I'm Working!!! April Fools!!

So today was supposed to be a day when I could relax, grading last quarter's portfolios and projects and starting my new syllabi from bed. I don't know why the image of this "relaxing" day always had me in bed, except in years past, I used to love working in bed with all my papers and books strewn about me. But, of course, there's no rolling out of bed and into coffee and work. There's taking Tot to daycare and then there was the leak under the sink.

So Tot, who deserves a better moniker, is moving up into the next room with the big kids. I think this is a great move for him, because being with the babies had him asking for a bottle. He's done a lot of new things lately: he's talking up a storm (often too fast for us to understand); he asks for milk, which is completely new; he responds to our calls that it's time to go to bed, somewhat. Which is a great foundation for the future. So I met the lead teacher, and we talked about organic and non-GMO food preferences and all the things they do in that room. It's more structured than the toddler room. On the one hand, I think this is great. On the other hand, I'm pretty convinced by the Montessori method of having children be self-directed in a carefully-constructed environment where they can work together and teach each other, as I went to a Montessori myself (though too late for it to be pivotal) and I am also highly critical of the general educational method with the hidden curriculum that says: sit and be quiet; the teacher will tell you the answer because you can't figure it out yourself; all answers are in books rather than in direct observation and experimentation; the way to success and approbation is through docility and following orders. Though I went to a nearby Montessori's open house day pretty recently and saw Tot focus on moving beans from bowl to bowl with a spoon, AL and I have been so busy and wanting to do our own thing in the odd hours that we haven't been able to have sustained conversations about this -- or anything. (We're totally talking past each other in our discussions of whether to move, sign another lease at this place, or what.)

Anyway, Tot moving up to the new room is good in any case.

So I've got ten portfolios staring at me (out of 19 I need to do and, I think, odd projects for about 8 students in my other class), but that doesn't mean I've done a darn thing. Instead I've been on the Timesuck, a.k.a. Facebook, which I had ignored for a few months. Two important discoveries: one person who I'm not friends with anymore but who I'm still curious about (I did Zie wrong, though I didn't do it on purpose and so Zie ended the friendship, which, I admit, was too much for me and had grown into something where I felt I couldn't be myself) has finally un-privatized hir FB info. So I'm weirdly glad to see that Zie looks so happy. Part of me wants to send a message to hir just saying that for all my thoughtlessness when we were friends, I think of hir still and wish Zie the best, but on the other hand I don't want to intrude. Much worse, it looks like my favorite couple in the world may be splitting up. Since I moved to the other side of the country, I've been out of touch with a lot of people -- and this split is just terrible. I hope I'm wrong.

There's been a lot of stuff going on at work -- lots of stuff I'm not very happy about. Lots of situations that really need to be addressed, but can I address them? Should I address them? And how do I explain to a certain Dickhead that rushing to a solution for a complex problem really disappoints me, angers me, and shows me that if Zie thinks that hir students don't take open-minded inquiry seriously, then I can bloody well see why. I realize lots of people don't agree with this, but to me service is a place where I'm called upon to walk the talk -- where I'm supposed to put my thoughtful and reflective scholarly self to work on shared problems. In fact, I've been raging pissed about this recently, but my therapist helped me with all this.

Therapy is going well. I'm also putting Tot into another day of daycare so I'll get more done. I'm determined to get that article to Fave Journal for a variety of reasons. Just determined. Since I got back from that conference I've felt so isolated -- both from friends and from the exciting conversations in my field. (Hence back on FB.) I've decided that I'm going to read more scholarship and do an article swap with a great friend-colleague of mine from grad school. Truth be told, I don't want to work on these student papers or my syllabi because I really want to be working on scholarship, but obviously I'm not doing that either.

So. . .I need to get to work. Even thinking of what I should do first and everything just takes the wind out of my sails. I guess I should get to work on a syllabus or two. Actually read the teaching journal I wrote. Blech. It doesn't sound like fun at all.

Theming the Year and Trying to Get to the Truth about Workload

I don't usually do the whole theme-the-year thing that a lot of you do, but this year I think I'll try it. I'm torn between "Health" and "Peace," which roughly amount to the same thing. I want to approach various parts of my life in a healthier or more peaceful way: academic work, parenting, partnering, connecting with others. I want to be less angst-y and recognize that in some cases it really is a choice. Writing my recent short article was a great lesson for me -- instead of metaphorically grinding my teeth and generally working with a great deal of friction, I just got on with it and did it. I didn't panic, didn't worry anxiously that the editors wouldn't like it or that I sucked or anything. I just worked and got it done. I think that this is how I got the dissertation done on my best days, but it's hard to remember that when those days were interspersed with angsty, procrastination-filled days when I couldn't sit still and settle down into the work. That anxiety often gets in my way. And so often it's about the future, which I can't control anyway.

Then there's my actual physical health, by which I mean that I need to get some exercise, especially since I eat pretty well -- probably too much, but I eat tons of veggies due to my winter CSA. I'd also like to get a handle on my finances, which I've got a plan for.

But what I've been thinking about for the last few days is really marking how many hours a day I'm working. I have this general sense that because I only go to campus three days a week (typical for my university with all the commuting professors) I'm not really working enough. And then I have this inferiority complex and try to take on too much. I really do too much service, probably, but most of it is stuff I really believe in so much it would hurt for me to leave it alone. (Some things are using skills and interests that only I have, you see.) But though I was having a really hard time getting my syllabi done when I was sitting in my office last week, I did notice that I had very little problem working on them in the in-between times this weekend. At no point this weekend did I freak out and yell: "Take care of Tot because classes start Monday and I've got to finish my syllabi GAH!!!" Not only did I just get on with it, but I didn't have to sequester myself from AL and Tot to get it done. Now, mostly I got things done when Tot was asleep. I certainly couldn't grade that way. But I also noticed that I was working a LOT of the time. I didn't take a lot of time to relax either. If I were in my office daily, there'd surely be some time when I sat there staring out of the metaphorical (not actual, though perhaps I should put a lovely picture up that I could space out to meditate on) window pondering. But instead my pondering time -- or much of it -- is when I'm doing something else -- like trying to keep Tot from killing himself by jumping off his new toddler bed. (No, he's not sleeping in it. But he likes to climb into it and say he's going "nigh nigh." I still haven't gotten him off sleeping via nursing. I've tried. He's two years old. I'm tired. I have no great excuses here. But at least I'm only torturing myself. And Lover.) So at some important point (I think actually when I started at Specialized U) I started writing down everything I did and accomplished each day (sometimes week), which has proven really helpful come annual report time. But now I think I also want to spend some time focusing on how long I spend as well to see whether my fears of underworking are really founded or not. (Not that academics necessarily have to work 40 hours a week to justify themselves, but that I feel like I do radically under that, except when grading, when the figure jumps up.) It's not that I will necessarily change anything if I do find that I underwork, but I'd like to really know rather than act out of fear. Knowing the truth seems to be the first step to approaching work in a healthier way.

So I may actually keep track of my hours here on the blog. I've already done a lot of work this morning -- proofread 2 syllabi and associated material, emailed them into printing (twice because I was too tired the first time), checked work email several times, written some email back, and done some hmmphing and thinking because this colleague that I'd like to work with on a specific project thinks I want to do something different but because he's having family crises right now it's not a good time to sort it out. How long did I spend on all that? At least two hours. So that's a good start to this.

Still Sick

I was going to write everything in bullets, but then I realized that everything sort of bleeds into one another, which probably means that while my life might be particularly messy, most likely it's that I'm unable to divide, organize, basically control or make sense of my life. Yes, that is definitely true. I am definitely feeling my life is happening to me, wave upon wave crashing over me. It's not a great feeling.

First and foremost, I am sick. Really sick. I'm sure I have an ear infection because I'm hearing all sorts of weird sounds in my ear. I got it from Absurdist Tot, who got his first ear infection and is on antibiotics. I am not thrilled about his being on antibiotics because of the merry-go-round of sick-antibiotics-sick that so many kids end up on (where's the preventative medicine, dammit? but I guess that's all the good nutrition we're forcing on him). Anyway, since he's on antibiotics, he's actually fine, going to his second day of daycare on Thursday. They sent home three artworks of things he was working on (I don't know how they did this, because he's fifteen months and super active) on "four" and "yellow" and when I saw them I just started bawling. His first artworks! His first lessons! I'm weepy just thinking about it. We don't do anything like this at home. I mean I point and say things and try to get him to make connections between the color red in the book and the red Elmo doll, but all this really leads to is his throwing the Elmo over the gate and trying to bite the book. I confess I haven't really done enough to try to figure out educational activities for him. Mostly he runs around and plays and eats. I'm already exhausted, have very little time to read, and have no extra money to get books on development or games. But clearly I need to at least know more about how to teach him things. I don't know. The thing I'm really trying to encourage with him right now is communication. I want him to learn more words, since he's only really got two down. But I guess it's okay that I'm not doing the same thing as the daycare.

We took him to the eye doctor because one eye looks in toward his nose, and they want him to wear glasses all day every day. I just don't think this will ever work. He likes to pull my glasses off my nose. And he can't get at them all the time. Absurdist Lover and I haven't officially discussed it yet because I'm too sick right now. I'm sick still because not only have I been doing search committee work that has had me running around and because I don't have a doctor and when I tried to find one, first the local provider list on my HMO's website was completely wrong, listing doctors at locations where the people had never heard of them. Then I called doctors in the booklet. One number was disconnected. Another was taking no more managed care patients. Two more were closed that day. Finally, one is taking new patients but schedules a meet and greet so she can explain her policies. Why do I, who already distrusts medicine in general, have a bad feeling about someone explaining her policies to me? I just want to say look: you work for me. Not the other way around. But I've got an HMO and the real plain fact of managed health care in this country is that the doctors work for the insurance companies. Anyway, I'm still sick and am going to beg her to please look in my damn ear rather than just tell me her damn policies.

There's an unbloggable situation at work concerning other people, not me, but it's completely inflamed my imposter syndrome. Now I think: are they going to remember that I wore jeans come promotion time? I swear I really think this, often freaking out about clothes and how I present myself and what the full professor who wears suits and ties everyday (and, while nice and reasonably friendly, is sort of a caricature of a professor type) must be thinking about me. I feel like I'm just not presentable. And let's face it: with bunched up snotrags in my pockets, I'm probably not. I should not be at work. Of course, the head of the committee wants us to meet again on Monday. And though I think it's important to have my voice in the mix, I think I may bow out. Everyone who sees me says I should be at home (except my colleagues on the committee, of course). OY.

What else? I pretty much have a bleak and dire outlook on everything right now. Much of our lives seems hopeless. Of course, it is February. There's a reason why February is the shortest month. But it's probably really that I'm sick and that AT's two days a week at daycare (we can barely afford that right now) end up getting taken up with committee stuff. I've been trying to get work done on my scholarly projects. But I'm now so sick I really can't do that. Today, I got a nap because AT needed a long nap after waking up early and being tortured by the eye doctor. Glasses for AT! We can't even afford to pick up my glasses, making it good that the frames are on backorder. And I'm so stupid, I didn't sign him up for vision insurance because I figured, ineptly, that what kids needs vision insurance and I was trying to save every little bit of money for our monthly living expense. Stupid stupid stupid.

I want to be one of those women who can't be defeated, like Julia Child or the women in Steel Magnolias (and what else? What else should I be watching and thinking about for inspiration??? Let me know!), but I'm thinking I'm not a strong person -- or the kind of strong I am is flexible, if at all. I want to be one of those people who are just determined and positive and optimistic when things happen, just fighters, unable to feel defeated and sorry for themselves and like the whole world is out to get them. How does one become like that? I'm thinking I need therapy or to get religion or something. Well, first, I need to get well. Except for today's nap, I haven't been able to take care of myself and sleep in. My life just doesn't allow me to do those things. I need to nurse. I need to get up with AT. Absurdist Lover does help and do a lot, but I still don't get left alone much (not to mention the one room where I could get away if AL watches AT is the bedroom, which has poor light and is very cold and without money to rectify those situations -- well, this is what I mean by everything seeming hopeless). I told AL that I want to sleep in, that I'd nurse AT, but then he could watch him and feed him yogurt, etc. We'll see what happens. I'm sure once I'm reasonably healthy, my outlook will improve. Right now, everything but AT sucks. And the poor boy has my eyes.

So my friends you can see that I'm not altogether here. Absurdist Lover is also sick, but doesn't seem to have stuff in his ear. Of course, he doesn't have insurance, since we're not married and he's unemployed, so it's good if he doesn't need antibiotics. I clearly do.

Still I recognize things could be worse, and I'm thankful they are not. I'm trying. I really am.

Aren't Fridays Supposed to Help Us Drift into the Weekend?

I'm running around like the proverbial chicken sans head -- except that my chicken is also crazy. Not only did I go over to WSF's house last night and help him move furniture and watch movies until 3am (and drink wine -- could that have anything to do with the smidgeon of headache over my right eye -- ya think?), but today I ran around, dealing with passport crap. I wouldn't considered it done exactly. Not until I have a renewed passport in my hot little hands. But the court-certified divorce decree and associated crap are on their way to Philadelphia. Cross your fingers (toes, eyes?) nothing bad happens. I triple-checked the Express envelope, but I'm still nervous.

Now I have a meeting with Ex-Advisor #1 from my backburner field. Am I just a mean-spirited person to think that E-A1 intends to beg off my Oral? And maybe my committee altogether? I just find it hard to believe that E-A1, who rarely comes to campus on Fridays, is giving up a Friday afternoon to shoot the shit with me. Well, whatever. Big steaks tonight with WSF and father. Do I have to be on my best behavior? I need a nap. There's just too much going on. Oh, and when I was on campus I got PA's notes on Chapter 4. So there are my weekend plans. I don't think this is going to be a couple hour job.

***Update***

I'm a wretch who doesn't deserve to live. There was no begging off. There was in-depth discussion about my work. There was support, encouragement, publishing ideas, invitations to keep in touch post-graduation. I totally suck.

I do think that grad school or maybe it's the culture here at Grad City U (with the accolades always seeming to go to the same people -- no, not me) makes us grad students suspicious. On the other hand, I need to go against the grain and stop expecting the worst (though not in a cultish New Age-y The Secret kind of way): despite the fact that there are people at Grad City U who do seem to get everything as if there's some kind of magnetic attraction, there are also people there who believe in my work and believe in me. And I need to learn how to better see that and stop being so goddamned defensive and wary. Though maybe not before the defense. =p

Whaaaahuh???

It appears something odd is happening. Could it really be that I finished the First Draft of the unholy beast called the Dissertation a mere fifteen days ago? That seems like an eternity of waking up, working, going to sleep, having bad dreams, waking up, working ago. But the blog says April 22 -- and the blog don't lie. Today I made it to the halfway point of the Second Draft, emailing the Intro and Chapters 1 and 2 to Peppy Advisor. (Who knew? Maybe I really will be able to revise this beast in a mere three weeks!)

SO, who has admirably put up with my headaches, stomachaches, bitching, and need for overpriced coffee since Thursday, took me out to celebrate with appetizers, salad, steak, and desserts. Now I can barely move. This, my friends, is how one attains the great graduation distinction known as Lard Ass. (SO says sexiest lard ass. What can I say? SO's on the payroll.) We also went out for steaks on Friday. And then at Graduation-Party-that-Wasn't-So-Bad-Because-I-Was-Well-Marinated-by-the-Time-It-Started, I ate two burgers without really even noticing. (It went like this. "Honey, want to share a burger with me?" "Okay, eat half and I'll eat the rest." SO turns around to be charming to yet another department bore. SO turns back to me. "Hey, what happened to that burger?" "Uhhh, what burger?") On the other hand, we did go dancing on Friday. (Today is the first day I woke up not totally sore.) Of course, my dissertating partner in crime and fellow bloggoddess Maude Lebowski ran the half-marathon. I just totally suck.

PA has already written me an email talking about being excited to read the three pieces together. Oy vey. My challenge is to be deep into the next chapter before that response comes. Also, to get organized. The next graduation weekend that will turn downtown into a damn street fair will be mine! And people are starting to call me about flight plans and dinner reservations and, of course, the inevitable when-are you-leaving?s. I have no clue. Doesn't the dissertation have to be written before I make flight plans? Apparently not. SO and I have a strict date to sit down tomorrow with many calendars and figure it all out. I used to be so organized. What happened?

Oh yeah. Dissertating.

Sharpening My Claws

Dear lord, I am just exhausted. All that work last night. I think if we're going to work from noon to 11pm, we should get overtime. What's more, Mr. Tabby decided to go ape-shit this morning, meowing and being really demanding when I wanted to sleep. Finally, after two or three hours of getting up on the dresser (bad kitty!) and meowing and freaking out and even biting me, when it was time for me to get up, he had worn himself out and was happily curled up next to me dozing. Clearly, we are on opposite timetables. When I was all ready to go this morning, of course, he woke up and came to the computer, as he usually does, and made me feel bad for leaving him alone all day. OY! I am a bad mother. That's all there is to it. But it's hard to type on the laptop when he stretches out on my arms!

So now I'm at the bagel shop. Every person who served me today was infinitely more awake than I was -- to the point it was painful to look at their sprightly selves and delighted faces. I told the last one to take it down a notch. So he did his best zombie impression and asked me what I wanted. I could almost deal with him in zombie mode. Thank god I can now type in my sleep or you'd not be getting this totally riveting post. What can I say? Do I have anything to say?

It's a rainy day when I should be in bed, and instead I'm going to be dealing with fuckwits. New proclamation: track changes and comments as a classroom response strategy to writing is evil. You, dear reader, would never do such a thing. A student in Cool Class sent me back my draft with his ideas for cuts in track changes. I protest! It just seems disrespectful to use a program that actually puts a line through my words! Though, really, if I'm totally honest, this guy couldn't do anything right -- I don't much like him. He sort of epitomizes what I hated about people in my backburner field, the one I still love but left because I didn't want to have to teach assholes like him. Maybe I'm just grumpy. Maybe I'm just reeling still from the realization that this Really Awful Person who is the Absolute Epitome of Everything I Hate (AEEIH) in my backburner field, and also in the academy more generally, is coming back to campus to speak at something I already said I'd participate in and so can't get out of without looking bad. My fellow blog goddess (blog-ess?) Maude Lebowski calls her, simply, The Bitch. (I admit, it has a nicer ring to it than AEEIH.)

Now, I know I've railed against comparing ourselves unfavorably with others who seem infinitely more productive than we are. But it's quite a different thing when those people who are more productive are also just awful people. Users of others. People whose actions demonstrate that they care little about the actual intellectual and creative work that we do in favor of publication, publication, publication. Stealing people's words. Sucking up to people to get ahead.

Okay, here's the story I trot out when I want to explain how awful she is. There's this well-published friend of mine who I see only every couple years. So she and I were IMing, and she asked if I got her note. What note? And then she proceeded to tell me how she had been at this conference and this woman from my institution came up to her and was very friendly. Knowing that I was at that institution, my friend sent a note to me through her. (The "friendly" part threw me off for a while, but then I remembered: she would be sucking up to my well-published and otherwise fabulous friend, hoping to get something out of it. And when I first met AEEIH, I thought she was friendly too.) So when I figured out that it must be AEEIH, I sent her an email, asking her about the note from the conference she had been back a month from. She replied that she lost it. Okay, maybe I just want to believe the worst about her, but if you, dear reader, were to pass a note to someone, even if you didn't like the person you were passing it to, wouldn't you at least tell them? I mean, even if you lost it, wouldn't you say something, if for no other reason because you're eventually going to be found out? (I suspect she threw it away, never having any intention of passing it to me. Fuck, how hard could it have been to slip it into my box???)

Despite all her publications and success, I wouldn't want to be her. But I wouldn't mind if her winning streak ended either. I wouldn't mind if that good luck descended on me and my friends. (The goddess Chance has been favoring me today with parking spaces and such things. Case in point: what song is playing in the bagel shop right now? That's right. You're So Vain. You probably think this blog is about you. It's not, Bitch. It's about me.)

Don't worry. I'll be polite and professional. But I won't like it. I wish I didn't know she'd be there. Now I have all week to grump about it.

In good news, my friend in my backburner field is on a campus visit. Her success makes me feel like shit sometimes too. But I don't hate her or wish bad things on her. I just keep hoping her blessedness will rub off on me.

Is it so bad that I feel better about going into this meeting with The Bitch knowing that I have this interesting two-year post-doc to lean on? Professional jealousy sucks.

***Update 9:05pm***

My, my, I was testy this morning. Sorry all. I probably should take down this post, but. . .hell, I'm dissertating. And I think it's probably good in a sort of artifactual way to show how crazy I can get when I lose perspective. Part of the reason why I am so annoyed and really threatened (I admit it) by AEEIH is because she's so successful, yet really just generally a user. And sometimes I think maybe that's what it takes to get ahead. But I don't want to be a part of that game. I don't even want to go there. But setting up "success" that way is a mindgame. AEEIH gets ahead at what exactly? Being published? Having people think she's the cat's meow? Investing so much energy in being angry at such a thing is a waste.

I also see I was mean in the post above to the student in Cool Class who sent me my writing with cuts in track changes. Now, I still think that this is not the best way to respond to writing. On the other hand, he was trying to be useful, responding to stuff I gave him. But I was totally unfair when I said that I didn't like him much. The fact is: I don't know him. I've been at Grad City U for so long, there are a lot of people I don't know. I'm no longer on the cutting edge of a department I used to be passionately involved with. In fact, I've sort of become a grande dame for a couple new people who ask me advice. But I'm on the way out, one foot out the door.

I turned in Chapter 4. One more chapter to go. And I have half of it already. I just need to explode the draft I have (which I used as shitty shite-shite writing sample), expand it, and be done with it. In 10 days.

One thing hasn't changed since this morning: I am totally exhausted. (Probably also that I'm totally boring.) But I can't go home yet. I have to pick up WSF's Poet Friend from the bus station. No, I won't hit him over the head with a shovel and then bury him. But only because I've decided that I'm not a user.

If I Don't Exist, Can I Still Be Boring?

So let's say you're an assistant professor at a college. You've been there a while, teaching, research, doing stuff. You're reasonably certain that the money that you find in your account every month (never enough) has something to do with some work thing that keeps you in the building way too long on a nearly daily basis. Then your colleagues put out a list of assistant professors in the department. According to this list, you, though you're reasonably assured that haven't dreamed up this affiliation with the department (though who can be sure?), don't exist. Somehow, your colleagues have just erased you. Don't you think that since you don't exist, you shouldn't have to show up for the rest of the semester? I mean if no one missed you on a public list of your colleagues, they'd hardly notice if you didn't show up to meetings, right?

Clearly, since I don't exist, I didn't have a terrible night last night leading the Cool Class (resistant students, not as productive and interesting as it could have been) nor am I filling in for people at the tutoring center for a staggering six hours total today.

Of course, the other way to look at not being on the list of GTAs in my department is that my colleagues already look at me as an assistant professor. But when I looked at the assistant professor list, I see that no one has bumped me up. (Or course, then I would have to find out what the deal was with my paycheck.) It's not that my colleagues are just getting the jump on fall; other GTAs from my cohort on the way out are on the list.

Last night, when I realized that I work in a department for which I don't exist, I called up WSF. Of course, the psychic link was working, and he was calling me at the same time. It turns out he's not coming back until the end of April. I don't know what to tell you. I'm just completely deflated. Crushed, really. He makes living (or whatever it is I do) in Grad City fun. All I've been doing since he's been gone is working. When I hang out with others, it's to work. Since he's been gone, there's no one (except dear sweet SO, who got an earful from me last night) for me to narrate my life to. Which must explain my total upsurge in hysterical blogging. And hysteria more broadly. I blame the existential earful (makes me think of some deep meaning to earwax) I gave my mother on WSF's absence. Also the fact that I've been processing things, like really scary but totally psychologically-obvious dreams, with my Fabulous Similarly-Neurotic Friend, going straight into her office and lying down on her couch as if she were my therapist. WSF would keep me in line. Which leads me to one inevitable conclusion and one despairing question. One, a roadtrip is in my future. (No, I'm not sure hunkajunk is up to it. Oy.) Two, what in hell am I going to do at Adventure U without him?

(Warning: boring but necessary narration of life coming up.)

So Monday, also known of the Day of Gah!s, I actually did get together with Hate-Filled Dissertating Friend (so sweet -- she brought in a printer and said nothing about the fact that though I weigh a thousand pounds while she is training for a half-marathon, I was the one who bought both a packet of nuts as well as a Twix Bar, because, of course, a Twix bar is the one candy most like food, which those of us who have found themselves roadtripping late at night know -- many a Twix Bar has passed as breakfast). We worked for an astonishing three plus hours. Amazing. I was dead tired, but still managed to pump out some free-writing drivel on Chapter 4, for which, my timelining warns, I need to have a draft in two weeks. (Roll eyes. I just can't stand it. I really want to die with PhD after my name, but come on. If I die now. . .sigh.)

Then there's the matter that I suck and cannot manage to 1. get anything done on time, and 2. manage to not fill every single slot of time so I feel totally overscheduled and hemmed in by my own damn life. If WSF were here, we'd have gone out drinking last night (with half-price appetizers after 10) and then gone to Blockbuster, where he'd have made me laugh so much that I almost peed my pants. Maybe that's what's missing. Laughing so hard I almost pee my pants.

So on the schedule today is tutoring, meeting with Incompleted Student with whom I've been alternated between being pretentious and despairing (must watch propensity to 1. dole out wisdom I don't have and couldn't follow if I had it, 2. tell him totally inappropriate things about me because I don't have WSF to confide in, and 3. tell him that the whole world is an absurdist paradise and to damn it all to hell anyway), weary tutoring, and more weary tutoring until it's too late to do anything including laundry.

I blame the fact that I am now the most boring and sleep-inducing blogger ever on the fact that WSF is gone. He would keep me on my toes. At least I'd be able to steal his best lines.

A Resolution

So it's January. A new year with new hopes, new resolve that this time things will be different. Against my will, I made a whole list of resolutions (if my friend hadn't called me and asked for my goals, I wouldn't have done it). Many are about being more organized about work, so that I can manage to send out conference proposals and work on my diss at the same time; others are about being a better friend. I've had two days where I've promised myself I'd get back to the diss and no go. Instead, I've been daydreaming about having a job and checking the Wiki. The Wiki indicates that one of my interviewers has already (!) invited people to campus. I'm not one of them.

What makes this not a catastrophic experience is this strange new sensation I have. Instead of feeling like a pretender, waiting for someone to figure out that I'm an imposter, I feel like an academic. Somehow, something has turned on inside myself; I'm ready to be an assistant professor. I'm not sure what made that happen (and let's face it, it's probably a 24-hour bug), but suddenly I feel ready to grow up out of grad school and walk new halls as an assistant professor. In a response essay some of whose main points I would take issue with elsewhere, Jeffrey J. Williams claims that "affects or feelings are a primary medium of professionalization -- part of its informal structure -- and the affects and modes of behavior that one learns, notably in grad school, tangibly make us into academics" (JAC, 160). The dissertation doesn't make me an academic, but rather the feeling of being one. It's the feelings we learn in grad school that I've been thinking a lot about.

There's a grad student in my program who is very accomplished and very talented -- also very organized. This "star" wins prizes and fellowships. Everyone I know compares themselves to her. On the market now, people are watching her; if she doesn't get a lot of interviews, others worry that they won't get jobs at all, because, they lament, they are not as good/organized/talented/smart as she is. She has become the model. She's also a friend of mine. I admit I have certainly done my share of comparing myself to her and coming up short. But inspired by Donald E. Hall's The Academic Self and his call for academics to own our academic dysfunctions, I had to own up to what I was doing. Not only did I inappropriately project my dreams onto her (her path is not my path), but I compared myself to that dream-image in a way that would always leave me feeling bad. Every disorganized and procrastinating person I know who thinks they should be more organized talks about how they should be more like their image of her, almost as if they don't deserve to be an academic otherwise. I have found myself explaining that she is not the perfect image they have made of her. She is just not all that. But I don't feel good about denigrating her achievements in order to make other people feel better.

Before break, I found myself having a conversation with a student who was talking about how he'd like to change his major but he's so far into his current major that he feels he shouldn't switch. His main reason was that he was far enough behind the people he went to school with -- and changing his major to something he liked better would get him even farther behind.

"Well," I said in my usual snarky way, "that is what life is all about -- keeping up with the people you went to high school with." And then in a demonic possession of unbelievable pretentiousness, I had the audacity to impart, as if I were some wizened sage he had climbed a mountain or two to meet: "You look one way and there are people better than you. You look the other way and there are people worse than you. Both are traps." (Oy. He was very gracious and didn't roll his eyes or anything. Let's face it -- I was talking to myself and to everyone who had ever compared herself with a "star.")

What can I say? With my pseudo-hippie parents, Desiderata was on the wall the entire time I was growing up. I passed these words a zillion times a day: If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

It's obvious that if we compare ourselves to others, especially people totally unlike ourselves in temperment or goals, we're just asking for trouble, not just making ourselves feel bad, but accepting professional values and goals that may not be what we believe in. Furthermore, the "star system" may also be bad for the stars. It's tempting to think that if we had that sense that our departments or fields loved us, then we'd do our best work. But some of us use our worry and panic to fuel our work, learning about the Job Search Wiki after sleepless nights spent at the keyboard, learning about why some liberal arts colleges might not post their jobs on MLA Job Information List, and making friends on the Chronicle Fora. Some stars may not restlessly seek out all available knowledge, content to believe those who provide such fulfilling social mirroring. Others may be terrified to be found out as less than all that. As Hall says: "Unless we find ways of taking our successes as well as our failures as less than fully accurate indicators of the sum total of our fundamental worth in this world, we will forever be driven by a fear of failure rather than a love of learning or a commitment to students" (11-12). I would add, we might also be driven by a love, even the expectation, of success.

Which is why my resolution this year to be better to my friends and myself is to not engage in or support this kind of fruitless comparing of one's self to another. We shouldn't have to tear each other down to make ourselves feel good or use other people's successes to feed our senses of ourselves as failures. No more back biting. No more self-pity. I've played with these enough during grad school. It's time to put these toys away.