Irony

I just misspelled "spell check"

RBOC: non-blogging edition

The reasons why blogging has (and will continue for some time) been slow:

• Quality assurance on the last online learning project is slow. And there are a lot of mistakes. As a percentage of the total volume, it's pretty good. It's just a big problem, so that percentage is high.
• My afternoon students were ready to stage a coup on Thursday, and it took all my energy to keep patient, continue answering their questions, and even maintain my usual dry humour during the class. They need to know that a C is a satisfactory mark, not a failing one, and that I will not change my grading or my policies (even if they glare at me all class as one of them did). In other words, the class will continue as I have planned it to. However, this class is at a precarious place right now because of their collective disappointment with their first assignment, and I think it will take all my energy to keep them engaged with the process. (I'm so glad spring break is only a couple more weeks away!)
• I'm trying to learn how to scuba dive. Haven't got in the water yet, just working on the required theory. But the land part of the course is long and time consuming. Necessary, but long.
• I discovered a flaw in the overall design of one of our projects today. The fix will be fairly simple, but, again, time consuming.
  
• The next project is threatening to fall behind schedule despite my superhuman designing efforts because the client is not committing to recording dates. Thing is, when they drag their feet on approval or communication and throw us off schedule, they never seem to remember it was their fault when they get the project a month late. In the interests of getting paid, you can't really point that out either.
• My birthday is coming up soon, and I have neither the time nor energy to think about what I want to do for it.
  

Micro cars

What would happen in the Smart car became the model for all other cars?

The Smorvette!













The Smaudi A3 AWD!














The Smamborghini!













The Smorsche!
















The Smorsche Targa!


















And last, but not least,














The Smerrari!


They are cute... but I wonder who would drive them!?

Length and substance

Question:

What's better? Comprehensiveness, or manageable length?

I'm trying to figure this out. The chapter I'm working on right now in its original incarnation was to focus on three novels. But I'm around the 50 page mark already and I've only really discussed one novel in depth and about half of the second one. If I polish both those off nicely, and then judiciously edit, I will be around the 60 page mark, which is about the limit a chapter should be. But I won't have discussed the third book, which I also really want to talk about.

So do I create a monster chapter? Cut one book? Change focus? Cut it up to create two chapters out of the material?

I'm not necessarily looking for an answer; more thinking aloud. Of course I'll have to ask my advisor, but I don't think we'll talk for another couple of weeks, so I'm trying to at least consider my options on my own.

Right now I'm thinking I could get away with cutting the third book, but it's also the one that I think is in some ways the most interesting of the three, and there's really been no scholarship on it (or even much on its author) so I think a reading of it could be that "new" part of the "contribution of new" insights/interpretations/material that a dissertation is supposed to make to the field.

However, it will also be the most challenging of the three since it's a very dense text that would require a lot of theorizing to tease apart, especially for an audience like mine, who have admitted they probably won't read all of the texts I'll be discussing in the dissertation.

I suppose another option, since I've got all this extra time now, is to cut the third book and then use it for a focused journal article dealing with some of the same ideas. But it's a marginal enough text that I don't know if it would be accepted by any journal, even Science Fiction Studies or Extrapolation. I also don't know what it would look like as a stand-alone argument. What if it needs the structure of this dissertation chapter for it to make sense?

Like I said, just thinking aloud...

New year, new look

Yep, you're in the right spot.

I just decided I needed a new look to the blog. I've been thinking that the dark background was a bit too dark for quite some time, but just had been reluctant to undertake the work to transfer everything.

Not to mention, I really appreciated the design provided by my good friend Duncan.

But it was time for a fresh look.

Perhaps this will even result in some fresh new thinking on fresh new posts? One can only hope...!

RBOC: New schedule blues version

• Week 3 - I finally remembered everybody's name in class today (in all fairness, it is only the fourth time we've met). I got most everyone who showed up the first day figured out by the first week, but those late addition students always give me problems.... especially since this term they all seem to be guys sporting the exact same haircut!


• I have decided that a 2-day a week teaching schedule at 8 am is far less desirable than a 3-day a week schedule at any other hour of the day.


• Spooky. I got a couple of emails from people after just thinking about them. The first was from a colleague who moderated a panel at a conference last year. She offered to provide some feedback on the conference paper since I'll be turning it into a journal article. This was months ago, and I was just wondering how I email a reminder when I received an email this weekend! Same for one of my committee members and wondering how I ask about the latest chapter, then presto! It was in my in-box the next day.


• Despite the serendipity of the events in the last bullet, no amount of thinking about others who I'm wishing to hear from (like my advisor) has turned up emails. So no super powers, just freaky coincidence!


• I discovered a new way to solve a thorny writing problem: turn it into a footnote! I was really working myself into knots trying to incorporate this one really interesting idea into the chapter and then get myself back to the larger thread of the argument. A judicious cut and paste into a footnote solved the problem so handily, I suspect I will be tempted to employ this strategy to excess even when it might not be the best idea!


• I got a paper accepted for a conference and said no. It's a long story, but mostly it's because they accepted a different proposal than what I submitted. So, no.


• I have been loving the gorgeous weather we've been having, melting all those (unusually) high piles of snow, and will miss it when we move into more seasonal temperatures over the next few days.


• I'm having troubles concentrating on the dissertation. Knowing that I have months and months of extra time to finish just feels like an embarassment of riches and I've lost the momentum I'd built up over the fall term. I'm still writing, but it's slowed down significantly. (Perhaps this means it will require less editing later? One can only hope...)


• Since I have so much extra time to finish writing this stupid thing, and since the holiday break really didn't feel like a break (nor did it feel particularly productive), I've convinced hubby to take a vacation with me in February. Warm, sandy beaches, here we come!


• The saying "it never rains but it pours" keeps running through my head anytime I think of my online work. Between Monday morning 9am and Monday morning 10am, my to-do list exploded into about five times the size it was at the earlier hour.
  


• Consequently, I feel like my brainpower is maxing out so much earlier in the day.  It used to be I could do some thinking/writing, then some teaching, then come home and do some more writing.  Now, I feel like I top out at about seven hours (on a good day) and then I have to sit and watch Dexter or hockey until I'm ready to sleep and start all over again.  What's up with that??

No matter how bad it gets...

... at least I didn't get this error message today!


(I have considered that since I'm researching monsters right now, I may be tempting fate, but I've switched to Mozilla and Safari, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed!)

In a holding pattern

Over at Quod She there's an interesting discussion on the relationship between the dissertation director and the dissertator. I've read Quod She on and off over the last year and I really value the advice and observations I've found there. This post is no different.

Dr. Virago describes a dissertation director that kept a dissertator from defending for three years in order to make the dissertation into a book. The rationale given was that it would be easier to write a "dissertation-book" as a graduate student instead of as an assistant professor whose tenure clock is already ticking. Dr. Virago suggests this strategy just hurts the student by pointing out how those three years would look different from a financial perspective as an assistant professor versus grad student but also from the social and professional perspective.

In the end, Dr. V. suggests this is an abuse of power, and in that, I would agree. If the dissertator agreed that a dissertation book was the goal of the degree, it would be one thing to extend the dissertation phase. But to impose that upon someone who perhaps just wants to get out of there seems vastly unfair. And Dr. Virago also rightly points out that if such an expectation becomes the norm, then we could end up with the situation that anyone graduating from a dissertation program is expected to already be published, rather than just graduating as a novice scholar who is ready to start publishing.

The reason this post hits home is because the aborted job market run last year has meant I won't defend till almost a year later than I'd originally planned. And in discussing the change of schedule, the idea that I would make the dissertation more book-ready was one suggestion. But I don't know that I want this dissertation to be my book.

That's not to say there's not some good material there - even publishable material. But I just don't know that as a book it works. It works as a dissertation. But I think it's too broad for a book. Right now when I look at it, I see two solid journal articles, with a possible third. The third I'm unsure of. The idea in this third discrete segment could work I think, though one of my readers has expressed doubts, so I'm going to present it at a conference this spring and see if it works in that venue.

But I've seriously begun to think about a book project that would be different from the dissertation. It has its origins in the dissertation, but just as a germ of an idea. A book that goes in the direction I'm thinking would need to go way beyond the dissertation. So much so that it would essentially be a different project.

So the suggestion (consolation?) that I can use the extra year to make the dissertation into a book is troubling. I realize at this point, fighting the delay does me no good. But it doesn't make the consolation of having time to work the dissertation into a more book-ready form any easier to take considering I'm not sold on this being a book.

Much food for thought.

Positivity

I just keep adding on the new year's resolutions... a few days late, but then again, one of my resolutions was not to increase my punctuality!*

So, the newest addition is to increase positivity in my life.

Yes, last year I took the complaint free world challenge and pulled off my band at the end of summer (it is easier in summer not to complain, isn't it?!) But I'm also realizing that hearing too much negativity also isn't good for anyone.

Now in case you accuse me of becoming a pollyanna, let me explain. I will still listen to the news, and I will still read my student evaluations, and I will still listen to my family when they want to vent.

What I am resolved to do is to eliminate the unimportant negativity - the blogs or fora or listserv messages that consist primarily of snark, complaints, or other unnecessary negativity. Yes, I'll of course listen to my family's and friends' problems - that's what family and friends are for. But listening to the complaints of strangers? Or political snark? Why do I need these things? I'm coming to realize that snark, as funny as it can sometimes be, has too much negativity just under the surface, and hearing too much of it makes me depressed. My friends and family? I can help by listening. Negative TV programs or magazine articles or online rants? Don't need me. And I don't need them.

So I'm off on an experiment to resist the temptation to snigger at snark and bask in schadenfreude and just play it straight up. Let's see what happens!

*those of you who know me IRL will appreciate how much this is not ever going to need to be on my resolutions list!

Loving literature

There's something I've been craving lately. Luckily for my thighs, it has no calories!

What I have been craving is fiction. Lots and lots of fiction. I want to stop writing and spend the next two weeks doing nothing but reading fiction.

But that feels a bit decadent. Even though I study literature, just sitting down and reading a book seems indulgent. When I was a teenager, I read all the time. I had no problem spending a whole day in my room just reading. What I read was not always the best quality - I did read an awful lot of really bad science fiction that I have since utterly forgotten. In a lot of cases, I know I read the book, I just can't remember what it was about. But the joy of sitting in my room on a Saturday just reading didn't come from what I got out of the books, but out of the activity of reading itself.

But this dissertation process has been beating the love of literature out of me, and I'm coming to the realization that if I'm going to find the motivation to keep going, I need to find that passion again. Since I teach writing and develop training for non-academic workers, that passion can't express itself in my work, so it's got to find a way out through my hobbies.

So finally, over a week into the new year, I have made a resolution. I will read at least 50 award-winning (or nominated) British novels of the last 30 years. This way, I will fulfill my desire for fiction while also staying current in my field of contemporary British literature.

This will also help me fill up the year since my dissertation defense has now been moved at least 8 months into the future. Ao the fiction is a kind of consolation for having my schedule postponed.

Endless referentiality

One of the most frustrating things about writing a dissertation, at least as you near the end of the first full draft, is the realization that what you have written in later chapters will require you to revise the arguments you put forward in earlier chapters.

I have an ever increasing file titled "Notes for editing early chapters" that I think I've actually been writing more in than the current chapter.

The good news is, all those notes will actually strengthen the rather weak arguments that I first wrote, but it's a difficult balancing act between just trying to finish a first draft, and getting distracted by all the things that I'll now need to change in the earlier chapters.

Maybe doing this over the phone was for the best

So I finally had that conversation with my advisor that was supposed to happen face to face in San Francisco. It was only half the conversation we were supposed to have - part two will be next week. I already pretty much knew what she was going to say (because there really wasn't anything else possible to say), but that doesn't make hearing it said aloud any easier. All I can hope is that part two goes better.

The life of the mind

I've been thinking a lot about literature and why those of us who work in it got into it in the first place. I've been meaning to write about literature for a while now, but I have had difficulty figuring out what to say. I think most of the difficulty has arisen from the fact that I don't actually teach literature. I keep teaching, but I have only been teaching composition lately, and there's a gap between composition and literature in the way that they are taught.

I heard a lot about the "life of the mind" at MLA and found myself contemplating its various uses. Sometimes the phrase is used facetiously, sometimes it is used in earnestness, but each time it is used, it identifies a particular way of understanding the world. It's a way that is in some ways disconnected from the world because it is focused on an abstract world of thought, and for those of us who teach and study literature, the intangible nature of reading and thinking about literature makes the disconnect from the world even more evident.

While literature may be a "mirror" of the world, it is also an escape from the world. I hold these two opposite beliefs about literature because I earnestly believe that literature is able to do both. Literature, even the most fantastical literatures like the ones I study, reflects the world in its comprehensibility. If it did not reflect the world - if it did not use the languages, ideas, values and images of the world - it would be incomprehensible. That's why even the most unreal writing, whether it's Joyce or Charles Stross, still needs to use the objects and language of the real world to tell its stories.

But literature is also an escape from the world, or if not an escape, a suspension of the lived reality of everyday life. Because regardless of how realistic the narrative, it isn't real life. The story of the book does not extend beyond its pages. Sure, a book may change the way you think about things and your attitude towards others (remember the study that said people who read fiction are better adjusted socially?) but in the end, the story ceases when you cease reading. The words are trapped within the pages, only indirectly affecting the world through the way that the affect the mind(s) of those who read them.

This is why the "life of the mind" fits so well with the "absentminded professor" stereotype. Because to engage in the life of the mind is to be engrossed in your own contemplation of that literature (or whatever else it is you study). Which means you cannot fully attend to what's outside of the mind (or the text) while doing so. (The relative difficulty in navigating hotel lobbies full of academics over the last several days at the MLA provided tangile evidence of this absent-mindedness)

This life of the mind is also invisible to observers. Because it does not involve bodily action, and because our thoughts aren't written on our bodies (probably a good thing in the long run), to those observing someone engaged in the life of the mind, it appears that person is actually *doing* nothing. Which strictly speaking is true - there is no "doing", just thinking. Of course this is why the stereotype of the absentminded professor is a negative, or at least comical one.

The relative invisibility of what we do often leads to frustration and misunderstanding as well. To those who do not engage in the "life of the mind" it can look a lot like, well, doing nothing. Particularly when one is thinking rather than reading or writing. But even in writing - the most obvious marker of output of the academic work life - the product can seem small for the amount of time that goes into it. This leads then to frustrations from academics whose families, friends, or even just the public, see their flexible schedules and relative lack of busyness as a sign that the task is somehow easy when it's not.

The "life of the mind" is also difficult to navigate for those of us who do have to regularly emerge from contemplation to attend to meals, school activities, necessary chores, caring for others, or just a myriad of other daily tasks that interrupt the thinking that characterizes the life of the mind. Sometimes it's really hard to switch gears from one to the other, and the sustained thought necessary to really engaged satisfyingly in the life of the mind can often seem a precious resource too often given away in the effort to keep the problems of the real world in check.

I'm not saying that having outside commitments and a life of the mind is impossible. In fact, having something other than contemplation in one's life would make one better at contemplating I would argue. It's the timing. When academics - usually women, and usually mothers - have others who rely upon them, the interruptions of the real world often come at inopportune times, just when we feel like we're getting somewhere with a particular idea. Of course it's certainly possible to write or read in small segments of time, but the solitude and uninterrupted quiet of a "room of one's own" can sometimes seem a luxury that far too often is not available to parents (or those caring for other dependents) in academia.

So in contemplating the life of the mind, I would add that the life of the mind can also seem luxurious. Having the time to think is a privilege that I am reminded of every time that I find a quiet time (and place) where I can engage in the "life of the mind" without fear of interruption. In that, I am lucky to be doing what I am doing, in being able to enter that abstract realm of thought in order to do my work. How privileged I am to be able to do so - now as a student for free, and hopefully one day as a professor, for pay.

When I consider all these things, the "life of the mind" seems neither facetious nor earnest but a privilege that I'm happy to be granted.