Dear lord. We've been running around looking at houses -- six in two days -- and I feel like I'm neglecting everything. I'm at that point where I've had so many distractions that I really long for a time when I can sit and just focus on some. . .oh I don't know. . .grading.
But it's been a nightmare. Absurdist Child is full-on all the time. He wants to run around, he wants to explore and ask questions -- and when we're trying to look at houses, it's just quite stressful for me. I can barely hear the real estate agent's discoveries and explanations while I have to reprimand AC for basically just being himself. All this after work when I'm tired and potentially short-tempered. (I've mellowed recently.) We go to the zoo tomorrow, but really I'd like to sleep. I should sleep. Probably right now.
The real estate agent did something I don't find to be very principled. (Yes, I'm a stickler. An idealist. What can I tell you? I teach ethics now.) He tried to upsell us and wasted our time. And from that I realized that this is just super-stressful on me to try to take care of AC during these outings and I also resent the missed family and relaxation time. So we're thinking of having Absurdist Partner vet them first and then we'll bring the whole family to see the more hopeful properties. (We've seen one after another of unworkables.) I don't really feel great about that solution, like I'm copping out on the process, copping out on the work. We'll see.
Lots of work. Lots of changes afoot. My quarter isn't over, but we're near the end. You know, it's slog time. And Absurdist Child's graduation. Craziness. It is truly amazing how the days are long and the years are short. I hate to end with a cliche, but end I must.
Thursday, June 5, 2014
Monday, May 26, 2014
Conference and Career Musings
So I've been at a conference. During the run-up to this conference, like the run-up to all conferences, I didn't want to go. I started thinking about all the excuses I could manufacture to avoid going. (Certainly with the death in the family that has caused the Great Family Implosion and Ensuing War, the only place I should be on a plane to is City of My Birth. The fact that I, a decision-maker, am not there causes no end of trouble. I will have to go there when the quarter is over.) The fact is that I, who used to love to travel, hate leaving Absurdist Family. I just hate it. It leaves me fearful and shaky. I always feel this way, which is why I've gone to so few conferences recently -- none last year, for example.
And then there are conferences themselves. And I think if I'm honest and I dig through this blog, I'll find that my first posts were about going to Big Dreadful Interview Conference and hiding in my hotel room. I'm just a hider. Especially at the big conferences where I feel like I don't know anyone and everyone's on the make trying to sound smart with big words.
But today I feel pretty good about this conference because last night I presented and then our little group had our business meeting. And so I'm leaving on a high note, full of panel ideas for the future. I think I just have to make sure that I have some social element that draws me out of my shell as early in a particular conference as possible -- a real moment where I feel I can be some version of myself, not someone trying to network and all that crap that I hate. I'm writing this here for the world to help me remember. And, note to self, talking with new people is not bad. I got two great ideas/sources from a woman I sat next to at the luncheon where I knew basically no one. It was great.
Here's a more important thing I want to reflect on: when I look at my Starbucks cup recently, it says things like you need the courage to live the life you want. And when I think of the life I want, I don't think of academia, much as I love my students, sometimes, and I enjoy, sometimes, doing my scholarship. I get a more writing, homesteady picture when I think of the life I want, the life I dream of. And so I don't think of myself as very ambitious. I want tenure because without it I won't have a job. So I jump through its hoops (at first I wrote "hopes"), substitute for people on university-wide committees, am nice to people who should be flipped off (okay, I do that also because I begrudgingly admit that it's better to be a nice person than a shitheel, though not everyone at my institution seems to think so). So I want tenure and then, I think, especially at my institution where full could only come with university leadership, I'll probably be one of those people who stall at associate while I pursue writing more in line with my dreams.
So it's a strange thing to me when I'm sitting there at a business meeting and we're talking about this task we need to delegate that would help the delegatee get his/her name out there, which, of course, is part and parcel of developing that national reputation so important in going up for promotion to full. And I'm sitting there thinking, I need to do this, I need to do this. And luckily my natural reticence kept my arm down and my mouth shut. Also that it was framed as something that would be good for a new faculty member (and I'm not!!! in a few years, I'll be considered mid-career!). It occurred to me later that I don't need to take this on because a national reputation and full is not my goal. My goal is to write the various projects that I want to write, whether scholarship or otherwise. I have things I want to say in multiple venues. I don't want to be a big name in my field, however much I love some of the big names in my field. But I seem to have this amnesia about that in the moment.
So all that to say, I'm naturally ambitious. If there's a hoop ringed with fire, I'm drawn to it. This is why I have a PhD that I managed in normative time. This is why I work pretty hard and engage in so much service. This is why the only person at my institution worried about my getting tenure is me. But what I really haven't done so well is pursue my own goals. Wait, is that true? When I have a goal to learn something or do something for Absurdist Child or whatever, do I struggle? No. I think I'm really talking here about my own writing. I just don't pursue my writing goals with the same kind of driven seriousness. Part of this is low self-esteem and my own crazy-making about writing. ("I don't have the publications or connections or luck that X has. Maybe I'm just fooling myself. Maybe I don't have it. If I cared about it more, of course I'd get it done. Maybe maybe maybe.") And truth be told, I don't pursue my scholarly goals in a dogged way either, though I'm dogged about the research. I've an article I've wanted to get out since I finished my dissertation, and though I've started working on it several times, it hasn't gotten done. Yet. I don't want unfinished projects to be the story of my life. I think maybe those hoops ringed with fire are just more knowable, less scary (other people have managed them; so can I, while in contrast no one has put forth my ideas in the way I want to yet, though if I don't get going someone may beat me to the punch here).
So here's what I want to say: I get caught up in the promotion to full requirements because, assuming I make tenure, that's a tangible goal that is knowable and supported by my community. Perhaps what I need to do is try making my writing goals (all of them) more tangible and supported by my community. But I think I also need to think about the issue of knowable requirements. I know what the tangible requirements are for promotion. But what are the tangible requirements for my projects to be successful?
All this is good to think about, though summer is still a month away and that summer will be taken up with other things like putting together my tenure case (for associate -- talk about putting the cart before the horse!) and, hopefully, buying a house!
And then there are conferences themselves. And I think if I'm honest and I dig through this blog, I'll find that my first posts were about going to Big Dreadful Interview Conference and hiding in my hotel room. I'm just a hider. Especially at the big conferences where I feel like I don't know anyone and everyone's on the make trying to sound smart with big words.
But today I feel pretty good about this conference because last night I presented and then our little group had our business meeting. And so I'm leaving on a high note, full of panel ideas for the future. I think I just have to make sure that I have some social element that draws me out of my shell as early in a particular conference as possible -- a real moment where I feel I can be some version of myself, not someone trying to network and all that crap that I hate. I'm writing this here for the world to help me remember. And, note to self, talking with new people is not bad. I got two great ideas/sources from a woman I sat next to at the luncheon where I knew basically no one. It was great.
Here's a more important thing I want to reflect on: when I look at my Starbucks cup recently, it says things like you need the courage to live the life you want. And when I think of the life I want, I don't think of academia, much as I love my students, sometimes, and I enjoy, sometimes, doing my scholarship. I get a more writing, homesteady picture when I think of the life I want, the life I dream of. And so I don't think of myself as very ambitious. I want tenure because without it I won't have a job. So I jump through its hoops (at first I wrote "hopes"), substitute for people on university-wide committees, am nice to people who should be flipped off (okay, I do that also because I begrudgingly admit that it's better to be a nice person than a shitheel, though not everyone at my institution seems to think so). So I want tenure and then, I think, especially at my institution where full could only come with university leadership, I'll probably be one of those people who stall at associate while I pursue writing more in line with my dreams.
So it's a strange thing to me when I'm sitting there at a business meeting and we're talking about this task we need to delegate that would help the delegatee get his/her name out there, which, of course, is part and parcel of developing that national reputation so important in going up for promotion to full. And I'm sitting there thinking, I need to do this, I need to do this. And luckily my natural reticence kept my arm down and my mouth shut. Also that it was framed as something that would be good for a new faculty member (and I'm not!!! in a few years, I'll be considered mid-career!). It occurred to me later that I don't need to take this on because a national reputation and full is not my goal. My goal is to write the various projects that I want to write, whether scholarship or otherwise. I have things I want to say in multiple venues. I don't want to be a big name in my field, however much I love some of the big names in my field. But I seem to have this amnesia about that in the moment.
So all that to say, I'm naturally ambitious. If there's a hoop ringed with fire, I'm drawn to it. This is why I have a PhD that I managed in normative time. This is why I work pretty hard and engage in so much service. This is why the only person at my institution worried about my getting tenure is me. But what I really haven't done so well is pursue my own goals. Wait, is that true? When I have a goal to learn something or do something for Absurdist Child or whatever, do I struggle? No. I think I'm really talking here about my own writing. I just don't pursue my writing goals with the same kind of driven seriousness. Part of this is low self-esteem and my own crazy-making about writing. ("I don't have the publications or connections or luck that X has. Maybe I'm just fooling myself. Maybe I don't have it. If I cared about it more, of course I'd get it done. Maybe maybe maybe.") And truth be told, I don't pursue my scholarly goals in a dogged way either, though I'm dogged about the research. I've an article I've wanted to get out since I finished my dissertation, and though I've started working on it several times, it hasn't gotten done. Yet. I don't want unfinished projects to be the story of my life. I think maybe those hoops ringed with fire are just more knowable, less scary (other people have managed them; so can I, while in contrast no one has put forth my ideas in the way I want to yet, though if I don't get going someone may beat me to the punch here).
So here's what I want to say: I get caught up in the promotion to full requirements because, assuming I make tenure, that's a tangible goal that is knowable and supported by my community. Perhaps what I need to do is try making my writing goals (all of them) more tangible and supported by my community. But I think I also need to think about the issue of knowable requirements. I know what the tangible requirements are for promotion. But what are the tangible requirements for my projects to be successful?
All this is good to think about, though summer is still a month away and that summer will be taken up with other things like putting together my tenure case (for associate -- talk about putting the cart before the horse!) and, hopefully, buying a house!
Thursday, May 22, 2014
Catching Up: With Blogging and Myself
This time of year always makes me grumbly, as most academics on the semester system are finishing up or done and starting in on their beach reading. I envy you! I'm on the quarter system (grumble, grumble). Graduation, which I have to attend so I'm thinking about it as the end point even though I won't be done with grading by then, isn't for another month. I have stacks and stacks of grading, not summer reading with sand stuck in the binding, not mission impossible research and writing plans scented with the promise of overseas research sites and fusty libraries.
But! After that terrible winter, Spring. Sun. Warmth. Growing things on my balcony. Yes, I put in the peas too late and the chard will probably bolt, but I don't care! Somehow I'm made calm and happy just looking at my seeds coming up, all that new growth. I really think there must be some chemical released into my brain when I see them. Even though the sliding glass door. I could stare at them for hours.
Despite all the busyness, which has been intense and is dying down just as the quarter, after Memorial Day, starts working itself up to fever pitch, I've managed to be really productive in the area of conference proposals, which is something I often fall down on. (Case in point: I've done only 4-5 conferences in the last 5 years. That doesn't seem too shabby written out like that, but I can't tell you how many times I've thought I should propose something for Big Conference in My Field or Smaller Conference in My Field or Neat Small Conference in My Area only to find out that I just missed the deadline by days.) Today I'm having a difficult health day -- I woke up with a migraine -- so it's easy to be negative. (I'm so lucky it was today rather than yesterday, a big day for meetings and helping others, or tomorrow, a day I'm spending with Absurdist Child.) Actually, I've been really productive in many areas, but it never feels like enough, never feels like I've been productive when I have some of the same impossible sticky notes up on my computer day after day, week after week. Of course, some of this is just that long multi-step projects are just like that. And I know that. Some of this is just self-image based. The truth is I'm at the early stages of two incredibly stressful things that everyone in the world knows is incredibly stressful, going up for tenure and buying a house, so I must be kind to myself instead of down on myself when I don't feel good.
To help with getting more organized, I'm listening to David Allen's Getting Things Done in the car and reading Steven Covey's First Things First, incredibly slowly, at home. These, at least at the big-picture level, couldn't be more different. Allen is all about organization of tasks and projects and developing a system for all that, including his five-stage process. He often uses such business-y language that I'd forget all about it except that he talks about "stress-free" and "balanced" productivity. Since I've often used my stress and anxiety as the motivation and energy to get things done -- with not-so-great effects on my overall health -- the idea that I could get things done and not be a stress case about it keeps me listening. He makes it seem as though getting on top of things is possible. I can see how motivational speakers make a living -- just giving people hope that they can handle what's in front of them really is worth something. (Though I'm not sure it's true; do we ever get on top of something? Don't we just find that something new comes to topple us? That what we really need is to learn flexibility and resilience and peace that we're not in control? I don't know.) First Things First is much more my speed, focusing on what makes life worthwhile in a big sense and then, I suspect at some point since I'm not there yet in the book, drilling down to what this means on a daily or weekly basis.
Are you getting the feeling I'm avoiding something? So am I. And so I am. It's that I'm going to a conference. Here's the thing: I hate leaving. I'm always afraid of something terrible happening. (You understand -- I can't say what exactly I'm afraid of partly because I'm superstitious and partly because it's just so so dumb and unreal and unrealistic because the truth is I just don't want to go and am manufacturing reasons to match my feelings, not the other way around. But you know -- the plane.) I just don't like to leave home anymore, which is kind of crazy because I used to love to travel. Maybe I'd like it better if the family came with me. And then there's the usual reason: I hate networking, hate having to try to sound smart, hate thinking on my feet. Luckily, this conference kind of forces me to not hide in my hotel room because they have luncheons and things -- so I end up meeting people which is great. (People used to sort of take pity on me because I was a grad student, but now I'm just a shy faculty member -- will people still be as kind? Probably, I hear a wise part of myself saying: so much of it is just attitude, Earnest. You'll be fine. Meet people. Talk to people. You have interesting things to say. Half the time you won't shut up. Jeez, get a grip!)
Did I mention that I was diagnosed with Tietze Syndrome, which are chest pains and inflammation of the breastbone cartilage? I can tell you it's pretty scary to have chest pains. I keep going in for EKGs and they find nothing nothing! But what I notice now is that sitting here on my bed, the first day I haven't had to go into work in weeks, just being mellow and stress-free and alone. . .no chest pains. Interesting. I have things to do (the laundry is going as I write), but I think I'm going to have a nap. I never get enough sleep.
Wow, this post is all over the place. Just finding my footing. It's more difficult to start blogging again than I thought. I'll get the hang of it again. I hope.
But! After that terrible winter, Spring. Sun. Warmth. Growing things on my balcony. Yes, I put in the peas too late and the chard will probably bolt, but I don't care! Somehow I'm made calm and happy just looking at my seeds coming up, all that new growth. I really think there must be some chemical released into my brain when I see them. Even though the sliding glass door. I could stare at them for hours.
Despite all the busyness, which has been intense and is dying down just as the quarter, after Memorial Day, starts working itself up to fever pitch, I've managed to be really productive in the area of conference proposals, which is something I often fall down on. (Case in point: I've done only 4-5 conferences in the last 5 years. That doesn't seem too shabby written out like that, but I can't tell you how many times I've thought I should propose something for Big Conference in My Field or Smaller Conference in My Field or Neat Small Conference in My Area only to find out that I just missed the deadline by days.) Today I'm having a difficult health day -- I woke up with a migraine -- so it's easy to be negative. (I'm so lucky it was today rather than yesterday, a big day for meetings and helping others, or tomorrow, a day I'm spending with Absurdist Child.) Actually, I've been really productive in many areas, but it never feels like enough, never feels like I've been productive when I have some of the same impossible sticky notes up on my computer day after day, week after week. Of course, some of this is just that long multi-step projects are just like that. And I know that. Some of this is just self-image based. The truth is I'm at the early stages of two incredibly stressful things that everyone in the world knows is incredibly stressful, going up for tenure and buying a house, so I must be kind to myself instead of down on myself when I don't feel good.
To help with getting more organized, I'm listening to David Allen's Getting Things Done in the car and reading Steven Covey's First Things First, incredibly slowly, at home. These, at least at the big-picture level, couldn't be more different. Allen is all about organization of tasks and projects and developing a system for all that, including his five-stage process. He often uses such business-y language that I'd forget all about it except that he talks about "stress-free" and "balanced" productivity. Since I've often used my stress and anxiety as the motivation and energy to get things done -- with not-so-great effects on my overall health -- the idea that I could get things done and not be a stress case about it keeps me listening. He makes it seem as though getting on top of things is possible. I can see how motivational speakers make a living -- just giving people hope that they can handle what's in front of them really is worth something. (Though I'm not sure it's true; do we ever get on top of something? Don't we just find that something new comes to topple us? That what we really need is to learn flexibility and resilience and peace that we're not in control? I don't know.) First Things First is much more my speed, focusing on what makes life worthwhile in a big sense and then, I suspect at some point since I'm not there yet in the book, drilling down to what this means on a daily or weekly basis.
Are you getting the feeling I'm avoiding something? So am I. And so I am. It's that I'm going to a conference. Here's the thing: I hate leaving. I'm always afraid of something terrible happening. (You understand -- I can't say what exactly I'm afraid of partly because I'm superstitious and partly because it's just so so dumb and unreal and unrealistic because the truth is I just don't want to go and am manufacturing reasons to match my feelings, not the other way around. But you know -- the plane.) I just don't like to leave home anymore, which is kind of crazy because I used to love to travel. Maybe I'd like it better if the family came with me. And then there's the usual reason: I hate networking, hate having to try to sound smart, hate thinking on my feet. Luckily, this conference kind of forces me to not hide in my hotel room because they have luncheons and things -- so I end up meeting people which is great. (People used to sort of take pity on me because I was a grad student, but now I'm just a shy faculty member -- will people still be as kind? Probably, I hear a wise part of myself saying: so much of it is just attitude, Earnest. You'll be fine. Meet people. Talk to people. You have interesting things to say. Half the time you won't shut up. Jeez, get a grip!)
Did I mention that I was diagnosed with Tietze Syndrome, which are chest pains and inflammation of the breastbone cartilage? I can tell you it's pretty scary to have chest pains. I keep going in for EKGs and they find nothing nothing! But what I notice now is that sitting here on my bed, the first day I haven't had to go into work in weeks, just being mellow and stress-free and alone. . .no chest pains. Interesting. I have things to do (the laundry is going as I write), but I think I'm going to have a nap. I never get enough sleep.
Wow, this post is all over the place. Just finding my footing. It's more difficult to start blogging again than I thought. I'll get the hang of it again. I hope.
Saturday, May 10, 2014
Shhhhh
It's alive! Absurdist Paradise is alive!
Yes, it's been almost three years. Did I plant those seeds and start new blogs? Yes, I did. But they didn't take. And now that I'm preparing my tenure binder and heading up this committee and sitting on this university committee (only subbing, though, thank goodness) and seeing if I can qualify for a home loan while AC has a problem at school and has been lying and drawing on our couch meanwhile my birth family has completely imploded over the terms of my grandmother's will? Well, it feels as absurd as ever. And lately as I've been literally running from one thing to another not eating and stealing time to run to the bathroom (things have calmed down, but this was one day this week and two days last week), I've thought how great it would be to come home to Absurdist Paradise. So here I am. Who says you can't go home again?
Yes, it's been almost three years. Did I plant those seeds and start new blogs? Yes, I did. But they didn't take. And now that I'm preparing my tenure binder and heading up this committee and sitting on this university committee (only subbing, though, thank goodness) and seeing if I can qualify for a home loan while AC has a problem at school and has been lying and drawing on our couch meanwhile my birth family has completely imploded over the terms of my grandmother's will? Well, it feels as absurd as ever. And lately as I've been literally running from one thing to another not eating and stealing time to run to the bathroom (things have calmed down, but this was one day this week and two days last week), I've thought how great it would be to come home to Absurdist Paradise. So here I am. Who says you can't go home again?
Saturday, September 17, 2011
I planted another seed
a seed of a new blog. If you're interested to find out the new spot, please email me at earnestenglish@gmail.com. At this point, I'm not thinking I'll close this spot up completely, but I'm not sure I'll update it much either.
Saturday, September 10, 2011
I planted seeds today
I've been thinking about what to do with this blog -- whether I should close up shop or start a new one or let this one morph quite a bit. The truth is that not only do I have less time to focus on academic work, I find I don't really want to spend my free time thinking or writing about work either. I'm still reading y'all's blogs, but I just don't have anything to say about my job. I'm behind on grading, as usual. My to-do list is insane. I have this committee report hanging over my head and walloping me in the eyes. I don't know whether I want to work on the Article Slightly Outside My Field, but I know I sure don't have time for it. Who wants to spend any free time at all talking about all that? After so many years of building a career and carving out a research agenda and living my life around my career, I now want it to be just a job, no longer my whole life. I want to de-colonize my mind. I am more than my job.
Part of this may be temporary, as I was burned out big time by this time last year.
What I do want to talk about is how I recently hacked at and finally uprooted a climbing rose gone to seed (and mounded in a big bush rather than draped on the trellis, which had fallen) from the raised bed, then added three cubic feet of the best organic soil I could find, and then, today, seeded it with 2 kinds of lettuce, spinach, arugula (a lot of it!), leeks, kale, calendula, and nasturtiums. It is totally ridiculous to be starting a fall garden this late, and a winter garden is only possible here in greenhouses of one sort or another. But I don't care. We're all here: the place, the soil, the seeds, and me. So we'll do what we can. I did get very cold tolerant varieties, so much so that the kale should be harvestable in the snow. But it is sort of ridiculous. But it also occurs to me lately that some very good work in the world gets done because some naive person doesn't realize that what they're trying to do is impossible. Impossible Harvest? At Impossible Farm.
Even if nothing comes up in Impossible Farm's raised bed, I'll be planting garlic within the next month or two. October-December. That at least shouldn't end a shambles.
You think I should start a new blog?
Over and out.
Part of this may be temporary, as I was burned out big time by this time last year.
What I do want to talk about is how I recently hacked at and finally uprooted a climbing rose gone to seed (and mounded in a big bush rather than draped on the trellis, which had fallen) from the raised bed, then added three cubic feet of the best organic soil I could find, and then, today, seeded it with 2 kinds of lettuce, spinach, arugula (a lot of it!), leeks, kale, calendula, and nasturtiums. It is totally ridiculous to be starting a fall garden this late, and a winter garden is only possible here in greenhouses of one sort or another. But I don't care. We're all here: the place, the soil, the seeds, and me. So we'll do what we can. I did get very cold tolerant varieties, so much so that the kale should be harvestable in the snow. But it is sort of ridiculous. But it also occurs to me lately that some very good work in the world gets done because some naive person doesn't realize that what they're trying to do is impossible. Impossible Harvest? At Impossible Farm.
Alice laughed. 'There's no use trying,' she said 'one can't believe impossible things.'
'I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. '
The title of Absurdist Paradise was always meant to describe academia. When I was not part of academia for that half year or so, the blog became more about my life, which also felt absurd. But now I want to spend my time focusing on gardening/farming/homesteading and Big Non Academic Project (BigNAP?). I want a space in my life to focus on those parts of my life that I wish could grow into bigger chunks of my life. But I'm not sure y'all are interested in my little family's long road to homesteading. I'm not sure this blog is the right place to discuss that. But our little family has to do something, because it sure doesn't feel like this so-called "normal life" is sustainable, from a spiritual point of view for us. (I don't mean religious. I mean this life so rubs against the grain -- it just feels wrong and abrasive. Meaningless.)Even if nothing comes up in Impossible Farm's raised bed, I'll be planting garlic within the next month or two. October-December. That at least shouldn't end a shambles.
You think I should start a new blog?
Over and out.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Funkified Scholarship
So I've taken Tot to daycare (Montessori is closed for two and a half weeks so he's back at his old daycare where they love him and they're much more flexible about hours, but it's rowdy and crazy -- when I feel badly about him going to Montessori when he's obviously so well loved at the daycare, which is not to say that the Montessori teacher is not charmed by him, and doing okay, I think that they may love him, but my duty is to do the best I can for him -- and I literally couldn't do better than a Montessori school, not if I were the perfect stay-at-home mom, which I am so so SO not). I've watered the plants, taken out some trash, unloaded the dishwasher (which makes me feel better because as the family cook I'm constantly waging a war against dirty dishes). Today's Wednesday, and it's my day to not be on campus. And I'm in a funk.
I'm just so disgusted with politics and government and big business. Our regulatory agencies are staffed by those with significant industry ties to those who profit most from keeping consumers in the dark, no matter which president we have in office. And yet they are in charge of protecting consumers and keeping them safe. Furthermore, corporations have unlimited anonymous power to sway candidate elections with their big bucks. (What does this mean for initiatives and referenda? I don't know.) And when I talk about these issues, I'm the one who sounds nuts. I'm engaged in a project right now to address some of these issues the best way I know how, but even though this is the most exciting thing going on in my life, the more I research, the more I know, the more I get depressed. And it's also a big timesuck, as I evidenced by yesterday when I ended up spending time I should've been working on scholarship talking with someone about related issues and researching and working on the project.
There's also a work-related report that I haven't done that's weighing on me. I definitely find that finishing up some projects and getting them out the door lifts my mood. As does working out, which I definitely want to do today. But what I really want to talk about here is a certain piece of scholarship.
(Can I just say that Absurdist Lover is the most wonderful man in the entire history of the known world? He just sent me a text message saying that I should go somewhere and do something for me. I have tons to do work-wise, but this is quite literally the only time I truly get to myself. When I'm at work, I'm at work and yes, I can close the door, but it's not relaxing. I can veg out, but it's not relaxing. I don't even know what I'd do since we have no money. But maybe he's right. Maybe I need to get out of the house.)
Okay, so there's this chapter I'm writing for an edited collection that now has a publisher (that I'm not at all impressed by, but that's not a particularly significant consideration in this case). I worked hard and pumped a draft of me on this thing last summer. (I taught through the entire summer, so that was no small feat.) I knew when I turned it in that it was not good. But it was a beginning. I didn't get comments for a long time and so focused my scholarly energies elsewhere. I finally got my first set of comments back a couple months ago. They were harsh yet non-directive. So I took it to my multidisciplinary writing group which has a number of people situated much more inside the field than I am. While a couple people really didn't like certain parts of it and everyone agreed that it was very very rough, some others saw what I was trying to do and gave me good comments and direction about what the piece really needed to do in order to be useful. Then I got much more directive comments from the editors that emphasized their interest in it (the earlier comments hadn't) but made suggestions about where to go.
While I had a little spurt of energy on the project and ILL'd books like mad, my interest in the project is at an all-time low. Here's what I think is going on, besides just being in a funk about United States, Inc. and the fact that we're all guinea pigs in a country where Big Business is the bottom line:
So the whole context around this piece I'm supposed to be working on is negative. With this revision, I have to prove that this piece is worth including, even while my methods are not the field's methods. I'm sure it's occurred to you that I'm thinking of just hanging it up completely. But I hate to do that. It wouldn't exactly hurt me because these people are not in my field, though, yes, the academic world is small. But giving up can be a hard habit to break. (Who am I quoting? I can't remember.) If you have managed to make it this far and have an opinion on this, please please please leave it in comments.
I do think it's difficult to write to a resistant audience. That's what this feels like to me. I need to imagine that I'm writing it to someone who is receptive to the ideas. I know this won't lead me to exquisite argumentation, but right now I need a strategy for getting words down on the page. (I do freewrite on the damn thing, but I've got zero usable pages right now.)
Part of me really wants to not deal with it at all today but take the day off for a little EE time. Though perhaps not working on it will lead me to feeling worse about it later. It's difficult to know. I have no idea what I'd do -- probably work out and. . .oh dear lord, I don't know. Cook? Repot my plants? I should do that report, but that's not relaxing. Take a nap? Get outside? Oy vey. What is it that makes me happy and hopeful again? Organic agriculture, lovely food, farmy stuff, being outside. Good books. (Oh yeah, I'm sad also that I haven't been writing -- not scholarship, but the real stuff. Of course, this is old news. Maybe I'm just in a funk, a physical funk, and looking for mental reasons for it. Maybe I just need to snap out of it, work out, take a shower, and find something lovely to do. Go EE! Get off your lazy butt!)
I'm just so disgusted with politics and government and big business. Our regulatory agencies are staffed by those with significant industry ties to those who profit most from keeping consumers in the dark, no matter which president we have in office. And yet they are in charge of protecting consumers and keeping them safe. Furthermore, corporations have unlimited anonymous power to sway candidate elections with their big bucks. (What does this mean for initiatives and referenda? I don't know.) And when I talk about these issues, I'm the one who sounds nuts. I'm engaged in a project right now to address some of these issues the best way I know how, but even though this is the most exciting thing going on in my life, the more I research, the more I know, the more I get depressed. And it's also a big timesuck, as I evidenced by yesterday when I ended up spending time I should've been working on scholarship talking with someone about related issues and researching and working on the project.
There's also a work-related report that I haven't done that's weighing on me. I definitely find that finishing up some projects and getting them out the door lifts my mood. As does working out, which I definitely want to do today. But what I really want to talk about here is a certain piece of scholarship.
(Can I just say that Absurdist Lover is the most wonderful man in the entire history of the known world? He just sent me a text message saying that I should go somewhere and do something for me. I have tons to do work-wise, but this is quite literally the only time I truly get to myself. When I'm at work, I'm at work and yes, I can close the door, but it's not relaxing. I can veg out, but it's not relaxing. I don't even know what I'd do since we have no money. But maybe he's right. Maybe I need to get out of the house.)
Okay, so there's this chapter I'm writing for an edited collection that now has a publisher (that I'm not at all impressed by, but that's not a particularly significant consideration in this case). I worked hard and pumped a draft of me on this thing last summer. (I taught through the entire summer, so that was no small feat.) I knew when I turned it in that it was not good. But it was a beginning. I didn't get comments for a long time and so focused my scholarly energies elsewhere. I finally got my first set of comments back a couple months ago. They were harsh yet non-directive. So I took it to my multidisciplinary writing group which has a number of people situated much more inside the field than I am. While a couple people really didn't like certain parts of it and everyone agreed that it was very very rough, some others saw what I was trying to do and gave me good comments and direction about what the piece really needed to do in order to be useful. Then I got much more directive comments from the editors that emphasized their interest in it (the earlier comments hadn't) but made suggestions about where to go.
While I had a little spurt of energy on the project and ILL'd books like mad, my interest in the project is at an all-time low. Here's what I think is going on, besides just being in a funk about United States, Inc. and the fact that we're all guinea pigs in a country where Big Business is the bottom line:
- The Comments A-Swirling in My Head: The comments from my writing group suggested more focus on practice. Okay, that's not easy, but it should be doable. I understand why. This is the most important single aspect to work on to make the piece do what I want it to do. It takes a lot of time to put that stuff together, and I feel I have to rob some of my other work or do a lot of new stuff in order to do it. It's time-consuming and means really starting over, but I can do it, and I agree that it should be done. The comments from the editors concurred with this. But they also wanted more of a specific kind of analysis that I don't like to do very much, which means a lot of new work, and asked me to do one thing that I absolutely will not do because it means a whole lot more research. I completely respect that it's their collection, and they need my piece to fit in with other pieces. But I'm not sure whether it's that the piece doesn't feel like mine anymore -- the comments taking up more of my mental space than the engagement with the work -- or my lack of interest in doing the things they want me to do, which probably brings us back around to the issue that this piece is not in my field.
- I haven't gotten a lot of work done on this lately. It needs to be done in 5 weeks (they'd have liked it at the end of this month, but I'm teaching this summer (boo) so I asked for an extension). Not getting work done on it and barely knowing where to start is enough to be in a funk about this.
- The Big Picture, aka Tenure Requirements: As of now, I'm halfway to the university's official tenure-able publication requirements. But this piece is not situated in my field. Now it just so happens that at my institution, I have a lot of flexibility in defining my field the way I want to. While the major field of the collection is not my field, the focus of it certainly is, so much so, in fact, that this and related foci are what my university colleagues outside my field remember about my work (especially when it lines up with their interests, so I've gotten people in the social sciences asking me about my work, which is cool beans indeed). What's more, my particular angle on it is also very much a key research interest for me that anyone would see from looking at my work or even my CV. So within my university, this piece probably does count as a sincere full-fledged publication. But when I think of outside reviewers in my field, well, it's not in my field. A nice outside reviewer will easily see what I'm trying to do, but it doesn't help cement, or even contribute, to my work in my field. And because of that, I see this piece not as useless but as counting as a half publication to my tenure requirements. (I have another half publication that is extremely short and not published in a field journal, so it works out. This and that equal one whole publication.) But probably the prospect of needing to do so much additional work and not getting much out of it (and of course they can still reject it entirely) isn't very motivating.
- The work I need to do on this piece -- rewriting the whole thing and doing some new research for it -- is keeping me from working on another big project that requires copious research but is very well situated in my field. (Okay, it's putting two fields together: mine and one is that I have a lot of familiarity with, though not enough at this point to write scholarship in. But it's on a topic that I know very well in my field, and my particular focus is on something that no one has done yet. So with the four or five months that I have for it, I feel much better about that one, though the research is daunting. Plus it counts as a complete publication. It also has a well-respected publisher already. And the editor is completely excited about it. Maybe that's more significant than I realize: I know the editor will help me hone it because Zie is a generous rockstar and very much in love with the topic. Not so with this piece where I know I'm already skating on thin ice.)
So the whole context around this piece I'm supposed to be working on is negative. With this revision, I have to prove that this piece is worth including, even while my methods are not the field's methods. I'm sure it's occurred to you that I'm thinking of just hanging it up completely. But I hate to do that. It wouldn't exactly hurt me because these people are not in my field, though, yes, the academic world is small. But giving up can be a hard habit to break. (Who am I quoting? I can't remember.) If you have managed to make it this far and have an opinion on this, please please please leave it in comments.
I do think it's difficult to write to a resistant audience. That's what this feels like to me. I need to imagine that I'm writing it to someone who is receptive to the ideas. I know this won't lead me to exquisite argumentation, but right now I need a strategy for getting words down on the page. (I do freewrite on the damn thing, but I've got zero usable pages right now.)
Part of me really wants to not deal with it at all today but take the day off for a little EE time. Though perhaps not working on it will lead me to feeling worse about it later. It's difficult to know. I have no idea what I'd do -- probably work out and. . .oh dear lord, I don't know. Cook? Repot my plants? I should do that report, but that's not relaxing. Take a nap? Get outside? Oy vey. What is it that makes me happy and hopeful again? Organic agriculture, lovely food, farmy stuff, being outside. Good books. (Oh yeah, I'm sad also that I haven't been writing -- not scholarship, but the real stuff. Of course, this is old news. Maybe I'm just in a funk, a physical funk, and looking for mental reasons for it. Maybe I just need to snap out of it, work out, take a shower, and find something lovely to do. Go EE! Get off your lazy butt!)
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