I've been an antisocial flake the last few days. It may have been the overkill from super-social Friday night out with the department followed by the Saturday of chili fest/Ben Folds concert/getting drunk with Brownie and department close friend followed by the Sunday hangover nursing and then dinner at the inlaws.
Whatever it is, by the time I woke up hungover Sunday morning, I was pretty convinced I didn't want to see anyone other than my cats for the next week. This is, of course, impossible, so I got up this morning after a scant 4 hours of sleep (including an hour of semi-consciously smacking the sleep alarm, resulting in my arrival on campus about ten minutes late). Then I got to tutor more sessions than I've had this semester, all of which were people who were having problems brainstorming, and then I got to go babysit my class while they did peer evals for their final papers, which itself turned into tutoring-like sessions with my own students who also seemed incapable of brainstorming on their own.
I completely understand that people get writer's block and get stuck on what it is they're trying to say. I wish that had been what my students/tutoring sessions wanted. But they didn't want to be unstuck. They didn't want to take the time to come up with their own ideas at all. The worst was a reflection paper on a group project. The girl came in and sat down with an assignment that asked her to write five pages about what her group did. She had one page written and "nothing else to say." She expected me to tell her what to write. I'm not exaggerating, sadly: the words "I don't know what to write now so what do you think I should write" actually came out of her mouth. So I sat, staring at her assignment sheet, asking her what they did for the group project, trying to come up with any question I could to give her something to think about. But she didn't want my questions. She wanted me to tell her exactly what she should put in each paragraph.
I am not going to miss this.
I do wonder if it will feel weird next fall when classes start and I'm not walking into one, gradebook and lesson plans in hand. I can sit here and think about that, that I will never do this again, never teach again. I feel like I should feel sad or strange or something about it. Perhaps even relief. At the moment, however, I feel nothing about it. A blank. Is it because I still have to tutor that this hasn't hit yet? Will it hit?
Monday, April 26, 2010
Friday, April 23, 2010
On resumes and rediscovering reading
I have a workable draft of my resume finally (erm, well, I've really had one since Sunday evening, but whatever). So that's good. That means I can stop with some of the overthinking and the "OMG WHAT HAVE I DONE FOR SEVEN YEARS OF MY LIFE" angsty bullshit that's made the process of writing (and re-writing, and re-writing) it so ridiculous and painful. Because really, one's spouse's first reaction to reading one's resume should NOT be this: "this makes you sound like you hate yourself."
After that reaction, I took a day off and then returned to it. Rephrased. Rethought. Rephrased more. Talked it out with people. I feel better now.
Possible interview question: variation on a theme of "what do you consider to be your biggest problem in the workplace?"
Answer: I overthink things. I can overthink ANYTHING. It's like acrippling mental disorder talent.
Resume aside, I'm down to only a couple of classes before the teaching portion of my career is (99% likely) finished. This puts me at 3 paychecks before I hit the abyss of not knowing where my money will come from. So that's... terrifying.
The dissertation really is on hold now, pretty much officially, until Brownie and I are moved wherever we end up moving and I'm in a better head space to deal with it. The department, bless it, is covering my tuition until it's done. I actually feel good about this, and in feeling good about this, have been reconceptualizing how I want to go about arguing certain aspects of it. I had been arguing about institutional change, but what I've really been *trying* (albeit failing) to get across is that the point is to look at the effect of fiction on institutional change, which really then is the effect of fiction on our understanding and creation of reality. Which, oddly, seems more manageable to me than institutional change itself. And more fun. So Imma let that keep simmering in the dark reaches of my brainspace until I'm ready to return.
Meanwhile, I've been devouring books like they're about to poof out of existence. Lots of books. The Hunger Games (and Catching Fire)(to feed my Gale crush) and The Elegance of the Hedgehog and Misconception and Someday This Pain Will Be Useful To You and so on. And it has been magnificent. Like rediscovering an old, dear friend.
It feels almost strange to say "I love to read." In some ways, I've always felt that way - I wouldn't have pursued a Ph.D. in English without loving to read. In so many other, more important ways, however, it truly has been a rediscovery: the joys of perusing books in the book store, of losing track of time while completely immersed in another world, of stories, plots and characters. For so much of graduate school, reading has been associated with guilt: if I was something I enjoy for the sake of enjoyment, then I felt guilty for it. If I read something for class/exams/dissertation work, then I didn't enjoy it; in not enjoying it, my ADHD would flare; in the flare of the ADHD would come distraction, lesser comprehension, and more guilt. Over the past seven years, reading has been so intricately entwined with guilt that I've largely avoided it when unnecessary. Suddenly (almost unconsciously) letting go of the guilt has let me read again. And that makes me really, really happy. (As a side note, this is the first post that has had a reading tag. That says a lot to me.)
After that reaction, I took a day off and then returned to it. Rephrased. Rethought. Rephrased more. Talked it out with people. I feel better now.
Possible interview question: variation on a theme of "what do you consider to be your biggest problem in the workplace?"
Answer: I overthink things. I can overthink ANYTHING. It's like a
Resume aside, I'm down to only a couple of classes before the teaching portion of my career is (99% likely) finished. This puts me at 3 paychecks before I hit the abyss of not knowing where my money will come from. So that's... terrifying.
The dissertation really is on hold now, pretty much officially, until Brownie and I are moved wherever we end up moving and I'm in a better head space to deal with it. The department, bless it, is covering my tuition until it's done. I actually feel good about this, and in feeling good about this, have been reconceptualizing how I want to go about arguing certain aspects of it. I had been arguing about institutional change, but what I've really been *trying* (albeit failing) to get across is that the point is to look at the effect of fiction on institutional change, which really then is the effect of fiction on our understanding and creation of reality. Which, oddly, seems more manageable to me than institutional change itself. And more fun. So Imma let that keep simmering in the dark reaches of my brainspace until I'm ready to return.
Meanwhile, I've been devouring books like they're about to poof out of existence. Lots of books. The Hunger Games (and Catching Fire)(to feed my Gale crush) and The Elegance of the Hedgehog and Misconception and Someday This Pain Will Be Useful To You and so on. And it has been magnificent. Like rediscovering an old, dear friend.
It feels almost strange to say "I love to read." In some ways, I've always felt that way - I wouldn't have pursued a Ph.D. in English without loving to read. In so many other, more important ways, however, it truly has been a rediscovery: the joys of perusing books in the book store, of losing track of time while completely immersed in another world, of stories, plots and characters. For so much of graduate school, reading has been associated with guilt: if I was something I enjoy for the sake of enjoyment, then I felt guilty for it. If I read something for class/exams/dissertation work, then I didn't enjoy it; in not enjoying it, my ADHD would flare; in the flare of the ADHD would come distraction, lesser comprehension, and more guilt. Over the past seven years, reading has been so intricately entwined with guilt that I've largely avoided it when unnecessary. Suddenly (almost unconsciously) letting go of the guilt has let me read again. And that makes me really, really happy. (As a side note, this is the first post that has had a reading tag. That says a lot to me.)
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Woe
It's one of those days where I've spent the vast majority of it staring listlessly at my computer trying to get myself to do something that someone else would deem productive and have gotten nowhere. I'm waiting for another 45 minutes until I can leave to go do a Zumba class all the way across town with Brownie's mom and aunt. I hate exercising that late - it throws off my schedule and pretty much guarantees that I'll be up until 3am. Joy.
I sent Brownie my resume such as it is at the moment in hopes that he'll have some suggestions. I've only managed to come up with four bullet points of what my job as a teacher entails, which doesn't seem like enough for something I've been doing for 6 years - essentially for the job that is the backbone of my resume. I can't decide if I think I need to try and break things up more (i.e., am I squeezing too much info into each line) or if I'm forgetting things that seem so obvious to me that I'm forgetting to write them down or what. Part of me is wondering what the hell I think I'm doing trying to get out of academics anyway, wondering who is going to want me when there are people out there with more applicable experience who don't have jobs and who will be fighting for the same jobs I'll be fighting for. The doubt spiral needs to stop because it's led to immobilization and too much pixel farming, but I'm stuck today.
I sent Brownie my resume such as it is at the moment in hopes that he'll have some suggestions. I've only managed to come up with four bullet points of what my job as a teacher entails, which doesn't seem like enough for something I've been doing for 6 years - essentially for the job that is the backbone of my resume. I can't decide if I think I need to try and break things up more (i.e., am I squeezing too much info into each line) or if I'm forgetting things that seem so obvious to me that I'm forgetting to write them down or what. Part of me is wondering what the hell I think I'm doing trying to get out of academics anyway, wondering who is going to want me when there are people out there with more applicable experience who don't have jobs and who will be fighting for the same jobs I'll be fighting for. The doubt spiral needs to stop because it's led to immobilization and too much pixel farming, but I'm stuck today.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
An Odd Brief Moment of Honesty
The Writing Center I work in has meetings every two weeks where we either talk over recent tutoring issues/problem cases/what do I do in X situation or we meet with the head of some group or other on campus to talk over writing issues on campus. The meetings consist of the Writing Center director (a faculty member in my department) and the tutors, all of whom are Ph.D. candidate-level grad students.
This past Thursday, we had two people from the Career Center come in to talk to us. One of them came in for the reason we were expecting - so that we could talk over expectations for med school/law school/grad school personal statements. We see a ton of them in the Writing Center, so it was good to have someone else's version of what it is that each type of school is generally looking for. Good times and all. Productive. As an aside, I was amused when she said that successful law school personal statements tend to sound arrogant.
The other person from the Career Center was the Grad Student Career Counselor (the same one I met with a few weeks ago). She came specifically and only to talk to us about things that people can do with English Ph.D.s. We weren't expecting her at all - she was someone the director invited along without warning any of us.
If it hasn't come across by now (given my reasons for being mostly anonymous in this blog), being in the humanities in the academy and acknowledging that you're leaving is often a recipe for disaster. Typical reactions include being shunned, being called a failure, being told one isn't sufficiently committed to one's scholarship and so on. I've heard of people saying they were leaving academics and being told that their committee didn't see the point in letting them finish the degree. I think it's the combined effect of working in a little understood field, one which is desperately difficult to get into, and one which requires pretty much complete dedication to in order to survive. Add to this the fact that the people who make the decisions on who stays in and who ends up being forced out are themselves professors of the same subjects who themselves have had to maintain decades of complete dedication in order to survive, and you end up with a situation wherein the casual mention of "I think I'm going to do something else" can feel, to those staying in, like a personal attack. Hence the repercussions I've already mentioned.
Anyway. Having someone walk into the Writing Center and point out to a group of 15 English Ph.D. candidates - in front of a faculty member - that most of us will end up doing something not-English-professor with our lives was dead shocking. It felt like the first honest career discussion I've ever had in that building, the first time anyone has allowed us to acknowledge openly that the job market sucks giant donkey balls and that getting out is not only something that we need to consider as a Plan B, but quite possibly something we should consider as a Plan A.
I'm writing about it here because it felt like a breakthrough, at least for my department. If we're allowed to discuss so-called "alternative" careers openly, maybe it will help cut the stigma that not going into academics is synonymous with failure. Given the fact that only 1/5 of graduating Ph.D.s will actually get the pipe dream tenure track job within five years of graduation, it seems like the ONLY intelligent thing to do is to have one (or two, or three) backup plan(s) ready to launch. It's good to know that at least somewhere in my institution, this is something we can finally discuss.
I'm asking the Writing Center director to be one of my references when I'm in tomorrow. I've worked with him for seven years now so he knows me well, and I know now that I can ask him to be a non-academic reference without worrying that asking him could have some kind of blowback for me with my dissertation committee.
This past Thursday, we had two people from the Career Center come in to talk to us. One of them came in for the reason we were expecting - so that we could talk over expectations for med school/law school/grad school personal statements. We see a ton of them in the Writing Center, so it was good to have someone else's version of what it is that each type of school is generally looking for. Good times and all. Productive. As an aside, I was amused when she said that successful law school personal statements tend to sound arrogant.
The other person from the Career Center was the Grad Student Career Counselor (the same one I met with a few weeks ago). She came specifically and only to talk to us about things that people can do with English Ph.D.s. We weren't expecting her at all - she was someone the director invited along without warning any of us.
If it hasn't come across by now (given my reasons for being mostly anonymous in this blog), being in the humanities in the academy and acknowledging that you're leaving is often a recipe for disaster. Typical reactions include being shunned, being called a failure, being told one isn't sufficiently committed to one's scholarship and so on. I've heard of people saying they were leaving academics and being told that their committee didn't see the point in letting them finish the degree. I think it's the combined effect of working in a little understood field, one which is desperately difficult to get into, and one which requires pretty much complete dedication to in order to survive. Add to this the fact that the people who make the decisions on who stays in and who ends up being forced out are themselves professors of the same subjects who themselves have had to maintain decades of complete dedication in order to survive, and you end up with a situation wherein the casual mention of "I think I'm going to do something else" can feel, to those staying in, like a personal attack. Hence the repercussions I've already mentioned.
Anyway. Having someone walk into the Writing Center and point out to a group of 15 English Ph.D. candidates - in front of a faculty member - that most of us will end up doing something not-English-professor with our lives was dead shocking. It felt like the first honest career discussion I've ever had in that building, the first time anyone has allowed us to acknowledge openly that the job market sucks giant donkey balls and that getting out is not only something that we need to consider as a Plan B, but quite possibly something we should consider as a Plan A.
I'm writing about it here because it felt like a breakthrough, at least for my department. If we're allowed to discuss so-called "alternative" careers openly, maybe it will help cut the stigma that not going into academics is synonymous with failure. Given the fact that only 1/5 of graduating Ph.D.s will actually get the pipe dream tenure track job within five years of graduation, it seems like the ONLY intelligent thing to do is to have one (or two, or three) backup plan(s) ready to launch. It's good to know that at least somewhere in my institution, this is something we can finally discuss.
I'm asking the Writing Center director to be one of my references when I'm in tomorrow. I've worked with him for seven years now so he knows me well, and I know now that I can ask him to be a non-academic reference without worrying that asking him could have some kind of blowback for me with my dissertation committee.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Fuck you, this week
Basically, I spent the week walking into things and maybe gave myself a really mild concussion. Because I sat down wrong in my car - like I misjudged how far down I had to sit in order not to hit my head on the roof of the car. That I've had for seven years. I'm hoping the headaches stop at some point over the next day or two.
I'd also like the pollen to dry up and die, but a) I'm hardly alone in that sentiment and b) that would be bad for the plants. I'm dealing.
The worst thing was losing my computer for two days because I rebooted it and it didn't recognize my user profile. This happened to me last October. I brought it to the campus helpdesk when it happened last time and they had it back to me the next day. I brought it there this time and they ignored it for two days before telling me that they'd booted it up and didn't know what my problem was BECAUSE THE STUPID THING HAD FIXED ITSELF. I think it just wanted a break or something. Or it's begging me to use any operating system that isn't Windows Vista.
Anyway, we did have a good meeting in the Writing Center yesterday that I need to scribble about, but I'll do that tomorrow in its own separate post. At this point it's 1am and I need bedtimes.
I'd also like the pollen to dry up and die, but a) I'm hardly alone in that sentiment and b) that would be bad for the plants. I'm dealing.
The worst thing was losing my computer for two days because I rebooted it and it didn't recognize my user profile. This happened to me last October. I brought it to the campus helpdesk when it happened last time and they had it back to me the next day. I brought it there this time and they ignored it for two days before telling me that they'd booted it up and didn't know what my problem was BECAUSE THE STUPID THING HAD FIXED ITSELF. I think it just wanted a break or something. Or it's begging me to use any operating system that isn't Windows Vista.
Anyway, we did have a good meeting in the Writing Center yesterday that I need to scribble about, but I'll do that tomorrow in its own separate post. At this point it's 1am and I need bedtimes.
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