What toughness.

I've had a heck of a couple weeks.

I got waitlisted for the departmental fellowship, which people thought I was a shoo-in for even last year.

My course I spent a lot of time on in accordance with professionalization advice got turned down.

Between the two, that means my finances for next year are shot, esp. because of the terms of grad student loans in Congress (6.8% interest accruing right away!).

This comes at a time, too, when I'm realizing that I'll need a cushion of money to survive, if I don't get a tenure-track job right away after graduation...  So many people I know took one-years and had to charge moving bills to credit cards, etc., or stay enrolled so they can have health insurance - both of which cost money that would get sucked up next year.

On top of that, I thought I had worked out a tight thesis and dissertation chapter plan with my advisor, but then at our meeting yesterday she said she thought I was rehashing old scholarship, and she endorsed this framework that one of my readers tossed out at the workshop, that I actually think uses catchy terminology and has some fatal flaws, despite evocatively capturing a few notable things that are already covered in the framework that I proposed but aren't at the heart of the historical change that I'm describing.

I wrote up a written response that nicely pointed what I thought the gaps/oversights were, as a starting point for a conversation, but she didn't seem convinced, and urged me to reconsider the framework (!).

Unfortunately, the meeting was cut short and we couldn't complete it then...

It's so weird, I have conversations with her and the other historian of the modern era, and it seems like every few meetings they forget the whole point of my dissertation and try to use historically inaccurate formulations that I'm rebutting (and which I explicitly said I was rebutting in my proposal and fellowship applications).  Somehow, though, the person on my committee who primarily studies the Bible gets *exactly* what I'm doing (although she unfortunately didn't attend the workshop; I think she would have come to my defense).

So, now I'm feeling adrift, without a dissertation plan, and facing big loans and depleted savings.  I was crying a lot this week.

I talked with the Dean of Students.  The solution seems to be a 15-20 hour a week job on top of my tutoring, so I can make ends meet and save up a little cash and take out no loans.  That will massively slow down my dissertation progress, though, and make my committee unhappy.