Travail
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The Last Weekend
This is the first weekend in a while that I haven’t had to spend at least one day on the road between here and Greensboro. It feels like the first time I have not had ANYTHING to do. While that it certainly not the case, I do plan on cherishing this last weekend before the madness. Training for the summer program I coordinate starts next Thursday and the students arrive on 7/1 whether we are ready or not.
Since this was the last week when I could take things slow and think about one thing at a time I spend some time writing in my work journal. (Yes, that was my writing yesterday.) I’m not so great at journaling at home, but I have found the work journal to be tremendously helpful. In fact, I just finished one and started another. When I looked back at the one I just finished it was fun to remember that it was the book in which I had prepared for my campus visit for this job. The work journal is where I try to write through ideas, set down goals, and -ok- maybe I vent a little too. It works as a sounding board for me, and helps to get through any initial frustration and start thinking about issues in a new way.
I suppose I could do all of that in a file somewhere, but there is something very satisfying about my journal with all it’s sticky tabs and stuff stapled inside.
Do any of you keep a work journal in this way?
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.
Professionalization of a sort
Wednesday through Saturday of this week I was out of town at the big conference in my field. This particular conference happens every two years, and, coincidentally, the last one happened during my first year on the job. Although during the last conference I attended more sessions, I would say at this conference I accomplished more. At this conference, I felt much more a part of the profession, rather than a newcomer/grad student looking in.
The sense of, for lack of a better term, professionalization I felt at this conference highlighted the lack of that feeling in my department at home. Now, I will be the first to admit some of that feeling comes from me. I need to project more of the confidence and authority I felt at this conference within my own office. There is, however, a significant way that I think the current structure is set up to undermine those feelings.
Much of this is a part of my title. As the coordinator of a program, and not a director, there are barriers to my decision making process that inhibit my ability to really plan for change. Sure, I can make a plan, but so much of what I would need to put that plan in motion two or more steps removed from me that it is easy to feel like nothing can be done.
Some of this is how I am treated. Again, I think I have made some mistakes in setting myself up here that have led to some of it, but not all. Much of it has to do with the existing politics and administrative structure of the place. There is far too much “management,” particularly of me. There isn’t much I can do about this, but I am hoping that some of the recent changes and the new QEP will lead to some changes on this front.
What I can do right now is to work on myself. Locking myself down in a way, and only projecting the professional that this weekend taught me I am. There are definitely going to be people around there that won’t like it, but my only goals are to grow the service, and have solid foundation for the next person who holds this position.
What I learned this week:
The last couple of weeks have been phenomenally busy at work, but it’s not like I didn’t know they would be. Much like all my instructor friends know the last few weeks of the semester mean spending all their time in grading jail, I know the first couple weeks of the semester mean spending all my time doing the “Come to the Writing Center” dog and pony show. The goal is that by the end of the 2nd and 3rd weeks of the semester someone (90% me) visits all the English 100 and 101 classes. Yes, Virginia, at a school with an undergraduate population twice as big as that of your home town, that is A LOT! You know what else it is? It is exhausting.
Yes, I do this every semester. Yes, I know it is coming. There just isn’t anyway to prepare for the amount of energy it takes to give a 10 minute monologue to different audiences 3 times an hour. In a way it is like grading jail, just front loaded.
Surprisingly, this post isn’t really about complaining. I know. Shocker. It’s about what I’ve come to realize, over the last two weeks.
- If I ever have a nervous break down it is going to happen in the middle of one of these visits. I’ll be in the middle of the “Here’s why you should use our service” spiel, and I’ll just throw up my hands and walk out. I may or may not mutter obscenities under my breath.
- This is the semester that the consultants put together a welcome video that we can shop around to hopefully lessen the number of human visits. I’ve given them no choice, and a deadline of April 15th.
- Oddly enough, when that happens I plan to use that time to start a classroom visit campaign to another set of classes. Have we discussed my masochistic nature? I’m pretty sure we have.
- If I ever finish the dissertation, and get my ‘real’ degree, I’m going to have some serious soul searching to do about whether or not this is the place for me.
- Also, I’m pretty sure you know you are a writer, when not writing/writing very little for two weeks gives you ulcers.
Really, all this week I’ve had stomach issues of one kind or another. Today they culminated in dull pain every time I ate. So, for the next week or so it is all bland food/and herbal tea for me. The caffeine headache ought to kick in tomorrow afternoon in the middle of a writing binge fest.
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.
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