Today’s advice at Vitae – Don’t Dodge the Diversity Question –  stuck a nerve with me. There’s nothing wrong with Nicole Matos’s advice, in fact I think you could call the heart of it common sense; as long as the question does not cross any legal boundaries, answer it.

For me, the problem isn’t necessarily people dodging the “diversity question,” the problem is the question. In the opening paragraph of her column Matos paraphrases the diversity question as “one that goes something like — Describe your experiences with diversity in and/or outside the classroom.” As someone who has been doing what I call “baby searches” for the past four years, I have one very big question of my own: “What the hell does this question even mean?”

You might notice that I’ve made some changes around here, added a few pages, and things. I really hated having my CV just copied and pasted to a single page. It was just too much text for one page, so I broke up the sections into individual pages.  I even included sub-pages with my teaching and administrative philosophies, not that anyone would really want to read them. In general, I like this new organization, and I think it will make it easy for me to keep everything updated. In the future I imagine a reversal of process where I cut and paste from my website to update and create a new CV.

After an entire day of travel (thanks to a 3 hour layover in Atlanta), last night I finally made it home after a working vacation. A week ago the DH and I flew up to spend some time with his family (Sat – Wed) for me. He flew home early Thursday morning. I stayed in the Cities for a conference. (Vacation pictures will be posted later. They are all still stuck on my phone.)

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this conference. Typically, when I go to a conference I have a built in cadre of friends to keep me company. At this conference, however, I was presenting with colleagues at a conference for their field, not mine. (At least, that is what I thought.) None of my friends were going to be there, and I expected to wander the conference halls embodying my childhood nickname, “Orphan.” Nothing is ever what we really expect. The conference was amazing, and I came home with more ideas than I can process, inspired about my own scholarship, and even new friends.

The best part of this conference was the fact that our panel presented during the first session. I’ve done that at two conferences now, and I LOVE that. There is very little time for nerves, and then you can spend the rest of the time seeing panels without rehearsing a presentation in the back of your mind.

The most surprising thing for me was just how many writing center people I met at this conference. I swear this conference was better in terms of meeting new writing center directors and exchanging ideas than an actual writing center conference. It seemed like every session there was something for me to see, and it was particularly gratifying for me to see how many other people are interested in graduate writing support, and hospitality.

At a conference there are always people you end up seeing over and over in panels, in the halls, etc. This conference I made my new friend in bathroom lines and hallways. We both stayed in the dorms, and it felt like we couldn’t leave our rooms without running into each other; and, yes, she is a writing center director/coordinator like me, for now. It was fun, amusing, and now I have two friends in St. Louis.

As fun as everything was, I am glad that I took the early flight home, since I think many people had a hard time getting flights home because of the weather. I had been away too long, and it was good to sleep in my own bed with the dogs.

As the state rep to our regional writing center association my job, among other things, is to hold events in the state.  Since I inherited this job from the fabulous Dr. Phoenix, there was already an established pattern of spring professional development events for directors, and fall events that include tutors. This spring our director’s event had to be postponed, so last Friday a few writing center directors from around the state gathered at our school. We had each read either Peripheral Visions for Writing Centers by Jackie Grutsch-McKinney, or Building Writing Center Assessments that Matter by Ellen Schendel and William J. Macauley Jr.  For the morning we split up into small groups to discuss the books, and then after lunch we all gathered together to share our small group discussions with each other. Throughout the conversation I was struck by two things: the isolation of the work we do, and the way these two texts complimented each other.

Things were quiet here for a while because my academic job search had heated up, which meant there a lot I wanted to say, and not a lot I dared to say. As with many other searches I’ve done, this time I got so close … just not close enough.  Apparently, I look really good on paper, over the phone, and then someone else looks better in person. It is frustrating, and I won’t lie this last one hurt. Even with this last one, however, by the time I’d received the official rejection I had pretty much come to the conclusion that the fit maybe wasn’t quite right. I might not send personal note cards to everyone thanking them for the visit, but I am sincere in my final email where I wish them all the best with their new hire.

2014, although not a leap year, has been the year of the Grabow Anniversary – The Extended Version. We started celebrating a week in advance and then I think it was just hard to stop. Actually, it was more like we each had our own Anniversary weekend. Last weekend was the DH’s and this weekend was mine. It worked out this way mainly because the DH had last weekend off, and this weekend I had a Symposium to attend. (I know, super romantic, right.)

Warning, this post will be both picture/content heavy because while I want to share with you some of the fun that the DH and I have had this past week, I need to do that within the context of a not very fun part of our story.

As often as I fall off the wagon, it might not even look like an effort, but … believe me, I do try my best NOT to walk around talking about how busy/hectic my life is. A couple of years ago, I noticed that my almost rote response to the question, “How are you?” was “Tired.” Worse, I began to notice how ubiquitous the response was. Everyone is tired all the time it seems. I began to wonder if being tired was a self-fulfilling prophecy. Consequently, I set a goal for myself … no more saying “I’m tired” especially when I am tired.

And, it worked.

Not like you might imagine, I am not an endless font of energy. Often, I am still tired, but I can work through that tiredness better when I don’t spend all my time talking about. (I think you can guess where this is going.) Having mostly, “mostly” conquered the “I’m tired.” It’s time to set to work on “I’m so busy/stressed/etc.” (Yes, Ousier, I know the Cush would not approve of the etc.) Because it is wrapped up in the work we do and we spend so much time at work, it is much harder to remove this complaint/discussion from my conversation. In fact, the stress and pressure got to me and it was IMPOSSIBLE not to talk about how busy I was this last week. Oh, and next week is not looking much better, but one thing is off my heaping plate, so I think I will at least be able to breathe a little easier. (But enough of the busy talk already!)

My last post is so hopeful, so excited, so full of promise of posts to come.I remember thinking: If nothing else, this class will at least generate some posts. I suppose it would, and will, generate posts when I get to attend another class.  Yes, we were supposed to meet every other Wednesday, but since that first meeting there have been at least two weather delays, and an out of town conference for me.  I’m really looking forward to attending class again this week. Since I missed the last session, I almost feel like we will need to do introductions all over again.

About that conference … It was pretty great! As a board member for the organization I had quite a few meetings to attend, but it was wonderful to see old friends and colleagues, and to make new acquaintances. The keynote speaker, Dr. Vershawn Ashanti Young, was amazing, and I’m still processing and learning from his presentation. Our homework from his presentation was to watch Dr. Joni Jones speech about 6 Rules for Allies. Take 13 minutes from your day and watch it now. I’m figuring out how to incorporate this into various staff meetings now.

After the conference I got very ill, some sort of stomach thing that kept me out of work on Monday, which was not great because then we lost Wednesday – Friday to snow days. (I refuse to name winter storms.) Every year in NC we have a snow day or two, many of them unnecessary concessions to the weather hype. Every few years, however, there is a real snow event, one in which there is both an actual accumulation of snow, and the usual layer of ice. This was one of those years.  Lots of snow on the ground, then ice, then snow, then melt, which leads to more ice.  Most of it has cleared out by now, but as I trudged around to the grocery store and coffee shop the last couple of days, I found myself missing the mid-west. It is crazy, but I always feel energized by a good snow. It’s probably just because they are so infrequent around here. I’m sure the first time I actually had to deal with a full winter’s worth of snow again I would not feel so enamored of it all. For the last couple of days, however, I was able to feel that warm, fuzzy, nostalgia for a day of bright and glorious winter sun shining off a blanket of freshly fallen snow.

Part of the hope, excitement, and promise of those early New Year’s posts is that I felt like this would be a year of changes.  Also, I thought I knew what those changes were likely to be. Turns out I might have been counting chickens before the eggs hatched.  I still expect there to be some significant changes in my life this year; now, however, I’ve learned to keep those expectations a little more vague. None of which is really meant to be vague with you, dear reader. I just really don’t know what will happen. I just know that last year contained some pretty big closures – graduating, turning 40, etc, which means that there are spaces to fill in my life and we all know how the universe hates a vacuum.

Apparently Visibility and Vulnerability are words for this year because on Wednesday this week I attended my first of many Performance Leadership (PL) classes. PL is a professional development class the university runs for mid-level managers — typically staff, which means it is a class full of just about everybody from dining services, business operations, engineering and agriculture extension programs and me. We meet every other Wednesday between now and June, and I am ridiculously excited about this class. At the end of day one I told our facilitator that I was sitting there thinking, “How do I get this job?” She said that as I presented she was thinking I would be good at it. I have no career change in mind just yet, but it is nice to see something else I think I would enjoy.

Half of it is just being in a class environment again, even if it is this kind of training class.  It would be impossible for you to over-estimate how hard it was for me doing my dissertation alone and not in a classroom environment. (Yes, part of the point of dissertation writing is learning to work on your own, but for me … it sucked. I like to talk through ideas.) I was so excited for this class that I made a 3-ring binder to keep my materials, got a new notebook and special pens. Then, I got to class and at every seat was a 3-ring binder. I felt more than a little silly and Lisa Simpson-esque. By the end of the day my table mates were giving me a hard time … “Of course you‘ve done the pre-reading” kind of stuff. In their defense, by that time I’d also volunteered to go first for an activity. Basically, I brought the teasing on myself – and it really was good-natured.

Seriously though, as much as I love the classroom environment (meeting new people, learning about them, sharing ideas), just being in this class is a step outside comfortable for me.  While I have often found myself in leadership roles, it has never been something I embraced (or cultivated) about myself. I was raised in an environment where I was constantly reminded not to “get above” myself. Since I also have an ingrained respect for leaders labeling myself as one by participating in this class triggers all the insecurities that go with “getting above myself.”

Unsurprisingly, taking this course feels a little like reaching above my station, but then pretty much everything I have ever done has felt like that. As long as I can remember my mother has called me “Champagne,” and talked about how I have champagne-taste on a beer budget. She’s even gone so far as to make the overt comparison that I am champagne and she is beer.  So, I guess I come by this disconnected, over-reaching feeling honestly.  It shouldn’t surprise me that — despite the fact that my parents have both been managers/leaders of a sort — head housekeeper, lead mechanic, bar manager, shop foreman, — sitting in a management class learning about leadership feels a little strange.

Now, having stepped out of that comfort zone and admitted that I am leading people — and that I want to develop that skill — every part of this class that will push me is just that much farther away from safety/comfort. In fact, one  of the first things we have to do is giving me hives just thinking about it. Sometime in the next week or two I have to send an email to my bosses, peers, and employees, and anyone else I can think of asking them to complete a review of me. Their review is completely confidential. The facilitators of the program gather the responses and compile them into a report that I will go over with my leadership coach. Sure, I understand how this information is necessary and will help me, but I am quite afraid to hear what other people think of me.

Vulnerable sounds like just about the right word for how I will be feeling all semester.