Waving, Not Drowning, at least not yet...

I'm so far behind in all of your lives since google reader went away. Anybody have any suggestions for a good blog reader?

I cannot believe it has been almost 2 months since my last post. It's been a rough summer, yo. I mean, I love my Wee Bit to death and wouldn't train her for the world, but she's had a rough go of it her first three months on this earth. Baby girl had been suffering with these horrible gas pains and digestive issues--she has GERD--gastro-esophogal reflux disorder and is on baby Zantac that she has to take 2x a day. She is also allergic to breast milk--She is actually allergic to the milk proteins. I don't consume any dairy at all, so it's the lactose in the breast milk. We've eliminated a lot of foods* from my diet to try to pin point the continuing gas issues for the poor girl, but not much makes a difference. We go to the pediatrician every week or two for weight checks because as much as she eats, she still isn't gaining weight as fast as the pediatrician wants her to. She consistently gains weight; she is just wee.

Baby girl also has eczema. And, she has several swollen lymph nodes, so Friday we had to have blood drawn. Unbeknownst to me, blood is taken from the veins in the head on infants. As awful as this sounds, and as absolutely horrible as it was for me to witness this, the J assured me that a) this is standard (we had the blood drawn in the NICU) and b) the BEST way to get lots of blood in the least traumatic way. Our nurse was amazing, and it was all over in less than 2 minutes. Poor girl passed out from the pain as soon as the needle came out and slept for a little over 3 hours in her carseat, but she's been such a trooper. So the last two months have been particularly rough for the baby.

My parents are here now for at least until February, which has been WONDERFUL. We are so lucky that they can do this for us and that they're not assholes. It's crowded in here, but this poor little girl really does need to have two people to watch her working in tandem until we get all her little issues figured out. So right now, as we continue to try to figure out what's going on with her and how severe the milk allergy is, we are to feed her only hypoallergenic formula (we're on our second type here), and I can't nurse her at all (this is heart breaking). I spend my days now pumping and storing the milk. The pediatrician is hoping that we don't have to permanently eliminate the boob, but depending on the level of the allergy, we're hoping that worst case scenario is boob time is limited so she can still benefit from the breast milk in a way that totally doesn't aggravate her little stomach. We've got a freezer full of breast milk right now. Pumping is totally exhausting, btw.

Because she's had so many issues, sleep has been a struggle, as well as her comfort--the reflux makes it hard for her to sleep flat (we have wedges for the crib and the co-sleeper for nighttime), but during the day, she would only sleep upright on me and we just took turns at night sleeping upright with her. So even with a bookstand for hands free reading, I've not been able to accomplish anything. I've missed 2 potential publication opportunities this summer because I just could not get the reading done for them, even just for the abstract. And it looks like I'll miss the opportunity for one at the end of this month because there is no time to do the extensive reading. It's not like I can stay up or go sequester myself somewhere. I regret not getting this done last year, but oh well. I knew it would be difficult to get stuff done with an infant, but I think it would have been easier without a sick child and just an infant who took naps, you know? I mean, I wasn't even able to eat let alone think about research.

I do have my course release this fall, so I do have to figure out how to negotiate research and a baby here. At least I have child care and can basically leave at any time (I can only pump every four hours--I don't make enough for every two hours, which has been part of her weight gain issue we think, but we've got plenty of formula and breast milk for my absence). I'm hoping that in the next week, I can figure something out and put some sort of plan together both in terms of keeping up with my schoolwork and research.

In other news, three weeks ago, when the parents got here, I was able to start working out again. The official first week of school was a bit rough with the workouts--I got two days in I think--but this last week has been good. All of us, the J, the parents, and myself, we are all participating in the Whole Life Challenge (as is our CF box). We are entering week 2 here, at it's really helped a lot in terms of making sure that we are taking care of ourselves. If I weren't so competitive, and we didn't have this, I would have been eating pizza all week and not working out and probably feeling a whole helluva a lot more miserable. But the parents have really embraced CrossFit; I'm especially proud of my dad. It's great seeing him trying to get healthy and really pushing himself (safely) in CrossFit and enjoying it. I have made some major gains in my strength just this week, which has been great given that I was stressed with school (already), stressed about the baby, and behind in my work, and worried about this new deadline, but seriously, realistically, I cannot read for nor pull a 20 page paper for a fancy journal out of my ass in the next 15 days. Maybe if I could work around the clock, but realistically I can't, so I may just have to let it go and figure something else out. If my parents weren't here though, I certainly wouldn't be able to cook healthy food or work out, so I think things would be a bit more dicey, maternity leave or not.

And that's the other thing. I was talking with my mom, and we decided that for our family (the immediate family on my side) that I didn't get the maternity leave for the fall has turned out to be positive because my dad would not be making these changes in his health right now (it might have happened in February, but he may have gained 30 more pounds by then!), and this is all very positive indeed. So if not having maternity leave means that we get to take care of my dad's health sooner, then I'm okay with that trade off. However, for the next kid though, I'm not attempting to go back to work until that kid is at least 6 months old, so we're planning for the next one to come at the beginning of Spring Quarter so there will be no question about my being able to take mat leave and then having the summer off, too.

I have missed this space. I need this space. I hope I'm able to be here more regularly.

*No soy, dairy, corn, gluten, grains, peanuts, beans. And now, no eggs, no nuts of any kind, no cabbage, no oranges. Ironically, the first month of her life when my diet was awful--Wendy's and donuts, fast food, pizza--she did much better from the gas standpoint for Magpie. I had eliminated caffeine, but now that school has started back up, the doctor said my half caff coffee is ok because I have, usually only one cup, sometimes two.

Today it feels like summer break.

Now that I've finally gotten some rest and slept in past 6:30 am and went out last night on a "school night" with no consequences to me (poor J still had to get up at 5:30 to go to work), and  I am actually thinking a bit more clearly for the first time in months, I feel like I can breathe a sigh of relief, and I feel like there might actually be opportunity for me to relax and get things done that I might want to do. Of course this is all easier said than done, but for right now, it's nice to feel positive.

The last three weeks have been a bit trying. I've actually been quite depressed; however, before anyone begins to worry, I know this is a result of stress and poor diet. Not that my diet has been terrible, but gluten really does affect my mental state. Plus, add that to the stress of the end of the quarter, hormones raging out of control, a fetus who seems to be in constant movement, and to be quite honest, I'm surprised I've been as sane as I have. Fortunately, I've finally gotten some rest; summer finally feels like it's here, so perhaps I can get my stuff together and relax.

There are some things that I've been thinking about though the last couple of days. One, I have too much stuff. I wish I were better at not having stuff, at not accumulating stuff, or at least getting rid of things as I get new things. This has nothing to do with baby things. It's my stuff. But, part of the problem, at least with regarding my closet and wardrobe, which seriously needs to be scaled down, is that that is not anything I can do until after the baby comes because as I have all manner of sizes of clothes in my closet, I'm sure I will need a variety of sizes until my body finds some sort of stasis postpartum. Also, I should go through my books for donation. And our DVDs. We have lots of duplicates. And part of that clutter is paying off old debts finally so that maybe next year we can have a house of our own (provided we get the one in Home City sold).

The one thing I'm not worried about is whether I'll be a good mom. I know I'm going to be a worried neurotic mom, because of how I am with the Divine Miss T, and because when I was folding baby clothes on Monday I started crying about how the kid was going to grow up and go off to college and leave me, and the kid's not even done baking yet. I've made my peace with this, and I know that the J will balance out my craziness.

But here's the thing, oddly enough, that has been bothering me the last few days--I worry that I'm not intellectual enough (Oh, I'm smart enough, and I even maintain to my students that I'm brilliant and that I refuse to believe there are smarter people than I). So what will happen then when my brain turns to oatmeal with a newborn, infant, and then toddler? I mean, I set unrealistic goals for myself when I'm not with child and fully functioning, so WTF am I thinking now?? There are things that I need to be working on and want to be working on before the Magpie hatches, and I just wonder what I'll be able to accomplish. And I think maybe the thing that worries me more is that I won't want to do anything. Does that make sense? On the other hand, I worry that I might be selfish in wanting to insist that I maintain and carve out a space (like before) for my intellectual and my CrossFit pursuits.

I guess all of this stuff is natural to be thinking about though.

I think the other thing I might be worried about is where this blog is going to go.  Because I'm a total narcissist, I'm sure in part it will become "oh look at my baby!" blog, but I'm hoping that rather than a showcase for the Magpie and a place for whining, I hope that it will become a place to help me balance life, and as I do have things that need to get written this year (otherwise I *will* be behind schedule for tenure if I don't get the rest of my stuff finished this year), I'm hoping that it will become more about those ideas as well.

However, for now, I think I will just try to be present and not worry too much about the future, otherwise the summer will be over before I know it.

Rethinking my goals and possibilities

Well, I still have yet to actually get anything done or make any progress on anything so far this week, but today, I promise that changes!

While I am 100 million % not ready for school to start (as in I don't want to go back to work, and I'm totally unprepared for classes to begin), I think I actually NEED school to start so that I have some structure here. 

Perhaps I need to rethink summers. I got more written and read during the year when I was teaching than I have during this whole time that I've not been teaching. Perhaps summer is not a good "catch up on all the stuff I didn't get done during the year time." Maybe I got pretty decent at getting work done during the year that I just don't want to do anything else during the summer.

Maybe that sounds like a total cop out. I know for 99% of you, summer is when stuff gets done even if you are productive during the year. I'm jealous of that, actually. I would have liked to have knocked out my articles this summer. But one thing that I'm really, I mean REALLY trying to work on right now is the way I think about things. I mean, I think what I need to do for next summer is set a goal right off the bat. I won't be teaching--let me rephrase that--I do not plan on teaching since the J has a job, so I feel confident in saying that I'm not going to teach next summer. I think what I need to do is just say, "okay, from 9-12, M-F, I work--I will read and write things related to the work I want to do." And I will have to have a plan before the end of Spring Quarter.

While I have been down on myself about the lack of academic stuff I've done this summer, I have enjoyed spending the summer focusing on myself. I've gotten really good at cooking and meal planning (not that I always meal plan). I've gotten closer to my fitness and health goals. All things that will have a positive effect on what I hope to get done during the year.

Even though I felt this was an all important summer on getting research done, I think that was part of the problem--total self sabotage in this area. I made the work momentous and huge and prematurely too important. If this were my fourth summer and I were still where I am, then yes, this summer probably would have made or broke me in terms of my ability to get tenure. But as often happens with me, I totally shut down under the weight of importance.

That being said, it is imperative that I get something out by the time Spring Quarter starts and that I do try to get something else out by next October. I feel confident that I can meet those goals, and that I'll still be making good progress toward the tenure qualifications. (I have about 34 of the required 50 page minimum right now. Trick will not be in the writing, but in getting things accepted--and by October, all 34 of those pages will actually be IN PRINT).

I like spending the summer learning and focusing on new, non-academic things. It's been refreshing not having to move, not having to deal with a deployment, not having to finish a dissertation while working at a crappy job or finishing a dissertation while scrapping by for food. This is the first summer I've had in a very long time that hasn't been filled with stress and anxiety requiring medication in one form or another. I've had my freak out moments (uh, like what Friday? Saturday?), and it hasn't all been puppies and rainbows, but maybe the chance to "just be" is what I needed. I'm healthier than I have been in my entire life.

So right now I need to map out a plan, some goals, a reading list, and deadlines (both long and short), come up with a plan of attack (I should do the same thing with our outstanding debt, too). I need to get to work on finishing those syllabi (the goal is to have them both done, with the schedule of assignments finished by Friday). And I need to get the first two novels for the novel class read by Saturday so I can be ahead of the game a little bit and start prepping them. I am freaking out a little bit about this class to be honest, but oh well. It's only 11 weeks.

And tomorrow I go start getting the "sugly" (summer ugly) sloughed off with a hair appointment, and I think I'm going to get my nails and toes done, too. Today though, I read and work on those syllabi.

Moving Forward

I spent yesterday morning making a calendar for the next two weeks of things that I need to do in the next two weeks. It helped. And then I went and worked out, and I had a couple of successes in my training. That helped, too.

Even though Dr. Crazy pointed out the things I had accomplished this summer, I feel like this has been a long week of personal and professional/academic disappointments, false starts, failures. Yeah, it sounds melodramatic, I know, but it feels like this has been an especially crappy week. My point is, I'm glad that she pointed those things out. And the trainer at the box did the same thing to me too, so clearly I need to be focusing on the positives here and moving forward and building on the successes rather than wallowing in the disappointments.

And because it was all rainy, and I was still a little down yesterday off and on, and because I'm a total sucker for wanting to spend time with the J on Saturdays since he's a working man now, I did not accomplish the cleaning and stuff that needed to be done yesterday. However, when we get home from Gma and G'pa's, while he's grilling the food, I'm going to work on the guest room and stuff.

When I'm done with this post, I'm going to actually read. (I am almost an hour behind, but I need to blog and clear my head).

Plus, I was asked if I wanted to be on a SF panel (putting together a panel) for a conference which looks super freaking cool, and I so want to do it, so that has sort of given me the academic/professional push that I need right now (abstract is due in two weeks). I just decided that I am indeed going to work on an abstract for that. I find that these kinds of pushes to something immediate (for smaller projects) actually get me into a mindset for working on larger projects. However, the potential problem is that I haven't seen to make my way out of "smaller project" mode. But all of the conference abstracts that I want to work on ALL fit into one of the two larger projects on which I want to work, so the rationale is that these will jump start that research then. And that's what conference papers should do right? Lead into larger projects? Although that's been the rationale for the last two years, but oh well. After this I'll have no excuses then.

So that's it. I've got a deadline now to meet. I've got a goal. And I've got to sit down and figure out how all of this fits into the larger picture and then start chipping away at that. While I think my stress level just increased here, I think it's a good stress, and probably what I needed.

Stuff to do!!

Um, yeah, so I've accomplished nothing in the way of work this week. Gah! We've been cleaning, shopping, organizing, and most importantly, CrossFitting! Yeah! And watching the games online--we have a Mac Mini and that thing is just so portable we move it to the den and hook it up to the t.v. when we need to watch something on-line.

So I have some awesome things first to report--on Thursday right I did my first unassisted handstand and couldn't do the rope climb. Yesterday I did THREE unassisted handstands, made movement toward a handstand pushup AND made it about 8 feet up the rope! Woo-hoo!

I've got to get some of this stuff around here organized and taken care of today though because I do have work to do (although truth be told right now all I want to do is hang out at the box). So today I've got to do some food prep and finish with the kitchen stuff. I've got to finish moving the DVDs to their new home and get one of the bookcases into the bedroom so I can move the spare desk into the office and temporarily house the microwave stand there until there's room to move it to the guest room to make room for the chest freezer. We've got to get boxes broken down and into the trash for pick up tomorrow and get the clothes for goodwill in the car to bring them tomorrow too (conveniently located near our CF box).

My student who has the incomplete and who complained so loudly with hir father to anyone over me who would listen (and who has received two emails from me reminding hir of what needs to be done, how to submit, etc.) has YET, after all that freaking grief on Monday, to turn hir work in. Apparently contesting hir scholarship isn't really that big of deal now since it's clear it's not my fault that ze can't contest it. But I freaked out on Thursday when the Assistant Dean called me at home after 5 because I thought that it was about this student. Turns out it wasn't. More pretty good news--there's this week long program for H.S. students at the Uni that's funded by a large national grant, and part of that "camp" is that they watch films relevant to the topic of the camp and then have to discuss the films in the context of what they've learned that day. I guess usually someone from the English department is asked to do this (so I don't know why they didn't ask the person who often does it), but anyway, this year, according to the Asst. Dean, I was his first choice/recommendation for this to the program director, and it pays $600 for three nights of work--I give a 5-10 minute intro to the film, watch the film with the kids, and voila, I get $200 per movie for that. Sweet right?! And I get to list it as service for both the university and larger community on my c.v. for tenure. I'm down with that. I would do it just for the money anyway (and I'm in town, and it's not that labor intensive, and we still don't know when the husband starts work, so I'll take whatever extra money I can get still). Anyway, I'm totally down with that.

My goal for this coming week, M-F is to read a book a day (come as close as possible) and write for at least 15 minutes and FINISH that other freaking article. The short one. The one I now haven't looked at for two whole freaking weeks!

With any luck, this is what next week's extreme research schedule will look like--three hours of reading in the morning, 15 minutes of writing, four hours of reading in the afternoon. At least. The husband will either have to read as well or find something else to occupy him. I need next week to jump start some getting work done here. It's mid July; I've accomplished nothing, not even the small article, and time is slipping away. It'll be September before I know it.

I don't want to get stressed out yet, but I'm almost at that point. Today, finish organizing/cleaning and all that jazz!

Have a great weekend everyone!

DONE!

DONE@!@!!!!!!!! Yes!! Yay!!!!

I was only going to spend an hour grading this morning. But hell, I got through all the rest of it in about 2.5 hours, and that included taking the time to feed the mutts and taking them on walks (which I needed to get out of the chair anyway).

Grades are calculated and submitted, with the exception of the one kid, who due to medical issues, I gave until Monday to submit the rest of hir work. Grades aren't due until the 11th. It would be nice if ze turned hir stuff in by tomorrow so I could actually really really be done, but as it's just two papers that won't need comments, I'm not sweating it.

I also have an incomplete, but I'm not looking at the essay ze submitted until I get the rest of hir work. Because if ze fails to submit essay 5, then I really don't want to have expended the energy going over the work. And I already explained to hir that during the quarter, no other student got the benefit of having the essay graded before the final essay and that essay 5 was only contingent on hir writing essay 4, not on it being graded. As I was kind enough too to grant the incomplete rather than the F for the quarter, I am irked that Stu is being demanding about my grading--"I need this ASAP!"-- well, if that were the case, then you should have finished the quarter on time. I know that's rude, but whatever.

Today, I think I'm going to veg on the couch and read for pleasure/work all day. It's mostly pleasure because it is stuff that I want to read which turns out to be stuff that I need to read, so yay! I also need to finish that little article thingy, but I'll work on that tomorrow or try to finish that bad boy up on Monday while the husband is at school.

I'm so excited that summer can now officially begin! And I'm even more excited that with any luck, I won't have to worry about *having* to teach over the summer again!

The Light at the end of the Tunnel

I feel like I'm perhaps on the upswing here. Had some good work outs this week. On top of grading and stuff thus far (a set of drafts come in today, and I will crank those out before afternoon). I got about 900 crappy words written yesterday, for the article due Monday (yeah, up pressure cooker anyone?? ha! and it only needs to be 2000-3000 words), so that did make me feel a little bit better.

I have a feeling though that some students have just fizzled out and I do wonder if I'll get a complete set of drafts or not this morning. We shall see what happens.

Today I really need to try to clean this place up, or start cleaning this place up. It's gross. Seriously. I'm embarrassed. But with the pace of this course, the exhaustion, a week of being sick, two dogs who are majorly shedding because of the heat, shit. It's more than a body can bear. But I will make a valiant effort this afternoon when I'm done grading. I will open a bottle of wine, prep the food for tonight, and drink and clean because cleaning is always better and doable with wine.

Totally unrelated--but does anyone out there watch Hell's Kitchen by chance? First of all, I LURVE Gordan Ramsay (say what you will--I get taken to task on this all of the freaking time, so whatever. I love him). But I hate this season. This is the first season I'm pulling for the men, and I find more of the women this season to be complete irredeemable human beings. They are so so gross. And I can accept that it's done for ratings and for entertainment, but as I was catching up on the show yesterday afternoon, I had to stop watching. They are seriously so disgusting that I can't even enjoy the spectacle of the show anymore. Like really? That's how you want to present yourself to a national audience and to people to are already your clients or patrons? Or am I seriously just getting old? Or is it a combination of both? I can't tell.

Anyway, four more days of actually showing up to campus left. Three more days of class time, one of which is peer review, the other two of which are in class writing for the entire class so they can work on their essays and ask questions as they're writing. And then I'm done! Except for grading, but I'm done! Yippee! That leaves me two months to write my monster (literally and figuratively) article and start developing the other one and prep for the fall class and work on a course proposal. And while the husband is in class and doing homework, I will do my own work. I certainly have to make a schedule for that, but I'll worry about that when this is done. But I'm so close to being finished with this quarter I can hardly contain myself!!

P.S. I also love the new Dallas. I DVR'd last night's episode so I'm not up to date yet, but I hope it sticks around. I'm giddy with nostalgic delight.

Mapping out some summer work plans

I need to tinker around with the blog format a little bit more here so I can get my summer to do list up on the side bar somehow/somewhere. But I am too lazy this morning to do that. And I feel like doing a little bit of recreational reading this morning also before I work out.

I had a lot of stuff that I was hoping to accomplish this weekend, but truth be told, I am wiped out from our trip. We got back into Home City from Conference City at about 7:40 pm on Wednesday, a day that started at about 6 am for me. Then we had to pack up all our stuff from Home City. We left Home City to return to Big Little Town on Thursday, another ten hour trip. Yesterday, the husband had to get up bright and early to get to work (yay! his unit is paying him to come into the office and do stuff for them before drill!) and then I had to go teach. Ugh. I discovered yesterday morning that I'm a in computer lab. I don't much like that set up at all. On a positive note, the kids in the class seem to be a better group than what I had last quarter. Rather than feeling beat down and depressed about teaching comp, I'm actually looking forward to this summer quarter with this group. After yesterday, I'm feeling re-energized about 101. And I was exhausted. So yay for small miracles.

I had really wanted to sleep in this morning, but I could hear the Divine Miss T pacing the floor because she had to pee. No sleeping in for me.

This summer I am going to attempt to do what I've never been able to accomplish over the summer break--I am going to be productive! I am going to map out a schedule for the summer and deadlines and goals and the like. And I'm going to be smart about it. I'm going to allow for free days, days I don't want to work and want to veg, and "off days," just like a work out program sort of. Generally I pack my schedules so tight that I can't follow them because they are so strict.

The July and August schedule will look much different from the June schedule because I'm teaching now and not then.

But here's the general plan:

• a.m. workouts--which, yes, I am still loving working out in the morning, and now I don't have to be on campus for a full 45 minutes later than what I was used to on my late day and almost 2 hours later than my early days, so this is good. Especially since it's getting to be super hot. I will be able to work out in the morning before going to campus. Yes!
• teach.
• lunch during office hours (I'm usually famished after teaching).
• For the next two weeks at least, M-Th write for 15-30 minutes a day for small article due no later than July 1. (I'm actually shooting for June 15th, because I'd like to be done with it--this is the one I wanted to finish in April. >:-/)
• Friday afternoons are devoted to grading as for the next five weeks I will be picking up drafts every Friday and I want to get them back to the students before the weekend so they have time to figure out what they need to do.
• For the next two weeks as well, I'd like to spend one hour, M-Th, cleaning out the office and the guest room--decluttering, organizing, making donation piles, going through clothes, putting the last straggler of the winter clothes away even though it hasn't been winter here since February, etc. I think if I try to do a marathon session in these rooms, I'll get three hours in and quit for months. About an hour is my limit. I'm going to need my writing space cleared out by July so that when it comes time to work on the big articles, I have space. 
• Use Sat/Sun morning to read and prep for the week. I'm going to save that this week for tomorrow. :)

For the next two weeks anyway, it  will give me time in the afternoons to relax, cook, keep things straightened and clean and what not. I'll only have myself and the dogs to worry about as the husband leaves for his two week annual training next weekend.

I'm going to give this a shot for two weeks and see what happens. Right now though, I'm going to have another cup of coffee and recreational read for a little while before I really need to actually start my day.

Oh a conferencing I will go!

Well folks, the quarter is over, the husband and I are in a fancy place for my conference and I've been conferencing away.

Can I say that it has been an amazing conference? OMG! It's like the raddest one yet, yo! I feel a little bad because I've been actually "conferencing," going to panels and stuff, and the husband has just been hanging out, but one of our friends from BLT-U is here, too (we were on the same panel), and he has NOT been conferencing at all except our panel, so the husband has been hanging out with him. I feel bad; we've not actually seen any of the sights yet or really done anything--the husband has walked and run around the city so far, but even with our lack of touristing, it's actually been a bit of a vacation. I finished my paper up the morning we left, so I wouldn't have to worry about it. I did some read throughs (right? is that the right word? why can't I think this morning?) and some small edits here and there, but it was nice not to have to "work" on the paper while at the conference. I had some grand plans for what we'd do here, and there's still today though. There have been three other panels that I've needed to go to though besides mine: the one I chaired, the other society's panel, and my old prof's and friend's panel. Today I need to go to one more and then that's it until the reception thingy.

Also, one of my friends from grad school is here! I didn't know she was going to be here until the day I got to the conference when I was looking at the program at the airport. I haven't seen her since she graduated five years ago! Or maybe it'll be closer to six. Anyway, she and her husband hung out with our group twice and last night we really got to catch up on a lot of stuff, and while we were friends at Grad City U, I do wish that we had hung out more than we did, but we both were really always sort of on autopilot with our stuff. But anyway, it's been so wonderful to hang out with her and meet her husband and her husband and mine really hit it off, so that was great to see that, too.

Our panel went amazing, btw. One of the best attended that I had seen, and it helped that it was scheduled at a very choice time, too. My former prof/mentor/friend came and said it was the best of my papers I had done yet (and this is four he has seen now), and he's been really supportive and encouraging with the writing and keeping the fire to my feet regarding publishing. One of his friends from grad school, another person in the field, also came too and had some really positive things to say about it and gave me a little applause when I was done with my paper.

What I love about this conference and why I go broke every summer trying to come to it and why I bust my ass and get stressed out about the deadlines and stuff right after Christmas is because this conference has been really really good for me. Since the last three of my four papers have dealt with the same field of study (the one five years ago, when I was still a grad student came from my diss and was by far the worst of the papers), I am now being sort of groomed, perhaps for lack of a better word, for the field by the top scholars in the field right now. And this is what's great about this group and the conference--they think my ideas are good; they are encouraging me and helping me network and giving me advice about what I need to do to help to make sure I get the scholarship I need to get out there for myself, for the field, and for tenure. That's what's wonderful about them--they are senior, established scholars who are good friends with even more senior and established scholars, and they're not like "talk to me when you have a book" people. So they are trying to foster the development of the field with the people they want to see in it, and they are very welcoming to junior scholars (whether grad student or early career profs).

The other thing, too, and this struck me last night as my grad school friend and I were talking, because she's disillusioned it seems with the publishing stuff for tenure and feels confined by the ebbing and flowing of trends in scholarship (although it sounds, as always, that she is doing some brilliant stuff in the field she is slowly moving in to), and feels very much like "who cares about this stuff? like four people?" At which point you have to do something publishable that *you* enjoy and care about. What I like about how this conference has developed for me is that there are more than four people out there who care about the stuff that I'd like to do. Or maybe it still really is just the same four people in the field, but the point is that they care enough for it to be important for the field that it does matter in the grand scheme of things. And that's what I get out of this conference and being around this group of scholars. Unlike MLA (I know there are those of you who love the MLA, so no offense to you) where I leave the conference just wanting to kill myself because I feel like everyone is walking around hoping to detect a fraud or looking for the stars (which admittedly is a cool thing about MLA, and Dr. Crazy has a cool story from last year's MLA if I remember correctly). But here, I feel like I matter. I feel energized and ready to go forth and do scholarship when I leave this conference. I feel revitalized and reinvigorated by my field and my ideas and other people's ideas. I learn new things at this conference.  And I think it's important for non-tenured folks to feel like they matter.

My grad school friend and I were talking about how demoralizing the tenure process can be even at places where the scholarship requirements are not a book, and that's one of the things that helps me at this conference--the last thing I feel here is demoralized or stupid. And granted this year at the new job has not been one of demoralization at all (sadness and disappointment over my friend's tenure denial, but not demoralization; perhaps a week of disillusionment and frustration here and there, but not demoralization), but I think we all need to feel like we're doing something worthwhile, for our field, for our students, for ourselves. We all need to feel important every once in a while in a meaningful way. And that's why I like this conference and why I've switched fields. I know that there are people out there reading when I'm working on, paying attention to what I'm working on, and people care about what I have to say. It's not just about publishing crap but about being a part of a conversation about stuff I love with other people who are invested in the same books and ideas I am. It's about the ideas and sharing those ideas with this group. And I'm thankful and lucky that I get to be a part of that, especially this early in my career.

Almost Summer Lovin'

On today's agenda, rather on this morning's agenda is to work on the conference paper and work out (this afternoon I've got to sit in on some interviews on Skype for the search committee I'm on, so I'm losing a block of time in the afternoon).  I've got about 5/8 pages. Since there are four of us presenting, I'm shooting for just 8. It's rough right now. I think I can get the draft finished today and start cleaning some of it up a little bit. And then if I have to, I'll keep working on it on the plane tomorrow afternoon.

It's funny, but I have developed a pre-conference ritual for this particular conference. I realized yesterday as I was participating in my ritual. It involves going to Home City (for the past four years I've attended this conference I've left it from Home City regardless of where I live during the academic year), getting a hair cut, buying toiletries from my favorite bath store, buying something to wear to the conference (more on that in a minute), and getting a mani/pedi. It also usually involves buying make up, but I did that here over the spring, and I'm broke and we had to get the husband's sister a graduation gift. So I'm trying to be frugal. It also involves going to B&N. As we were at the mall yesterday, I told the husband that he was witnessing what has become the pre-conference ritual--and I buy the clothes I'm going to wear at the conference from the EXACT SAME STORE every year!

Something about this conference, while a very very friendly conference for its size, makes me incredibly self conscious, but it also makes me want to be at my best; to make the best impression impossible, even though I see the same people year after year, one of whom has known me for almost 15 years now. And my wardrobe NEVER works out for me the way that I want it to for this conference. I imagine in my head what I want to look like and how I want to present myself, and it never works out that way. During the packing process for this trip, I suddenly become a horrifically ugly moron who's just one step away from being exposed as a total fraud and that there are people who will take my degree away from me. I'll come back from the conference embarrassed and jobless, and that'll be it. I'll have to go live under a rock and change my name to run from my embarrassment. This is what goes through my mind in the days before the conference and while I'm trying to at least make myself presentable.

Of course, there is something to be said for a fresh new hair cut and a mani/pedi and a new dress.

There's also something about being in Home City that fills me with this weird anxiety. Which is funny because the husband's family, especially his mom and his brothers are the most laid back non-judgmental people I've ever known, and they LOVE me. But I always feel guilty like they are quietly judging me because I took their son/brother away to live away from the family. Granted, he's a grown man and could have said, "nope, we can't date because you'll move away one day and I don't want to. Sorry." And I feel even more guilty because I found a job closer to my family and not to his. So you know, there's a relative degree of anxiety for me about that, even though I know it's not my fault that no schools around here were advertising for a job in my field when I applied for the job at BLT-U. But, oh well. Once I have the paper done and once I get out to conference city, none of that will matter for I do love conference city with a love that is pure and true.

So I need to be thinking now what I need to accomplish for the summer. I'd like to actually wait until my summer really begins in July to focus on the things I need to do and just teach now, which perhaps seems counterintuitive because you'd think I'd want to work and then play but a M-F six week freshman comp class? Yikes.

While I'm teaching, I'd like to work on the article that I needed to write by June 1. That won't happen. I'll have to shoot for June 15th.

Here's what I hope to get done. Of course it's an ambitious list, but they always are at the beginning of summer are they not? I plan on taking off the last two weeks of August to do nothing but relax, play, and travel, too, by the way.

• First and foremost, finish the dam conference paper.
• Write the shorter article by June 15th.
• Have longer article ready to be sent out by August 11th. 
• Read for pleasure.
• Read for work.
• Work on course proposal.
• Work on fall syllabus.
• Join a pool.
• Stay on track with health and fitness goals.
• Finish getting the office and the guest room organized.
• Get all stuff to Goodwill. Get rid of stuff not needed. 

And then between 8.15-09.01--do whatever the hell I want!

And on that note, I'm going to get to work on that conference paper so I then go work out.