Milking It

It appears that the graduate school from which I am hopefully soon to be leaving has increased the "graduation fee" to $200 for the upcoming year.WTF!?!?!?!?You mean I have to PAY you assclowns to get out of here!?!? WHAT!?!? It wasn't enough that you screwed me over on benefits, skimmed off illegitimate taxes for four years that you swear I'll get back (I'll believe it when I cash this mysterious check you keep alluding to), and generally underpaid the annual cost of living then renigged on our stipend increase "because of the economy" this year...after all that, I have to pay YOU to finally throw off the yoke!?!? All the students who have come before me have done the same??? How did I not know about this before?The increase in the fee takes effect in the upcoming academic year, so if I want to knock $50 off of that slap in the face I need to defend by August. I wish, but it ain't happenin' folks. And what's with all this "increase is due to the ever rising cost of the graduation process (ceremony, regalia, diploma, yadda, yadda yadda...)"? What if I don't go? Can I not go? Can you not charge me for the one-day rental of a $200 folding chair, which my ass will not be occupying at the most boringest event of the century?If I do go, does this mean that you're paying for my robe with velvet sleeves? And I'll get to keep it? Because that's the only motivation for me to attend the bleeding ceremony. I want a fucking Harry Potter robe, but I can't afford to fork over several hundred bucks for it - somehow I kind of doubt that you're putting my $200 (not optional) fee towards buying me a sweet robe. I kind of think you're going to tell me to pay for that myself. If that's the case then spare me the "rising cost of regalia" bullshit.No, seriously, who goes to the ceremony? We all move on to our post-docs at random post-defense times of the year and most don't come back to march around to "Pomp and Circumstance". We did that for our high school graduations. Some of us did for college too. At this point, most of us are over-educated and over the fucking parade of people in stupid-looking hats as well. (You can keep the stupid-looking hats. But I do want the robes. Even if I never wear them in public again, I will prance around my house post-shower with nothing underneath on a weekly basis. Shut up. I'll have earned the right to be eccentric just like the rest of the Ph.D.'s in the world.)Seriously, I don't know any Ph.D. students who go to the bloody ceremony. The defense is it folks. Send the diploma in the mail. Hell, you can email it to me and I will print it out at home to save the expense of the super-duper expensive paper that is apparently a part of the scam. That'll save you at least $0.42 postage.The lab will buy me a cake and maybe some drinks after my defense (which will in no way coincide with an arbitrary date for this over-priced hoedown next June) and it will not come to $200. The only people who go to the friggin' ceremony are med students, and I don't see why $200 (which amounts to 12.5% of my monthly income I should point out - churches don't even tithe that much) of my barely-squeaking-by living expenses should subsidize their party. Especially since I apparently don't get any choice in the matter whether I attend the ceremony or not, or whether I show up in the Harry Potter robes or in the nude.Bloodsucking leeches!

Labels: Milking