Monday (sigh)

Oh yes, folks, you know the academic year is basically underway if I'm sighing that a new week is beginning. The truth is that I've been in a bit of a funk for the past couple of days, which may have to do with any/all of the following:

1. I either have wicked-bad allergies or I've got a cold. It is very difficult to know. I also have had a pinch-y neck for the past couple of days, so I may have spinal meningitis. Or I may have a pinch-y neck because all I've been doing is lying around and sleeping and watching tv, etc., and so I've effectively injured myself by being lazy.
2. It's my birthday tomorrow, and I'm not excited at all, nor do I have any decent plans, but the sick thing is that I don't even care, and normally I love celebrating my birthday, which I think means that I'm depressed or something.
   
3. Not only is it my birthday tomorrow, but it's also the day of the first big faculty meeting of the year. Lucky, lucky me. Oh, and I'm ticked off about some of the crap on the agenda, so I actually want to attend. Even though it's my birthday.
4. Rhett Miller's song "Come around" just came on the Pandora - that's the one where the chorus goes, "Am I gonna be lonely for the rest of my life?" Sad, sad, sad.
5. I'm both excited about the start of the school year and pissed off at all of the work that I've got to do to ready myself for it.

Ok, so enough of this whining. It's not really doing me any good. Better to finish the things on my to-do list, to re-adjust my attitude, and to think happy thoughts until tomorrow, so as to ring in my 32nd year on a positive note.

Ok, a Hair Query

So, I'm sitting in my office (yet again) doing more work (because something is wrong with me, I think). Anyway, I do have a hair appointment tomorrow, though, and I am of two minds about what to do.

Option one is to stay with basically what I've got, a cross between the cut of the Paris Hilton (I know, I know, but it's a great cut, and a great cut on my face) and the color of the Sienna Miller when her hair was short, with dramatic blonde highlights around the face and through the crown with the hair getting darker as you move to the back and to underneath.

Option two is to try out this hairstyle. (Scroll through the pictures. No, I don't plan on wearing my hair as if it is being blown vertically by a fan, but I like how the cut is short underneath and looks like a regular bob from the front. Also, I should note that the color is pretty close to my own - very light blonde highlights around the front, but darker behind/underneath (though not much because it's my natural blonde-y color because I couldn't face actually dying the whole head of hair on top of getting highlights - oh, and I'm getting the color done tomorrow as well, so I'll be all shiny and awesome. The color is staying the same, as I love it.)

What do you all think? (Incidentally, I do not promise to take your advice on this, but I would like some opinions other than my own. On the one hand, if I'm going to experiment with my hair, I feel like now is the time to do it because if I hate it then I can grow it into something I don't hate before MLA, assuming I get an interview. On the other, I know that stupid Paris Hilton haircut shaggy-bob-thing I've had on my head is probably the best haircut I've had ever, so maybe I should stick with it? But I like changing my hair! Dammit, I don't know. This is why I need your input.)

Cleaning Out Email

How is it that I had allowed my email inbox to accumulate ONE THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED messages? (This is not even counting mail stored in folders.) I've deleted approx. 250 already, and I am hoping that by the end of the big purge to have only 500 saved. And even that is too many, really. But Rome wasn't built in a day, right?

In other getting-ready-for-the-academic-year news, I went to Staples and purchased the biggest binder they had - only five inches. I've got to find a way to edit the reappointment/tenure/promotion binder so that I need not ever expand beyond that point. This is no easy task, as I've mentioned before.

update:
I now have only 862 emails in the inbox. Still deleting. But can I just note the following about The Great Purge?

a) It is so sad looking at all of the calls for papers that looked interesting, that I saved, and that I never did anything with and

b) It is disheartening indeed to see how many emails I get from students. Generally I try to delete student emails immediately, but some always slip through the cracks. And let me tell you, I get a lot of student email.

c) I'm hungry again, even though I had a sandwich only two hours ago. And I feel like I want to eat something really bad for me (as I've fallen off of the good eating wagon, pathetically).

Update:
To all people who use subject lines like "hey" or "information" or "update," please be more specific. Your vagueness means I've got to do one of two things: 1) open each cryptically subject-ed email to decide whether I should delete or 2) play email russian roulette and assume that nothing of import resides in cryptically subject-ed messages. Neither option is satisfactory. Thank you very much for your cooperation.

Final Update!
I have managed to whittle down my number of saved emails to a mere 243. This took 3 hours. What a totally lame way to spend one's day.

Deja Vu All Over Again (a post about going on the market)

Last night I began working on my cover letter. I dusted off my letter from the last time around, and I set about trying to turn it into something that actually shows who I am now. See, this is the weird thing about academic job searching. As you compile the materials, and as you look at old versions of the materials from searches of yesteryear, you're really looking at a version of your self, and you're attempting to construct a self to send out into the world. I suppose this isn't unique to academic searches, but because the materials required of us are so detailed, because one can be eliminated from consideration for the smallest misstep, it's a rhetorical situation that is incredibly fraught from even the moment of deciding to go on the market.

And perhaps the worst part of it is the cover letter. It inspires you to tell lies (like that one about the "next book project" - not that you won't have a next book but that at least if you're me you haven't really thought about the work you're doing right now in those terms until you were forced to do so by the letter) and to have a big crazy rush of productivity so as to be able to put things in the letter. The CV doesn't inspire the same kind of fretting - does my personality come through in the letter? How can I make this thing shorter? How do I include the most possible information without boring the committee to tears? And at this point, the writing sample doesn't inspire the same kind of fretting, or even the statement of teaching philosophy or of research plans. But the cover letter? Well, sure, I do know how to write one now, but it's still tricky.

I suppose that's the strange thing about embarking on this process right now. It's that I know how to do it because I've done it all before, but at the same time I don't entirely know how to do it in light of who I've become as a scholar in the past three years. I'm not the same person who was finishing up her dissertation in 2002, on the market for the first time. My research has moved beyond the tiny little area on which my dissertation focused; I've taught like 7 different literature courses when then I hadn't taught a one on my own; I've done so much service you'd think that I never say no to anything, even though I do, except for when I'm too flattered to remember about the saying no. In other words, I'm a very different candidate than I was then, even though looking back over the past three years I see how I grew out of that candidate that I was.

I'm not entirely sure how to conclude this post. I suppose suffice it to say that this decision to go on the market has really made me look carefully at how I've developed since getting a tenure track job as a member of this profession, and I think that even if nothing comes of this search, going through the rigamarole of putting together the materials has made me acknowledge what I'm achieving as a professional. That's a good thing. Feeling like a professional - instead of feeling like somebody who's knocking on doors and begging to be allowed to become a professional - at this point in the process is a really good thing.

Busy Busy Busy!

Well. I have been very, very productive today, if I do say so myself. What have I been up to?

1. I took care of some paperwork re: my "reassigned time" stuff for the semi-admin. position. And can I just say again how happy I am that the blog name is still current? How awesome is that. Maybe it's like how profgrrrl claims that blogging something that's lost will make you find it. I called my blog "reassigned time" and it's made me get reassigned time for a whole year!
   
2. I sent some long overdue emails.
3. I created the presentation assignment for my upper-division class, which, hallelujah, seems like it's going to make its enrollment. I feel kind of sorry for my students, incidentally, as it's a pretty brutal assignment. But I think they'll learn a lot from it. And my prep will be minimized (which, of course, is what I shoot for with all such assignments).
4. I scheduled a library session for the upper-division course, which I've not done before in those but which I think is worth the class day. By the way, does anybody remember how in olden times one would only use book sources in a paper because they were easier to get a hold of than articles? This is so not the way with my students, in this age of the internets and databases and such.
   
5. I emailed a VIP in my department, a preliminary step toward the very scary and delicate business of asking for a letter for going on the market.
6. I paid my bills.

I want to take care of more business, but I also am getting a little bit hungry and I kind of want to take a nap and/or play a computer game and/or watch a movie or something. Hrm.

I also decided not to update my real life website with the upper-div. course syllabus, as I'm afraid that if the students saw it they'd all drop and then the course would not be allowed to go and that would just suck. Why would they all drop? Well, I teach in a specialty that doesn't really appeal to the less motivated students, and, well, a lot of students are less motivated than you kind of need to be to read some of the stuff that I teach. And a lot of students lack confidence even if they are motivated, and so if they see the stuff on the syllabus they're afraid, especially if they don't know me. And my class is competing with contemporary fairytales or some such, which is a hell of a lot more appealing than what I teach, at least on the surface.

Why do I teach something that people don't like? Why do I like what I teach so much when so many hate it? Ah, questions for the ages.

I really miss New Kid. Especially because Michael Berube has this fantastic post about evaluations and rate my professor and stuff, and, well, evaluations make me think of New Kid. I do hope everything is ok with her.

Hmmmm.... what else? I have a little bit of a headache. Maybe I should take an advil?

And yes I'm aware it is Reading for Pleasure Wednesday and yes I'll post, but I'm kind of not in the mood. It's because I'm in work mode. It's a problem.

In other news, my diss. adviser sent me a really warm and supportive email about the market stuff. This is pretty awesome, as most of the time he has a very House-like disposition. Oh, I should probably note that this email was two sentences long, and that what made it really warm and supportive was that it wasn't some weird one-word answer that didn't really respond to what I actually wrote. So maybe I'm so used to feeling like the adviser gives me no love that anything seems warm and supportive at this point. (By the way, he's actually been a great adviser - it's just he's not great with email. Or telephones. He's kind of best in person, which is a problem since I am hundreds of miles away from him. Oh, and I need to make him out to be a monster in my head because it's this whole "I'm going to show him or please him or something!" thing I need in order to work. Whatever.)

Ok, this is a silly, rambly post. So I shall stop. Maybe I'll go out for some lunch (cheating on my healthy eating diet) and then do some more work? Maybe I'll go try to procure a binder that's big enough for all of my accomplishments? Hmmmm.

The Reading Meme - Finally

Clare tagged me for this meme ages ago, and what better day to do it on than on RfP Wednesday!

1. One book that changed your life?
I've probably got more than one of these, but I'm going to go with To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf. It was the first novel by Woolf that I read - after first not reading it when assigned it in high school - and I still think that it's one of the most beautiful books I've ever read.

2. One book you have read more than once?
So here's the thing about me. I'm a compulsive re-reader. It's almost kind of sick. And I'm not talking about for work here, though obviously the literary criticism requires one to re-read, as does teaching sometimes. But the thing is, I don't re-read that much for work-related stuff. I take crazy notes the first time around and then only re-read when absolutely necessary. But for pleasure, I compulsively re-read. Over and over again. Until I can find "that part of the book I feel like reading before bed" just by flipping through the book. Most recently, I've been reading - and re-reading - the Harry Potter series, over and over and over again, for the past year. No, I'm not kidding. It's oddly comforting. Though I'll post about this at length another time.

3. One book you would want on a desert island?
In truth? Probably Finnegans Wake because I doubt I'll ever read the whole thing without desert island conditions. And I really do want to read it. Because I'm a masochist.

4. One book that made you laugh?
Well. I laugh at a lot of books. Most recently, though, I laughed out loud at Chelsea Handler's My Horizontal Life. I think my favorite "one night stand" is the one where she eats Mexican food before a night out. I will not say more, but I thoroughly recommend that all in need of cheering up go out and purchase this book.

5. One book that made you cry?
Most recently, and this is embarassing especially as I was on a plane when this happened, tears came to my eyes while reading the third Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants book. I'm not kidding. Oh, you wanted a more substantive answer? Something not quite so embarassing? Hmmm..... Gerda Weissman Klein's All But My Life.

6. One book you wish had been written?
I have no idea how to answer this one. Aren't there more than enough books to keep us happy? Does the really need even just one more book? That said, I think I think the one book I wish had been written - or rather, published - is my first one. The problematic thing about this is that I've yet to finish the proposal for publishers. Woops.

7. One book you wish had never been written?
Ummmmm..... I don't really know. Even bad books are fun to talk about, no? But I'm going to go with any book by Dr. Phil McGraw.

8. One book you are currently reading?
Londonstani. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. My book manuscript, though that's really more "editing" than "reading." And I should probably start reading ahead for my classes in the fall....

9. One book you have been meaning to read?
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood. I bought it right when it came out, and I've never gotten past the first page. Babel Tower by A.S. Byatt. Many of the novels in the Doris Lessing oeuvre. And I really need to finish The Satanic Verses. I got about halfway into it a couple of years ago, and then abandoned it. Jesus, I've got to stop. I could go on answering this question until sometime next week!

10. Now tag five people:
I'm betting that most people have done this who want to, as I'm so late to it, but if you've not, and you'd like to, well, consider yourself tagged!

Academic Urban Legends

I've been thinking about doing this post for a while now. The idea is, there are these urban legends that float around in academia for which there is no proof but which nevertheless persist. I figure I'm not the only person sitting at my computer trying to finalize syllabi, so this should be a nice way for people to procrastinate, right? I'm going to start the list, and feel free to post any additions in comments.

Academic Urban Legend (AUL) #1 - That person who went to your grad program in recent memory - but of course who finished before you, or even the people who've been around for years and are still in the program, arrived - and who finished the MA and PhD in three years AND got a job immediately upon defending.

Only Time for a Quick One....

As I'm in Hometown at my mom's house and on her crappy dial-up internet connection. At any rate, I'll be here until the beginning of next week, and so it'll be until then until I respond to comments on my most recent posts. The Man-Kitty was not at all happy to make this journey so quickly again, but got over it once I got him into the carrier. He's such a good kitty-cat. In other news, going out with friends tonight, and have a weird feeling that there may be an adventure of some kind. We shall see. At any rate, now am going to go for a walk with a friend who took a vacation day from work and then to the mall or something. Tra la!

Teaching As a Job - What I Wish I'd Learned in Grad School

Well, George just sent out the call for us to dust off our posting-about-teaching fingers, as summer vacation is coming to an end, and the Teaching Carnival schedule for Fall is all lined up, and so I thought, since I'm procrastinating, that I'd do a post related to one of the suggested topics that George mentioned.

George asks:
"What kind of preparation for teaching did you get in grad school? Was it adequate? What should have been done differently? How are you preparing the next generation of grad students for the classroom? How does the way you were taught affect the way you teach?"

These are all interesting questions, and ones that I've thought about a great deal since landing in a tenure-track job at a regional comprehensive university right out of graduate school at a prestigious sort of research university. Well, not the part about "preparing" the next generation of graduate students, as I don't have any to prepare. But the rest of it? Yes. So here it goes.

What kind of preparation for teaching did you get in grad school?
Well, I actually got quite a bit of preparation. First, in my MA program, I took a course (worth actual graduate credit toward the degree and required of all who wanted to teach in the program) that was all about teaching college writing. It was both theoretical and practical; it included doing things like constructing assignment sequences and syllabi as well as reading about theories behind why we teach writing in particular ways. It also required that we tutor in the writing center at the university, and that we "shadow" another instructor for much of the semester, and that instructor (also a grad student who'd been through the course) would allow us to run certain section meetings, would xerox the papers that students submitted so we could practice grading and get feedback on it, etc. This was a really, really excellent experience for me and an excellent introduction to teaching in the composition classroom.

In my PhD program, we were required to take a course (for which we got no credit, and which only lasted like half a semester or something) that was supposed to do the same thing that the course I took in my MA did. It was much more heavily theoretical, and I felt like it wasn't particularly enlightening.

Then, in my PhD program, we also TA'd. This was the only "training" in teaching literature that we received, and experiences varied widely depending upon what professor one TA'd for. In some cases, one was pretty much there to grade and to take attendance and to show movies that were scheduled outside of class time. In other cases, there was more "training" in things like leading discussion, lecturing, developing assignments, etc. It really just depended. Oh, and there was no guarantee that you would actually get the chance to TA in your field of specialization. None of my three TA-ships were in my specialty. Oh, and there was no opportunity for grad students to teach literature classes at my PhD-granting university. And according to our contracts, we weren't to teach outside of the program - or even work outside of the program - so most people did not adjunct elsewhere during the term of their funding (4-5 years).

Was it adequate? What should have been done differently?
Well, see, this is where it gets sticky. Was it adequate? Well, I left graduate school with teaching experience. I wasn't entirely clueless about how to run a classroom. I had a "teaching philosophy." I had a commitment to good teaching and to developing as a teacher. I'm not entirely sure whether one can expect to come out with anything more than that, really.

But. Being a "teacher" at my current institution bears little resemblance to much of what I learned about "teaching" in graduate school. Why?

1. It is a very different thing to teach one or two classes in a semester, with no other obligations, really, other than a couple of classes and/or one's own research, than to teach four classes in a semester, with many other obligations in addition to one's own research (ha!). I did not learn in graduate school how to manage my time as a teacher. I did not learn how to budget my time in order to use it where it would be most effective.
2. The practice of having TA's give one lecture a semester, as if this will "prepare" graduate students for what it is to get up EVERY SINGLE DAY in class, is just silly. And this is what they did in my grad program. I'm not sure what else can be done, really, if one doesn't allow grad students to teach lit classes, and commit to evaluating how they do in those lit classes, but the reality is that I pretty much lecture in each course only one or two days in the course of an entire semester. I don't teach huge classes (because the rooms at my institution are too small, so class sizes are small as well) and lecturing feels ridiculous when you're in a tiny, crummy room with only 25 people.
   
3. No one really taught me in graduate school how to combine my teaching obligations with my research interests. I guess this goes along with the time management thing. This was something I had to figure out how to do once I got here, and luckily I did. If all of one's mentors view research as "their own work" that is entirely distinct from teaching, it gives a person who ends up in a place with a less than fabulous teaching load very little preparation for how to squeeze in one's "own work" without dying.
   
4. I have no idea what my "teaching philosophy" was in my job applications a few years ago (though I will need to dust that document off) but my real life teaching philosophy now (and not what is in The Notebook, thank you very much) is something along the lines of That Which Does Not Kill You Makes You Stronger combined with Sometimes It's Ok to Half-Ass It. In other words, I'm just trying to get by a lot of the time, and I've had to learn how to put things like eating a decent meal and having some down time for myself ahead of any fancy philosophical notions that I had about teaching in grad school. That isn't to say that I don't care about my teaching. I do. But to care about it in the way that I learned to care about it in grad school would pretty much kill me if I tried it now.
5. I don't think I realized how much PR was involved in teaching as a grad student. Now I've got to advertise my courses, send my students subliminal messages so as to get good evaluations, etc. I think that perhaps a bit of training in that area would be a good thing, as it is the reality at many institutions. I realize that's not technically "teaching," but it is related to the teaching part of the job.

How does the way you were taught affect the way you teach?
You may think that the way I was taught doesn't affect the way that I teach, from what I've written above. But I actually see the influence of the teachers I've admired all over my teaching. The difficulty of the texts that I assign, the level of responsibility I expect of my students for their work, the kinds of tests and assignments that I design - all of this goes back to the way that I was taught. And then there is the way that I respond to students who are off the wall and just plain wrong, which apparently I inherited directly from my dissertation director. But you'll notice that these influences are mostly models for teaching - not actual teaching about teaching. And I wonder whether it really can be much different from that. Yes, it's helpful to have someone walk you through your first syllabus, through your first exam that you design. It's helpful to get feedback. But honestly the most feedback I got was in the "shadow-teacher" experience as an MA student. I didn't really learn how to teach from my teachers as a grad student. Oh, sure, I attended some retreat things. Peter Elbow was at one of them. It was awesome, I guess. I suppose that at the end of the day I'd say the biggest problem with the way that graduate schools train English Literature PhDs to teach is that they don't train them to do the jobs that they will be hired to do. They train them to do the work that the PhD-granting institution needs them to do. That's not about training the next generation of professors - that's about training the current generation of exploited and contingent labor.

Professor as Scrapbooker

I hope I don't get a lot of readers who are excited for me to reveal an as yet hidden penchant for scrapbooking, because that's not what this post is about. This post is about the review process for professors on the tenure track. A review process, incidentally, that I knew little-to-nothing about prior to achieving tenure-track employment.

So, at my university, here's the deal. Every year, every single year, one must construct The Notebook. (At many places, one only needs to do this at the three-year point and then when one goes up for tenure. I'm not sure which is worse - or better, if we're being not quite so negative - as the version at my institution means I get constant feedback but the "third year review" version means that a lot less time is spent on scrapbooking activities.) The Notebook is due every year a few weeks into the fall semester. I think the theory is that this is beneficial because people can take time to work on it over the summer. The reality is that there is no good time to have this monstrosity come due, as it's a huge time-suck, and a real pain in the ass. Oh, and I should mention: this notebook is pretty much divorced from all other methods of reviewing faculty performance. Has nothing to do with "merit pay" raises, etc., and so I complete another document a few weeks into every spring semester that relates to all that stuff. And that document has slight but distinct differences from The Notebook, so you can't just copy and paste from one to the other.

So I've been trying to get to work on The Notebook early this year (instead of crapping it together in the week before it's due) because I really need to edit the thing a bit as well as to add some things and to re-organize some things. Partly I need to do all this because I've been crapping the thing together for three years. Partly I need to do all this because the tenure requirements at my university have just been "revised." Are they all that different from what they were before? Nah. And I'm not super-concerned about how these changes will affect me (though if I had been operating under the old system for years and was going up for tenure this fall I'd be pretty freaked out, as there's no grandfather clause or anything). But this is the thing about evaluation in this profession - it requires all of this rhetorical posturing and self-conscious self-presentation in order to justify your employment. And that is... well, tiring. And time-consuming. And a little bit sickening. And even though what is actually required in the notebook (self-evaluation statements, documentation that proves you're performing in the three areas - teaching, research, service - such as emails, paperwork, publications, student evaluations, blah blah blah) doesn't really change that much, the language and organization of that documentation is supposed to be slightly different. Or so it seems. And so I'm spending all this time changing the statements that go with each section and the opening letter that accompanies the whole thing and the ordering of shit to reflect the way that the administrative tides have been turning. And even though I'm not really doing my job any differently, I've got to present what I'm doing differently. And this is a pain. A colossal pain.

And then I wonder whether all of this time spent is really just time spent procrastinating. Does anybody really read this Notebook? Really? Are they really looking for this year's buzz words or do the buzz words really work some sort of subliminal mojo on those reviewing me? And does being selective and careful with what I choose to include help or hurt me, because at first everybody advised I should put in "everything." And did I mention that every fucking thing I include needs to be in a plastic fucking sleeve? And did I mention that I'm not sure if the binder I've got will hold all the things I've got, so I may need to special order a fucking binder because I'm not sure where in middle America to buy that big of a binder?

So yeah. That's what I've been spending last night and this afternoon doing today. At least I've been in air conditioning.

RfP Wednesday: Kids' Books about Pests

I've decided for this Reading for Pleasure Wednesday to mine the vault that is my brain to talk about some books that I loved as a kid. I got the idea on Saturday, when I went to Borders and was browsing around and happened upon a copy of Ramona the Pest. This was one of the first "chapter books" I remember reading, and I absolutely loved it. I've got to say, I don't really remember much about it now. I just remember that I really liked Ramona, that I totally thought that she was misunderstood and that she wasn't really a pest. But while some of this was about identification - I think that kids at a certain point - usually at the point when they are called and define themselves as "big kids" and their parents tell them that their New Year's Resolution should be to "give up whining," not that this happened to me or anything - do begin to worry that they are "pests" - I think I also kind of envied the Ramona character, because she had a big sister who thought she was a pest. I was an only child, and I gravitated toward these books that had protagonists who had siblings - but usually siblings who found them pest-like. It wasn't until I was around 10 or 11 that I started reading what I'll call the "orphan" books, like The Witch of Blackbird Pond, the Anne of Green Gables books by Lucy Maud Montgomery, or Jane Eyre. No, from about the age of three, beginning with The Poky Little Puppy, and moving right along to one of my all-time favorite books Who's a Pest? and then to books like the Ramona books and even the Little House books, I was really into books that featured pesky little siblings who were misunderstood and who, in the end, were heroic. So any way, for those of you with kids, maybe check some of these out if you aren't familiar with them. (Especially that Who's a Pest?. You just can't go wrong with a protagonist named Homer, sisters named Lolly, Polly, Molly, and Dolly, and a giant Bear. No, you cannot. And my little half-brother loved it when I got it for him, too, so it's not just a "girl book.")

Upcoming posts in the works for RfP Wednesday: I've got a Harry Potter post brewing, which promises to reveal my total insanity, but it may take a few weeks to get it where it needs to be. Also, I've started reading Londonstani by Gautam Malkani, and I really think it's brilliant, at least so far. Technically it could become a work-book, but as I'm not reading it as such right now, I think I may break my own rule. Also, I think I want to talk about it alongside Zadie Smith's On Beauty, which also technically could be a work book but will never be because I have real problems with it. But so anyway, those are things that are in the offing. And now I need to go and accomplish something other than blogging!

Cocteau Twins!

When was the last time you listened to them? I think for me it was 1989 or so. Maybe 1990. How did I forget about them for fifteen years? Love the Pandora, but feeling kinda old.

I Don't Wanna...

1. Go to the gym, even though I did want to go to the gym this morning before I left my house. The problem is the heat. And the humidity. And my allergies.
2. Make a To-Do list. The minute I make the list, I'll have to do the things on the list. I'm not into that.
3. Be bored not doing things that are productive, which is a problem since I don't want to do the things that ARE productive either.
4. Eat food that's good for me. I've been doing really well with this, but I really am craving something.... I don't know.... something high in fat and with as many processed carbohydrate type things as possible. Of course, I am PMS-y right now, so maybe I should just give in to the craving? Maybe life's too short always to make healthy and sensible decisions about food? And I'd really love potato chips and dip.....

All of that said, I think I am going to try to do at least a couple of productive things so as not to be bored, and I also think that I'll most likely only let myself eat bad food if I go to the gym to compensate for it. Or I may just say that tomorrow is a new day and let today be a diet/exercise free day.

But I really am bored and kind of petulant. I think it's the whole wanting summer to be over thing.

And I met with the director of that program to come up with my list of duties, and so the whole semi-admin. position thing is a go for the 2006-2007 academic year. I'm kind of psyched and kind of freaked out.

I guess it's just I'd like for the semester already to be underway. And for it to be like October. That would be better for me.

Having spent all day yesterday taking a "personal day" with the Man-Kitty, I'm not really in the mood to hang with him all afternoon. I'm sure he's not either - he likes his alone time. Oh, and can I just say that I'm kind of ticked off at the Man-Kitty because he's been waking me up every day at 4:30 AM? What's his deal? Why can't he at least wait until the sun has risen?

Crazy as Fashionista?

Ok, so Friday and Saturday were spent - in their entirety - shopping.

On Friday, I went to one of those huge malls that has an upstairs floor and a downstairs floor, and I covered the length of the thing twice. I was there for about four hours. Then I went to Target. Then I went to Kohls. By the time I got home - and I'm not exaggerating when I say this - muscles all over my body ached. What did I buy? Well, I thought you'd never ask.

• This skirt, originally priced at $54 but on sale for $11.
• A Calvin Klein bra, on sale for $5.
  
• Leggings. Incidentally, I priced leggings at a variety of retail outlets, and if you're planning on being part of the legging trend, I recommend a) going out and buying those leggings now, because they are flying off the shelves, and b) trying to buy them someplace like Target, because in specialty retail shops and department stores they cost between $20 and $50 per pair, and if you're anything like me, that is just too much to pay for something like a legging. Also, In Style magazine recommends the capri legging, but as a legging veteran (something I'll discuss later), I must say that one of the brilliant things about leggings is that you can easily fold them under or scrunch them into a capri length if you buy the full-length kind (this being made easier by the 21st century materials with which the leggings are made) and so I think that the capri ones are not altogether necessary. Oh, and some of the capri ones? Yeah, they have a striking resemblance to the "bicycle short." Which is scary.
• Socks for working out. I just keep buying these. I probably have like 30 prs. What is wrong with me?
• Makeup. Glorious makeup at Sephora. I bought this (in black), and this (in purple), and this (in "pull over"). Note to makeup lovers: The Stila Smudge Pot allows those who don't have the steadiest of hands to replicate the J-Lo Hewitt Ghost Whisperer Eye in like 3 minutes, as long as you've got the right brush, but you can also use it to do a smoky eye, or to do just traditional sort of eye liner. It is awesome, and it does not run all over your eye because it's a gel and dries, not a cream. (Once upon a time I had a similar product made my Shiseido, and the problem with it was that it ran all over your eyes, so you had to set it with a powder shadow.) Also, I've got to say it, I think that plum colors are the makeup colors for fall. I had wanted to buy a lipstick in a more plum-y color (Lorac in Pleasure) and the smudge pot in plum, and it was not possible. God, I love makeup. Those who see me at work every day would never know it, though, because I rarely wear makeup to work. Or if I do I do the no-makeup-makeup, so people just think I look "rested" but don't really understand that it's because I'm wearing makeup.
  
• New sunglasses. My third or fourth pair this summer, because I keep losing/breaking them.

On Saturday, I decided to go shopping downtown. I browsed in Saks (where, incidentally, I really think that I will start shopping the sales once I hit my goal-size as it's not that much more expensive than other department store clothes - but only on sale, as otherwise I could never afford a pair of Theory trousers, for example), and then I went to Macys (where I can actually afford the clothes) and I bought this skirt, a sleeveless cream shell, and a taupe cardigan to wear with it. Then, I went to another mall-esque place (one of those outdoor thousand restaurants and like 20 stores sort of places that are cropping up all over the midwest) wear I tried on a bunch of clothes but ultimately only spent money at Borders, where I had a 30% off coupon, which I used to purchase the first 4 Harry Potter DVDs in a little box set and a Regina Spektor CD and Allan Hollinghurst's The Line of Beauty (which I should have owned long before now).

All told, I spent like 10 hours shopping over two days, if not more. And as you see, I didn't buy much. But I did try on A LOT. Some musings:

1. For the first time in at least five years I'm excited about fashion/clothes. I think that this is because the bohemian look that has been dominating for the past few years is on its way out. Can I just say that on people of my build the "bohemian look" has the effect of making one look like one has just gotten off of a boat originating in Bohemia? This is not the intended effect.
2. This season is the first time when I'm really experiencing the whole, "hey, I remember those clothes the first time around!" thing. This is both cool (I know what "looks" I can wear) and eye-opening (I realized, as I tried on pair of skinny jeans after pair of skinny jeans that my reluctance to be part of this trend has everything to do with the fact that when these were last in style, circa 1986, I had just developed a woman-body, was hanging around with a bunch of girls who'd yet to do so, and the skinny jean, or jeans with zippers on the bottom, etc. were the first clothes that I realized I couldn't - or shouldn't - wear, because they didn't look on me like they did on my little waif-like pre-pubescent friends).
3. I, having tried on about 14 different pairs of skinny jeans, do think that I will buy one pair of them, if I find a pair that is not too expensive and that doesn't make my hips look like a small country. (See, the thing with my body is that I'm high waisted, have broad hips but not much of a butt. Thus, the skinny jean, if too low waisted, etc., can really make me look like hell. If the waist is high enough, it can be ok.) But for every day, I think I'm going to go with straight legged jeans. They look more modern than the boot cut, but are more flattering to the Hips of Crazy.
4. Incidentally, the straight/skinny jeans are so much better what with the advances in materials made in the blue-jean industry.
5. Red is the new black! Love that!
6. All hail the return of the tunic!

I could go on, but I will not. I'm sure I'll be trying things on for about two more months before I really start with the buying. Why? Because this is what I do when I'm into fashion. I browse. I try on. I deliberate. I decide what I can wait to buy on sale and what I've got to get before it's gone. God, I love clothes.

(Oh, and somebody asked me about clothes for the job market. I'll do an actual post about this sometime, but when in doubt, my thought is that it's better to over-dress than to under-dress, and that when you do a convention interview, it can't hurt to look more conservative-business-y. On-campus you can be a bit more casual - and probably should be because of the miles that you will walk that day - but a great suit or two (ideally bought on sale, for suits go on sale right at Christmas time, and this great brown pant-suit I've got (Jones New York) which originally cost like $400, I bought on Dec. 26 (the day before MLA) for $98. It does not need to cost a million dollars to look great in a suit - just you've got to try on a LOT of suits to find one that, well, suits you. This is my overview, though. And if you look great you'll be smarter. And more impressive. Totally.)

Arrogant, Selfish, Job-Searching Me

I was going to dump this in the comments, as a response to the comments some people were making about something that I'd said over there, but I feel like it's useful to put this in a real post that isn't buried in a comment thread from days ago.

In a comment, I said this:

"Personal happiness and satisfaction is infinitely more important to me than 'changing the system from within.' Wrong or right, that's my position."

In response, Liz Ferszt says the following:

"Given this admission, which I find arrogant and selfish, if I were one of our current colleagues I'd just say, "Good luck on your search."

I might even find some boxes for your books."

Another commenter (Terry Porter) expresses concern that I am going to "regret" leaving my job for "purely personal reasons."

Well, first, I'm not really surprised that Liz would respond negatively to anything I might say, as she seems to take pleasure in thinking that I suck. Otherwise, why would Liz keep reading this blog when clearly she thinks that I'm so reprehensible? If it were me, and I felt as Liz seems to feel about Dr. Crazy, I would stop reading. And stop commenting. Because life's too short to be so irritated by the likes of a young whippersnapper such as Dr. Crazy.

But, because I'm a good sport, I'm going to respond. Also because I want to answer this for once and for all, and to assure my readers that I am being thoughtful and careful in my considerations about my professional choices, and that I do not enter into this - or much else in my life - lightly.

First, when I say that I put my personal happiness before my institution, that does not mean that I do not have a strong commitment to my institution or to my work as a professor at this institution. All it means is that I believe that it's important to prioritize things in life, and I believe that is important and sensible for me to make myself a priority in my life. My institution will pay me, but they will not take care of all of my needs. While I could sacrifice my needs for the greater good of my institution, ultimately I think that this would make me a bitter person and an angry person, and I think that this would be bad for my teaching, my research, and my service to the institution and to the broader community of which this institution is a part. Taking care of me doesn't mean shirking my responsibilities or treating my colleagues unfairly. It doesn't mean "dropping a bomb" on them by doing something for "purely personal reasons," as if those reasons, because they are only personal, are somehow criminal or at the very least illegitimate.

Let's think for a minute. Let's say that I were talking about deciding to go on the market for any of the following reasons:

• In order to relocate to be nearer to my husband/partner.
• In order to relocate in order to accommodate my husband/partner's career.
• In order to facilitate the happiness of my children (better schools, being nearer to extended family, etc.).
• In order to be nearer to an ailing parent or other close relative.

I suspect (though perhaps I'm being cynical) that everyone who has wondered about whether I'll "regret" the decision - not to take another job, mind you, but just to look for one - just to consider whether there might be something out there that would perhaps make me happier than my current position - would be the very vision of support of my "difficult decision." They would say things like how some things matter more than this profession, and they would even commend me on putting "what really matters" ahead of my stupid little job. Because, of course, for a woman, a stupid little job is just a purely personal thing that really has to go in the service of taking care of other people, right?

But, see, I don't have any of those "good reasons" to consider other employers. I'm single and my parents are in good health. I had the great good fortune to have my grandmother die during my second month on this job, so I don't even have an ailing grandmother potentially to validate going on the market. And, in fact, the thing that I probably devote most of my time/energy to is to my institution. So, many would say, it's just plain wrong for me to think about looking elsewhere.

But here's the thing. I don't plan on stopping being good at this job because I'm thinking of looking at other jobs. I care about my institution and my job. There are a great many good things about this institution, and I've gotten as much accommodation as is available to me at this institution (though often at a price in terms of service commitments, etc.). But the fact that I might consider my own happiness as part of the equation in my professional life does not strike me as "arrogant and selfish." Not at all. And I wonder whether anybody would chastise me or offer well-meaning advice on this issue in the precise way that has been done here if I weren't a single woman. Perhaps people would, but I wonder, only because I've never noticed anyone responding to a male blogger in this particular fashion.

(But then, what do I know? Because of course arrogant and selfish people don't generally recognize themselves as such, and maybe my questions about how people's responses to Dr. Crazy Going on the Market are gendered somehow show me to be even more arrogant and selfish than everybody already thought I was?)

But to continue. Let's go back to Liz's comment. She concludes with the following:

"I can't help but think a few more years in the profession will help you and give you some perspective. This discussion has been so similar to discussions I've had with young faculty over the years. "I just want to write." "I just want to have time in the summer to get away from the college." "I just want my books."

Well, get a library card, I say. Get a tiny room above a garage and wrestle with your thoughts, your cat, your literature.

The rest of us will be college professors (taking care of the students, the curriculum, being there for more than a brief visit along the way) while you're getting satisfied."

Where even to begin. Just for the record, I'm not going on the market because I just want to write (I don't), because I have some fantasy about having summers off (who, exactly, gets that luxury? I know people at RI institutions, and I think they're more crazed with work than anybody), or because I just want my books (what does that even mean?). I'm not an idiot. And I've been teaching for over ten years, and an assistant professor for three, so I'm wondering how much time I need to be in this profession before my sense of it has legitimacy.

I expect that if I am offered a position - which is in no way a sure thing - to make a basically lateral move. I do want a lighter teaching load, and I would like either to stop teaching composition or to teach it only one semester per academic year. I'm not trying to get away from teaching or from service in order to bury my nose in a book One of the reasons why I'm good at this job is that I'm really good at balancing the demands of all of the parts of it. I do take care of my students - who incidentally often ask what in god's name I'm doing at this institution - and I have made more of a contribution to the curricular process in my department in the three full years that I've been at this job than many of the tenured-and-inactive members of my department. I'm not here for a "brief visit," and longevity does not necessarily equate to productivity or utility within a department.

This is the appropriate moment to go back on the marketto have a look-see before going up for tenure. I will not make a decision to leave this institution without a lot of agonizing, because I do, ultimately, really care about this place. But you know what? Caring about a job is not enough in life. I want more in my life than what this particular job has to offer. That isn't wrong.

That's enough for now. I'm sure that Liz is rocking back and forth and humming in a corner somewhere in an effort to come to grips with my audacity in responding to her, and I'm sure many others are shaking their heads at what a stupid, selfish, naive girl I am. I'm hoping, though, that this clarifies my position, if it needed clarifying, and that this post can be the last in this vein. Really, the reason I posted the LAST post about going on the market was to try to head off this kind of bullshit at the pass so that I could get into the actual nuts and bolts of what it's like to go on the market at this point in one's career. And to talk about things like my class background in relation to the academic job search, and I don't know, other stuff that's infinitely more interesting than all of this.

And I'm tired and cranky and hungry. I spent all day shopping, and I really had hoped to write about that. I suppose that will have to wait until tomorrow, though, because I've blown my wad on this crap.

Things I've Learned from Pandora

No, not the one who opened the box, etc., but rather from the one that's part of the Music Genome Project:

Well, I've learned a great many things. I've learned that there is a huge part of me (at least in terms of music that I gravitate toward) that is still a little skater-dater-alterna-girl. I've learned that I really like some bands that I'd never heard of, like Superchunk.

But you know what else I've learned? I really like Dave Mathews and John Mayer. A lot.

I'd resisted it for a long time (see above about being a little punk rock wanna be), just as I resisted listening to The Grateful Dead in high school when all of the cool kids wanted to be hippie-ish Dead-Heads and had posters of Jim Morrison on their walls. No thank you, I said, this music is not for me.

I said the same thing about what I consideredgirlie music, this Dave Mathews Band and this silly John Mayer, loved by teenaged girls and soccer moms alike. But the Pandora has shown me my own prejudices. Because, really, both are just cool to listen to. I won't be admitting this in real life, though. I would much rather like for people to think that I'm edgy. (Ha!)

Technical Difficulties, and News I Wish I Could Spread

Technical Difficulties:

To everybody who has expressed frustration with the new template (it seems to be a problem only in some browsers, though there is a weird 2 blogs for the price of one thing going on at the bottom of the blog even in my browser which is the culprit) and we're at work on fixing it. As I'm a dummy with the computer languages, this could take a while, so please accept my apologies and know that I'm trying to get the situation under control in the coming days.

News I Wish I Could Spread:

One of the things that sucks about having a blog with a pseudonym is that one can't talk in a non-cryptic way about certain real life things. Suffice it to say that a journal article that I wrote and was accepted over a year ago for publication in "the journal of record for [insert literary period here] literature" has finally come out today! I'm really, really proud of it, and I suppose of myself, too. I realize that having an article published isn't the biggest deal in the world, and I've got other publications, but this one... well, for whatever reason it's very special to me. Maybe because it is the first time that I felt like I was doing work that was really important or meaningful to my field, or maybe because it came along when I was pretty green on the tenure track and it helped me to feel like a Real Live Professional Scholar, you know?

At any rate, I am wicked pleased with myself, and I feel like I want to celebrate. Perhaps I can con my best friend in my department into going out to dinner tonight? (Incidentally, I really, really need a pseudonym for her. What would you like my best friend here to be called? Please provide suggestions in the comments.) And maybe after I go to the gym and then shower I will go shopping. I still resist the skinny jean (though I'm sure even I will cave eventually), but I can totally get behind the legging trend, and I think I might be able to manage the straight leg jean... At any rate, I'm in the mood to do some shopping. This is really the point. And I'm really excited about the purported nod to the style of my fashion-coming-of-age era, grunge. Also, I should note that one reason I'm excited about shopping is that I lost my vacation weight and now I'm beginning to build on the weight loss of the spring. Feeling very healthy and strong (though sore from lifting weights because, well, I'm a weak out-of-shape woman, but not for long!)

Reading for Pleasure Wednesday - Passion: A Novel of the Romantic Poets

Ok, so first, let me just say, that I'm not too fond of the Romantic poets. I do not study the Romantic period, and my only connection to the texts of the Romantic period comes in two forms: 1) I really did dig the poetry of Byron and Shelley when I was in high school, and later Keats in college, and 2) I do teach the Survey of British Literature II, and thus I've got to give the quick and dirty overview of the Romantic period in there.

So, you might be asking, why did I pick up this novel by Jude Morgan, a student of Angela Carter and Malcolm Bradbury, Passion: A Novel of the Romantic Poets on my last library trip? Well, there are a few reasons:

1) I do enjoy the historical fiction. Has anybody else out there read any of those books by Margaret George? Awesome.
2) A friend of mine had just been telling me about a horrible book she'd read that seemed to be of the same ilk, and so I thought I should see if this was anything like it.
3) You can't go wrong with a book entitled "Passion" before the colon.

So. The first thing is, the book is long. Very long. That said, it's engrossing, and I liked that it was long because short, easy books I generally get through in a few hours, and this took me almost a week of pretty steady reading. The writing is interesting, as the p.o.v. shifts between each of the different women in the lives of the poets, and each has a distinct voice and perspective both on the historical moment and on the Great Man whom she loves. The book isn't sentimental, and it presents all of the sexual escapades of the poets (oh yes, for in a book entitled Passion there must be, well, Passion, though there isn't any explicit porn ala Judith Krantz, it's more hinted at) in a way that is completely unfazed.

Is it the best book I ever read? No. Was it a great book to read during a week in the summertime? Totally.

A New Pretty Template! Yippee!

As you all are aware, I had a pretty ugly template since starting Reassigned Time. I just could never get it up to learn the html to make the thing not suck. Luckily, the awesome, incomparable Clare over at Ink and Incapability took pity on me and made this confection of orange-y-stripe-y-Man-Kitty loveliness. Yay!!!!!!

On the Market - The Why of It

I just finished having a conversation with Job Search Mentor (JSM), and it was good. I want to write about this decision of mine, to go on the market, and I want to write about it in relation to what I've experienced in three years on the tenure-track at a regional comprehensive university in a metropolitan area. I'm not sure how to do this. I had toyed with the idea of starting a separate blog for posts related to the job search, but I'm not sure that a) I want to compartmentalize in that way or b) that I could compartmentalize in that way if I tried. The truth of the matter is that this decision to look - and that's exactly what it is, a decision to look, not necessarily one to leave - feels like it's imbedded in my professional life at this institution, and it doesn't make sense to separate it out.

So I think that this will be the first in a series of posts in which I try to be reflective about all of this crap.

Why Go on the Market?
A lot of people would say that I should be happy in my current position. And you know what I'd say? I'd say that I am. I am not in any way "unhappy" with my current job. Dissatisfied in some respects, yes, but that's not the same thing as "unhappiness." Let's list the positives of this job, just to show you that I'm not delusional in claiming happiness:

1. I am in a small-medium city. This means that I have good libraries (research and public), good museums, and good restaurants.
2. I am paid a good salary for my field and my area of the country. Since leaving graduate school, I have been able to live like a grown-up and to buy things without thinking about it first.
   
3. I have a great deal autonomy in all areas of my job. This can be annoying sometimes, but for the most part I would rather have complete control over things like the courses I teach, classroom practices, research agenda, service I choose to do, etc.
4. My department is collegial and friendly, without too many weird factions or points of tension between people.
5. People seem to think that I'm doing a good job, and I've received a number of opportunities that confirm the high opinion of my colleagues.
6. I've been able to maintain an active research agenda, in no small part because I've had good support in the form of travel money, as well as some awards from the institution that have helped.
7. I like teaching first-generation college students.
   

I could list more, but these are the main things. And so, those of you who have been on the market multiple times with no luck, or those of you who are stuck in horrible departments or geographical locations or both, or those of you who are in long-distance relationships, etc. might want to tell me to fuck off and to be happy with what I've got.

Part of me thinks that I should fuck off and be happy with what I've got. I feel guilty for wanting more or better or different or whatever. But here are the reasons why I don't listen to those nagging voices of negativity in my head.

1. Whatever good things there are about my job, it's a job with a 4-4 load which includes 2 composition classes each semester.* I have absolutely no passion for teaching composition, and what passion I have for teaching literature is sapped both by teaching composition and by the sheer amount of teaching that I do.
2. Socially, this is a very hard place for a single person to live. People my age in this location are married. Shit, people 10 years younger than me in this location are married. I feel like a freak. At nearly-32, I should not feel like a freak and like I'll be barren at any second, and intellectually I know this, but emotionally it's hard to remember.
3. While I feel appreciated at this job, I don't feel like real value is ascribed to some of the activities that are most important to me.
4. There is no reason for me to stay here. No reason for me to leave, but no reason for me to stay.
   
5. I am ambitious. I believe that I could do better. I'm not saying that I am so awesome or anything, or that there wouldn't be trade-offs, but ambition tends to make one a bit restless, tends to make it tough to settle for the "ok" thing when the "great" thing might be around the corner if you try.
   
6. I don't like when people judge me negatively based on my institutional affiliation. I don't like when people pity me because of my institutional affiliation.
7. As much as I like the kind of students I teach and believe that teaching them is really important work, I also wish, sometimes, that the level of preparedness of my students was just a little, teeny bit higher. I'd like to teach students who have read an entire novel at least once in their lives before they find their way into my class.

And so today I talked to JSM about all this and more. She was totally great, and she seems to think that I'm in as good a position as anybody to try to do this thing, although, of course, a lot will depend on the job list (in a discipline where job pickings are slim generally, I'm in a specialty that's pretty small, as things go), and a lot depends on things beyond my control. But you know, I don't want to look back and wonder whether I could have ended up someplace else if only I'd tried. And I don't want to lock myself into tenure at this institution without making sure that I wouldn't rather be someplace else. It's so hard, though, because one of the things that attracted me to this profession is the security of tenure, so why does it now feel like a life sentence? And will it always?

So, now that I've listed all of my reasons, for and against, you may still think that I should fuck off and be happy with what I've got. Or you may think that this is the "problem" with kids coming out of grad school today, that we don't commit to a job and an institution for the long haul, that we're always looking for something better. Or you may think that the "negatives" or reasons for wanting to go on the market are bunk. But you know, it irks me that people only grant legitimacy to the decision to go on the market if candidates are in some way miserable (unemployed, away from spouse/family, in horrible location, at horrible institution). Maybe complete misery shouldn't be the only thing that drives us to make changes in our lives or situations.





*I realize that with the new Administrative Gig I'll have just one writing class a semester and a 3-3 load, but I'll also have to do the Administrative Gig, right? And what I'd really like more would be a lesser load without an added administrative responsibility. I'd like the lesser load to equate to a heavier commitment to research, which isn't really what I'm signing on for with the Administrative Gig.