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 a crippling 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.)

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.

On Radiohead and other joys of life

I am boggled by the fact that there has been an In Rainbows Disk 2 for months, MONTHS, now, yet I somehow was unaware of this until about an hour ago.  Having discovered the existence of such an album, I now own it (because Ceiling Cat forbid there be Radiohead that I don't own).  "Go Slowly" and "Last Flowers" are bleeding excellent songs and my initial favorites.  This being Radiohead, my favorite songs on the album a month from now will probably be ones I'm barely paying attention to now.

I am reaching incoherency after a whopping four hours of sleep after last nights' marathon grading session.  I love the marathon grading sessions because it gets the pain over in one swell foop, but I'm not a fan of my exhaustion level right now.  That said, I don't know that I would have gotten to bed any earlier than 2am anyway simply because my sleep schedule had turned to "weekend," meaning I didn't get out of bed until close to 11 yesterday.

The oddest thing about grading yesterday was that I ended up needing a notebook out for myself so that I could jot down thoughts for noveling.  I typically end up with a notebook nearby so I can scribble notes on what sorts of writing instruction I think the class may benefit from.  I'm not used to reading potato papers and feeling any sort of inspired thought about my own work - the usual thought process is more along the lines of "____________ OMGWTFBBQ DID YOU SRSLY WRITE THAT ______________________________ I'm bored" and etc.  Weirdly, last night, despite the plenty of "WTF" thoughts, I finally managed to figure out how to get the fight between the main characters going - the bit that was giving me problems a few days ago.  So YAY.

I can't wait to have a draft of the whole novel done so that I can completely rip it apart and reorganize it.

Anyway, I'm back to "I need to write my stupid resume for to attempt to find some sort of gainful employment."  And consequently back to "I should probably take some Adderall" (which, despite my last post, I still haven't done).  And back to feeling guilty about my distinct lack of progress in dissertationland, compounded by having run into Hosebeast Advisor in the hall today and her being completely friendly.  So I feel like I'm being lazy and wasting time, which basically means I'm wasting my life. 

Barista friend from a few posts ago bought herself a plane ticket yesterday so she can move to LA at the end of the semester to be with a guy she met and spent about a week with over Spring Break.  She's over the moon happy.  I think it's... well, I think it's awesome.  I feel like I should be thinking that it's not a smart idea, that she shouldn't be tossing grad school in the basket just to try out a relationship etc etc etc., but I can't make myself do it.  She's looking for jobs and I have no idea if she's planning on finishing her MA.  And I think it's awesome because she's doing something instead of locking herself up in the academy.  I think I'm kinda jealous.  I'm not jealous that she's running of to pursue a relationship - I think I'm jealous because she's doing something wild and wonderful and crazy that sounds a lot more like living than my 7 years of doing time in the academy.  And I wish that when I'd found it stifling, I'd done something wild and crazy too.

None of that is fueling my desire to work on my dissertation.  It does, however, fuel my desire to novel more.

Back to the Adderall

Job-type update:
I now have a profile on linkedin.  It has, well, very little information on it.  Why?  Because I still haven't finished my resume.  It's... extremely strange trying to figure out how to word things in a way that "sells" me as a good job candidate (or indeed good at much of anything).  I'm also not sure if I should be putting as my field the one which currently employs me or the one in which I think I might be tolerably happy in (i.e., I think I'm giving HR a try).  Also not sure whether I should be listing my zipcode as the one in which I'm currently stuck or the one in which I'd prefer to be living in, say, 3 months.  I'm open to suggestions. 

Frustration update:
I think the resume will be finished with Adderall.  I'm too scattered lately for my brain to function correctly.  I'm frustrated to all hell with my class (seriously, potatoes, it's Twilight - please drum up some interest to pick it apart or bash it or whatever - even bashing it would bring up some kind of conversation that I could work with!), I'm behind on grading papers (it's been a week and a half now - I usually never take this long), I still have to finish that wretched book to finish teaching on Friday, I need to get my financial aid stuff taken care of for the summer/fall as I will still technically be a student, I REALLY need to finish a draft of the resume so I can get it out there, I need to help plan one of my best friend's bridal showers (I'm matron of honor and bride's mom is refusing to help with anything - long story, not mine), and I'm still trying to get some writing done on the novel. 

Unfortunately, I've been feeling so pulled around that very little actually got done today (um, this week so far).  Class was awful (I feel like I'm not doing a great job with the text, but I also feel like the fact that one person in the room actually did their homework (i.e., play on the google to find out some idea of the real extent of Twifandom) had something to do with it as well).  (I'm apparently parenthetical happy right now - sorry for that!)  I didn't get much sleep last night either.  The upshot is that I got home, ate something, complained at mah forum ladies about my stupid morning, pixel farmed, and then stared at umpteen word docs to no effect whatsoever while listening to Doves' "Some Cities" album on repeat.  I can't keep doing this, so it's back to the Adderall after the funeral.

Family/Life update:
We spent the evening at Brownie's uncle's house with his family, mostly listening to aunts and uncles and cousins compare eulogies for Brownie's grandpop's memorial.  The family writ large has been inundated with food this week - apparently the main reason we all got together was that there was suddenly enough food from neighbors and other family members that help was rather desperately needed to eat some of it.  I had no idea people still brought food to neighbors after a death in the family.  I think it's awesome that it really does happen.  The memorial service is tomorrow morning.  Brownie's mom threatened us with promised that we'd be the recipients of any fruit baskets she gets, but that she's keeping all the chocolate (her preferred stress reliever).  She planned pretty much the entire service, so I'd say she earned it.  Brownie and I are taking Nutella cookies to her on Saturday.

I should be sleepy by this point.  I'm exhausted, but I always seem to get something of a second wind along about 9:30/10.  I *hate* the timing on this, because I need to go to sleep.  The service tomorrow is at 8:30 way the hell at the other end of town.  I love when I can use this time for noveling, but that's been like pulling teeth out of a pissed off yak the past couple of days.  There's a fight that needs to happen that the characters don't seem ready to have yet, but that I need them to have within the next 12 or so hours of plot.  I can't figure out if I'm forcing the fight when the characters aren't quite ready for it or if I just haven't hit the right head space to write it.  I just can't hear it yet.  I can hear the aftermath loud and clear, but not the fight.  I'll have to backburner it for a few days and see what my brain dreams up while I'm working on other things.  I don't exactly have time to novel at the moment anyway, sadly.

March Beer Week, 2010

Mid-March comes, as it does every year, with the promise of a week filled with MOAR BEER. To illustrate, here are the next few days:

Tomorrow is St. Patty's, obviously (we're having corned beef and colcannon for dinner tonight - squee!).  Brownie's family is mega-Irish (and mega-Italian:  hello East Coast!).  We're meeting a bunch of his aunts and uncles for drinkie bits at happy hour.  I will play my usual St. Patty's  "how many total strangers offer to buy me a drink because I have curly red hair" game.  For some reason, despite my total lack of Irish ancestry, the hair is sufficient for free drinks (or would be if I were willing to take any of said strangers up on the drinks, which I am not).

Thursday marks the beginning of March Madness.  Thursday is also the day of "the game wherein my undergrad's team mops the floor with my grad school's team."  I cannot wait.  I've been getting a bunch of questions from people who don't know me all that well, but do know me well enough to know which schools I'm referring to.  They always have questions about which team I'll be rooting for.  I figure I'll just answer here (despite the fact that pretty much no one who knows me IRL knows about this blog*):  no one in grad school would EVER root for their grad school over their undergrad.  It's simple: undergrad is fun; grad school is soul-sucking hell.  Undergrad wins, every time.

Friday, Brownie's undergrad team has its first tourney game.
Saturday and Sunday, MOAR BASKETBALL.

In between all of this, I really do need to start grading papers so that I don't find myself grading until 3am Sunday night.  I try to get papers back to my students within a week.  Managing to do so reminds me that I actually am capable of getting things done, which gives me a mild self-esteem boost.  I can go for as many of those as possible. 

On the job front, I contacted an aunt of mine who works in HR at large corporation to see if I could bounce resume questions/drafts off of her.  I'm planning on working on an initial draft Wednesday pre-St. Patty's beers and Thursday pre-game.  Here's hoping the research I've been doing pays off.  I'll be posting general thoughts about the format I'm using and the whys and wherefores as the draft gets going.

Side note: while typing this, I've been noticing that my keyboard doesn't seem to be registering every key that I type - if there are words that are missing letters and I managed not to notice/correct it before publishing, my apologies.

*quickie reason for the anonymity at the moment:  the anonymity is nothing I really want to keep up forever.  However, until the degree is completed and I've got a real, non-academic job, I need to keep it relatively anonymous.  The academy is none-too-friendly about people announcing that they'll be leaving its ranks, and I want to avoid any possible blowback from the actual academics I know about my decision to leave until after I have gainful employment: leaving academics is tantamount to burning bridges big time.