Job insecurity

More rosy news on the job front. Maclean's is suggesting that the retirement surge by Boomers predicted to start around now will flatten out because of the economic downturn since Boomer's retirement funds will have shrunk and they'll stay on longer to compensate.

I suppose I could get all worried about this. But it seems to me that every few months someone is saying that the job market is not going to get any better. It really doesn't even feel like news anymore.

So what's a girl to to?

Onward and upward, I say. There's not much point in quitting now, is there? The only thing this does is make me pay a bit more attention to my back-up plan(s).

Science fiction can make for better humans?

According to this article in the Globe and Mail, reading makes you a more empathetic human.

Researchers found that subjects who read fiction scored higher on empathy social reasoning tests. The reasoning is that fiction is a way for understanding the world.

"Fiction is really about how to get around in the social world, which is not as easy as one might think," said Keith Oatley, one of the researchers and a professor in the department of human development and applied psychology at the University of Toronto. "People who read fiction give themselves quite a bit of practice in understanding that. And also, I think reading fiction sort of prompts one to think about these questions - you know, what are these people up to?"

Makes a certain amount of sense. Read fiction, witness what characters do in different situations. Apply similar responses to situations that emerge in life.

But as the authors note, the research did not distinguish between different kinds of fiction.

As a science fiction lover, I've got to wonder about the stereotypical "socially inept" sf/fantasy reader. This reader of fantastical fiction often is pictured as someone incapable of carrying on a conversation about anything but the books he/she reads, will argue minutiae and details of their favorite series, and generally seems to exhibit a reluctance to move out of routine and comfortable circles. This stereotype isn't misplaced. I have met people like this. I've also met people like this who only watch a specific genre of movie (sf, fantasy and/or horror usually) or only play a certain type of video game.

So why the stereotype, and does reading sf make you a more socially apt person as much as other genres of fiction might?

I would suggest that readers of science fiction who balance their lives and reading, and who read other genres in addition to science fiction could become more empathetic than readers of other genres. Yes, I realize I fall into that category, so in some ways I'm defending my own love of science fiction by proposing that a little science fiction is good for you. But I think the argument makes sense. Tell me what you think.

If as the researchers suggest, fiction teaches you about life and how to interact with real life people by reading about imaginary ones, then it stands to reason that the biggest social benefits of reading come from reading about characters that are unlike people who you've actually met before. In real life, you've already figured out how to deal with the people you've met. So the social benefit of reading is to encounter characters who are unlike those you've met in real life so that if/when you meet people like those characters in the future, you will already have an idea how they think and how you might respond to them. It makes sense that the social lessons learned through reading are ones that are uniquely different from the lessons learned in real life.

So science fiction (and fantasy) would produce the most empathy because they offer worlds and characters that you presumably would not meet in real life. But at this point it becomes necessary to consider the way that science fiction worlds are created.

In science fiction (and fantasy), the author usually begins with a premise that doesn't exist in real life, for example, that we have humanoid robots, or that humans have developed ESP, or that we can travel through space. Based on this premise, the story unfolds in a way that accounts for this factor that differs from our reality. This means that many things might change. For example, if humans evolved to develop ESP, the nature of espionage, secrets, and social interaction would be different.

What doesn't change much in science fiction is the people. As the saying goes, "people are people wherever you go" and this applies to science fiction as much as it does to life. The characters in science fiction, the ones that we hear the story through are people first and foremost. They may be different from us, but their responses are recognizable as the kinds of responses people might make, even if those people are sentient robots, aliens, or humans just trying to make sense of a world in which space travel is a possibility.

This is the consistent factor in science fiction. No matter how different the world in which the story takes place might be from our world, the responses of the people in the story seem right and appropriate to the situation.

If fiction does indeed provide us with models for approaching people and situations that we've never encountered before, then it stands to reason that the more fantastical the people and situations, the better prepared one might be to meet with future unknown people and situations. In that case, reading science fiction just might make you a better human.

Realistic dreaming

Strangely, for the last three nights, I've had fairly realistic dreams that I remember upon awakening. Three nights ago it was a dream about friends. Two nights ago, the family. Last night, I dreamt the introduction to my dissertation defense. It was pretty realistic. The room. The people there. I dreamt the beginning, then sorta skippped over the part where I read from some of my work (since my introduction clearly indicated I was reading from a chapter I have yet to write, my brain decided to skip that part), then entertained questions. The inevitable question that had little to do with my work but led back to the speaker was there, as was a discussion that digressed from the topic.

What's strange is not that I remember the dreams, nor that they were realistic because this happens to me all the time. In fact, sometimes my dreams are so mundanely realistic - like grocery shopping - that I'm surprised upon wakening to discover that I didn't actually do what I'd dreamt. What's strange is that these kinds of dreams have come three days in a row. Don't think that's ever happened before, so I gotta wonder why.

New Classics List

Lists.

Most of the people I know make lists. Some of them obsessively. Some just make them in their heads. But the attraction of the list seems to supercede gender or occupation or income level.

So what is it about lists that fascinates us?

I ran across a list that caught my attention. Yes, it's a literature list. But this one strikes me as different from many of the lists I've encountered before. I wanted to blog about this list. Of course I've found that Michael Berube has already written about popular culture and lists, and of course he says must smarter things than I can about pop culture and lists, but since his essay is eight years old, I'm gonna take a swing at talking about this latest list anyway. Perhaps there's something more to add to a contemplation of list making.

There's something very unusual about Entertainment Weekly's "New Classics" book list (by new classics they mean books published between 1983 and 2008). What struck me was that there are some things on the list that I wouldn't normally think of as classics.

1. The Road , Cormac McCarthy (2006)
2. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J.K. Rowling (2000)
3. Beloved, Toni Morrison (1987)
4. The Liars' Club, Mary Karr (1995)
5. American Pastoral, Philip Roth (1997)
6. Mystic River, Dennis Lehane (2001)
7. Maus, Art Spiegelman (1986/1991)
8. Selected Stories, Alice Munro (1996)
9. Cold Mountain, Charles Frazier (1997)
10. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami (1997)
11. Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer (1997)
12. Blindness, José Saramago (1998)
13. Watchmen, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (1986-87)
14. Black Water, Joyce Carol Oates (1992)
15. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Dave Eggers (2000)
16. The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood (1986)
17. Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez (1988)
18. Rabbit at Rest, John Updike (1990)
19. On Beauty, Zadie Smith (2005)
20. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding (1998)
21. On Writing, Stephen King (2000)
22. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Díaz (2007)
23. The Ghost Road, Pat Barker (1996)
24. Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry (1985)
25. The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan (1989)
26. Neuromancer, William Gibson (1984)
27. Possession, A.S. Byatt (1990)
28. Naked, David Sedaris (1997)
29. Bel Canto, Anne Patchett (2001)
30. Case Histories, Kate Atkinson (2004)
31. The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien (1990)
32. Parting the Waters, Taylor Branch (1988)
33. The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion (2005)
34. The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold (2002)
35. The Line of Beauty, Alan Hollinghurst (2004)
36. Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt (1996)
37. Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi (2003)
38. Birds of America, Lorrie Moore (1998)
39. Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri (2000)
40. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman (1995-2000)
41. The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros (1984)
42. LaBrava, Elmore Leonard (1983)
43. Borrowed Time, Paul Monette (1988)
44. Praying for Sheetrock, Melissa Fay Greene (1991)
45. Eva Luna, Isabel Allende (1988)
46. Sandman, Neil Gaiman (1988-1996)
47. World's Fair, E.L. Doctorow (1985)
48. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver (1998)
49. Clockers, Richard Price (1992)
50. The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen (2001)
51. The Journalist and the Murderer, Janet Malcom (1990)
52. Waiting to Exhale, Terry McMillan (1992)
53. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon (2000)
54. Jimmy Corrigan, Chris Ware (2000)
55. The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls (2006)
56. The Night Manager, John le Carré (1993)
57. The Bonfire of the Vanities, Tom Wolfe (1987)
58. Drop City, TC Boyle (2003)
59. Krik? Krak! Edwidge Danticat (1995)
60. Nickel & Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich (2001)
61. Money, Martin Amis (1985)
62. Last Train To Memphis, Peter Guralnick (1994)
63. Pastoralia, George Saunders (2000)
64. Underworld, Don DeLillo (1997)
65. The Giver, Lois Lowry (1993)
66. A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again, David Foster Wallace (1997)
67. The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini (2003)
68. Fun Home, Alison Bechdel (2006)
69. Secret History, Donna Tartt (1992)
70. Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell (2004)
71. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Ann Fadiman (1997)
72. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon (2003)
73. A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving (1989)
74. Friday Night Lights, H.G. Bissinger (1990)
75. Cathedral, Raymond Carver (1983)
76. A Sight for Sore Eyes, Ruth Rendell (1998)
77. The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro (1989)
78. Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert (2006)
79. The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell (2000)
80. Bright Lights, Big City, Jay McInerney (1984)
81. Backlash, Susan Faludi (1991)
82. Atonement, Ian McEwan (2002)
83. The Stone Diaries, Carol Shields (1994)
84. Holes, Louis Sachar (1998)
85. Gilead, Marilynne Robinson (2004)
86. And the Band Played On, Randy Shilts (1987)
87. The Ruins, Scott Smith (2006)
88. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby (1995)
89. Close Range, Annie Proulx (1999)
90. Comfort Me With Apples, Ruth Reichl (2001)
91. Random Family, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc (2003)
92. Presumed Innocent, Scott Turow (1987)
93. A Thousand Acres, Jane Smiley (1991)
94. Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser (2001)
95. Kaaterskill Falls, Allegra Goodman (1998)
96. The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown (2003)
97. Jesus’ Son, Denis Johnson (1992)
98. The Predators' Ball, Connie Bruck (1988)
99. Practical Magic, Alice Hoffman (1995)
100. America (the Book), Jon Stewart/Daily Show (2004)

I can't find anywhere the criteria that Entertainment Weekly used to compile this list, and I don't even know if it's ranked, but from this list, and the other top 100 lists they have on their site, I suspect that it was compiled by editors, writers, employees, or others at the organization.

There are two really interesting things in this list that don't usually appear in literature lists:
graphic novels
non-fiction
Both of these genres are usually eliminated in lists of best literature (which is what I read "new classics" to mean, but perhaps I'm off base here), even though they belong under the classification of literature. There's also a short story collection, a genre that usually isn't included either. I think it shows a greater appreciation for writing in general that the compilers of the list didn't limit themselves to fiction novels, even if some of their selections make me scratch my head, wondering what the conversation looked like that led to their inclusion.

Considering that I've been having children or going through school for most of that time, I'm acutally surprised at the number of books on that list that I've spent time with. I've read 23 of the books on the list, though I would've only pegged maybe 7 of them if you'd asked me to make a "new classics" list of books over the last 25 years. Maybe I'm just too snooty, but I have a hard time considering Bridget Jones Diary or Bel Canto as "classic". Fun books, good stories, but classic? Maybe I just have a different definition of classic.

Perhaps as Berube writes, like all lists, it is the compiling and justification of the list that produces a critical response to popular culture, and what's on the list isn't as important as the thoughts and justifications that go into compiling of the list by its authors, and the objections written by its readers.

Editing vs Writing

There's something so productive about writing - you type and see the words emerge on the page. You can watch a word count grow (like on my dissertation meter). You feel like you're moving forward, even if it's just a paragraph a day.

Editing is another beast altogether. It doesn't feel as progressive because it involves working with material you've already worked with. Sometimes that's tough.

The post-writing editing, you know where you go over the section you've just written, or the paper you've finished, or the chapter you've completed, and edit for clarity and conciseness, flow, paragraph formation, eliminating awkward phrasing, reconstructing sentences and proofreading isn't hard. Perhaps because it takes place right after the writing, it seems easier. Perhaps it's because you know what changes need to be made.

Integrating someone else's suggestions is harder. Necessary, because their distance from the project means their comments are invaluable, but harder. Part of it sometimes is deciphering their handwriting, or your notes from a meeting (this one's particularly hard for me). But sometimes an editing note can be clear, as in "this doesn't work," but figuring out how to fix it is hard. That of course is the tough part.

For the next several weeks I figure the only thing I'll be doing is editing. On top of the fact that my online work is all editing right now, by the time I returned home last week, I had feedback on four different dissertation chapters. Editing four chapters at a time will require a lot of work. Then three days later, I got an email about the book chapter I submitted. As I mentioned earlier, not only do I have to change the formatting from MLA to Chicago style, but I have to cut almost a third of the paper.

That cutting is painful. I've been working on it for three days, and at the end of each of those days, I've only cut a small fraction of what I need to, but I throw up my hands in the air and declare "I cannot cut anything else from this paper without seriously damaging the argument!"

Funny thing is, the next day I sit down again and find another little piece that can be trimmed. So maybe I can make it down to the necessary page count. Then again, each day, the amount I cut seems to get smaller and smaller. And I worry that once I look at what's left, the argument will indeed be damaged.

My hope lies in a banner on my computer that reads "manage reader expectations" which I think of as the mantra for writing. (Of course managing reader expectations means you need to know those expectations, which has been a major problem with the dissertation project, but that's another blog post.) But I'm discovering that managing reader expectations applies to editing too.

As I re-read every sentence in that paper, sometimes multiple times, I find myself asking if the reader wants or expects this sentence, phrase, or even word. It seems to help me focus, and all I can do is hope that by the time I whittle it down to the prescribed page count, that focus will keep the argument intact. I find that phrasing it in terms of whether the reader wants it there (not me, because I want everything to stay - all my words are precious!) also helps me cut what I spent so much time writing.

Keep your fingers crossed for me that I can reach page count!

Celebrating the work!

I opened my email this morning to find a message from one of the reviewers for a book chapter that's been floating out there for about six months. It was a lovely email and very encouraging, with a very very good reason for not having heard about its status. Frankly, at six months, it's the one I've spent the least time waiting for! (And I know the book collection editor, so I knew she'd get to me when it worked. I wasn't as worried about this one as the others.)

I've got it back, and the only revision I need to do is some SERIOUS trimming to reach page length and a complete switch from MLA to Chicago style citation. Took a look at my Chicago style manual - it's 12 years old. Guess I'll need an update!

The trimming will be harder, because I have to lose almost 30% of it, which will be hard since all the elements of the argument seem necessary to me. I'll just have to work up a really ruthless attitude and then tear into it mercilessly. *sigh* We'll have to see how it goes. The good news is, with a deadline for the edits, I'm hopeful that there will be a publication date that I can put on my c.v. when I send it out this fall. At least I hope so!

RBOC: thoughts upon returning home

• My laptop is really no longer an efficient tool. This was driven home to me when I found a plug in the airport lounge and sat down to work. Although I sat down at least 5 solid minutes before the man beside me, he was booted up and clicking away while I was still watching the little hourglass. And he probably didn't need to plug in within 20 minutes of bootup in order to avoid running out of battery power. Ugh. It's functional, which is why I still use it, but one could not by any stretch of the imagination call it efficient.
• Meeting with your entire committee within three days because you're only in town once or twice a year is an intense experience. Normally, if one of them had something discouraging to say, you'd have at least a few weeks to digest it before hearing what the next one said. Not so when you're only in town for a week and need to meet with everyone at once.
• I got good feedback, did necessary paperwork, picked up hard copies of things I needed, cleaned out the last of my crap out of my old office. Which is what I set out to accomplish.
• Dissertation writing group was good. Meeting with my advisor just before the group was probably a good plan, but it meant that I spent much of the evening feeling on edge. That's because my dissertation has not been heading in the direction it should be. Good to know that. But disturbing to realize my vision is not in line with what I need to do. At one point during our meeting, my advisor looked at me and said, "this is distressing you, isn't it?" Yep. Distressed is a very good word for it. I was thinking that I'd seriously miscalculated my entire grad education to that point and that I also was not capable of doing what she was asking. Those kinds of thoughts are enough to take anyone's breath away.
• Come to think of it, this is the second time I've had a conversation with my advisor that has made me feel like I made a colossal mistake in choosing first the school, and now the project. Is it just my advisor? Or have I really made some colossal blunders? I honestly don't know. Don't suppose it matters though, really. I mean, what are my options? Chuck it all away? I don't think so. So I keep going. But meanwhile, I wonder. Actually, I try not to think about it because my breath still catches in my throat at the thought of what it might cost if this was a colossal mistake.
• Much of the work I need to do now involves a rethinking of the project, which I'm sure will induce more anxiety as I struggle to change what feels natural to me into the project that my advisor has told me I must write. It's not that she's autocratic, she's right. It's just that I've been thinking about my project for so long in one way that it's just plain hard to think of it in the way I need to.
• On a more positive note, I had an absolutely wonderful couple of evenings with friends that really made up for all the distress of meeting with my committee, and the huge pile of work that needs to be done now. I feel privileged to be able to count such wonderful people as being in my corner, willing to listen to my ramblings, share their stories, and just plain be as glad to be with me as I am with them. It's also nice to see those kinds of people physically, in person. I'm all for the electronic age, but it sure don't beat a hug and a smile!
  

I didn't cry this time!

This time when I visited friends at PhD city, I didn't cry! I was made to swear I wouldn't cry. Probably because last time I was here with everyone I got really maudlin over the fact that I missed everyone.

So, congratulations to me. I managed to stay dry-eyed, even if at other times I felt odd, or out of place, or even a bit distressed (talking to advisor).

I didn't cry!

Capitalism, collaboration and Collective Intelligence

People as wise a Bill Gates have argued that capitalism is undermined by any movement to assemble a global "creative commons" that contains large bodies of scientific and cultural content

Don Tapscott, We are smarter than Me

Part of me bristles at Bill Gates's so utterly wholehearted embrace of capitalism that he would dis creative commons project just because it is collaborative. I would suggest *gasp* that capitalism is not all it's cracked up to be, and perhaps a little bit more recognition of our commonality might do the human race a whole lotta good.

But maybe it's just the traffic that makes me say that.

Let me explain. I've been bullied by people driving large vehicles for the last year, as I drive my (very) small, fuel efficient car around. Guys in big trucks like to tailgate me, which means as a defensive driver, I drop my speed in order to increase the gap between me and the person in front in order to allow enough time for the joker behind me to react without hitting me in case I have to suddenly brake. (Yes, a digression, but bear with me)

A few weeks ago in the local paper, a couple of newly transplanted Americans were complaining in the letters to the editor that Canadian pedestrians step out into crosswalks when the light is for them without looking for vehicles (that would be illegally entering the crosswalk). They said that pedestrians in American cities (their words, not mine) were more cautious (and hence less stupid?) I was confused at what the complaint was about. But being in PhD city again, I remember that as a pedestrian you take your life into your own hands here - the car rules, whether you have the right of way or not.

So what does this have to do with commonality?

Well, I think that the aggression of large trucks and the inability of drivers to stop for pedestrians stem from the same attitude. That attitude sees others in public spaces as objects, or potential obstacles in one's way. That attitude makes it easy to lose track of the fact that there are people in each of those cars, and the pedestrian wants to move through space efficiently just the same as you do. Would you not stop for a friend crossing the road? Would you tailgate the car that you knew was being driven by your mother?

It's because we so easily become overwhelmed by the number of people around us that we forget that they are people, who have the same feelings and thoughts as we do. There are so many people surrounding those of us who live in large cities that we forget that they are PEOPLE, not objects.

Capitalism also rests on the assumption that all the "agents" in the system are just that, parts of a system in which the individuality of each of those agents gets lost in the theory. Really, that's a lot of what Marx was talking about.* Collaborative creations, whether they are driven by a creative or an economic urge, can't help but remind us that we are not the only people on earth surrounded by objects or obstacles in our way. They remind us that some of those objects or obstacles are people. People who feel and think in ways eerily similar to our own (or sometimes, even more eerily, dissimilar to our own!)

There's another important part of that sentence, that I'm poignantly reminded of, having recently been in two different countries for their successive celebrations of their nations' creation. "capitalism is undermined by any movement to assemble a global "creative commons" that contains large bodies of scientific and cultural content". The global nature of our culture has been (over)stated many times before. But the kind of divisions created by nationalism - the dominant means for dividing cultures and peoples over the last few centuries - have also brought damage through misplaced patriotisms, boundary disputes, and the need to retain "sovereignty". Perhaps a reminder of our commonality, our collective intelligence, rather than divisions along national (or even ethnic) lines could do us a lot of good.

I realize that this blog post borders on the lines of... what, flights of fantasy? Some might accuse me of Pollyannism. Fair enough. But we've tried intellectual property rights, increasing copyright legislation (think DRM and P2P), nationalism, division, the spread of capitalism... perhaps its time for a new plan?

*I realize Marx was much more complex than this simple reduction, but much of his theory rests upon the assumption that people are people, not cogs in a machine.

You really can't go back...

As an optimist, I've always thought the sentiment "you can't go home again" was awfully pessimistic. Even when I moved back to the city I'd left 4 years earlier, I still retained the hope that you could indeed go home again. Sure, some of the people I had known were gone, but the city itself was still there, the restaurants that I loved, and even some new places.

But traveling back to PhD city after moving away almost 2 years ago has felt weird. Very weird. It's all recognizable. But everything has changed. Even though many of the same people are here, the relationships are all changed.

It's more than just a wall where a door used to be.

I feel like I don't belong.

And I suppose I don't. I've been so long away from all the usual activities, I suppose I shouldn't actually expect to feel like I belong. But I did. And the shock of realizing I was wrong threw me for a bit of a loop earlier this afternoon.

You CAN'T go back. Maybe it's not a bad thing. But it's definitely true.

Happy Canada Day!

Happy Canada Day! I hope you had a day that featured at least a bit of relaxation... even if you aren't Canadian!

For the first time in a long time, I did not host a Canada Day barbecue - oldest daughter did instead! What a nice feeling being able to just show up with food, then sit back and relax!

She did a fabulous job as a host, and even had some really neat games/activities planned. I know she's doing the whole run down of everything that didn't go as she envisioned it, but she did an absolutely wonderful job! Hope everyone else had as nice a day as I did!

On an unrelated note, I am heading off to meet with advisors and other smart people for the next week, so posting may be sparse... then again, it may be particularly prolific, who knows? But I will be on a different routine, so it's hard to say...