I've spent way more time analyzing the comments than addressing them

I have. I have spent more time... no, correction, probably not more - but far too much... time analyzing the comments on the r&r that is due next month than addressing them.

Part of why I say that is because the described weaknesses of the paper fall into two primary areas, both of which are actually fairly easily addressed by revision of my prose and clarification of what I'm already saying, rather than having to go do additional research or reading to add to the essay. But a bigger part of it is because the comments struck me as so bizarre.

When I opened the file with the comments, my first impression of the summary comments was of someone yelling and jumping up and down, trying desperately to get my attention when everyone within eyesight and earshot knew what was going on. No, honestly, I had the recurrent flash of vision, almost as if I could see it out the corner of my eye, or a leprechaun or midget, fists clenched, veins popping, jumping up and down in the corner, yelling "listen! listen! listen!" Not a word of a lie. It's an image that I'm having real trouble shaking as I continue to work on the comments.

And I've had these comments for two weeks now. This isn't my initial run through. I've read them again and again, trying to get over the tone of the comments to get at the substance.

I think I've gotten to the heart of the substance, and that substance is fair and a good evaluation of the weaknesses of the paper. But the tone of the thing is really, really off.

I've had harsh comments before. One of the professors in my doctoral program was well known for harsh comments on papers, and some of the harshest of those are still remembered and routinely quoted when we convene over drinks. I've also gotten comments on a few publications, including one that rejected the article entirely (which hurts of course). But neither the quotable harshness of that professor or the harsh reality that my writing didn't measure up to the journal's expectations can match the off-putting nature of these comments.

Like I said, the criticisms are legitimate, and I'm finding them useful in shaping the piece into a better essay. But the tone is strident and hyperbolic in its insistence that THIS IS A PROBLEM!

Okay, dude! You don't have to shout. I sent this article in knowing it would be peer reviewed and knowing how peer review works. I send the article, two to three people read it and evaluate its strengths/weaknesses, the editor sends it back to me, I address the weaknesses and then send it back again to the editor with an explanation of how I addressed the reader's comments. This is the way the process works. You don't need to yell at me to get me to listen to the weaknesses - I want to produce quality work that will be accepted as valuable by my peers.

But it's this question of quality work that is now making me wonder if I should not send the article back.

When I submitted to this edited volume, I checked out the editor, who seemed to be doing interesting work at a good school. And the topic of the edited collection was novel and provocative. So I submitted an abstract.

They rushed me to get the full article in, but I made the deadline and then waited. Their own deadlines for review came and went (twice), but I finally got the reviewer's comments at the end of May (the day after my conference presentation - how convenient!)

When I opened the comments, I read through, noting the strident tone, but realizing that those comments might be mitigated by more reasonably-toned second reader comments.

But there were none. I had expected at least two readers, even if they couldn't garner three, but I only got the one reader's comments, which meant that I would now have to rely on my own sense of how to tease apart tone from content, rather than being able to start by finding places where both reviewers had agreed (which is usually a good sign that those are the changes to start with!)

I also started to worry and wonder. First, I worried whether I'd gotten enough feedback to produce a quality product. But I also started to wonder about the one reviewer chosen, since he indicated in two places that he has a) not read the novel the article discusses, and b) is not an expert in the theoretical area that largely governs the reading of that novel. Then as I continued to read, it seemed that the reviewer also didn't have a clear idea of the conventions of the genre under discussion as well.

So I began to wonder: why was this reviewer chosen?

The answer seems to be either proximity or desperation.

See, one of the things about electronic editing, is that Word very nicely labels the comments entered into a document with the name of the registered user of the computer they're created on. In this case, a quick google of the name on the comments turned up a graduate student in American literature at the university where the editor works. A graduate student. Who studies American, not British literature. Whose only conference presentation I could find works in a genre and period that are both very different from mine.

Now do you see why I'm wondering if I should do the r&r?

I'm having doubts for two reasons:
1) I haven't gotten feedback from an expert in the field (or text, or genre) in which I'm writing. That means I'm really relying upon my own sense of the validity of the research. I'm a pretty junior scholar (though not as junior as my reviewer) so I know I can use the help of more senior scholars. My ego's not that big that I don't know my own weaknesses and having someone who has less experience than me give me the only feedback just makes me a wee bit nervous.
2) The editor did not/could not find someone in my field to review the paper, let alone two or three people. Which of course makes me wonder why the editor could find so few reviewers. Was it just a matter of timing? Is mine the odd-man-out and didn't fit well with the reviewers they'd lined up? Is this just sloppy editorial work? Did someone back out of reviewing?

I do realize that although the publication could be listed as peer-reviewed, it is essentially the same as a non-reviewed edited collection. So it's not going to be prestigious or count a lot toward the development of my cv. And it's not like I have a reputation to uphold. But I hope to have one at some point.

Will I be making a fatal mis-step if I let this publication go ahead? Or will the potentially inferior status of the edited collection still look better on my cv than nothing at all?

Decisions, decisions.

Keeping the momentum going

Perhaps I could say something clever about energy and buckballs, which is what this Montreal museum is modeled on, but I don't have anything clever to say.

It was only a few weeks ago, but the trip to Montreal feels like ages ago, probably mostly because it was nice and warm there most of the time while here it's been raining off and on for the month. Rain always seems to make days drag for me.

And that's part of my problem right now in keeping the momentum going - I've got lots of projects on the go, but I'm also finding the days and days of time spent mostly at home in front of my computer really drag the will to work out of me. So I've been resurrecting all those tried and true methods for keeping myself motivated when I'm the only one around. So far they're (mostly) working. Actually, they really only ever work most of the time, so I can't complain.

At the same time, the isolation of working from home is tough to deal with sometimes. Although I can have very productive days, at other times, I feel restless and uninspired in ways that don't seem to happen as often when I'm at a workplace (even if that's only part time).

My summer will be nicely broken up with one long trip (to the UK) and a few shorter ones planned, so the reward of getting to do fun things on vacation is part of that motivating strategy. But on a rainy day like today when I'm struggling to address a reader's comments on an article that needs to be revised, they seem very far away!

Relativity

I was tooling around the internets because I'm putting off doing any serious work and getting tired of filing papers that need to be filed when I came across something that stopped me for a moment.

A blogger described turning 39 and finally realizing that he/she had reached adulthood.

Hunh??

I realize my biography is a bit unusual, but I felt the full weight of adulthood somewhere in my early twenties when I realized that life was no longer a game, and the things that you did had really long term consequences. I don't mean that I first learned to really regret at that point. But I did realize that you only get one chance at this, and if you piss it away by screwing around with your life, then you have no one but yourself to blame. And then later you will regret that you pissed away your time and energy on things that didn't count (and I don't just mean careers or money; I mean people and relationships too).

To me, that's what realizing you're an adult is about. It's not about managing your own money or having your own place, or buying your first car. But it is about realizing that there's no one else in the world who has the responsibility for what you do. No one to blame or praise but yourself.

It was also in my early twenties that I realized that me screwing up could screw up other people's lives too, because none of us are isolated, even when it seems that we are, and you're responsible for thinking not only about your own life, but the lives of those people you interact with. I don't mean that you have to worry about what kind of day the grocery clerk is having. But you do have to consider how your actions will affect your family members, friends, or even your coworkers.

I'm not talking altruistic sacrifice. Just an awareness that every action you take has a ripple effect in the world. Some of those ripples are small, but some can cause effects that you can't possibly anticipate. So you want to make the right choices and making the right choices includes considering that you're not the only person who those choices will affect. Sometimes the best choice will hurt other people. That's to be expected at times. But like in many other things, awareness seems to me to be an important feature of decision making. You make the tough choices, but make them as fully aware of the consequences as you can.

So I was surprised that someone who has been around for several decades already felt the revelation of adulthood at 39. And now I'm curious. What does his/her biography look like that we might come to the same understanding at such radically different ages in our lives?

Maybe I just misunderstood. Maybe the revelation of adulthood was something that I have yet to understand. Maybe I've just been playing at adulthood all along and I'm a little slow on the game and will reach the same stage soon (hopefully). Perhaps my understanding of adulthood is different or not quite complete and I haven't really "got" it yet.

But this little story also made me realize how very different life is for every one of us. It reminded me that my story is not yours; and yours is not mine. And if I'm going to understand your story, I need to listen to it without trying to impose mine on it. Food for thought.

Anyone up for a bonfire?

I sorted through the drafts, and drafts, and drafts! of the dissertation today. Now I have a big pile of paper that I can either recycle or burn.

Good thing we just reworked our patio and firepit. If you bring the marshmallows, I have the fuel!

Two forward, one back... or is it one forward and two back?

Alien on a street corner. Yup, that feels about right these days.

To say that things feel weird since the defense would be accurate and yet doesn't quite capture what life feels like these days. It's weird as in not normal but not weird as in alien. And that's got me feeling a bit off.

See, when I look at life, I'm doing the same kind of stuff I was doing before the defense. I'm still writing conference papers and planning syllabi (which is usual between-semester activity). But without that big project in the background, I feel a bit directionless.

I know, I know. Everyone says how lucky and nice it is to have the luxury of not having that big project hanging over my head. And I should be happy that I have time to figure out what I want to do in the next big project.

It should be a luxurious time to just read whatever I want and think about what kinds of things I'd like to do next. But it hasn't felt like that, and I think I finally figured out why today. I packed up my work office this afternoon - in the move from f/t back to p/t, I'll have to move from a solo to a shared office. That left me a little down - nothing serious - just a little sad at what feels like a step backwards.

And I think that's why I've felt so rudderless after the defense. I finish this big huge project, and what happens? I move a step back. The first thing after the defense and I'm sliding two steps back instead of moving forward. And that makes me wonder if that's somehow indicative of the kind of progress (or lack thereof) that I'll make now that I'm on my own.

I mean, I don't really wonder. But it does seem terribly ironic that I work fulltime and defend in one year, then the best I can manage is a part time position and no idea what project I want to undertake next. When you put it that way, it sure feels like a seismic shift, a sliding backward, that I don't really believe is a portent of things to come. But somewhere in my guts, there's an uneasy feeling of discomfort with the situation. That's not making me happy.

Of course, all this rain isn't helping either - it's June for crying out loud! Where's the sun?

Why does it have to be this way?

So the conference paper is mostly written. It needs some tweaking because it's probably 2-3 minutes too long, and I don't doubt that there are some sentences that I'll discover are awkward once I read them aloud.

But it was so hard to get it put together!

I knew what I wanted to say, and as I indicated before, it was actually easier than what I thought I was trying to argue, but it still was a struggle to get it together. I had a terrible time forcing myself to work through the material.

So even though it's done and that's good, I ask you, why does it have to be so hard??

Well now I'm just confused

So the conference paper went well and I had time to do some additional revision work on an article that I sent off to a new publication source. Let's hope they're either interested, or at least send back some useful reviewers reports. The confusion I'm experiencing isn't related to the work completed, but to what's to come.

So the conference paper and revision week were last week where I 1) presented the conference paper, 2) revised an article and sent it out before the deadline for the special topic issue, and 3) drafted a conference paper proposal.

As I indicated in the first paragraph, the first two tasks were accomplished in reasonable style and timeliness. The third - the conference paper proposal - was slow in coming together and I was struggling with the wording really badly the one evening while I was there.

So instead of struggling through - which is the strategy I tend to first when I encounter trouble with writing - I left the abstract and went to bed. That was a good thing, it turned out. The next morning I awoke to an email invitation to submit to another conference. An invitation! That's kinda cool. Yes, it was an invitation to a conference that my university is hosting, which means they were just looking for someone nearby. But that conversation with one of the members of the department (who happens to be on the conference committee) the other week paid off. When they needed someone to round out a panel, my name came up, all as a direct result of just chatting with someone about the work I was doing.

So I submitted to the home university conference rather than far-away-and-in-a-different-country conference. Which is all kinds of nice.

What I'm confused about though is what happened when I got home.

I knew that I would spend most of June on an R&R (which came via email later on the day of my conference presentation) and on the conference paper for the July conference. But a weird thing happened between my submission of the abstract and getting the time (now) to write it.

See, I thought the paper proposal I'd sent in was about literary representations of nanotechnology. That's what has been in the back of my mind every time I would think of the conference over the last several months. But yesterday I pulled out the actual abstract I sent. It was about autonomy and identity in literary representations of future technologies. Not quite the same.

I can talk about nanotech in this paper if I wish, but given the scope I laid out when I first proposed the paper, there's little to no need to go into any detail about nanotech.

In some ways, this makes the paper an easier one to write because I don't have to do as much reading (and re-reading) as I thought I'd have to.

But I'm having a terrible time adjusting to the new topic. It's thrown me for a bit of a loop, frankly; hence, the confusion. I'm just not sure where to begin. I know I'll find it, but right now, it's just not coming to me.

What I can't figure out is why I was so terribly sure I was going to have to read Feynman and Sargent and a bunch of other stuff on nanotech, when I didn't originally propose that, and what I did propose is a far better topic for me to try to tackle. Odd.

Better than expected, yet weird

The conference paper went over better than I expected it to - I really had expected to be challenged about my work, and although I saw a few puzzled faces, there were also a few smiles, and the questions/comments after were encouraging. One other presenter said he liked my style, which was pretty nice to hear since style is something that I've struggled with developing over the last few years.

It has also been weird being here. I found myself contemplating going to the graduate caucus meeting two days ago, then realized that I was no longer a graduate student. So those concerns, although still important, are not directly my concerns anymore.

That felt weird.

And I still find myself gravitating toward talking to graduate students at meet and greets and those kinds of things. Part of that is because graduate students are usually more open to complete strangers approaching them and they attend these things without having an already built-in network of buddies to hang out with.

It means I meet interesting, new people. But unless we both show up at the same conference a few years in a row, it usually doesn't amount to an ongoing connection. Not that those kinds of professional connections will actually be useful. None of us as grad students (or now as a newly doctored but untenured underemployed sessional) have any power in this game. So connections are comfortable, but their networking power will only emerge several years down the road.

There's a sizeable contingent here from my alma mater, and they are all quite intent on sticking to themselves, which unfortunately means that the people who I know from previous encounters don't seem interested in expanding their circle at this conference. So I find others to talk to.

I've talked to some very interesting people, including an international scholar whose name is the same as a very famous actor and who consequently has even better stories than mine about border crossing guard questions. It's been a productive conference so far and the bigger meet and greet is tonight, so I'm interested in meeting other new people as well.

But it will be nice to get back home again, as always.

End of May RBOC

In the last week:

• three weeks after the defense and I finally feel fairly normal again. Not that this will last long (see bullet #4)
• we doubled the size of our patio this weekend by pulling up part of the lawn and installing flagstones. It happened without any major glitches and looks great! There are a couple of hours of additional work that should still be done, mostly because by Monday I was too sore to keep going, but we've just effectively doubled the usable space, which will be really nice this summer.
• youngest daughter is graduating this week! She's pretty happy with the state of affairs, as are we, though it's really hard to believe that she's going to be finished soon! When did I get this old?
  
• I head off to a conference just after youngest daughter's grad. Due to inattention on my part (I booked the flight during a particularly hectic point in the semester), I am flying red-eye to the east coast a mere 3 hours after the grad banquet. Also, I don't sleep well on planes at all, so it's not going to be a pretty arrival. Luckily, I don't present till the second day, which is better than the time I spent the night on the Toronto airport floor and then presented later that morning. Don't want to do that again!
• the paper that I'm delivering came together unlike any paper I've ever written before. It seemed easy, which of course scares me a bit because I suspect it seemed easy only because it's simple-minded. But I felt like I really knew what I wanted to do and just pulled it all together. There was some flailing as I mentioned before, but it was actually much shorter-lived than usual, and I'm inexplicably impressed with the state of the paper. I guess I'll have to see what audience reaction is like to find out if I indeed nailed it, or missed the boat entirely!

So that's what's going on in our neck of the woods. It'll be nice to see June roll around since April and May have seemed really full of activity!

Flailing

After blogging about my excitement about being a doctor now, I'm mired in a mess of writing that feels just like it did when I wasn't yet a doctor. How's that for a shower of cold water on that delight?

The flailing around in this writing project is a bit urgent. The paper needs to be delivered next Saturday at a conference, and I have several meetings, small projects and travel that have to also happen before then. So I've got a little less than a week to turn that flailing in the muck of this draft (very drafty!) into an elegant swan dive (or perhaps just a dog paddle....) [Yes, the metaphor is breaking down]

The time frame makes me a bit anxious in the way that flailing within a dissertation chapter didn't because the time frames there, even though I set many deadlines, were a bit more flexible.

But the great thing about that long and drawn out process of writing (and completing! hehe) a dissertation is that it taught me that the flailing seems to be a necessary part of the process. (At least, it's necessary for me. Perhaps there are people out there who don't flail/just write, but I'm not one of them.) So I know it won't last. If I keep typing/erasing/retyping, and re-reading, and thinking (usually by wandering around the house muttering to myself), I'll get it pulled together.

Knowing I'll do it doesn't make the discomfort of flailing any easier though....

Still tickling my fancy

It's now been two weeks since I passed the defense and officially became a doctor. It still does not fail to delight me to be reminded of that.

I know it'll get old after a while, but right now, hearing someone call me doctor always puts a smile on my face. Can't help it - I'm just so tickled by the fact that it's finally finished!

What know they of cricket who only cricket know?

wrote the great West Indian Marxist CLR James.

Good, Bad and Ugly

THE GOOD:
... is that I have a section of the new GenEd course that I'm going to teach (and am very psyched about) as well as a section of the survey course for fall (whoopee! Got my first choice!). A third course would be good because then I would be able to keep my benefits but we'll see what happens. I might get the poetry survey, since the chair and I figured out it would work nicely into my schedule and it may need to be covered. Two new preps and one second-go-round (which means I'll be revising the course outline), but that's a nice load.

THE BAD:
... is that because of the ugly below, I am all out of sorts today and only just beginning to get my head back into the space it needs to be for the dissertation defense in three short days! I know I can get back into it, but it's a bit disturbing how little concentration I've been able to harness over the last several days.

THE UGLY:
... is the 26cm of snow we got overnight on Thursday (that's almost a foot for you non-metric people). I had an exam at 8am that morning. I left the house at 6am for what is usually a 25 minute drive and yet I was over an hour late for the exam AND had to abandon the car on the side of the road.

This picture was actually taken a few kms from my house but several hours later. When I was leaving the house, the snow was much, much deeper. I dug myself out twice on the way, but the third time, I just couldn't get out and had to abandon the car for the bus. Little did I know that road closures meant the bus stop I was waiting at wasn't going to be serviced. I'm grateful to the good samaritan neighbour who told me the buses weren't getting through and drove me the kilometer to a place where I could catch one!

I managed to get someone else to start the exam, but it still started an hour late, so some students had to leave at the scheduled end time, which meant I spent the rest of Thursday arranging an alternate writing day/time for those students. The last of them finished the exam this morning. So for the last three days, it's just felt like one loooong exam. Very tiring.

Weird part is, it's been gorgeous since then and there's only the tiniest of snowbanks left. Very little proof of the madness that was Thursday morning.

Involuntary changes

This year has been an exciting and interesting year at work with the temporary full-time position I've had. I've learned a huge amount during the year, had some great conversations and gotten a really good idea of what it will be like to be an assistant professor.

But I had harboured a hope that this would be the first step to a more permanent position or at least a first year that would lead in to a second and then perhaps on to something more stable.

Unfortunately, that didn't happen. I will finish off this year and then go back (hopefully) to a part-time position. Which really feels like a bit of a step back. When I first realized my secret hope of progress wasn't going to pan out, I got really bummed. But I've been coming to grips with it, and most of the time, I'm okay with this change of plan. I realize that I shouldn't think of it as a step back. It's just something different.

I'm doing okay with that for the most part. But the hardest part is attending meetings. I can participate in planning, but every conversation like that reminds me that I won't be part of those same kinds of decisions next year. And that's not my choice. Sometimes that's tough.

The Old and the New (and the Dead I suppose)

I recently marked two student papers on Dylan Thomas's "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" (1951) and in re-reading the poem myself, I was struck in both cases at the sheer skill and beauty that Thomas employs in this villanelle, one of the more challenging poetic forms to use.

DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rage at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Dylan Thomas 1951

I was reminded of the poem and its expertly conveyed sentiments when I was later listening to Great Bit Sea's "Here and Now" (2007) which parrots Thomas's line about raging against the dying of the light. Of course poor or substandard song lyrics can be sometimes partly rescued by a great sound track, and I do like the one that Here and Now is set to. But when looking at the lyrics more closely, I was surprised at how poor a job those boys from Newfoundland do at capturing the sense of passing time that Thomas captures so well.

Here and Now

The sun must set to rise
The light will leave your eyes again
Then breaking like morning's dawn
Does summer feel the winter come

The hardest part of life
Is to live while you're alive my friend
So sing an unwritten song
Or repent for the deeds you left undone

This is Here
This is Now
It's the moment that we live for
And we just can't live without
It's all clear to me now
We've already started dying
And our time is running out
Oh, Right Now

Time is ours to steal
She's a secret to reveal my friend
And when your children have all grown
You'll wait by the window
And wish them all back home

Walk a little further off the beaten path
And we'll drive on even if we get there last
Our backs against the wall
And we will lunge and bite
And we'll rage, rage, rage
against the dying of the light

Great Big Sea 2007

Don't know that I had anything profound to say about the two - just that I was struck by the difference. Perhaps my appreciation of the Thomas poem is simply because I've been writing about zombies lately, and the sentiment to "lunge and bite" or to "live while you're alive" just seems to cliched to really express the agony of a death that comes too early or unexpected. Maybe it's just because I'm just an old, crusty English prof. Maybe I'm just tired. Who knows?

Doctoral sabbatical?

So at places that offer them, professors get a sabbatical once every, what, 6, 7 years, right?

I began doctoral work in 2002.

I'm just saying...

Classes are over!!

I have not met the end of a semester with such relief in a long time. But come to think of it, last time I was so relieved to see the end of a semester was one where I was also teaching 4 classes. I suppose that tells me that 4's my limit.

Note to self: 3-3 would be ideal; 4-4 manageable (but you will be exhausted come April).

There's a huge stack of marking sitting on my desk, but it's my work desk. I deliberately brought none home this weekend. I figured with the yard in desperate need of springtime attention, two social functions (one full day one) and an R&R that needs to be completed in the next couple of weeks, I had more than enough to worry about.

And it's immensely satisfying to not even have the marking hanging around. Of course it will greet me Monday morning - four large piles of marking sitting right there, front and center when I open the office door - but it's really nice to have left it and to not have it hanging over me for two days.

Hmmm. Must remember how good this feels and have grading-free weekends more often.

Here and There

The "here" being blogging and the "there" being facebooking, I feel like I'm neither here nor there these days. When the productivity on this blog fell off, I thought it was due to facebook. Which to some extent it probably was.

But I've realized also that I was far more prolific a blog writer when I was in the researching/reading stages of comps and dissertation than when I was writing my material up. So maybe it's just that spending days writing - editing - writing has meant I have less energy for the blog writing.

I suppose we shall see, since I submitted the final version of the dissertation last week. Now I just need to wait will the defense rolls around.

Sure, I need to write up something to present during the defense, but I've pretty much chosen what I want to present and moulded it to fit the allotted time. So it really just needs tweaking.

At the same time however, I am experiencing a convergence of previous work - some of it older (i.e. pre-doctoral research that I'm continuing to work on) and some of it coming out of side projects I've inevitably undertaken during the doctoral work. What this means is that I have two pieces of published writing to undertake - one R&R and one revision of a conference paper to article length for consideration. Both have looming deadlines.

There's also the matter of two more conference papers to write up. One is an exploration of a side note in a dissertation chapter, so the foundation is there. The other consists of applying some of the arguments I made in the dissertation to a new area/set of texts. So both are material I've worked with, but pretty significantly modified for a new venue/purpose, which means there's a good bit of work to do there yet.

What I'm saying is that now that I'm not writing the dissertation, I may have more time/inclination for blogging. But then again, I've got enough other writing to do that I won't clear off my plate till mid July, that it might not make a difference.

We'll see. I suppose.

Never Ceases to Amaze

I've experienced this before (and probably blogged it before as well), but there's this strange moment as a developing scholar when you read something you wrote and think, "who wrote that?" with a sense of admiration only to remember that you did. It still blows me away.

(You'll just have to take my word for it that I'm erudite in print. This blog certainly does not indicate that I'm even competent with the language, let alone proficient)

Moments like that never cease to amaze me, but they also make me realize that all the years of training, and all the hours spent thinking, writing, revising, were actually doing something other than just taking time. I haven't been working for years just to reach a goal - PhD - but I've also been developing a vocabulary and academic style that really is different from everyday speech.

It's a strange skill to develop (and mine is by no means WELL developed), but I guess it's one that I'm on my way to having.

Cool.

Busy days ahead

I've got a dissertation date set. Which is very good news.

It also means I've got an awful lot of work to do before the end of April. There are revisions that need to be made in order to get the final version to the committee in time to read before that date. That's the first thing on the list. The good news is that I'm almost finished those revisions.

Through misfortunate timing, I also have a conference paper that I'm presenting next week. It was modified from an article I had been working on, so I got it into pretty good shape during Reading Break. But it still needs some trimming and shaping, which I suspect will need to be done on the plane.

I know people who do that. But I've never had enough confidence in my ability to get something done on such a short schedule to try it. Guess there's a first time for everything!

Wish me luck...!

Does Anyone Actually Watch Survivor Anymore?

Welcome to Rejection Row

I'd like to say I've been feeling like I'm on a roller-coaster, you know, up and down. Because there are days when I feel like I'm up and then down.

But if I was on a roller-coaster, it would be one that's really, really close to the ground. Disappointments seem to abound in my life these days and it's starting to get hard to ignore.

A few weeks ago, the tt-position I had applied for as an internal candidate (and which I figured I had at least a good shot at) was cancelled because of budget cuts. Then the full-time temp position that the department would normally offer (same position I'm in this year) was also cut for the same reason. So I've got part-time work at best next year.

Being resourceful, I started talking about teaching another course for another department. When I spoke to the coordinator last week, he suggested they would definitely need people. Now it's not clear that they will have as many sections of the class (again, the budget) so there are fewer to go around. Which of course means that if you only have enough for current faculty, you won't hire any new ones.

Bummer.

In the meantime, I'm thinking I need a plan B and I need to do as much networking as possible. So I make contact with some people I've done contract work with in the past, reminding them that I'm still around, available, pleasant to work with etc. So that's all to the good.

As part of the networking plan, I register to be considered as a volunteer board member for local non-profits. And I get a call from a place. I'm a little puzzled because although they say they want someone in education, they seem to cater more to K-12. I tell them this. They say, that's okay, we think you'll be good. So I forward my resume and wait for a call for an interview. Then they call and say, no, actually we will go with someone in K-12.

So why did you tell me otherwise first?

And I'm still waiting after two weeks for my committee to agree on a defense date. And I can't get an answer.

Awfully frustrating...

Edited to add: Just after posting this, I got a call from a colleague about some freelance work, so maybe my networking hasn't all been a waste. Then I finally heard this morning from my committee and we've set a date! Nice that things at least aren't all bleak.

Convergences

Earlier this week I had two students in two very different classes mention the same film on the same day. That was a bit weird.

But then I started thinking about it and the more I thought about it the less weird it got. The film was The Invention of Lying. One class was a technical writing class where we were talking about ethics and technical writing. The other was a literature class in which we were talking about Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest.

Seems to me that ethics, wit and lying probably do have a good bit in common after all.

So much time - so few words

Lots of things going on in the last month. Some good. Some not so great.

The highlights are that the dissertation is on track to be complete in another month or so. That's great news. But it means a whole lotta work in the next little while.

The lowlight then I guess is that the provincial budget means we need to cut our budget at the school I'm working at. That means I now have no idea what kind of work I'll do next year. That's not so great news.

I have yet to decide the fate of this blog. I have enjoyed it so much in the past - it's just been so terribly busy lately and I've been so unhappy about the job situation that I haven't had the motivation. But I'm feeling better about it now, so perhaps now's the time to revive it.

Struggle... wait... struggle... wait

Struggling through dissertation revisions.

This whole doctoral degree thing-y has sure been a long haul. Most of the time it hasn't felt bad, but the last half year has been extremely frustrating.

Part of that frustration is my difficulty in making sense of what I'm trying to say. So the revisions continue, ad infinitum it seems, and I see the product of those labours. But they're labours nonetheless.

Most of my frustration comes from the slow pace at which I'm getting chapter revision suggestions however. One reader was fabulously quick. Another surprisingly slow. And another (not unsurprisingly) even slower yet. Which means we're going on six months of waiting.

Did I mention I'm not good at waiting?

The auto industry puzzling? Naaah...

Question: Why is it that car commercials these days seem to focus almost exclusively on gadgets? You can change the colour of your cupholders, talk to your CD player to choose which song to listen to, or call someone by pressing buttons on your steering wheel.

All wonderful little things.

But why are these the main selling points in ads today? What happened to discussions of fuel efficiency or safety or even cost? The primary purpose of the automobile is still its mobility, no? So why is it the perks that suddenly seem more important?

Holiday leftovers

Usually holiday leftovers consist of turkey and stuffing, but in my case, the leftovers consist of editing work that needs to be done.

I finally have feedback from one of my readers at least and can begin editing the dissertation draft in earnest. But I've been away from it for so long that it seems almost unreal to return to it. Remembering what I was doing is a task that seems to be much more difficult than it should be.

But the holidays were good and the end of last term (and December more generally) seemed hectic, so it was good to relax and do very little writing. But now it is time to get back to it. I'm still waiting for one reader's comments, but idealistically, I'm hoping that a full edit before those comments might make them more manageable, and might actually anticipate some of those final comments.

Here's to a new year and the hope that I'll add three letters to the end of my name!

Happy Holidays!

Even if your holidays are a mixed-bag of events and activities like mine, I hope that you enjoy yours as much as I do mine! Merry Christmas.

Whoa!

What a roller coaster of a few weeks it's been.

Thing is, it's been busy, busy, but not exciting, exciting. Well, maybe, annoying, annoying. But that's another story for another day (I don't think I can blog about the elearning job till it's over or my head will pop off. Let's just say I'm seriously considering quitting)

But academia went off the rails last month. Part of this was because this term I agreed first to a book review (easy, right?) but then to submit a paper to a collection. The article for the collection was one I'd been really stoked about earlier this year and then it seemed to have dried up, so when the opportunity came to resurrect it, I was excited! But it meant a lot of work at the end of the semester. Not really stress-inducing (that was the elearning stuff), but a lot of extra work.

On top of that, I had to head back to grad institution for a weekend in order to keep my student visa active. I made the most of my time there, but I really could've much better used that weekend to write the book review!

So I'm finally at the end of the semester. The review is still in pieces but the article is submitted. The last exam was on Saturday, so it's graded and final grades are calculated. They just need to be entered into the system.

But then the syllabi need to be written. And in a pique of frustration at both my introductory comp and tech writing texts, I changed them both for this upcoming term. BOTH! What WAS I thinking??

And I've got a new prep, with majors.

I am my own worse enemy.

So that dearth of posts lately? It will either continue because I'm working like a madwoman. Or I'll post more because I'm burying my head in the sand about just how much work needs to happen over the break. Which it will be remains to be seen...

Teaching Collaboration

I know it might sound remiss to suggest that I've not really collaborated with others in teaching before, but I think it's nonetheless fair to say that I haven't done much collaboration before.

I did receive teacher training in the introductory writing course that I was required to teach in my first year of the doctoral program, however it wasn't what I'd call collaboration as much as instruction. We did compare papers and did some group marking, but it wasn't collaborative in the way that everyone contributed equally to the process.

Over this last week, I had the opportunity to talk about tech writing with another instructor. I've always felt like my course is a bit different from others because I don't require the students to write a resume. Just about every tech writing textbook I've ever reviewed includes a chapter on resume writing, and I never really could figure out how I justify the writing of one to be an academic enterprise since there are so many other people out there willing to teach the skill. (I also have come to realize that my experience working in HR means that I often disagree with a lot of the advice that floats around out there, so I wonder if I would do the genre justice.)

But the other tech writing instructor told me she uses the resume as a way of starting to talk about the report project. I hadn't thought of using that way before. But it makes some sense. I don't know that I'm convinced that I should incorporate resume writing into my course, but I can see a use for them that I never have before.

I was excited about talking with another colleague who said she was teaching the Brit lit II course for the first time this coming semester. She is far more comfortable in the first half of the course, while I am in the last, so it seemed absolutely beautiful to talk with each other and use each other's strengths.

Unfortunately she is no longer teaching the course, so we won't have the same incentive to collaborate, though she did give me some suggestions for the pre-1900 material, which was helpful.

All this talk of collaboration makes me wish that I was in one of those disciplines that placed a higher value on collaboration, but perhaps I'll just have to keep my eyes open for opportunities when they do emerge.
*brit lit II - different strengths

I'm tired. How tired...?

I'm so tired that words fail me.

Or, to put it another way. I've doubted my ability to perform the scholarly work that I've undertaken in the PhD more than once during the process. I don't doubt I have the academic chops to do this work anymore. But I am starting to wonder if I have the stamina...!

Whew!

RBOC: Light at the End of the Tunnel Version

Three weeks to go.

• I have six more 8 am classes to teach. Not that I don't like my 8 am class - the students are great! and they're the one group that is still mostly all working and attending. But I really hate getting up early enough to get there for that class. So it will be nice when I don't have to do that any longer.
• I've had three 'date to withdraw' conversations with students. Two will probably stay, and one is deciding. Two more who should have the conversation with me are avoiding class and email contact. Their loss.
• I am saddened and depressed by the thought that the days will continue to get shorter for another five weeks. As much as I love those loooong summer evenings, we sure do pay in the winter.
• I am attending a conference for the first time in many, many years just as a participant. It's in two weeks, and although the timing is less than ideal, I will get to see some friends and hopefully pick up the draft of my dissertation from one of my readers. That means I can see how bad the state of things are, and get cracking on revisions. Good news.
• In another three weeks, I have to finish a book review and polish off the draft of an article. The timeline's tight, but doable if nothing goes wrong. Here's hoping the pigs don't infect me!
• I'm learning to juggle! I'm really, really bad at it right now. I can only manage a couple of passes with two balls without losing them. But it's kinda neat, and I'm sure with practice, I'll get much better at it. Who says you can't teach old dogs new tricks?

Joy of Teaching #16

One of the best things about teaching are the conversations you have with students who have made a conscious decision to attend.

The students I'm talking about are usually a little older (but sometimes only a year or two out of high school). They usually haven't tried something else and are now in their plan B position, but sometimes they are.

The students I'm talking about are the ones who are absolutely delighted with the idea of learning. They have decided to attend school for deliberate reasons (which do not involve 'getting a job' or 'making money') and they know what they want: an education.

I've had several of these students before, but this semester I have one who is eager to learn (but with enough wisdom not to monopolize classtime like some eager-beavers).

That's why it almost broke my heart to grade this student's last paper at a 'C' level because it failed to properly cite sources. It was a brilliant paper, well-written, nicely balancing the different tasks assigned for the paper. But it totally blew the citations. So I had to grade it down.

I hated it, but I couldn't in good conscience give it a higher mark with citation problems. Then I'd have to let everyone slide a bit, and then they'd never think it was important. And it is. I'm not just towing the party line on this one - I think citation is critical to academic work. So I lowered the grade.

The student got it. Although disappointed with the mark, the student told me it was a mistake that would not be repeated, which is a kind of learning I suppose. I hated that it came with such a high price tag - an 'A' paper earning a 'C' grade - but it was a lesson learned. And sometimes those tough lessons are the ones that stick with us. But it was a hard grade to assign.

The student? Absolutely engaged, eager to learn, and understanding that sometimes the mistakes we make cannot be overlooked and they have to hurt in order to be remembered. A student like that is one of them that makes teaching worthwhile, knowing that what you are saying and doing is not just interpreted as 'what the teacher wants' but 'what the expert says I need to do'.

Perhaps I enjoy such students because they validate my own sense of expertise in the classroom. I admit that could very well be a big part of what joy I get from teaching such students. But I'd like to think I enjoy teaching them because they get why I do what I do in the classroom, that it's not about me, but about showing them the way to their own expertise.

The students who are there, wanting to learn, not just pass the course, are ones that bring joy to teaching and make all the other grade grubbing, complaining, plagiarizing ones worth while. Not that there are many of those, but they do drag you down, especially since they tend to come in waves...

You know what's the worst thing about grading?

We talk a lot about how much we dislike grading. I have yet to meet someone who likes that part of the job.

But the worst part about grading?

The sneaking suspicion that despite everyone else's grumbling about it, they still are able to do it faster than you. Oh, and of course they write more erudite comments than I ever seem to be able to.

I just wanted to get that off my chest.

Halfway there!

Yes, we're halfway through the semester. Even if you count exam period, you can pretty much say the semester is half over.

Unfortunately more than half of the work of the course still needs to be completed, especially when I consider the mountain of papers that will still cross my desk before it's over.

But we're halfway.

The other thing that's halfway is my job letters. Yes, I'm almost halfway through my application list.

Of course, if additional postings come up over the next few weeks, that list might grow (that would be good!), but right now I'm halfway through.

But, boy, oh boy! do those application packages take a loooong time to assemble! When every posting wants something slightly different, and each letter needs to be tailor-crafted to the school, there's a lot of time that goes into these things.

The worst part isn't the time though... it's that niggling voice in the back of your head that tells you all these hours of work will come to nothing because no one will call for an interview and you'll be scratching around for work next year.

Man! I hate that voice.

I tell it to shut up all the time, but it just. doesn't. listen.

Today it's practically shouting. I'm thinking sleep might help, but wonder if it might just invade my dreams instead.

Here's hoping it doesn't!

Being pulled in multiple directions

I haven't posted in ages.

It's not that I don't have interesting things to say... I just don't seem to have time to organize my thoughts. Or more precisely, that the only thoughts I have time to organize are the ones directed squarely at clear and measurable aims that have nothing to do with blogging.

It's been a really strange feeling over the last month to be searching for a new job at the same time that I've been trying to throw myself into my brand-new job and do really great at it! But such is the nature of the academic market. I have a ten month term job, but if I want one to follow it once this one ends, I need to start applying right now.

Strange.

At the same time, there's the rather ironic observation that I've been making that throwing myself into a full-time position has actually given me a better appreciation of the kinds of positions I'm applying for in the next academic year.

Doesn't make it any easier to keep two mindsets going at the same time. The only way I can do so is to think of my new job during the weekdays, and my potential job for next year on the evenings and weekends. But it's still a weird division that clashes in my mind occasionally (and has led to some really, really strange dreams, but that's another story!)

I am loving my new job and even survived the week in which 85 papers had to be marked and returned. (It wasn't a pretty week, but I managed it.) We have some really interesting things going on at the school which are exciting, though of course being neck-deep in the middle of the semester sometimes makes it hard to focus on them.

But I wouldn't trade this for a lighter load - I'm learning way too much about how things work to wish the experience away! Here's hoping I find a bit better balance in November so I can return to posting.

Buried

Pick your metaphor, but the long and short is that I'm buried in work and writing letters. It's all so very important, all so very demanding, and all so (just sometimes) disheartening.

I promise to emerge soon... I'm hoping later this week!?

The benefits of just sitting on it

Last year around this time, I submitted a paper proposal on the social effects of zombies in Fido to both a panel at a conference and a call for chapters in an edited volume.

It didn't get picked up. This fact took me a while to get used to - I'm only human, and no one likes rejection - but I got used to it and started brainstorming which journal might suit it. I didn't get very far in the brainstorming because it is an article that doesn' really readily fit into a single category, and really seemed best suited for a special edition (or an edited collection!)

Well, I just got an email from the people I originally proposed it to, telling me they'll be putting out a second related volume, and would I be interested in contributing to that one?

Yes. Yes, yes, yes!

So my sitting on this, trying to figure out where to place it instead actually worked out well, since now I have a venue!

(I also have a two month deadline, but at least I have a venue...!)

Maybe a little procrastination isn't so bad after all!

Best to be prepared

Apparently the University of Florida has a disaster preparedness plan for zombies!

Classroom as cave?

I don't want to become that weirdo prof with the weird quirk, but I'm rapidly on the way there I'm afraid. I'm finding this term that the first thing I do when I enter any of the classrooms that I'm teaching in this semester is to open the blinds.

It's downright cavernous.

I can only assume that the instructor before me in each case is primarily using powerpoints and that's why half the lights are always off and the blinds closed. Thing is, one of the classrooms is north-facing, so there's never any glare. I've taught in this classroom in previous terms, and I can vouch for never having to draw the blinds to show anything on the screen, even in April, when the sun is higher.

I teach with powerpoints occasionally, but I'm finding this consistent drawing of blinds confusing. Part of the reason I don't use powerpoints very frequently is because I think they are structurally limiting, and students rarely interact with either each other or me when the screen is up. Another reason is that the darkness is just too much sometimes for students who are sleep deprived. I have students who have a difficult enough time staying awake with all the lights on and a discussion going on. Turning off the lights just seems to invite them to nod off.

So if the classroom is like a cave, does that mean we're presenting our students with just the shadows? I can't help but think of Plato's cave and the shadows that are just a poor representation of reality that we mistaken for reality itself.

Doesn't that sound a bit like a powerpoint? A shadow of the reality that effective pedagogy should aim at?

The good and bad of canons

I've been thinking about canon formation a lot lately and the publication of the JIL last week has of course raised the anxiety level that I feel about the canon to higher levels. I'm taking the meaning of canon to be broad, perhaps even so broad that what I'm talking about constitutes a field, but because I also see fields as being largely constructed of texts, and acknowledge that some texts are more central to a field, I'll use the idea of canon.

So for me, the canon is the texts that you start with when embarking upon the study of a particular field. You can carve it up into larger and smaller bits, but in some ways, it is easy to see how some texts should be tackled first, while others might be read after one has an understanding of the period.

And let's face it, the canon makes it easier to put together a syllabus the first time you teach a course, because you've at least got some idea of what kinds of texts the students should encounter in your course if they're going to go on to take other courses. (This mostly applies to introductory level courses, but could be applicable at higher levels as well)

Of course, canon formation is fraught with problems, particularly because you can't include everything, and sometimes the things that get included, or even labelled as important, are there for reasons that one might (and should!) question.

So there are serious downsides to canon (or even field) formation. One of my greatest regrets in not pushing to stay in medieval studies is the loss of comfort in a fairly clearly defined canon or field. After all, the primary texts are all there (even if some have yet to be unearthed or discussed) and no more will be produced. It is also a well and clearly established field.

Now before you jump on me, I realize this is an overly simplified explanation of medieval studies and it does not do justice to the vigour and intellect in debates about what constitutes the field.

But what I would point out is that in comparison with the literature of the twentieth century, it is far easier to talk about "medieval literature" as some kind of coherent whole, even as its parts are lumped together under that label than it is to talk about the twentieth century in some ways.

For example, where does the twentieth century end? You could define the field chronologically (as many fields are) and say that the canon could include anything written between 1901 and 2000 (or 1900 and 1999 I suppose). But there's already some debate about the first decade or so of the century as to whether it is more closely related to the Victorian period in the previous century, or to the modernists in the later few decades. So where exactly do you draw the line?

One could legitimately draw it at 1901 at the beginning of the century since that coincides with Victoria's death, but that is more relevant for British twentieth century literature than American or Canadian, or Australian, or,... well, you get the idea. The first World War might be an appropriate place to begin since it involved a radical change in outlook on life, society, nationalism, technology etc. and involved many people from different parts of the globe.

You also then need to figure out where to draw the end of the century, and that's where I think things could get difficult. Certainly Y2K is a candidate and fits very nicely with the calendar, but the hype about Y2K seems in hindsight to be such a joke, that I think I might be reluctant to base the definition of the field I work in as being bookended on at least one end by a joke.

Of course part of the problem in figuring out the line that one might draw between this century and the next (assuming that even drawing lines roughly chronologically is something that we want to do) is that we have so little of the next century to work with. After all, there's only been a decade on the calendar of the twenty-first century, and I'm sure in 1909 it would've been pretty difficult to predict even two decades into the future, let alone further. So the end of the twentieth century could conceivably remain in flux for decades, barring something global and monumental enough to change prevailing ideas or attitudes toward one or more aspects of social interaction or development.

(That's just one of those really long qualified ways of saying, "I ain't got no idea")

Though I do have an idea. I've been thinking about 1989 as the actual endpoint for the twentieth century as a period. My sense generally is that there is a radical difference between the 1980s and the 1990s. Even as I say that, I realize that part of that sense of difference may simply be a by-product of my own life at that point - for most of the eighties I was a teenager while by the nineties, I was a parent and a working schlepp - but I think we can also point to some interesting changes in culture that were reflected in literature.

First, 1989 was the year the Berlin wall came down, which marked an end to a decades-old era and a real hope for the future, not just of Germany, but for world peace and all those good kinds of things. Although AIDS emerged in the early 80s, it really only caught the public's attention with a series of celebrity deaths in the early nineties. The 1990s also marked changes in the space race and consumer technologies with the personal computer becoming affordable.

In literature, it seems at once a little harder and a little easier to characterize a shift between the 1980s and the 1990s. Part of the difficulty in seeing difference is the proximity of the problem - it is always easier to categorize a literary movement from afar than from up close.* Whether this is a problem with categorization or just a reality is hard to say. But literary postmodernism, and cyberpunk as a genre, seem to have mostly died around this time, and if we think of cyberpunk not as a species of science fiction, but as the ultimate expression of a kind of postmodern sensibility in literature, then there seems to be a shift between the eighties and nineties.

I'm hesitant to try to define that shift or articulate what I see going on, partly because I think I am too close to it to see it clearly, partly because what came after will undoubtedly only become clearer as we get further and further into it, and partly because I think my personal history and transition from childhood to adulthood is caught up in much of my general sense of it.

But if you had to pin me down to say "where would you draw the line between a course in twentieth-century literature and twenty-first-century (contemporary) literature? I would say that 1989/1990 would be the place to put that boundary.

*The prognostications of writers in the late twentieth century about metafiction and experimental fiction forms, or even about the death of the physical book were made over and over and yet looking back, many have not come to pass, leading me to suggest that when you're too close to it, it's hard to make predictions about trends.

Higher Education going to the dogs

Dog earns MBA. Nope, not an Onion story.

It may not be the water cooler...

...but I did have an excellent hallway conversation this week that has me pretty excited about the possibilities.

I ran into one of the philosophers in the humanities department across the hall from us and we started talking. We shared what kind of classes we were teaching and what we liked about them, and he told me he was teaching a philosophy of science course.

Since I read some science philosophy in the course of the dissertation, I asked him a bit more about the course, and we talked for a bit about different elements and ideas within the discipline. Although the course he is teaching this term is a basic introductory course, he did indicate that they were proposing a new kind of course for next year. It would be a gen ed course called "Social Constructions of Science" and they were hoping to put it together in such a way that instructors from multiple disciplines would be able to teach it, bringing their own experiences and interests to the course.

I told him I would be very interested in seeing the instructor guide and participating in the later stages of the course development when they start shopping it around to instructors in other disciplines to see how it might work on the ground.

I would love to teach that kind of a course. Even though it isn't a literature course, I think there's a lot of room within a course like that where I could potentially show students how literature might be used to engage with questions about how we understand science. I don't teach much literature anyway, so it's not like I'd be abandoning the teaching of literature if I took on a course like it, and I'm coming to realize that I will probably be happiest in a place where I could work more as a generalist than a specialist (as long as I could still continue to research as a specialist as well).

But the point of the story is that if I hadn't made an effort to get to know this other instructor's name, and took the opportunity to chat in the hall for a few moments, I wouldn't have even heard of this potential opportunity. So even if my group isn't going as well as I'd like, there are other opportunities. I just need to keep my eyes open!

Thinking aloud

I had an interesting meeting today with a couple of other instructors at my school. I suppose you could think of it as a professor support group, though it's a bit more than that since we also talk about teaching, sharing assignments, techniques and ideas about how to keep students engaged (or even awake!)

The university I teach at has a great system of support, and these informal groupings are just one of the programs that they encourage, which is really nice, but at the same time, I feel like none of us are sure what we want to do in this group. See, the problem is, the groups are ideally supposed to be composed of someone who has been around for a while, and then maybe a couple of new people.

In that kind of configuration, the person who has been around awhile gets to hear new ideas and such, while the new people get to learn those invisible ropes that no one tells you about and the rules that aren't written down but count very importantly when evaluation time etc. comes around.

Problem is, there are two of us newbies in the group, and our one member who has been around for a while has been around as part-time faculty for all of that time. Which means that the whole learning the ropes part of the group is less useful since part-time people are kept out of some of the loops. This is partly because the hoops and loops don't apply to them, but also partly because only a few part-time people who put themselves out there and get involved in everything and anything for several years are really noticed by the department.

In all fairness, this makes sense. When I was working part-time, I saw my job as teaching and little more. I was collegial and came out for events that interested me, but I felt no obligation to do a lot of the additional duties that full-time people are expected to undertake. So there is a real divide between full and part time people. It's not an overtly hierarchical divide, but it does divide the two groups in terms of responsibility and presence around the department.

Long and the short of it is, in this group we've formed, we can talk about classroom experiences, and maybe share ideas about marking or assignments, but neither of my group members are going to give me the inside scoop on what's what around here.

Guess I'll have to hang around the water cooler instead... too bad we don't have one...

This is getting old...

I just got a notice from one of the professional associations that I belong to - I am no longer eligible for the graduate student membership rate because I've used that for seven years.

That's a long time! Granted, I began my membership when I was in my Master's program, so that isn't just the doctoral program, but that's still a really long time!

Double your fun

My city now has two universities, not just the one.

It's been a long time coming, so it's pretty cool!

Training horses

This weekend we were invited to the acreage of some friends who are starting to breed horses and during that time, we were able to observe a training session.

It was interesting to see the mixture of authority and respect that is necessary to horse training. On the one hand, the trainer has to make it clear who's in charge. By on the other hand, horses are large animals, and they are so powerful that the trainer has to have a healthy respect for that power. It results in a trainer who might use ropes, or a whip (for the sound more than touch), or a strong voice, while keeping a respectable distance from mouth and hooves.

The power of the horse needs to be respected. The trainer needs to be in charge. It's a situation that doesn't make for any easy answers. Kinda like the power dynamic between teachers and students, particularly when it comes to evaluations!

Think about it.

It's a good tired

It's been an exhausting couple of weeks (I know, I know, it's only Thursday!) This new job is simultaneously invigorating and completely draining. It's great to meet so many other like-minded - and smart! - people, but meeting so many new people at one time can be mentally tiring.

I'm in a term teaching gig, which means I have only been offered work for the next ten months. While that kind of temporariness is no different than working as a sessional (or part-timer), the full-time aspect means that I am expected to perform all the job responsibilities that a tenure-track member of the faculty is expected to do. I will also be evaluated in the same manner, and should I get a job at a university that recognizes my work here, I could apply to have my year here count toward tenure elsewhere.

What that really means is that I am essentially starting an assistant professor job, without the title (or the job permanence).

Of course, since I'm on a short term, and would love to be on a longer term, I also feel the pressure to outperform the actual assistant professors hired in the department, because they are assured of work next year. I'm not. But that's another worry I don't need to think of right now.

I knew from others that the first year is hard. But I knew it in a cognitive way, not the way that my body now knows it. I've been feeling exhausted every day, even though my college activities have usually lasted less than a full 8-hour day. The combination of wanting to make a good impression, taking in a lot of information, making a lot of decisions (e.g. benefits to sign up for), and trying to finish off the writing I wanted to do this summer has meant that I've been sleeping 8-9 hours a night and still feeling not-quite rested.

I don't doubt that things will get easier as the semester and year progress, and I'm relatively confident that even next week, when the meetings trail off and the teaching ramps up I'll feel more like I'm in my element. But right now, I'm feeling old as I toddle off to bed at least an hour earlier than usual...!

New research in epidemiology

Taking zombies seriously.

To think about

In discussing teaching philosophy statements with new colleagues today, one talked about the importance of inspiring non-majors by getting them to understand and value literature for the things it allows us do. Getting students from other disciplines to see the value in looking at things from a different perspective is one of those powerful things that literature can do.

Although I know that, and I figure that English majors know that, I guess I hadn't really thought about how the classroom is an opportunity to get non-majors to see it in the same way. Not necessarily to convert them to English majors, but so that they can use that knowledge to their benefit in their own discipline.

Interesting food for thought.

Library Clues

You know you've been writing in graduate school for a long time when the library has changed the formatting of its homepage twice in the time you've been using it.

You know you're not finding that book when the four libraries (and consortia) you belong to do not carry the book.

The allure of research

One of the things I've learned about myself over the last several years is that I have a mistaken, but nonetheless healthy, conviction that if I just do enough research, my work will write itself. Even though I know it's a fallacy, there is a small part of me that really believes that with enough research, everything will just come together effortlessly and voila! the paper will be written.

I suppose it's not so much a belief as a fervent case of wishing it were so, but it's the reason for every act of writing procrastination that I've succumbed to over the last several years.

I do know that it's false, and so the procrastination never lasts for too long, but it's a potent procrastination force nonetheless. Even now, with a good conference paper that's been invited to be turned into a longer journal article, I find myself tempted to go to the databases, to find the perfect resource that when magically applied to my paper, will turn it into solid gold!

(I'm thinking in magical metaphors because the paper is about magic, though not really about alchemy... hey, wait... No! I must resist the desire to research alchemy as an angle for the paper...)

See what I mean?

Quote of the week

I don't believe any of you have ever read PARADISE LOST, and you don't want to. That's something that you just want to take on trust. It's a classic, just as Professor Winchester says, and it meets his definition of a classic -- something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.
- Mark Twain, "The Disappearance of Literature" speech, 20 November 1900

Timeless space

Having spent the last two weeks on a few airplanes, I've come to realize that flying for more than about four hours has a very unreal quality about it, especially if you travel over more than four time zones.

You enter the aircraft, sit down, and patiently wait until allowed to leave again. You try to amuse yourself with movies, or books, or games, but you're in this strange place that has no real reference to the outside world. At 35,000 feet, the world is another place that you're no longer connected to.

And even though your body insists that it is the time that you just left, your mind knows that it must begin to abide by the rules of the time zone you'll be entering, which is sometimes a big enough gap to make you feel terribly confused. And tired. And when you're in the plane, you're not sure if you should be paying attention to your head, which says the time is what is coming up, or your body, that insists on the time that you are leaving.

It's a bit like suspended animation, only you're awake and usually bored.

Nirvana vs Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give Your Teen Spirit up

This is both delightful and disturbing at the same time.

The necessity of writing

For years as a writing teacher I've told reluctant students - usually engineers - that they need to learn to write to be successful. They don't need to do it wonderfully, but they do need to do it adequately.

This necessity has been driven home several times over the last few months. Just the other day, I read about paper written by physicists about magic (it's for an article on technology and magic in medieval literature, and in all fairness, it was about quantum physics). Now, granted, all the primary researchers were located in Spain, so English may not have been a language they could use comfortably. But even with that in mind, there were so many hyperbolic lines of the "since the dawn of time" kind, that I cringed over and over again.

In addition, several months ago I was working with a document created by engineering professionals, designed to act as a training manual. We were to convert the content of the paper version to an elearning program.

Usually, when I work with material from an SME (subject matter expert), my biggest concern is translating written text into the visual and audible forms that perform better on the web. But this time, I spent a huge amount of time rewriting the content. There were problems in the document that were so fundamental that I despaired of repairing them even.

Some sentences were so garbled that I had no idea what it was meant to convey. There were lots of sentence fragments, and some sentences that just left off mid-sentence, as if it was cut-off (though it wasn't!) Faulty parallelisms were rampant, and the document showed little evidence of editing since the topics seemed to be arranged in the order that they occurred to the writer rather than any logical arrangement.

I've always believed that comma use was highly individualistic and variable, but this document used commas in ways that were utterly baffling, as if the writer knew there were rules to using commas and they needed to be followed, but had forgotten the rules and just made them up as he/she went along.

All in all, developing the content for this elearning program was one of the most painful tasks I'd ever undertaken for this company.

In all the time I stood in front of classrooms of engineers, lecturing on the importance of good writing, my motivation was primarily to get them producing things by the end of the term that I could read without cringing. But now that I've seen the result of poor writing skills, I've got even more motivation to teach them (and other writers) how to write clearly, because after reading this training manual, I feel sorry for all the people who tried to learn from it!

The Future of the Professoriate - Extinction?

The Chronicle forum, Faculty of the Future: Leaner, Meaner, More Collaborative, Less Secure is a depressing read. Don't let the title fool you - the positive element "more collaborative" isn't a good thing - it's a survival tactic. Overall, most of the writers take a very bleak vision of the future. It's telling that the only positive view of the academy 20 years from now comes from an administrator, not faculty.

Sometimes it feels like a room of one's own can be a prison when you've got a deadline hanging over your head.

The worst part of writing?

I hate writing plot summaries.

It's a strange but true observation. I get nailed every time a reader comments on my writing that I don't provide enough plot summary of primary sources before diving into the analysis.

Gee, that's probably because I hate writing plot summaries.

Which is really bizarre, considering they really are so terribly simple. While they might not be as simple as I'm suggesting, they really are just a catalogue of important events in the narrative of the novel. And yet, I detest writing them. My drafts always have these little starred lines in them with a note to "insert plot summary here" scattered throughout them.

Why do I detest writing them? I don't know.

Sometimes I suspect it's because they seem so easy. And then I think if they're so easy, they're not very sophisticated. And perhaps I don't want to do them because I don't want to admit I can write so simply? Bizarre logic, but there you go. I just hate writing them.

Starting over... again

I really don't understand why it is so terribly hard to get a handle on each new chapter when I start it. Even in revision, I'm having trouble concentrating on the new chapter that I'm starting to edit today.

Perhaps it just has something to do with the holiday and BBQ yesterday?

Happy Canada Day!