiatus, I realized quickly that I had stepped into a world where a large portion of the people were speaking an entirely different language. (For more on this, see my post HERE.) This has not changed over the couple of years since then; it has actually become even more apparent. Now, let me say that the people I go to school with are not all bad; i like many of them, even the ones from this other planet called "well-off." It's just that the further I progress, the more like I feel I'm bashing my head against a brick wall. I dropped Women's Studies as a career path for this very reason. Every single WST class I took it seemed I spent half my time attempting to interject a low SES rural point of view into the discussion. I just could not see spending my entire career doing that. Now I'm afraid that Religion will be the same...

I suppose that given a certain kind of upbringing, 35 grand a year might not cut it, but as for me, where do i sign?

Christian Psychotics, Episode 2: Extending Their Sentences

If you follow me at all, you know that I am studying Quiverfull and that general brand of nutcase. In the course of gathering resources, I got myself on the email list for Vision Forum, a group formed by one of the most-high weirdos himself, Doug Phillips. Today, I received an email promoting a new branch of their homeschool products: CollegePlus! (The exclamation point is theirs.) as a low-cost option for further education in the homeschool community. On the surface, this may be a good thing. One testimonial claimed to have received her bachelor's before the age of 18 and paid only a total of $6000 for it. I'm here to tell you that that is a STEAL! $6000 wouldn't pay for a semester for me here--no joke. Thank you Goddess for student loans! Anyway, as I manuevered around the information on the site, it dawned on me what the creeping discomfort I was feeling was coming from...

One of the major reasons that Quiverfull families homeschool is to remove secular influence from their kids' lives as much as possible and keep them in the home as long as possible (generally until they get married)--especially the girls. Very rarely do you see anything in Quiverfull literature promoting college education for their girls, or even their boys for that matter. The Duggars actually talked about this briefly on an episode. Jim Bob and the girls said that they wanted to be midwives (for which there is apparently a Christian school) or missionaries. Neither of which requires a secular college education. Even among the Duggar boys there wasn't really one who wanted to do anything involving college. Now, I'm not saying that every single person should go to college. There are a lot of people who don't want to and have perfectly wonderful jobs. That is not the issue.

Quiverfull girls are sheltered beyond anything I have ever seen. They are considered not just a daughter but their father's daughter until the day they get married and then they become not just a wife but their husband's wife. Then, usually as quickly as possible, they become not just a mother, but their children's mother. Homeschooling is the norm, and most don't appear to go to any university--religious or otherwise. By giving these parents a college homeschool option, they may be allowing the girls to have a further education, but what sort of education? Most of the homeschool curriculums are character-based, rather than actual subjects, though those do get taught incidentally. I haven't gotten all the info yet, but the college courses seem to be similar--an escape from the "secular immorality" of regular college. So, even though they appear to be getting the higher education many believe is necessary, I am not sure it is what one would call comprehensive. And what exactly are they going to do with it? Unless they break away from their family's beliefs, which many do not, they will have a BA from CollegePlus!, but it amounts to an "MRS degree".

More on this when I get the special info packet...

oooh, a scam

it's that time of year again...finals, and that means buyback season. in case you don't know, at the end of each semester, the bookstores buyback textbooks for cash...for some, this is just extra drinking money and is just an easy way to get rid of textbooks they don't want and/or need anymore. for others, such as myself, this is much needed budget padding. not to mention that some of us actually like the books we use in some of our classes, and we realllly don't want to part with them. in fact, i have been known to sell a book in a moment of particular brokeness and then have to buy it right back because i need to use it. but when you are flat broke, this seems like a logical solution. the problem lies in the bookstore...

let me explain...at the beginning of this semester, i purchased a ton of books, but i'll use three as an example. one cost $35, one was $40, and one was $50, give or take a dollar. so, those three cost me a total of $125...we happen to be extremely po' right now, so i trotted them over to bill's bookstore. i walked out with $6 and one of the books. now, i didn't want to sell these three books to begin with, so it's twice as bad. i lost $119, and the bookstores act as if they are doing us a huuuge favor.

now, i have worked for a campus bookstore before. i know that the amount offered depends on whether the text is being used again, whether they have too many already, and oh, i don't know, whether the crow is flying south southeast...i understand that they are not in this to actually help us. they are here for a profit. but give me a freakin break. bill's gave me $6 for two of those books. okay, so one of them is being used this summer, which means they will sell it for around $30 or $40, making 7 or 10 times what they gave me for it. the other is not being used, but they will send it back to the publisher for credit or money. basically, THEY SCAMMED ME as they scam all of us every year. what's worse is, some of us have no choice...we need the money...in a nutshell, they have us by the short and curlies...and there isn't much we can do about it...

grad school: the nightmare begins

i am in panic mode...i have to take the gre this summer, apply to grad schools in the fall, save enough money for us to be able to move next summer, figure out what the hell i'm going to write in all those "statements of purpose", and of course, manage to graduate from here with a shred of sanity....is this even possible, i ask you? oh, and there's the issue of which schools...i definitely would not mind moving back to alabama, even if only for a couple of years...but if they don't take me, my other options are not pretty...atlanta, gainesville, or california...eww, double eww, and omg ewww....*sigh*

just a note

so, i got these grants--one for books from the honors office and one from the undergraduate research office, and i had to go to a luncheon for the recipients on tuesday. dr. erndl went with me, and it honestly wasn't as bad as i thought it would be. i was, not surprisingly, the freak in the room...these were all people that i more than likely would never hang out with...but it was nice on one count.

dr. erndl and i were talking to mrs. dummer from the honors office about how undergraduate research is undervalued and not really supported for the most part. it was cool to be in a room of people that understood the simple need to find out why and supported it.

oh the geekiness knows no bounds

So, I'm starting my honors thesis soon, and I had to get a thesis director. And I am very excited that one of the most awesome professors on the planet agreed to be my director--Dr. Erndl! Not only that, Dr. Gray, the equally awesome, whom I thought would not be back from her fulbright teaching in morocco by next fall, actually said she WANTS to be on my defense committee! I hugged the woman for that one...I had a really good school day, y'all!!!

and it occurs to me that the level of one's geekitude (and yes that is a word...at least now it is) can be measured by the people on whom and the reasons for one's little crushes...i have such the academic girly-crushes on drs. gray and erndl...it is sad, I must say...so, anyway, i figure that makes me Queen Geek, Her Majesty of Nerd Land...

"We was po' ": College and a Low SES girl go head to head

She meant nothing by it. I know that, hence the reason I won't name her or rail against her personally. However, a few things must be said. A girl in one of my religion classes was commenting on something or other and made the following statement, "His family was fairly well-off, upper middle class, as all of us are." Maybe she felt safe in assuming, but...

I resent being assumed to be in one of these upper brackets. Now, don't get me wrong. I am in no way romanticizing poverty or the state of semi-poverty that we generally find ourselves in. Struggling sucks. A lot. I would much rather not live paycheck-to-paycheck, but such is our lot for now and the largest part of our lives up until now. But there are expectations of certain ideas when assuming economic class. People assume that your belief structures and experiences are built on the same foundations as theirs, and that simply isn't true.

"Impoverished" and "poor" are not separate planets from "upper middle class", but they can seem so. And I never saw as much distance between the groups (ideologically at least) until coming back to college. And maybe it's not the same everywhere, but at Florida State, there is this huge majority of well-off upper-middle (and maybe middle-middle) class kids. To the point that I think I know one person here who did not grow up that way. Many people I've talked to use such a different version of vocabulary that I find it impossible to talk to them.

Before someone jumps down my throat for the following examples, let me clarify that they are all from actual conversations.

1. "Broke"--me: no money or just enough to put gas in the car if we roll change. them: "I can buy the $150 bag, but not the $200 shoes to match."
2. "My checking account is all fucked up."--me: "We're overdrawn by a lot and have no way of fixing it." them: "I had to dip into my savings/trust fund/stock/$100 buffer to go out partying."
3. "I have, like, no food."--me: "really, none, well maybe some Ramen or something." them: "I ran out of chips/beer/Coke."
4. "I have no [financial aid] money left after tuition."--me: "really, I don't. I hope the financial aid office finds me enough to pay for books." them: "I only had enough to pay all of my bills for the entire semester,so I couldn't go shopping [or at least not where I really wanted to]."
5. "So this is how the other half lives."--me: we had $30-40 left over this week, or we unexpectedly came into a couple hundred dollars. them: "we had to eat Ramen last week until my dad came up and bought us groceries for the month."

Now, lots of kids here work and go to school so they can pay rent and such. Not everyone's parents pay their way, but they seem to think that this Ramen-noodle pseudo poverty qualifies them for some "welfare club" and it does not.

I'm not saying all this to get a pity party started. We have been too broke for too long for me to even give a damn about really feeling sorry for myself over it. We're just low income/poor/broke ass/low SES, and that's it. I hope to one day work up out of that, but it's reality for now. The whole point of this long-ass post is best made by the following:

I mentioned in a conversation in some random class or other that I am considering using whatever graduate degrees I get to work with low income women in the rural south (Alabama to be more precise). I don't know what or how yet, but it's a possibility. They replied, "That sounds interesting. I've always been fascinated with how those people function and deal...blah blah blah...I think I want to do something in an area I'm unfamiliar with too." [emphasis mine] Okay, first off, "those people' pissed me off, but...I promptly informed this sadly misinformed trust fund baby (she really was) that I was thinking of this because it's where I come from. "Those people" are my people--my family and friends. Not some alien race I would be descending from my ivory
tower to study and assist. We are them, just shifted to this weird planet temporarily. She had the good sense to look relatively ashamed, and then just said, "I'm sorry. I guess you poor people do need to stick together, huh?"

What do you really say to people with these mentalities?

What worries me is that this will only get worse as I progress in my studies. Grad school is even worse. Barbara Ehrenreich mentions a book in one of her fabulous books about attending grad school coming from low SES background. The author has terrible troubles adjusting to the environment and even has friends from similar backgrounds that had nervous breakdowns. The expectations and general belief structures among peers in those groups are so much different than what they were used to at home and what they were struggling not so much to overcome as to keep but with a higher salary that they just snapped. Goddess knows, if grad school is anything worse than this elitist snake pit, nervous breakdown is a possibility.