Memoir
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Writing Prep
When the alarm went off at 5:15 this morning I quickly silenced it, spent a moment thinking about what I would write, and then rolled over to sleep for another 45 minutes.
Early morning is definitely my most productive writing time, but I am just not sure I am ready for early morning again.
What I did get done today is some good writing related reading. This fall our writing center will expand, and by expand I mean basically become two centers. Of course I get to run both without an increase in salary, but … well, that’s a different conversation. As we put together this new program, I am trying to be more deliberate about what the assessment of this program will look like.
Now, I know there are people out there who like to think about programmatic assessment because I am reading their books; however, I am not so excited about this topic, and sometimes it makes for some slow reading. The book I’m currently working my way through, Building Writing Center Assessments That Matter is good, and I am finding helpful information. The only problem is (and this is my issue with most assessment discussions) as I read I keep asking myself, “When? When does all this happen?”
Maybe it is just that with the addition of this new center I now run three different programs throughout the year. Maybe it is just that I have not become a Pomodoro master yet and therefore have not reached the zenith of my productivity. Whatever it is, I am left unable to imagine squeezing one more thing into my day.
Challenges
Earlier this weekend Shelley Rodrigo issued a challenge to her graduate students: The 5 Week Regular Writing Challenge. While I am not one of Shelley’s graduate students and have only met her briefly, I have recently fallen off my regular writing wagon. Since I turned the dissertation in to the ETD editor (the first time), scrubbing floors on my hands and knees has been more appealing that sitting down to the computer to write.
Things that are preferable to writing just now.
Sure, posting here has been on the up-swing, but that is only because I finally broke down and bought a keyboard for my iPad, which makes it easier to write from anywhere. Unfortunately, I think the dissertation turned my computer desk into a site of trauma. Since the house is small enough that rearranging furniture isn’t really an option, I need to find a way to reclaim the space.
Accepting the Regular Writing Challenge is my way of attempting to re-claim the space and find my writing rhythm again. The biggest issue for me right now is not having a clear project to start with, and not really knowing what I want to write next. My current position does not require me to publish regularly, but I need to get something submitted for publication to prepare for the next position. What I hope to accomplish over the course of the challenge is an easy re-entry into academic writing. My plan for accomplishing this goal looks like this:
- Week 1 – any writing counts
- Week 2 – any writing counts + focused goal: Updating application materials
- Week 3 – any writing counts + focused goal: Begin an annotated bib of recent readings
- Week 4 – any writing counts + focused goal: Free write to develop argument form recent readings
- Week 5 – any writing counts + focused goal: Begin first draft of whatever has developed from bib/free writes.
The idea behind the two different types of goals, any writing + focused writing, is that if it turns out to be too soon to think about academic writing, that I can count any writing I do here towards the challenge and still feel some positive momentum.
And of course today counts! 😉
Virgo-style progress tracking
Les Premieres Impressions
Apparently last summer went too well, because this summer has been nothing but problems. The program hasn’t even started yet and I can’t even hire a full staff. Since I am still hiring, the first part of this week has once again involved interviews. For me, the most interesting part of interviews is the moment someone walks in my office.
You see my office is tucked away inside the tutoring center, so I don’t really get many people who just stop by to see me. The result is I forget that my office is anything other than my space. It is just where I work, and in many ways I don’t even see it. The result is that I am always shocked when other people react to my office.
I realize it is not very often that people exclaim something like, “Oh, this is hideous!” Reactions to my office, however, are almost always pleasant, “Oh! I love this space.” I, too, love my office, but I think that is to be expected. That other people find my office a pleasant space makes me happy.
Usually after someone mentions that they love my office, I make a joke about having to compensate for not having a window. Invariably the person looks around like they have just realized there are no windows. It always amazes me.
So, here is what people see when they look around my office.
Encore
Trying this again.
The post I lost certainly wasn’t anything special, but I did want to get something up today.
Not sure what it is about Summer in this city, but it is a killer for our dogs. They develop hot spots/some sort of grass allergy that keeps them chewing/scratching themselves incessantly.
Yasser pretty much lives in his cone, so we got him a nice cushy inflatable one, which he loves. Really, occasionally when you ask him what he wants he will lead you to the cone and give you the most grateful look when you put it on him.
This summer it is also affecting Moshe, so tonight we had to get him a cone as well. He is not as enthusiastic, but he won’t have to wear it as often. Mostly we will keep it on him at night so that we can get some sleep … I mean so he can get some relief.
The boys and their hats.
Motivation
Last summer when I agreed to coordinate a tutoring program for the dreaded summer program, the tutorial center got me an iPad. Summer on our campus = construction, which means no space. Consequently, the tutoring groups are spread out around campus, and the iPad was very helpful for keeping in touch.
Our director and other staff members promptly got themselves Zagg Portfolioszagg portfolio
I was a little jealous, so after a year of thinking about it I finally bought a keyboard case of my own. I chose the Logitech keyboard case.
It will be helpful for work, but I am also hoping it will prompt me to spend some more time posting here. At least that is what I tell myself. 😉
Tea Party
This weekend I had the rare opportunity to play dress up and meet up with the girls. Several good friends are getting married this summer, so this was my first weekend of bachelor-ette activities. Yesterday, we all met in Greensboro for tea and a nice dinner. While I realize it is probably nothing like the real thing, I love having the “British”tea at the O’Henry. The scones with clotted cream and lemon curd were extra yummy. Everyone wore cute dresses and we sipped our tea like ladies. 
I don’t have a full length mirror so you can’t see the dress, but I like this picture because I feel like I’m finally showing my age a little more. Maybe no one else would notice how my smile lines have deepened or the crows feet around my eyes, but I like them. Later this year when I actually turn 40 I might change my mind about that, but for now I like looking a little older.
The best part of yesterday was just getting to hang out and chat with old friends and new. Dr. Poet-pixie was at tea, and I finally got to meet her husband afterwards. I even managed to squeeze in a quick visit with Dr. Ouiser. I think that is what I miss most about our new location is the ability to just go out with the girls.
It even made me feel a little better about academic life because I got to talk to other academics and realize it is pretty much the same everywhere. Yes, that is oddly comforting. Most importantly I learned about a new lipstick. I need to get some Clinique Black Honey; apparently it has the Real Raisin property of looking good on everyone.
Floundering …
Arguably, I think my strangest reaction to finally graduating is feeling all dressed up with no where to go.
Sure I have some fancy letters by my name and a little more time on my hands, but everything else stayed the same. Same job, same husband, same dogs, same projects looming …
The kicker is that now I have the time to research and write, but I don’t know what to write about. Do I start another big project (book length)? Do I try to get some articles out for review? Do I update my Vitae and get ready for the market? Do I chuck it all and really delve into a project about corpses on television? (Because, yes, I am interested in that.) Or, maybe I actually try writing that detective novel that keeps poking around my head? As usual for me, the more options or time I have the less I know what to do with myself.
At least I finally managed a mid-week post!
Finding a muse
The most amazing thing happened this week! I met my good friend Dr. D, who is so like me it is eerie, for lunch. Apparently being born in 1973 led to some pretty twisted personalities. In addition to getting our Ph.D. in the same field (at different institutions with different specialties), Dr. D and I share a love of crime novels, BBC crime/mystery shows, Discovery ID, and a healthy fascination with serial killers.
The idea of a healthy fascination with serial killers could seem like an oxymoron, but hear me out. While she and I will both spend hours watching Discovery ID and Biography specials, reading mystery novels, etc, each of us maintains an empathy for the victims, and neither of us is going to start writing letters to prisons any time soon.
As I have written before, though perhaps not here, I believe my fascination with serial killers stems from having grown up in the Pacific Northwest. Although Bundy had been caught in Florida by the time my family moved to Washington, the stories about Bundy and his preference for girls with long straight hair parted down the middle were still omni-present. Those stories also held a particular fascination for a 10 year old girl with long straight brown hair that parted in the middle. I’m not saying any of his victims really looked like me,
but they did present a window into what I could look like when I grew up. By the time we moved from Minnesota/Canada Bundy’s Washington siege was over; however, Green River Killer victims were being found at an alarming rate through a good part of my childhood.
Dr. D, I learned that first day we spent getting to know each other, grew up in Atlanta during the Atlanta Child Murders. While she did not fit the victim profile for those murders, the similarity between our likes and fascinations seemed to bolster my opinion that growing up in the shadow of an active serial killer leaves a mark. It is not any one thing I can describe clearly, but I do not believe the similarities between Dr. D and I are that odd when you take into account our formative environments. Children pick up on so much more than we give them credit for, and I couldn’t even guess at the consequences this contemporary melange of misogyny, sex, and violence will have.
Anyway, I think you can see why Dr. D told me I needed to watch Hannibal and tell her what I thought. It might also explain why I broke through my television ennui to actually do it. Dr. D’s recommendation, and my love of the characters in Thomas Harris’ series, led me to go so far as to get the NBC app to catch up to where the series is now. Having admitted to my love of this particular set of Harris’ characters, I also have to give this disclaimer – that love doesn’t extend to some sort of desire for utter faithfulness to Harris’s world or vision. While I enjoyed the book Hannibal, I think there are some important ways the movie is better, which is also true of Silence of the Lambs. All of which could be the topic of a different set of posts.
The television ennui I mentioned above extends over the whole of my life. Being truly done, having finally received my Ph.D., left me at some fairly significant loose ends. Sure, there is more time to fill, but I haven’t had the drive to fill it with anything. The last two weeks I have spent poking at things – starting crochet projects instead of finishing the ones I already have, whacking snakes in Tapped Out, looking at the mess of a desk I still need to clean up, and wanting to write a blog post here or there – but not feeling like I had anything to say. So, something pretty amazing happened as I began watching NBC’s Hannibal, I realized I had something to say. I won’t make any promises about the speed in which I will write these posts, but I do know there are at least two different posts coming about this show.
Slow re-entry
After re-posting my Rizzoli & Isles pieces, I’d hoped to jump back into posting. As you can see, however, that jump has taken a little longer than expected.
Perhaps it is the space I’m in. Once again on the threshold – graduating, but not done with formatting for the graduate school – which really makes it feels like stasis. Since the defense people have started referring to me as Dr., but it doesn’t feel like I am there yet since I’m still making corrections.
Well, I guess that leaks what could have been the first major announcement of this re-boot. Yes, I successfully defended my dissertation! No, I have no idea what I will do now.
Here are just a few of the questions to which I have no answers:
- What happens with my job? What about the significant budget cuts the state just announced?
- Do I want to go on the market?
- If I do, what kind of job do I want? Where do I want to be?
- Do I want to stay in Academia?
- What do I want to do with this blog? What do I want to write about? Do I want to continue to write with a pseudonym? Do I want to attach my name to this space?
- What am I going to do with all my “free” time?
The only thing I can tell right now is that I need to keep writing. For at least two weeks now I have barely looked at my computer. Any online presence I’ve had has been through my phone or iPad, and the only writing I’ve done has been at work, for work.
While this abscence has been cathartic in a way, I also think it has led to my ennui in other areas. I haven’t really been crocheting or watching television or walking or anything but playing games on the iPad. None of that is good for me. The other day, while the DH and I waited in the Dr.s office for 2 hours, I said to him I need to do something – take a dance class, try growing vegetables again, anything. What I realize now is that I also need to start writing again. As you can probably tell that means this space will probably be fairly introspective for a while as I try to determine where to go from here, but I will try to keep the navel gazing to a minimum.
To my surprise I have actually found myself returning to academic research. I expected at least a summer long moratorium on reading anything remotely academic. However, this week I have been to the library twice, and this morning started reading again. I started with Walking and Talking Feminist Rhetorics: Landmark Essays and Controversies. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Salvage
Once again, this is a weekend in which not enough will happen. Sure, it is quite early on a Sunday to making such a declaration, but enough chores need to be done that I know dissertation writing will fall by the wayside. Well, it will at least not get the full 15 hours of attention it needs to make up for the last week. However, instead of beating myself up about this, I’m trying to take some of the advice I’ve been dole-ling out to everyone else this week. I’m trying to give myself permission to do my chores and to NOT feel bad about the lack of writing.
In order to help myself in this process, I decided to salvage what I could of this train wreck of a process. Today, instead of the incessant whining about the dissertation, I give you some bullets of any good that had come from working on my dissertation.
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