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Don't Let the Bastards Win

My dad never finished his master's degree.  He also was not my advice-giving custodial parent when I was growing up.  Remember that, it's important later.  

Graduate school was pretty rough for me.  My first semester was great (all cool nutrition all the time!), and then I had a semester of my dietetic internship, which by definition, was hellish (Yay cool nutrition! Boo cranky preceptors and dying patients).  Then I had a semester of research and the only non-nutrition graduate classes (how did I do undergrad level, grad level and a thesis and STILL feel like statistics is a foreign language?).  And then it went further downhill, academically speaking.

Bit of advice, if you're not particularly fond of your thesis or advisor, have a pretty good job without the MS, and just can't bear to do another thesis revision, I suggest you don't get pregnant.  Kinda messes with your whole "grad school focus".  

Anyway.  Here's where I'm going with this.

Somewhere in this drudgery of graduate school, that no longer felt important, Dad (remember that guy, the one with no MBA who didn't raise me and never gave advice? Yeah, that guy.) said, "Finish it.  Don't let the bastards win".

And they didn't.   Along the way I got two different jobs, moved to another city then another state, had a baby, got married, all things that make an education difficult, but not impossible. I finished the darn thesis ("Validation of a Tool Used to Evaluate a Paraprofessional's Ability to Complete a 24-Food Recall". I wouldn't call it interesting but if you're into 24-hour food recalls, the intro is rather enjoyable), I graduated in a snow storm with my 13-month old baby on my hip, with my husband 8-hours away, where we had just moved two weeks before.  I had nightmares about my thesis for 6 years after I was finished.  

The bastards didn't win.  I won.  

Today those "bastards" are the clock and the pace calculator and the distance and the GPS.  I just want to be fast enough to finish.  That's all.  Today I ran more and ran faster than any other run, but the numbers barely show it.  So.  I'm not letting the bastards win, I don't care what the timer says, I ran faster.  I need a new measurement tool.  

I win.  
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