Memoir
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Making Time …
Remember that one time I said, “Things should slow down in the next couple of weeks ….” Yeah, that happened.
Seriously, every time I get busy I look at my calendar and pick some random date when things are magically supposed to slow down; the truly crazy part is that whenever I hit that magical date I am genuinely surprised when I remain as busy as ever.
If you want to measure things purely in word counts and/or days written AcWriMo didn’t go so well for me. I set a pretty low goal of 12,000 words and probably didn’t write more than 3,000. (Next time I am counting all the damned emails I write at work!) I am, however, declaring November a success! What I didn’t do in terms of word count I made up for in ideas! No, I don’t have 9,000 ideas laying around right now, but I do have three little embryos of projects started and that makes me happy.
Finishing the dissertation left me so wrung out I really wasn’t sure I’d ever be excited about an academic writing project ever again. What changed? Well, for one I have co-authors: two of them. These women are super smart and will challenge me to do good work, and most importantly my fear of letting them down will keep me going. The second thing is a research project. I know! Me? A research project? But, yes it is true, and actually exciting because I’m learning so much in this process. (Remind me about this excitement in a few months when this project really gets underway and become hard. 😉 )
Yes, I am as busy as ever, but I think I must secretly like it that way since I keep coming up with new ways to keep myself busy.
The truly fun part of November using the pictures Ouiser took for us to make our first ever personalized Christmas card. Here’s a sample. No, it was never possible to get the dogs to look at the camera at the same time. We probably should have given Ouiser an industrial sized jar of peanut butter; that would have gotten their attention.
Documenting Change
Recent events led me to think about how much my life has changed in the last three years. Last week I completed my first ever submission review for a journal. Since graduating in May, I think it was one of the first activities to make me really feel like a professional. Yes, there have been other moments, but in many ways I’d settled back to live as usual, so I’d stop feeling the wonder of actually being finished.
The other day I went to the library to pick up a book for a new project. I pulled out my school ID card and, before putting it back, actually looked at the picture. The picture has always been a little dorky. The day before I started work Ouiser’s cat scratched my eye lid, so I had an extra bag or two under one eye. Also, for some reason I wore my hair in a way that I almost never did.
It’s hard to get a decent picture of a picture of an ID card, but I think you get the point. Looking at that picture I was struck by the thought it was taken only three years ago. In many ways the last three years have felt like ten. I hardly recognize this picture.
For comparison, here’s a picture of me from today. It’s my post-hair cut selfie in the car.
The change is more than just the Ph.D. or the haircut. I probably can’t really explain it, because it is all of that and more. It’s the Ph.D., the hair, the tattoo, and even my willingness to take and post after haircut selfies. All of which are probably just expressions of how I’ve become more comfortable with myself.
Too Much and Not Enough
For whatever reason, the stars have aligned turning this October into the month of ALL THE DEADLINES! Really, there are 3-4 CFP’s with deadlines between October 15 – 25th (and those are just the ones I’m interested in). Consequently, one of the ways I’m avoid the massive pile of grading that must be done before tomorrow (okay Wednesday at the latest) is to feel productive by working on these CFP’s.
The CFP I’m working on this weekend, which is simultaneously the least related to my professional work and the one in which I am most invested, is for a book chapter in a book about first generation & working class graduate students and faculty. Given all my discussions here about being working class in graduate school/the academy, you might think this project would be coming along nicely.
HA!
The current draft of my proposal consists of an unusable paragraph, complete with strike-through.
Since I spent my entire dissertation writing process thinking, “Wow! That really works.” whenever a writing center technique would come in handy, I figured I would start with the basics, with something I counsel writer’s to do when they are stuck — go back to the prompt. While the prompt hasn’t provided me with an epiphany just yet, it has made me realize the problem.
Like most CFP’s this one includes a nice list of suggested topics/areas of interest on which writer’s might like to focus.
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Cultural Difference
Academic Preparedness
Integration
Professionalization
Economic issues
Work-life balance
Social and cultural capital
Family responsibilities and relationships
Peer relations
Mentorship Strategies and relationships
Academic and social skills
My problem here is not necessarily a bad one. The problem is not that I don’t have anything to say about the items on this list; the problem is I could probably say something about every item on this list. In this case, having too much to say is just as problematic as too little, because I completely lack focus. Sure, I could talk about nearly every item on this list, but that doesn’t mean I have something useful to say about them all. The difficulty lies in figuring out my “So, what?” Why and how has being a working class/first-generation graduate student/faculty impacted me the most; and, what might be useful for someone else in that story?
At the coffee shop this morning I returned to Donna LeCourt’s Identity Matters, which is my go to place for starting to think about class & education. Modifying Sharon Crowley’s claim that inexperienced writer’s are better able to see the “differance” in a discourse, LeCourt argues graduate students (particularly first generation/working class) serve the same role in the academy. (I’ve probably tried to oversimplify here, so please do check out LeCourt & Crowley.)
The struggle I face is picking out the moment that resulted in the most clear conflict between my working class identity/values and the expectations of the academy. Here’s where it all get a little sketchy, because there is so much and it is all so inter-related that I’m having a difficult time picking out the unifying thread. What I currently think, however, is that there is something for me to write about in the difference between my response to crisis and the “time to degreee” expectations.
Yes, a stroke is rare, and could happen to anyone during their graduate work, and it isn’t necessarily a “working class” or “first-generation” issue, but my response to that crisis is what I think most clearly brought my working class identity/values into conflict with the academic demands made on me as a graduate student.
Now, I just have to figure out what it all means and send in a 500 word abstract. 😉
And, since you’ve been patient enough to let me talk-it-out here, I give you PUPPIES!
They love sitting on the porch.
Staying and Going
My friend Casie posted this today.
I have a couple of responses to this piece, but the primary one is … yes! Just, yes! That I agree with Casie really isn’t a surprising thing.
We first met at her job talk when I walked up to tell her how much I enjoyed her presentation, and before I could get two words out found myself in tears. True story. Honest-to-God tears, accompanied by those “I’m trying not to cry, but it only makes it worse sobs.” She was gracious enough to give me a hug and let me stumble through my little speech. It was my first year on the job and to describe myself as mortified would be a little bit of an understatement. Still, there were few happier moments in that first year then when I heard she had accepted the position.
What could make someone cry at a job talk?
Valid question.
Some of it was probably the stress of my first year. Few periods in my life have been as lonely and as exhausting. The commute, adapting to a completely new work schedule & environment, being the primary source of income for my family, and on top of it all still being a graduate student — I’ve talked before about how all those things add up, and how for me when the stress adds up it usually results in tears. I’m an equal opportunity crier – if I’m sad, I cry; if I’m angry, I cry; if I’m frustrated, I cry; if I’m happy (you guessed it), I cry. In this case it was recognition.
These days it seems like everyone and their second cousin is talking about what it means to be a working class academic, and about the working conditions for graduate students and non-tenure-track faculty. Three years ago, however, it wasn’t exactly the same. Three years ago being a working class academic was just something Ouiser and I talked about sitting on the garage couch when we were in our cups. Ouiser was the first person I knew to start talking about alt-ac careers and the irresponsible mentoring of graduate students. Consequently, when I sat listening to Casie’s job talk about her research with working class academics, it touched something in me. What I meant to say, and what I hope came out between my tears, was that hearing about Casie’s research was like finally being seen. It was the first time I’d heard an academic describe graduate students who could have been me. It was a naming and a calling into being.
So, I guess you can imagine why three years later I find nothing out of the ordinary about once again seeing Casie give voice to thoughts that have been floating around my head. The only thing different is, perhaps, the context. In her post Casie outlines this great list of questions for graduates to consider as they ponder pursuing a PhD and the academic life.
What is it you like about academia? Specifically, what practices make you happy?
What parts of academia stress you out or make you upset?
Is it important that you live in a specific city, state, or region?
What kind of financial compensation do you need to be happy?
What sort of daily or weekly schedule do you envision as your ideal?
Is teaching/research/administration a practice that you could envision yourself engaging with over time?
What feelings do you experience when you think about not working in academia?
What kind of job could you imagine yourself doing and being happy?
Do you like to research and write?
How do you deal with timelines and independent goal setting?
If you had to describe your ideal day at work—from waking up to going to bed—what would that day look like? What challenges might you encounter? What high points might you experience?
What identities do you call on when you consider your self-worth? Your values? How do you prioritize these identities?
Having finally finished and received the PhD (which I somehow still think will be rescinded every time I find another mistake in my dissertation), I find myself looking at the academic job market. I’m considering which jobs and which locations would be right for me, without necessarily thinking about whether or not this is really want I want. Yes, at this point it is what I’m trained to do, but does that necessarily mean it is all I can do, or that it is even really what I want to do? Technically, I am already in academia, and I don’t know that I could answer any one of those questions. I think I am at a point, like the MA student, where it is necessary to decide do I stay or do I go?
Compass Points
As I mentioned last week turning 40 might have been affecting my brain a little. Nothing too terrible, but some general malaise and discontent with where I am in life, you know. Nothing terrible, actually I think it is in someway just another thing they don’t prepare you for in graduate school. How, even if you get a job, it can take so long to get your life on track. For the last few months, however, I have been a little more willing to take risks and make changes, which was clearly illustrated in my last hair cut. In about an hour I went from this:
to this:
Keep in mind my hair hasn’t been shorter than my chin since 5th grade, when I tried an ill advised Dorothy Hamill wedge cut. The other thing to understand about this hair choice is that, for me, it was an incredibly fast decision. Normally, making a decision about my hair takes months. I took about a week to decide to go for this cut.
Which leads me to the next part of whatever mid-life crisis I’ve been having. For many people, the DH include and you dear readers, this one masquerades as a quick decision, because once I started talking about it I got it done. Last week was probably the first time I talked about getting a tattoo, but actually I have been thinking about this for a couple of years now. I have had the basic idea and image on my iPad for over a year. In fact when I went to the IWCA conference in San Diego last fall, I got a henna tattoo of the same general design in the same location to test it out.
After graduation I was very tempted to act on this decision, but life just kept getting in the way. With my birthday approaching, this really just felt like the right time. A way to commemorate, not one but two milestones — finishing the PhD and turning 40.
So, I began yesterday with an arm that looked like this.
And after waiting two hours at the tattoo shop, which was interesting to say the least, my arm looked like this:
The most descriptive thing I can think to say about the tattoo shop is that it was a decidedly masculine environment. I’m pretty sure your imagination can take it from there. In the end though, the wait wasn’t that bad, and I am happy to say that I tolerated my tattoo experience better than the young kid in front of me. The most disturbing thing to me was the 20-25 year old kid working the front counter that kept calling me sweetie. As much as I might not be in love with being called “Ma’am” most of the time these days, the sweetie from a much younger man is definitely not preferable.
And this morning after the swelling went down some, my arm looks like this:
Many people have already asked what the alternate letters mean. The thing is, I chose those letters in part because they can stand for any number of things. There are so many people in my life who’s name start with, or contain B’s that it seemed a natural element for the North point of my compass. At this point in my life however, it also serves to remind me of the importance of being my own North, my own guiding point on the compass.
For me, there was never any other choice but to put an H in the NW spot, because the more and longer I live elsewhere, the more deeply I know that the Pacific Northwest is my home. The DH spent some time this week probing and questioning me about my letter choices, which I was a little grumpy about at the time. In the long run, however, it was nice because it made me consider all the other “H” words that inform both my work and myself: hospitality, host, hostess, hope, etc.
Part of the DH’s probing about the letters I would choose has to do with a distinctly Grabow quirk, which is that the family seems to have a genetic need/desire for symmetry. The Captain and my sister-in-law couldn’t even look at a house down the street as they passed it without being annoyed that a decorative window in the garage was not appropriately centered under the peak of the roof. When I showed the DH the compass I wanted to use for my tattoo he was concerned that if I replaced NW with just an H, then the other NE, SE, and SW would look unbalance because they had two letters instead of just one. Yep, these are the things the DH thinks about.
In the end though, it at least got me thinking about the other points of the compass. The only other point that I would want to replace with a letter is the SE, but I couldn’t think of a letter for that — S for stroke didn’t really make much sense and would just be confusing. G for graduate school, ummm … given my current feelings about it, the less said/thought about graduate school the better. I really didn’t want it carried around on my skin forever. PhD feels the same way — plus it would put me in the same letter symmetry quandry. The other night it came to me – V. V could stand for so many things; something cheesy like Victory for my recovery from the stroke and graduation from graduate school, something a little sardonic like the vissitude and vagaries of fate, or a word I had forgotten how much I love — verisimilitude.
Versimilitude, to me captures my current relationship with the SE. It is like home in that I have developed friends and family here both in graduate school, and in my current position, but it is not really home in the way that the Northwest is. So, V it is because it does mean everything I’ve just said, and is also undetermined enough to allow for change over time.
At at the tattoo shop last night I also solved the problem of letter symmetry by having them just leave out the NE and SW points of the compass, which I think was the best choice because it kept the tattoo relatively clean and simple. And who knows where I will end up next. Maybe I will have letters to add in the future. As Ouiser said when I texted her the pictures, “It’s all about direction, isn’t it.” It is, it is about remembering where you’ve been to guide you to the path to follow.
One week …
Apparently, in celebration of my 40th birthday I get to return to my 10 year old look. This week I went to the eye doctor and had to get a pair of reading glasses for work. I’ll post pictures when I get to pick them up.
Also, I think I am having the proverbial mid-life crisis. Nothing like buying a sports car, or anything like that. But the crisis is the only explanation I can come up with for my recent willingness to cut my hair, and the general malaise I seem to have going on. To borrow from my insightful little sister, Lucy Little, I am a woman in search of inspiration.
So, no inspiration yet … just new hair, new glasses, and next weekend a new tattoo and 40.
Seems like at least the next year will be interesting.
Submitted …
Last night I submitted my initial materials to one of the jobs I determined would be a good test run. Of course that means the truly insidious part of this process has begun. Submitting an application in the academic job market is not the same, as submitting applications elsewhere. The long nature of the hiring process means there is a lot more time for uncertainty. Time for you to really imagine what it would be like to get the job, to live in the city, to decide you might really want this job after all. Deciding you might want the job, then leads to an increased amount of anxiety about application materials, and how far you might make it. Did I do well enough to make the cut for a phone interview, campus visit?
Then I did the really stupid thing of returning to the online application to review my submitted materials. I didn’t notice any glaring issues, but I did realize my cover letter is really choppy. Not quite a list, but there are no unifying themes tying everything together … and I worry it was too me focused, not enough “Look how well I fit the holes in your program.” But, it is submitted, so it is done now. The best I can do is forget about it.
On Saturday I met with Dr. Knitty Kay for a coffee and work date. We haven’t met up since she moved to the next town over, which feels like two states away for some reason. I see people in Greensboro more often than I see her these days. She pointed out the fun part of getting your materials together is seeing everything you’ve done, and really feeling a sense of confidence. And, yes, I felt like that all last night and this morning.
It was great, until I messed up at work. I thought several other people were taking care of one part of the great summer tutoring project. They thought I was doing it. The result was that we were halfway through a big meeting when I had to run down to the office to locate an essential item. It is like I was getting too confident in myself and the universe had to assume my mother’s role of knocking me down a peg or two.
Duly noted universe, duly noted.
Stops and Starts and Pep Talks
Here is the thing about Virgo-style progress tracking, it requires honesty, and sometimes that honesty can be painful.
This is what shame looks like.
It was so tempting to just jump from the 19th to the 29th, which still demonstrates that I’ve not met my regular writing challenge, but doesn’t leave all that blank space in my pretty spread sheet. Here’s the thing about really tracking your writing, though … all that white space matters. Eventually when you track enough that you have scroll up or down in your spread sheet, the white space catches your eye. It makes you think about what was happening, or why writing was not happening.
Looking back at the goals I set for these five weeks, I think I did meet my goal a little more often than it appears. (If you really count any writing.) Remembering to track is, however, just as important as the daily writing because in the absence of printed pages tracking demonstrates progress.
Interestingly enough my focused goal for the second week of writing was to update my application materials, and just today I found a couple of reasons to get down to business. (Of course, now I am procrastinating with a blog post. 😉 ) Having a job, and a job that your not unhappy with, is a tricky place to be when checking out the job ads. There are several reasons I wouldn’t really want to leave where I am right now, but there are a few compelling reasons to keep my eyes open. Namely, I think both the DH and I would like to be closer to one family or the other. When I read a job ad, however, I really can’t stop myself from thinking, “Would I really give up what I have for this?” The question is difficult because yes, it does merit consideration, but it makes it all to easy maintain some inertia. “No, I don’t think I would give up what I have for this” leads too easily to, “Why bother applying.”
Applying leads to all sorts of messy things, discussions with supervisors about submitting an application, the work of updating materials, the endless mental pro/con lists about each position. It is easy to overlook the good that can come from applying, even if the application doesn’t make it out of the initial 600 applicant pool. Submitting an application packet is good practice. Now, I am not advocating for some sort of professional job hunt, but in my case I know that in the next 3 years changes are coming. So, yes, I am just trying to pep talk myself into submitting these two applications. Because, even if these aren’t necessarily the jobs for which I would give up what I have, practicing to get the job I really want isn’t a bad idea. Plus, submitting applications means I could create another spreadsheet to keep track of it all. (It’s the little things that make my Virgo brain happy.)
Weekend Sloth
For the first time in about four weeks I didn’t do anything. I sat in the DH’s Lazyboy, crocheted and watched stuff on Netflix. Saturday it was a nice long marathon of Wire in the Blood. Sunday, in honor of Joss Whedon’s birthday, I watched The Avengers. While I glutted myself on television, I crocheted. Sure the afghan grew, which made it feel like I’d done something, but physically, I really didn’t do anything- no running, no yoga, not even any heavy cleaning. By the end of the weekend I could feel it. My back and hips were sore, and I just generally felt wretched.
I might not really be a runner yet (or ever), but my recent attempts to get myself off the couch have worked their magic by at least making me realize that in the long run doing something is always better than doing nothing.
Using My Time
One of the challenges I face trying to get back into the writing groove is my desire not to give up the time I suddenly have. Work is busy enough that if I am truly serious about sending something out for publication any time in the near future I will have to once again start using my time at home for academic things. Understandably, I am a little loathe to do that.
The question of what I do with my new found free time comes up frequently. Honestly, I squander much of it re-discovering television. I mean television beyond Hoarders, Discovery ID, and Chopped, and my love-hate relationship with The Big Bang Theory. (I’d give you links, but I’m pretty sure you all know these shows and it’s kind of a pain on my iPad. Ok, ok, I will add them later.) Anyway, as you can probably tell from the above list in the last few months I’ve found comfort in predictable formulas with no thought required. Suddenly, suspense, plot, and intrigue excite me again.
When I tear myself away from the television I have been slowly trying to reclaim my health as well. A walk here, some intervals running, even yoga! Don’t get me wrong it’s nothing like routine yet, but I do manage some form of physical activity more often than not lately.
I think my search for new shows to watch (Hannibal, The Killing) or other ways to fill my time is an effort to protect my evening time. (No, I cannot read any more of that book on Writing Center assessment. I need to catch up on Hannibal, or go for a run, or do some yoga.) One of the only unmitigated benefits to being a staff employee, as opposed to faculty, is that I do my work from 8-5, and then I leave. Up until this point that has been a defense mechanism designed to help me finish the dissertation, but I am determined to keep it that way.
As I move forward with this writing challenge, and start to think more about academic issues and dabble again in academic writing, protecting my time at home while still meeting my writing goals is only going to become a larger challenge.
D5 Creation