Sometimes research really excites me.

Sometimes it just shuts me down. The task seems insurmountable and I wonder, why bother? There's too much to read and not enough time. I see the amount of reading that goes into even a short article and I think, how am I going to come close to this kind of thoroughness?

I am also a bad researcher. I will waste time on reading through stuff that isn't helpful just in case something 300 pages later might turn out to be helpful, but usually never is. This shouldn't surprise me considering I can't get rid of clothes "just in case" they come back into style or fit me magically wonderfully one day when I finally lose the 20 pounds I need to. I guess I "hoard" research in the most unproductive way "just in case." I've not developed the fine art of skimming; I don't know when to quit because what if someone challenges me on page 345 of the book I stopped reading at page 344? That will be the thing to make or break the article and I'll be doomed. At least this is how is plays out in my head. It's also an easy excuse to avoid the writing of the thing--I can't! I'm not done reading yet!

Today, I've only read two articles, which I feel is completely pathetic given that tomorrow will involve cleaning and the weekend is Magpie's SECOND birthday and family will be in, so there will be no time to myself AT ALL, and there will be no chance to work. Of course, it's my fault for not being more organized and planning better or being more diligent. But when the WHOLE family is here, I need space to myself and time to myself (and EVERYONE will want to be here early so they can maximize time with Magpie, which is fine), but I'm just filled with anxiety about this. Family gatherings do stress me out.

However, I will go get the dinner prepped and ready to go, and then when the parents go pick up the kid, I'll spend some time trying to make some sense out of what I read today and write a little bit in order to feel like I'm doing something toward this article and tenure. I have much much more to say, but I need to get the dinner going so I can do some writing later. And I need to move around and get out of the bedroom, too.

The Great Purge of 2015

The Great Purge of 2015 has begun.

I think I have come closer to figuring out the sources of my discontent.

I have too much stuff. I do. I spend so much time cleaning and organizing only to find my stuff multiplying (it seems) and collecting dust and I look around my house and I feel stifled and trapped. So, I think part of the problem is the excess amount of stuff I have.

I have hoarding tendencies. I do not want to become a hoarder.

I'm done "organizing" stuff. I'm ready to get rid of stuff.

My ongoing discontentedness is making me depressed. It's prohibiting me from work, from weight loss, from getting things done. I just sort of sulk and I have found that I don't really like being around anybody except my husband and kid. But I've found that my temper is shorter with them, and I don't want to be one of those parents who loses patients with a toddler simply because she's a toddler (like last night). This just makes me feel guilty and worse and perpetuates the problem.

I feel cluttered. My existence feels cluttered.

I am going to work toward a kind of minimalism, a rational or practical minimalism. I probably won't purge my DVDs or books. And I will continue to hang on to much of the Magpie's stuff (if/when there's a second kid, that will probably change). But for me, papers, clothes, shoes, junk, things from old boyfriends, things I've attached meaning to but actually have no meaning, that stuff I will be purging.

It is hard though. On Monday I went through some clothes, knick knacks and jewelry (fashion jewelry, farmer's market stuff, too) and oh my god. It was hard. I cried three times. It's difficult to let things go. I kept asking J if it was okay to get rid of x or y or whatever. And then I stuffed my face at dinner. I totally emotionally ate after my first "purge." I knew why I was eating, too, and there really was little I could do about it. (A large part of this as well is I think PMS behind the scenes here).

I'm reserving Mondays for this type of cleaning during the summer. I may add Friday this week to the list too because we've got people coming in for the Magpie's SECOND birthday (2 years! Oh my), and I'd like to get some stuff in the den and in the kitchen taken care of.

I honestly expect that it will take me close to six months to accomplish this.

I'm hoping the purging of the useless things will help me to have better focus on my health and my work. I think it will help my attitude towards life, too. And we are hoping to buy a house here within the next year, so the less stuff we have to move, the better that will be. We'll have more space when people come over. We'll have less to clean, wash, whatever. Really I just want more space. There's just too much stuff.

I think if I have a cleaner, less cluttered environment, I'll be able to focus better on work because I won't be thinking that I need to clean or straighten or whatever.

I've also decided that even though it's summertime, I am going to workout early--like the 5 am class (it's really small right now, too), so that way, by this time of day I can get be working. I have a July 15th deadline (which needs to be July 10th since I'm going out of town on the 12th), so that takes priority here. But again, I will be able to focus so much better once things are less cluttered and crazy here.

On that note, I will get the laundry started, meditate, then get to work until lunch time.

Cautiously Optimistic

Finally, we're at the end of the quarter. While I'm not looking forward to all the traveling we'll be doing with an infant ( not jazzed about the actual en route stuff), I'll be glad to get the fuck out of town and see family and just be away from work and stuff for a while. I'm supposed to be grading right now, but I haven't blogged since my last little pity party on here. I'm glad to say that things are perhaps looking up a little bit. Although I'm a bit mad that I thought I'd be dried up by now since I haven't been nursing or pumping her, but I'm not, so it's just like lingering torture here for me. However...

• Spider bite is healing. No more pain--it's sore, but the hole is closing, and the J said it's healed enough and the waterproof bandage is good enough that I can actually start working out again today. So I will. Despite the massive sinus headache I have, I do plan on doing some CF later today if my headache goes away. I may actually perhaps put it off until tomorrow.
• Magpie had three nights in a row with a seven, yes SEVEN hour stretch of sleep, then another 2-3 after eating. And the last two night we've had an ALMOST NINE HOUR stretch of sleep! Yes! The pattern has been about 6 or 6:30 we start putting her down for bed. If she eats a full 8 oz in one stretch she'll stay asleep. But generally she'll eat 4-5 oz, sleep for about 45min to 90 minutes, then get up, finish off another 3-4 oz and then sleep. That means I've gotten to watch tv and hang out with the fam in the evenings for the last five days. So now she's getting about 12-13 some odd hours of sleep a night, which is great! I've consistently gotten about four nights or so of at least 7 hours stretches, and I'm feeling much better. Which means...
• I'm caught up on grading! Yes, I should be grading right now, but I'll start here in a few minutes, but I've been able to grade all the things the days that they've come in, and it was totally worth putting in an hour or two on both Saturday and Sunday in order to not be so overloaded with grading during finals week. Things have been manageable! Saturday was the first Saturday all quarter that I haven't felt stressed out and frantic and just burdened with what needed to be done for the week. I got to enjoy the baby. I got to hang out with the fam. It was nice to just not be so stressed, which is actually why I think I have this massive headache now. After being super stressed since like March, my body has finally been able to relax a little bit and just be. I never thought this day would come, or not at least for another 3 years or so. 

For the first time since I've been here, we get like an obnoxious three week break for Thanksgiving. I should have all grades done and recorded by tomorrow night. I plan on spending Thursday working on the syllabi for next quarter to get those bad boys done with. And then I want to spend Thanksgiving break reading for both enjoyment and to try to get some stuff knocked out for my article, which at this point, because of the stress of the last two quarters, working on the article and reading stuff I want to read and work on things I want to, that will seem so relaxing! 

I'm also very excited about being able to help with the cooking for a bit now, too. I miss cooking. I really really do. It relaxes me. So I'm looking forward to getting back to that. To some kind of new normal that incorporates a bit more of my pre-baby life. I pretty much actually view November as a wash already because of the spider bite and what not, but I have some high hopes for December. 

Still moving along.

I believe when I wrote a week ago or so I was not doing so hot.

Meh. We had a couple of good days here, but now poor Magpie has another ear infection which made this weekend horrible and difficult. By the end of the week, we will have had three doctor's appointments. Not to mention my own feelings of resentment when everyone is getting sleep and able to eat yummy things, and I get to partake in neither of those things. Yes, I understand the biological and evolutionary function of my not being able to sleep through Magpie's crying, but for the love of God, when someone else is holding her, how I wish I were able to sleep through them!

All the allergy tests came back negative and negligible. So what does that mean? It means we don't know, still, why she has the problems she does. If I am able to breastfeed her but if it means continuing on a super restrictive diet, then I will throw in the towel and finally give up on trying. I have headaches and stomachaches. I'm highly irritable. And it does affect my sleep. I spend a lot of time annoyed at people and angry. I'm on the verge of hating everyone and everything. And I can have a short temper, too.

One way or another, this has to end with the doctor's appointment on Thursday. And she seems to really be thriving on the formula.

Today I will be in grading jail. I need to be in reading jail, but because of the ear infection, this weekend was a total bust on every single level, that I got nothing done. And I've been sitting on these freshman papers for too long now. They said they don't want them back, so at least they're not complaining about them, so I got that going for me, but I don't want to have them anymore. I want them gone especially since I get peer review drafts from them on Friday and a set of lit analyses tomorrow. Sigh.

I'll get caught up; I'm sure.

I also plan on doing AcWriMo because I feel like I've got to. I've got to get some writing produced before December. And I want to.

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.

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.

Misc. & Sundry Things

Okay, so maybe now I'm starting to freak out a little bit. I've not gotten nearly anything I wanted to get done this summer yet--including the self-imposed deadline for the small article. As the editor doesn't need it until the end of the month, well, here I am--I haven't looked at it since I wrote it, and now I'm 9 days away from having to turn that bad boy in, and I've made no progress. Because the J was supposed to be in class all day or at a job, well, now he's home all day, and while I love having him around, it's bad for my productivity. And it's not totally his fault. I mean, there's soooooooooo much stuff to do around this house! So much to clean, so much food to prep, so much organization to do, STILL boxes to be broken down, clothes to go to Goodwill. I mean, I could spend eight hours of cleaning a day and organizing and throwing stuff out and donating and whatnot, and I'd be occupied, seriously, for like three weeks. Next week though, I'm going to have to take the week off from housework and all things house related so I can finish the article and make some headway on my research here. I have to give myself a tiny bit of credit for just now figuring out how to order my own desk copies for my fall class.

It's July, and I haven't done anything really.

I keep saying, "But the house needs to be in order before fall; the house needs to be in order before fall," which is layered under "the house needs to be in order NOW" which thwarts my work, and all my great "reorganization" projects just leave half the place in greater disarray than before! Egads! Maybe what I need to do is devote today to the guest room  and the office and be done with it for good so I have no more excuse you know? I'm more of a mess than I like to think.

The J hasn't started work yet which is starting to stress me out because no one knows when he's supposed to in-process. The only thing keeping me from full on panic is a) he's not worried, and b) the people who got the jobs in the other units are all in the same boat, so at least three other people are limbo for their in-processing, too. With any luck though, he'll start at the next pay cycle. It sucks because if they push it off any longer, than he could have stayed in school. ARGH! Sometimes the military just makes me so freaking crazy!!

Outside of academics and the great reorganization/purging project of the summer of 2012, other things are going well. As I mentioned I bought new running shoes for the first time in a year and new work out shoes for the first time in 7 months. Yesterday I bought new work out clothes for the first time in a year as well! So now I have shorts to get me through an entire week of work outs and a couple of more sports bras. Last week I got into my mini jean skirt that I haven't been able to wear since 2010, and even then I only wore it once or twice. I tried it on in May and it did not fit at all, so that's cool. And it looked pretty good, too. CrossFit is going really well, although I fear that the trainer thinks I "like" him, which I'm sure he's aware that ALL the women there have crushes on him. However, I am almost always the last.one.there. I always do the "Ca$h Out" work out,* and I'm almost always the last one there finishing it. And then I have to stretch. It's the only thing keeping me from total body breakdown here.

But see, I see the box as a classroom. I thrive in classroom environments. And as I mentioned, the thing about the CrossFit box is that everyone who work outs there does the same work out as everyone else; we all work toward a common goal, and our times go up on the board. I am a teacher/coach/professor pleaser especially if it's a class I like, right? As I have competition aspirations, my behavior at the box is totally as one who is vying to be the teacher's pet. It's sad in a way I think, but it's also because even in the outside world, I struggle to be taken seriously. And right now, I'm like the least strong when it comes to Olympic style weight lifting than all the other females, and I HATE being last! And while we all compete against each other though, we're all very supportive of each other and what we all can accomplish. It's very symbiotic--bettering oneself betters the community and the bettering of the community betters oneself. And that's how CrossFit refers to itself--as a community. And it prides itself on fostering that community. It's service oriented, too believe it or not. Lots of people who quit their jobs to devote their time to CrossFit find some way to work CrossFit into some kind of community based non-prof. Anyway, you are all probably already sick of hearing me go on and on about this.

I have found though that it clearly is filling some kind of need/void though. I get to interact with people outside of campus, outside of my department, outside of academia. I get to do something that makes me feel really good and do that around other people who get it. And on the days I do get work done, I actually get a lot done because I feel better, I can focus, and I have more energy to do that stuff. For a while I don't have to be Dr. Maude, which isn't a bad thing at all, and granted, that is the largest part of my identity, but it's not everything. It shouldn't be everything all the time either I don't think. Anyway, this has all veered off from where I started the post, and as class is in a little bit on this Saturday morning, I should get going.

I think what needs to happen this weekend though is I figure out a schedule for the coming week and what I want to accomplish by the end of the week for work so I get that done.


Have a wonderful weekend all!


*it's the post work out work out where you drain whatever you have left in you.

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!

Writing Blues

I'm struggling with this damn pedagogy article that is supposed to be due today. I'm actually in my office waaaaaaay early to be working on it, but the truth is, I will have an hour in class while the stu's are working on their essays and then roughly another office hour after class to keep working.

Right now, the article makes my students sound like dullards, and I sound like an asshole.

So I will work on it for another 90-120 minutes today. Then I will email the editor (who I know, and I'm actually the one that set the July 1 deadline, not him), and ask for another couple of days. I think with maybe another week, like say until Friday, I can get this straightened out. But right now it's still just such a mess that it's causing some writer's block.

Wish me luck. I don't want to take too much longer with it because I need to get started on other things pronto. And I don't want this bad boy hanging over my head.

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.

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.