Happy Thanksgiving
It’s always hard for me to talk about all the things I’m thankful for; I’m never really able to get it right, so it all sounds a little over-done, and trite, to me. This is year is going to be no exception to that rule. What I mean and what I feel won’t really be captured, but I think there is a value in trying anyway.
Even in the minimal amount of time I’ve put into creating this space, I’m pretty sure it’s been obvious that this has been yet another in a series of remarkably trying years. Oddly enough, what I am most thankful this year has been the struggle this year has been. If only because it meant making a decision and getting out of the stasis we were in, I am so glad we moved. All that had happened afterward, the house, the yard, the DH’s struggle to find a job, has sucked; it’s broken me down further than I thought possible, yet at the same time it feels like forward movement. I guess I’m just a glass half-full kind of person because I feel like that’s something.
For a long time it felt like we were stuck, and we just kept getting hammered by stuff. We are still getting hammered, but at least the scenery has changed a little — and, I feel like moving targets are a little harder to hit. That is, however, probably just my nomadic genes talking, and I am really not trying to tempt fate.
Anyway there have been fruits to this struggle, it almost did the DH and I in, but I think we’ve finally learned from it all, and started relying on each other a little more, and in healthier ways. So, here’s to the struggle.
Writing Updates …
Someday I will write about something other than writing, I promise. Unfortunately, I don’t anticipate that day happening with any regularity any time soon.
Recognizing my need for some help getting my butt in the seat and actually writing, I decided to build writing into my schedule. Not wanting to overwhelm myself, I started with just one week at a time, and I built into the schedule the writing I was already doing. Since I was already writing on the bus, and I knew there was no way I’d be getting up any earlier than 6:00am, the next time I could work writing into my schedule was at lunch. So, I started putting my lunch/writing on my schedule at work. Initially, I was going to work at the library, which would have the added benefit of getting me to walk across campus another couple of times during the day. The reality is that it’s getting to be winter, which around here means rainy and cold – walking across campus is not necessarily going to motivate me to get writing. Just outside of my office there are several cubicles used from math/science tutoring, so now I just check the tutoring schedule to see which one is open, and I take the little netbook in a cubicle and write for an hour. Surprisingly, I really love it. I don’t waste time getting anywhere, and it still feels like a ‘new’ space, and since it is a cubicle I can really focus.
At the start, I’d also put some evening writing time in the schedule, from 7pm – 9pm. Yeah, um, that didn’t work. My brain is pretty much drained by that time, and I want some time to spend with the DH. Sure, we might spend all that time sitting on the couch playing Scrabble on my phone, but it’s still together time. Ok, and sometimes, when the stars align, we have sex. The point is that no good writing happens, not even shitty first draft writing. Not keeping the appointment was diminishing the success I felt at writing everyday in other situations, so I took it off the schedule.
So, this is what my writing schedule looks like. Early morning bus time, an hour at lunch, and full mornings on the weekends. This might not help me meet the crazy goals I’ve set for myself, but, most importantly, I think it is a sustainable schedule. (I’m silly like this, so I made sure the appointments show up in my calendar as a color I like.) Time for my weekend writing to start.
On Writing
Writing the dissertation has been a project in trying to figure out what works best for me as a writer. It’s not like I didn’t already have a writing process, but that process was built around fulfilling a certain number of pages for an assignment.
The dissertaion is the first project I’ve attempted that didn’t come with an assignment. Well, I suppose “write a book about a scholarly topic” is a kind of assignment. The problem with this particular kind of assignment is that if I wanted to write a book it might not be fiction, but it might not be about a scholarly topic. Okay, enough about the dissertation as a project, this post isn’t supposed to be a diatribe about graduate education.
It’s about figuring out what I need as a writer, and really coming to own that title. I might not be a writer in the way Tana French or John Connoly are writers, but I am a writer nonetheless, and I am a writer in need of a method.
Consequently a good part of the dissertation process has been trying to find a writing method that works for me. This week I’m giving scheduling a try. Instead of just knowing when I need to write and telling myself to do it. I’ve actually put it in my calendar. To make myself feel like I’ve accomplished something I’ve made some times that I’m already writing into appointments on my calendar, and then added some new ones as well. It’s an ambitious calendar, and while I don’t want to give myself an out before I start, there are some appointments I anticipate dropping already.
In addition to the calendar, I’ve set up a spread sheet to keep track of my word counts. I think that if I stick with this long enough it will work for me. My problem with word counts, however, is that they don’t really do to well for revisions, and since that is where a lot of my work is currently, I suspect I’m going to get frustrated when my word counts aren’t that good because in addition to writing that day, I deleted a lot of crap.
Kids
Last night as we sat on the couch talking about everything and nothing, the DH turned to me and asked, “If we ever have kids, would you want a girl or a boy?”
Let’s face it the chances of the DH and I ever having kids are slim, and slimmer. We’ve always adopted an, “If it happens it happens” approach to the whole situation that seems to have worked out for us. (More about how much that freaks people out another time.)
It’s not the first time we’ve pondered the question, but last night the DH asked it just after I had him read, “Men Explain Things to Me” by Rebecca Solnit. It also came right after the bus ride I’d spent reading the #mencallmethings thread on Twitter; and, the whole “Occupy a Vagina” thing on Facebook.
Since my senior year of high school, I’ve identified myself as a feminist. I’m not naive when it comes to what women face in this culture. Yet, at any other point in time I’d have answered, “I’d want a girl” without really thinking about it. Last night, however, I paused. Being a woman has never felt harder. Sure, my life is not exactly smooth sailing right now, but that’s not what I’m talking about. How women are represented in the media, and how they are treated when they speak out online or in real life. How hard this world has become to navigate if you are in any way different. Forget, do you want a boy or a girl? I don’t know how I’d raise a child in this environment. The whole world feels hostile.
Diner
In keeping with the random subject matter here, how about an ode to my diner. Well, not an actual ode, but a loving tribute. Although it’s supposed to warm up again this week, the weather here has finally turned a little chilly. I’m excited because suddenly all the dishes that just seemed to hot and heavy for summer sound just about perfect. Tonight we are finally going to return to our favorite winter stand by – TaterTot Hot Dish.
Trust me this dish is certainly nothing special, but both the DH (dear, dastardly, dimwitted -pick your adjective husband) love it. I think you had to grow up in Minnesota in the ’70s to have an appreciation for any kind of hot dish. When I was 10 and we moved from Minnesota to Washington State I realized that the rest of the U.S. calls a hotdish a casserole. The hotdish has endless forms Tuna Noodle (with or without potato chips on top), Chicken noodle, rice with sausage, my mom would even make Spam hotdish.
Tater Tot is by far the best. Brown some hamburger with onions (drain it), and pour into the bottom of a rectangular baking dish, then poor a can, or bag of frozen, corn over it. Over the corn put a can of cream of mushroom soup, and on top of everything a layer of TaterTots. Throw everything in the oven (350) for long enough to cook the TaterTots through (20-30 mn) . It is just a good warm, cold night dinner.
In lieu of the dissertation
Busy times, busy times.
In a perfect world busy times might mean I have a lot to say, but I think we’ve already established this is not a perfect world. Around here, busy times just means other writing. The last couple of weeks, I’ve actually managed to work a little on my dissertation.
Last week, I think it was Tuesday, I turned in the first few pages of my Introduction to my committee chair. She sent me good feedback, and said she was pleased. Riding the high of getting the introduction in shape, I brazenly thought I could just dive into Chapter 1 a.k.a – THE THEORY. As much as I adore M. Levinas about two minutes of diving back into Totality and Infinity told me I wasn’t ready for that yet. This week I’ve been focused on Chapter 3, which is where everything gets fun. The most challenging part of Chapt. 3 is walking my walk.
Since I spend the whole dissertation talking about hospitality, I think it is only fair that I give the essay a hospitable reading, but ultimately the chapter says “Hey, you got it wrong.” The entire chapter is an attempt to respectfully disagree with what the article says.
Media Sexism
Thanks to BitchFlicks, I knew when Missrepresentation premiered on the OWN network, and so for the first time I actually tuned-in to that channel. Yes, we have a big enough cable package to get OWN. It is the one non-essential expense we’ve kept throughout our financial difficulties, because …well, we actually use it. Since we never have the money to go out to eator to the movies, it really is the one piece of entertainment we get. That, however, is an aside.
For me the importance of the film wasn’t that it said anything I didn’t already know, but that it said what needed to be said. Earlier this month I gave a paper at a conference that talked about this same issue from a slightly different angle. Missrepresentation focuses on how women are portrayed negatively in the media, which is an important place to begin this discussion. While I want every one I know who has a child to watch this film, I also want them to read Enlightened Sexism by Susan J. Douglas. Douglas discusses, not just the portrayal of women in media, but the specific moves the media has made to make such overt sexism a significant part of the media we see. In fact, without a frank discussion of the embedded feminism Douglas identifies in the media, it isn’t possible to get at the root of all the sexism.
New Responsibilities
My status at work has changed. Instead of being a 10 month employee, who could really just focus on my program because that was all I really had time to do, I am – for this year – a 12 month employee. What that means is I get to participate in a summer program, which I’ve heard nothing but complaints about for two years. yay
Today I had my first meeting about this program with my supervisor, and director. What became obvious to me during this meeting was – that although my involvement in this summer program had been pitched to me as a “helping out” people who were already doing this work – I am really going to be taking on a much larger leadership role than I expected, particularly in the long run.
I have the sinking feeling that my 2 month summer vacation is over. If they can find the funding I think I’m going to be a 12 month employee for the foreseeable future, and that in a year, two-three at the latest, I’ll be running our end of this damned thing.
About the Title
Sur Le Seuil was the closest me and my Oxford French-English dictionary could come to translate “on the threshold.” I figured I might as well put all my French classes to use.
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away….well, maybe not that long ago, I had a blog that was actually taking shape. For me that means I’d started to have reader I didn’t know. Well, that and I’d kind of found a mix between professional and personal for the content. What I’d set up in the old place was semi-pseudonymous. All my friends, family, co-workers and I had psuedonyms, but if you knew me to begin with, or if you’d wanted to do any kind of detailed search, you could figure out who I was and what I was talking about. The blog, and my pseudonym, were really tied to my graduate school experience, and in an effort to focus on the dissertation, I took it down and made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t start another until the dissertation was done.
Yeah, that didn’t really work.
The dissertation is still not done, but is, in my mind at least, much closer. Why break such a petty promise to myself? Well, it’s complicated. What I learned in my year off from blogging is that as much as maintaining a space like this is a drain on my time, focus, and the limited shelf life of my wrists it is also a space that organizes my thoughts, strengthens my voice, and, most importantly, releases my stress.
Don’t worry it won’t be a space of unmitigated venting. Often when something has my dander up, and I’m primed to write a snarky little post about it, just thinking about how to psudomize it up helps me to process it enough that I can either let it go, or find the bigger issue to talk about.
What does all of that have to do with the name of this blog? Maybe not much, but it can help you anticipate the shape this space will develop. ‘On the Threshold’ carries multiple meanings for me. It is in a way a reflection of the work I do, and how I think about that work. It also represents many aspects of my own life. In a way, I’m on the threshold of having a phd, a career, making the shift from student to professional. Almost every aspect of my life seems to be on the verge of something, so I figured why not let this space reflect that.
Learning and not learning my lesson
Life is ridiculously stressful right now. Yes, that is a stupid statement, because really … When isn’t life stressful?
For a myriad of reasons I won’t list because it will just sound like whining, it seems like life has moved beyond the normal limit of stress, and into the patently ridiculous. Honestly, all I can do about it is shake my head and chuckle bitterly.
A few years ago, I learned my lesson about stress the hard way, so I know that I should be managing this all a little better, but to be honest I’m kind of at a loss. Too much is happening too fast, and finding a way to slow it down enough to even fit any sort of de-stressing activity into my day is impossible. What I do know is I need to figure this out because my stress level is manifesting in distraction. My attention span is pretty non-existent at this point, and at least twice today I’ve opened a program only to stare at the screen wondering what it was I meant to do.
The .25 seconds it takes me to log into an account shouldn’t be long enough to make me forget what I was doing. It’s definitely time to start ignoring myself, and really committing to some daily yoga practice. Laying off the caffeine might help too, but who really thinks that is going to happen any time soon.
D5 Creation