Retail Therapy

I really should not be allowed in bookstores. I will be the person who declares bankruptcy because she bought more books than she can afford. Not that we're there quite yet.

The Purchases
1. Day of Tears - a novel in dialogue by Julius Lester. It's a historical novel by the great children's author about the largest slave auction ever in U.S. history. It won the 2006 Coretta Scott King Author Award.


2. How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff. A Printz Award winner - I'm embarrassed that I haven't read it yet.


3. Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate Dicamillo. Another book I'm embarrassed to not have read.


4. As if Learning Mattered: Reforming Higher Education by Richard E. Miller. It was on sale for $2 and I do care about higher ed in general.



5. The Complete Stories by Flannery O'Connor. I needed some more short stories.



Total Cost
$23.50

It could be worse.

Take Out

Fortune Cookie Fortune #1:
Your random act of kindness today will spread quickly to others.

I'm not sure this happened. Can't think of any kindnesses on my part today.

Fortune Cookie Fortune #2:
A new work opportunity will avail itself.

This might actually be true.

Scenes From A Road Trip

Okay, I Lied

Here's a picture of one of the hands.

Post-Cocoa

An "E"

I received an "E" from Brigindo over at dirt and rocks.

So now, it is my duty (and honor) to bestow an "E" for blogging Excellence to 5 bloggers. Those are the rules.

Here they are, in no particular order:


maude in progress - For her brutal honesty about the the hell of being a dissertator.

American Indians in Children's Literature - Debbie Reese's blog critically looks at the good, the bad, and the ugly of images of American Indians in children's literature. Not only do I learn about problems in historical and contemporary children's and YA lit., but she also reviews and publicizes works by native authors including those published by small alternative and native presses.

Caveat Lector - Because I love to read about those repositories and the future of scholarly publication. And Dorothea's walks to work are always filled with interesting flora and fauna.

Anastasia - More honesty about dissertation hell, the job market, and family life. And, gotta love a subtitle that says "death obsessed since 1984." Yes, I am the daughter and granddaughter of morticians (a word I prefer to funeral director).

Bardiac - Currently posting about teaching in Japan (some great pictures!), but also has posts clarifying the job search process (from both sides), faculty life, and life in general.

Spread the love if you're feeling energetic.

For My Next Act, I Will Crawl Out From Under A Rock

I've been laying low this week. Aside from teaching and required meetings, I haven't spent much time on campus or anywhere else, for that matter. Haven't been very productive, either. I think I'm at one of those points where I am paralyzed because I have so much to do. I know what I need to do, but I'm not doing it.

So, rather than dwell on that, I'm going to focus on what went well this week.

1. Today I bought warm and decent-looking dusty red gloves (50% off!) to replace the gloves I lost. This is an accomplishment. I have trouble finding gloves that fit well. My hands are odd in that, depending on how you look at it, I have short fingers or wide palms. I've never had gloves that fit perfectly (aside from those ineffective stretchy driving gloves), but these are about as good as it gets. Just a little extra room in the fingers. And no, there will probably never be a picture of my freak hands on this blog*.
   
2. While at the department store looking at gloves, I scanned the clearance racks and ended up buying a nice Liz Claiborne button down (dark green and white vertical stripes) for $14, which is much better than the original price of $65.
   
3. On Thursday a couple of my students said that I made their Thursday. Of course, I did bake brownies and almond blondies for them.
   
4. Have I mentioned that my students are very thoughtful? This, too, is a good thing.
   
5. My acupuncturist is a miracle worker. I felt much better after my session.
   
6. I wrote and sent out more job letters/materials.
7. I have my teaching demo ready for next week.
8. I enjoyed reading about giants, hags, and monsters and I look forward to reading about fairy beasts and fairy plants this weekend.
   

What do you think? Was this a good start towards positive thinking and productivity?


*I get this from my dad. He calls them "mortician's hands." Gee, thanks dad! My brother and sister have normal hands. Unlike my siblings, I will never be able to palm a basketball. I'm from Indiana, so this is tragic. On the plus-side, I have very solid, strong wrists.

I Should Probably Explain

I mentioned this in the comments to the last post, but I thought it should come outside of the comments. I know that a lot of you don't know the ins and outs of working with my dissertation director.

My participation in the discussion about the job market next week isn't really optional. When you work with my director, you must agree to the following three conditions:

1. You must agree to attend dissertation club, which meets about every two to three weeks with her and the rest of her dissertators. When someone isn't in town, we use a speaker phone and have a conference call if possible. Normally, we talk about the progress on our dissertations, methodological issues, etc. At the end of each meeting, we write down our goals for our work for the next meeting. At the start of the next meeting, we briefly discuss our progress on the written goals.
2. You must agree to complete your dissertation in two years. My diss director is very popular and she is very invested in having us finish in a timely manner. This is in everyone's best interest.
3. By October of the year you go on the job market, you must have three dissertation chapters drafted.

I really am glad she has these expectations/rules. Next Monday's discussion is part of dissertation club. So no, not optional, but it also isn't a situation where I'm going to be exposed to a gazillion people, either. It could be worse, but it still isn't going to be my favorite dissertation club meeting. And, to be fair, my director did ask me if I felt ok about taking part.

And, I have to add that I think my director has created a wonderful model of support. To hear about the others' projects on a regular basis helps make the process much less isolating than it can be. And writing down those goals in marker on a giant poster-size 3m pad adds to the accountability factor. It also helps us learn how much work we can do in two to three week chunks of time, which I think is invaluable. It keeps us more realistic about our progress on our projects.

The Job Search, or Why k8 Is Tired

I am tired. Yes, I am. Tired of preparing application materials (yes, I'm still doing this). Tired of the trips to the post office. Tired of waiting. Just tired.

Now that all of that is partially out of my system, I'll try to be rational.

I really do understand why the job market season is so brutal. I find myself comparing myself to other people in my area who are on the market. So many of them are so supremely talented and have CVs that are absolutely amazing. But, even though I have some completely different and somewhat unique qualities/qualifications, I can't help but feel inadequate when I see the ways I don't fit as well into the pretty little boxes. I suffer no delusions about the fact that academia rewards conformity. Oh yes, one must be "original," but it is within certain regulated confines that newness or originality is valued.

But even if that wasn't/isn't the case, I keep comparing. This past weekend has been the worst, I think. I know why. In one week and one day I am scheduled to discuss/reflect on the job market experience along with my dissertation director's other advisees on the market this year. Guess who, comparatively speaking, is going to look like the big loser in this little scenario? Yeah. It should be fun.

It wouldn't be that bad, except for these little factors:

• The people who say, "But you're in comp/rhet. You should have no problem getting a job."
• The fact that my materials were frequently praised as excellent.
• The people (largely faculty) who kept/keep telling me that I am highly marketable.
• The (aforementioned) people who now seem bewildered and confused.
  
• My program has a 100% placement rate. Yeah, you read that correctly.
• My parents keep asking me if I've heard from anyone about interviews. My dad sounds concerned, and that concerns me.
  

What to do.... Is it bad that my greatest fear is that I could become the cautionary tale? Anyway, I have to figure out what to say next week and still find some way to focus on my dissertation. And, I need to find a way to not feel inadequate. And I need to stop comparing myself to others. This last point is particularly difficult because I come from a very competitive family. The siblings took rivalry to some new extremes. And, I understand that it isn't a competition in some ways, but in other ways it is. If I had any athletic talents, I suspect I wouldn't deal well with sports in which people are scored by judges.

bleh.

2,000+

You may or may not have heard about all of the snow we've had in Wisconsin recently. Tornado damage to the South rightly received most of the media attention, but we had our own little weather-related chaos around here.

Yesterday (and last night), over 2,000 cars were stuck on I-90 south of Madison. People were trapped on the interstate in near-blizzard conditions and the aftermath for over 12 hours!

I Am A Five Year Old

It's midnight.
I should go to bed.
I can't stop watching the Bobcat remove the piles of snow out in the parking lot.
I could barely tear myself away from the window for this post.
I just heard it rev its engine - must return to the window!

Super Bowl

Well, I guess since my Manning didn't have a chance to win, at least the other Manning won it.

Serendipity

Dr. Crazy recently wrote a post titled "Access To Theory" in which she wrote

"It takes a certain kind of student to choose to attend a college or university with an actively crappy reputation....Such institutions often have funny names or catch phrases that locals use when describing them, like "Can't read? Can't Write? Blank State," or "No Education University." You might think that it takes a student who couldn't get in anyplace better to choose a school that is widely known (among everybody, even those who themselves have not finished college) for its lack of rigor, but if you think so, you clearly *don't* understand where some (not all) students are coming from in making their decision about where to attend college."

Go check out the post and the comments - it's a really great discussion of class, privilege, education opportunities, etc.

Then, I sit down with tonight's reading, Donna Dunbar-Odom's Defying the Odds: Class and the Pursuit of Higher Literacy. In the first chapter, "Situating Literacy," it she writes

"When I entered college, I truly believed that one college was as good as another. I knew some of the people I went to high school with went to elite private colleges, but it simply never occurred to me that they might gain some advantage by going there instead of the mega-university that I chose for reasons of cost and convenience. I had heard of Harvard and Yale, of course, but schools like that seemed to be from a different universe and to be for the upper classes. Only be looking back...can I see how I was marked by my social class. In other words, I exhibited no class consciousness."

This is starting out really great. I'll report back when I've read more than 10 pages. :-)