Dissertation Blah and the Intellectual in Our Midst

Well, here's something even I know: NOT working on the dissertation feels BAD. I haven't worked! It's 5PM! SO and I chatted all morning, ate around 1, then went to the bookshop where we had a marvelous encounter with a man with sort of shaggy blond hair, a huge backpack, and pants that were kind of falling down. I was carrying one of those teach-yourself language sets for a language I'd really like to learn and he asked me where I found it. I showed him. It turned out he had studied Greek, Latin, German, Hebrew, and Arabic and had a great storehouse of knowledge about languages in comparison with one another and how to best learn a language. He also said the key to any language is its verbal structure (which is interesting because since I've been tutoring a lot of ELL students I've been thinking about how you can see certain metaphors at work behind our idiomatic use of prepositions). Richard (he introduced himself after we stood talking there a bit) was just one of those smart great people who are so interesting. I could've talked with him for hours. But of course it was also kind of weird, because he looked on the edge as well, wearing layers of pants that he periodically hiked up. SO called him the word he reserves for those who immerse themselves in a specific study until they become positively eccentric: a geek. (Yes, he calls me a geek. He also calls me a writer. He's said, "that's because you're a writer" at least a half-dozen times since yesterday. Go figure.)

Of course, after Richard, or Cool Language Geek, said that you really need to study a language in a class to really learn it (which I know many people would say is not true, but I agree with him instinctively because I suck at those self-paced things -- I need the social pressure of looking like an idiot if I don't study), I didn't buy any of the language kits. We're going to check the reviews online, SO and I said as we left the bookshop.

But I was totally possessed by the vision of this great language geek who could call up so many languages, comparing their vocabulary at will. I was just saying that I wondered what he was doing when there he was. Sitting at the bus stop bench, a shopping cart of belongings filled to the brim.

"My other cart is a Mercedes," he said as we walked past.

"Of course it is," I volleyed back, smiling.

OH! I've never wanted to give someone $20 more in my life. I've never felt so much like giving someone money would be an insult. I wish I lived here in Urban Home City so I could invite him over to my house. What does one do? He's like an older shaggy professor-type living, I'm assuming, on the streets. He knows five languages! Is that where intellectuals outside the academy belong in this country?

And as I sit down now, trying to get my head back into my dissertation, I wonder about this man, where he is now, where he'll be on the holidays. He should be teaching languages, helping people to bend their mouths into the new shapes different languages require. Why isn't he? Why is it that I get to labor over Chapter 4 and he gets to. . .I don't know. I don't know anything about him. But I hope many things for him, for the stranger in our midst. He doesn't seem unhappy. He said he was Jewish. I hope he has somewhere to go on Monday night.

And of course, this is not helping me dig back into Chapter 4. ARRRGGHH!

PSA: Working on Dissertation Feels Good

I was so grumpy when I came into town and then had to go to The Fam's house because the hotel check-in was still not for a few hours. Especially with Littlest Sister sick with the stomach flu. (Stay the hell away from me, I wanted to shout.) So I got out the laptop and was trying to work, as I had been on the plane -- even thinking about this wretched chapter when I was dozing. I couldn't find the shape of it. Nothing good was happening. I read articles in an effort to become inspired. Nada. No go.

I went out in the sun, figuring some sun and flowers would help me get some ideas about shaping the damn thing. I only got antsy to get to the hotel and get to work. So SO and I went. I sent SO out for things so I could have some time alone. I worked. Things happened. I figured out how the damn thing should start. By the time SO came back, I had written some pages (that will need to be revised, but you gotta start somewhere).

And my mood totally changed. I could so much better deal with the thirteen-year olds guffawing and being stupid, the cat owner who never takes the cat to the vet, the college graduate talking shit about Asian students in a way that I deplore. Of course, the wine helped. A lot. But if I hadn't gotten some work done, forget it.

Who knew?

Your Flight from Absurdity Is Delayed

Here I sit at the airport, my flight to Urban Home City delayed. I'm grateful because there was an accident on the interstate from Grad City to Nearest Urban City and we got rerouted onto a highway. But I'm also exhausted. What happened to all that manic energy I had yesterday?

So I met with Peppy Advisor. I have to admit, much as I look at her askance right now because she is my diss advisor and therefore The Enemy, she is a lovely person who I just enjoy talking with. But I simply MUST remember to not make commitments about little things like due dates when I feel so full of energy that I can conquer the world. I have to remember I may not always feel that way. Why can't I remember that there are those days when it takes so much effort just to do normal things -- and that they will come again? (I didn't think they'd come this soon. Waaaa. Yes, I do realize that there is probably some medical term for this like ultra rapid cycling. I stopped seeing the therapist who suggested I get tested for bi-polar. I like my mania and my denial very much, thank you. Besides, what's better for a dissertation crunch like mine than a bit of mania? But I think running late so I couldn't get coffee and a bagel is now taking its toll. Also, icky acid reflux from, perhaps, taking my morning pills without a chaser of food? Whine, whine, whine.)

Anyway, what I'm saying is that now that tiny speedbump of a writing project I've been working on is now scheduled, with due dates for those little dashed-off notes that they insist such projects be written with. Whole draft of Big D is due to PA between May 1 and May 7. WHAT??????????

Yes, you heard me. Chapters 3 and 4 are due in three weeks, then revisions on what she's looking at now, PLUS those chapters that ARE NOT YET COMPLETELY WRITTEN are due in, basically, a month. Where's the bar?

So last weekend and this week when I thought working 12-hour days was so I could have a nice relaxing weekend with The Fam and SO was totally wrong. I was working 12-hour days so I could graduate in August and go to Adventure U. Maybe this is why I'm grumpy and so was a bit pissy when SO wouldn't let me get a word in edgewise when I was trying to tell him that I would be delayed getting into Favorite Airport and instead he had to tell me about how it took him an hour to get from the garage into the terminal. Maybe I'm just a bitch. Maybe I'm just a totally normal dissertator who can't deal with all this shit.

I'm so grumpy I can't tell whether this is significant: I heard a little girl saying to her mother that she "left spiderman bag there, left spiderman bag there" and so her mother left the other toddler and the stroller with Child #3 with Dad and went back wherever "there" was. I looked at the father and the two children. He seemed happy enough -- clearly one of those dads who are into being with their kids. And I looked at the mother being dragged off and considered how every trip must be an event for this little family of five -- and I probably had in my head my Sweet Friend (one of my favorite people in the world) with two children who totally understands being totally crazy busy because she is crazy busy with her own kids -- and I thought not me. I just don't want my life to be that.

I know there are people who manage to have kids and also have a dynamic career. But I'm a tunnel vision person. I'm not sure I could balance it. Maybe that's the lack of caffeine talking. Maybe that's the blinded-with-work dissertator talking? Why think about such things now dammit? I just hate everything anyway. Hate-Filled Dissertating Friend totally pleased me yesterday because she was in fact incredibly hate-filled. Fairly oozing with it. Misanthropes unite!

I should probably check about getting on a plane soon. Considering the lunacy of The Fam, I can't decide whether I'm going to or coming from absurdity. Course I don't know if I'm coming or going anyway. I know one thing: I'm working. And that's all there is to know.

True Confessions and Other Absurdities

True confession #1: I woke up at 6 this morning. I want you to understand -- this is an unheard-of feat. I woke up at 6 without the alarm, that is, au natural, alarm peacefully set for 7, which is kind of crazy for me anyway. There's something seriously wrong with me. (During Spring Break Woops, may it rest in peace, I woke up between 10 and 1 and maybe got going with stuff around 5. Those were the days.)

But instead it's still in the 9ams here and I have gassed up my car, taken my rent check over to the management company, gotten coffee, done the dishes, put my winter sweaters in a bag so I can find shirts to wear in my drawer when it's ranging between 50 and 80 degrees, and done the wash. I'm waiting for my clothes to dry so I can go and meet with Peppy Advisor about my peppy dissertation and not-so-peppy (more like harried and freaked out) timeline. (Note to self: write timeline somewhere other than in diary -- PA might actually want to see it without the skull and crossbones and doodles of doom.) Clearly the anxiety of getting the diss done so I can go to Adventure U is affecting me at all levels. Plus, I'm leaving town tomorrow morning and am busy every moment until then, so basically I'm doing the wash so I have clothes to pack. Now, I thought waking up in time to get laundry done before the Peppy Advisor meeting was probably not going to happen. I didn't think my body would flip out and refuse to let me go back to sleep at a staggering 6AM! That's just not right.

True Confession #2: Yesterday, I tutored in the morning, tutored in the afternoon, then before tutoring in the evening I went and had a drink over at a bar. (I figure if I don't exist, they won't notice I'm happier than usual.) WSF says I need three-martini lunches. SO thinks I should be drinking more, though I don't think he meant before going to work. WSF says I should be smoking more. (I gave up not smoking for Lent. I did manage to have a cigarette last night in the beautiful night that reminded me there is something deeply spiritual and magical about nighttime in general, especially a balmy night with the trees starting to flower and the moon seeming to follow you down the street.) But dear readers, do yourself a favor. Do not drink and then go back to work tutoring students. Not because I don't think you can handle an alcohol-laced cup of coffee. Because you'll find yourself having such a good time helping students with master's projects and resumes that you'll find yourself still sitting there an hour after you're supposed to go home. That's just not right. Tutoring for 7 hours in one day is not right.

True Confession #3: Remember how when I was sick and at the Caffeine Corporation I had overheard a barista lamenting his art school application letter of intent? How I wanted to help him but decided I'd keep my nose out of it? Well, guess who is going over to the Buck of Stars during her only free time of the day to go and help him with his letter of intent. It's as if now that I've got a job I feel I should spread my Englishness over hill and dale. Or maybe since I'm not in my own classroom, I have to grab at opportunities for teaching. Not right. I'm telling you. Not right.

In other news, yesterday I saw a person (gender unidentifiable) who was walking across the parking lot wearing an old-fashioned spaceman's helmet. The white kind with the one small horizontal bubble of glass in the front. So basically what I'm saying is that I saw an alien walk across the parking lot as I was going to buy a salad. See why I had to have the drink? I just don't get what's going on. The next thing you know I'll be waking up early. Oh wait. . .

I have not worked on my dissertation. Barely worked on it yesterday. Am stuck in an ethical representation conundrum that I should probably just go ahead and write out in hopes I can turn it into part of the subject of the chapter. Going to Urban Home City tomorrow with SO. Have much muchness to do today, including meeting Hate-Filled Dissertating Friend and working in the afternoon-evening. Talked to one of my favorite people in the world (not WSF, a friend currently without smart and appropriate pseudonym) and she asked if I were still in a funk. I told her I was too busy to be able to tell. And that's the dumb truth. Too much to do to funk. Even to do the funk. That's not right. As is waking up at 6 and then starting to run late for my meeting. OY!

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.

Update from Frustration's Front Lines

Peppy Advisor cancelled!!!!!!

GAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!

Can I just say that a weekend of dissertation crunching makes me grumpy on Monday morning, especially when other people come in with their tans and burns from being out in the stinking sun!

All work and no play make EE a dull girl. All work. . .

I am printing the beast out. At least, it's taking a satisfyingly long time.

Not Even Enough Time

for complete sentences. Couldn't sleep. When finally did sleep, had bad, psychologically-revealing dream (which included people in the department and zombification and killing -- ACK!) so maybe slept four hours. Have long day ending in working on diss with Similarly-Hateful Dissertating Friend. Yes, you heard me -- ending. As in after meeting 1, meeting with Peppy Advisor, and tutoring hours are all done. As in, tonight. Gah.

Did I mention that I'm leading Cool Class on Tuesday night? No, of course I didn't, because I basically put it out of my mind all Dissertation Crunch Weekend. Must work on that stuff now. Right now, in the hateful morning, before Meeting 1. Gah.

Did manage to put my Introduction in some kind of order. That is, the last four pages (mostly keywords and some questions about lit reviews to be done) are in note form, but there are fifteen real prose pages, so I think that's enough for someone who hasn't written the whole thing yet. (I mean, come on! Who writes the Intro before they've written their chapters?! Who knows where they're going before they get there? So I feel pretty on top of things.) Uh, do I have a timeline? Not yet. Crap. Must work.

But first must exult in page counts. You understand, don't you, that I have to officially exult in the page count -- as in I really did work my ass off this weekend. (Not that I did it all this weekend, but just getting shit advisor-ready is big.)

So, indulge me or ignore me:

Introduction: 15 real pages, 4 pages of notes
Chapter 1: 45 pages (already seen by Peppy Advisor, but I think it will look different in context)
Chapter 2: 43 pages

Drum roll please.

A whopping 103 prose pages! WOO HOO!

(mostly crap-filled, but who cares!)