Work and Family and Work

It's 1 AM and I've just finished typing out one-half of a two-part chapter. The other half is probably 2/3 done, but it's that last third that's going to kill me. It's been a rough, rough week. There's been a lot of cursing at the computer--

But the difficulty I've had just getting coherent thoughts onto paper has been made worse by the fact that I feel as though I am a horrible mother. I think my kid sees more of the daycare lady than he sees of me, and for the last week, when he's seen me, my nerves have been shot from cursing at the computer.

I know I'm not the first person in the world to worry about how successful the whole balance between work and family is going, but I also get the feeling that he's getting so big...and I'm missing it. It's summer, and I was planning on keeping him home for a day every so often. I haven't done that once. Not one single time.

Sure, I've had to teach a class and work on this god-awful dissertation, but in the end, I wonder if it will be worth it.

Do you ever get to figure that out?

ok- maybe not the yardstick...

I haven't written much lately, mostly because I haven't had anything I feel like saying. I feel like I should be writing my diss rather than anything here. And that's not really going right now. It will, but right now I'm a bit stalled.

Although, I think I've reached the point where I feel like I need to write-- like I'm ready. I just have to get a few more notes together an map out the argument. It's coming to me, though. Mostly right after I lay down in bed- zip!- inspiration hits, so I jump up and jot it down on a note card. Because there has to be a link between these things that keep popping--the canonization of big dead white men, the changes in the way americans read and understand authorship, the changes in the way books are made and circulate. It all has something to do with the 1950s and 1960s. Something to do with Postmodernism. And I think I'm almost there.

Despite my earlier rant about students not showing up for appointments, class is going well. I'm down to 9 students, which is fine by me-- I get paid either way. I really like teaching this course- it makes me feel useful. We've had discussions about grad school and what to do with an English degree and why or whether theory is important. And today, they thanked me for not making the class into a summer "fluff" course. But how could I? It's the course that should prepare them to be ready for any other English course. It would have been irresponsible to turn it into 75 minutes of sitting in a circle and singing "kumbaya" while we wax poetical on the way that meaning is, like, so impossible to obtain. Totally.

Nope- it's a class to kick their butts. And I've lost 4 already. That's fine- the ones that are staying I think are really starting to get it. You can see them starting to want it-- even though they tend to look dazed and drained by the end of the hour. It's been exhilarating to teach in that kind of environment. And the best part is that I feel like they should be ready when they leave- they'll know how to tackle any of the major genres, they'll know how to put together a strong argument, they'll know that there's nothing natural about the way we study English today, and they'll have a rudimentary understanding of the way theory has developed and progressed. All in 8 weeks. I call that a deal.

At first the class really took away from my dissertation work- it takes time to respond to daily responses and to grade papers. But I think it's getting to the point where it's inspiring me to get back to my work. Someone asked when it gets easier--the whole interpretation thing--and I told her that with practice it does eventually. But then it's harder again, because you're onto something new.

I'm onto something new- and it's getting harder. But little-by-little I'm figuring it out.

Um, right.

I hate getting my class evaluations back each semester. No matter how many wonderful or glowing comments there are, I inevitably focus on the few students who were unhappy with the course. It's especially hard if the class they are evaluating is one that you put extra effort into and/or is one that is your subject. I got my spring evaluations today, and while J says that they are quite good--enough for our schools list of super duper incomplete teachers--they still bummed me out. For instance, if you wanted to read a bunch of British canonical writers, you should have dropped the course after day one--the syllabus wasn't going to change. And if you don't want to read that much, you probably shouldn't be taking a lit class at all. The worst was one student who called the class "ill-conceived." It doesn't matter that I can tell who it was--and that she wasn't even in class half the time, or that there were 10 others that said that the class was great and one of their favorites. I take it too personally, I know. The most frustrating?? The ratings of less than excellent for the consideration and quality of grading. You'd think that a page of comments would be enough-- apparently not.

But I suppose J is right; they really aren't bad at all--far above the average ratings for a university course here at Prairie U. It's still frustrating to see the amount of comments that claim there's too much work, that there should be only 1 essay question on the exam, and that I should make them read less. right.

But in the interest of finding the bright side- here are a few of my "favorites":

"I think the grading process is rather tough, but not impossible to obtain a good grade"

"Important notes for each work should be on slides. Taking notes by hand is out dated and too hard to get everything down"

"Love the outfits"

Hemingway's A$$

Home.

Finally.

And yet, I'm kind of sorry to not still be in Boston. I told J over the phone, it's not that I wanted to be there on the prairie- I wanted them to move on out to me.

The truth is. I missed them both like crazy. Every time I walked through a park and some toddler crossed my path, my heart ached a bit for my own. I couldn't walk through the Public Gardens without picturing Little Man--a little smaller, perhaps, but chasing happily after ducklings.

The truth is, I loved being there. It really has underlined to me just how much I want to live in a city-- at least for a while. I never really took that chance. The first time I applied for MA programs, I applied only to big cities-- New York, DC, Philidelphia, Chicago. And I got accepted to schools in all of them, but the match at Mountain U was just a little too good. Their offer was too enticing. So I left behind cities to live in the middle of Appalachia--the only school I applied to that wasn't in a major metropolis. It was my choice, and I think now that it was a sound one. I think I'm probably better off because of it.

But I love cities. I love the musicians on the streetcorners. I love the families playing in the parks and the teenagers laying around on large, mismatched blankets. I love the subways and busses. I love the shopping and eating. I probably wouldn't love the rent, but I'd like to think I'd manage.

And I've decided that, even being completely alone and missing my boys terribly, I love Boston. Almost as much as I love DC. I love that everyone talks like a Kennedy and looks vaguely like Conan O'Brien. I love the history there--the cemetaries established in 1753. I love love love the North End--the little old men speaking Italian, their aloras ringing out through the streets, and the bakeries that make the italian bakeries of my childhood look like nothing in comparison.

And I love the people at the Kennedy Library. Never have I worked in so pleasant a library with such helpful people-- and that's saying a lot because, in general, rare books librarians are extraordinarily helpful. (Perhaps they're just lonley and are happy to see anyone) They took me down to the audiovisual area and let me look through Hemingway's actual family photos. Then they handed me a folder of photo-quality copies that people had requested but returned and said I could have any that I wanted. So I took a bunch- Hemingway as a 19 year old ambulance driver, the nurse he was in love with, Heminway in the Bull Ring, Hemingway in Paris with Hadley and Duff Twysden and HArold Loem--straight out of The Sun Also Rises--Hemingway skinnydipping off a boat in the Atlantic. yup- naked Hemingway. And how could I not take that one? Because who else has a picture of Hemingway's naked rear end, I ask you? Me. That's who.

If you have to be in a library...

Right now I'm sitting with the Boston Harbor out the window to my left, a lion carcass owned by Hemingway to my right, an impala head and paintings by Waldo Pierce in front of me, and piece of shrapnel from Hemingway's war wound in a cabinet across the room.

Did I mention that the window to my left is the Boston harbor and Atlantic Ocean, as far as the eye can see?

Leaving on a Jet Plane

Last night, the three of us snuggled in the big bed after Little Man's nightly bath. I had been feeling run down and sore, the effects of a stupid tetanus booster, but all the frustration of feeling so cruddy melted away with the smell of his wet hair and his lankly body snuggled against me to read our nightly books.

"Pretty soon mama's going on an airplane, but I'll come back soon."

"Little Man airpain too."

"No, honey. Mama's gotta go by herself, but you and Papa will have fun together."

I know it's stupid. That hundreds and thousands of women leave their children for business--or for pleasure. I just never have, and this is hard for me. Rationally, I know this is the last big piece of the dissertation puzzle--working in the Hemingway archive. Emotionally, I want to take them both with me, even though I'll be unavailable from 8:30 until 4:30 every day I'm gone.

I'm not sure he understands I'm going tomorrow. I'm leaving too early in the morning to really say goodbye to him, and I'm afraid he'll be angry at me when I get back. We're buddies, he and I.

"But after I get home, then we all are going on an airplane. We're going to the beach."

"Beach. Oshee"

"Yep, the ocean. We're all going to go together and be together for a whole week. What will we see at the ocean?"

"Fishies. Dolphies. Ducky," he tells me, the tone of his voice raising for each word, almost question-like.

"Ducky? Oh honey, there aren't duckies in the ocean."

"Duckie oshee," he insists, shaking his head in the affirmative.

"But Duckies don't live in the ocean. Maybe sea gulls or pelicans."

He gets out his Spot Goes to the Beach book, and sure enough, there is a ducky--the blue and pink spotted inner tube that Spot wears. He's so smart that I can hardly stand it sometimes.

"You're right. Duckies. Maybe we'll get a ducky for you to have at the beach."

He grins in excitement.

"Just the three of us. One. Two. Three," I say pointing to each of us in turn. "Because we're a family."

"One, two, pee," he repeats again and again, pointing to each one of us in turn. Proud of his accomplishment. Seemingly, understanding.

Because we're in it together. We're a family.

Great.

So today was the day that I was supposed to really hunker down and work. I arrived at my little basement carrel in the library promptly at 9:30, but when I arrived the door was open and the lights were on. Suddenly I realized that all the carrel doors were open. Apparently, today is the day that maintenance is installing a new sprinkler system in my particular area. It's been an ongoing project since the summer, but today was the day for my little cell. Great. Now I either have to go home and work or work here, in the reference room, where there is WiFi. You know, WiFi that allows you to check your email or update your blog while you are, ahem, taking notes on very important things.

Just Great.

Breathing Again

Yesterday, I went to a talk about finding jobs outside of Academe. Let me just say, what a lovely relief. Even though no one really talks about these things, it is, apparently, possible to make a good living and a happy life in a post-academic world.

But at the same time that this talk was extraordinarily liberating, it also made me realize just how frustrated I've become with the whole PhD system. Here's the deal--I really do want to be a professor. Not just because you get the summers off (you really don't), no just because I'll never have to wear a suit (I probably would anyway), and not because I don't know what else to do. I really do want to be a professor, because I've come to love my research and enjoy my teaching in ways that I couldn't have foreseen 6 years ago. I know the reality though.

The reality is that there are just not enough jobs out there. Only something like 40% of English PhDs get a tenure track teaching position at a university or college. That is less than a 50/50 chance of finding that happy little professorial post somewhere. The rest of the PhDs left will either leave academe or stick around in part-time adjunct positions, teaching ridiculous course loads for a tiny bit of what they should be worth. And they will adjunct for years and years, even though your chances of ever getting a tenure track position drop off significantly after 3 years, and even though they could be making far more money for less work doing something else.

So why do we do it?

My theory--and don't blame anyone but me for this one--is that we're trained to do it. After 5-10 years of being paid roughly $4000 more a year than if we'd been working minimum wage, grad students become accustom to a certain level of poverty. And, after 5-10 years of being the hip young TA that everyone seems to like, never wearing a suit or tie to class, and cultivating a fairly informal persona, grad students are in no mood to go join what they perceive as the mindless minions of a cubicled corporate culture. Put all of that together with a general understanding that to leave academia is to fail and a culture that is more than willing to pay you to continue your grad-like existence, and there's no wonder that so many of us get stuck in adjunct positions.

Now, I don't mean to insinuate that adjuncts aren't worthy or important teachers. For many people, a part-time university teaching position is exactly what they want and need. But for so many more--many of whom are the best teachers a University might have--the adjunct position and adjunct life isn't one to aspire to. No benefits. No job stability. And after 5-10 years in the graduate program, they now rank below graduate students in terms of importance to the department.

I've decided that whatever happens this fall, I refuse--adamantly refuse-- to adjunct.

It is a decision that has caused me no small amount of anxiety. After all, I've been a part of the University life in one way or another since 1997. Leaving this lifestyle is tantamount to a career change. It's a scary proposition.

But the talk yesterday helped me readjust my perspective on the whole situation. The truth is that I could see myself as a professor, but I can also see myself doing something else. Editing or publishing, or writing.

And the truth is that departments should be doing a lot more to stop herding qualified, intelligent students into adjunct land. At the very least, there needs to be a change in the way that professors and students think about post-academic life, because the truth of the matter is that over 30% of PhDs (at least in my discipline) just aren't going to be professors. It's frustrating, but burying our heads in the sand and refusing to think that we are certainly not one of those isn't helping anyone by the people in charge of getting departments to turn profits.

Ups and Downs...

Being in grad school feels, at times, a bit like being manic- It's a series of swings up and down. The last week has been full of them:

Found out that I got travel money for a conference in June--woo-hoo! (Maybe my project is insightful.) Found out a week later that all grad students got the money. (or not.)

Found out that I got leave from teaching this fall--woo-hoo! (Definitely will be defending before the end of the year.) Found out that I probably won't get a teaching job this summer. bummer.

Found out that I was a finalist for best graduate student paper at CEA last week. (and more than 5 other people entered!!!) Woo-double-hoo. Found out that I didn't get the long-shot, national fellowship that I had convinced myself I had a shot at getting (1 in 54!!). double bummer.

Found out that one of the people who acquires manuscripts for a press is interested in seeing my abstract when I'm ready...It's not an overly prestigious imprint, but I'm waiting for the other side of the coin to show itself any minute now...

It's like one moment you feel like it would be impossible not to get a job, and a moment later, you're planning your backup plan.

And while you're dealing with all of these emotional ups and downs, your toddler has turned into some sort of crazed banshee.

But then, a moment later he smiles sweetly and giggles, your students write decent proposals, and your husband brings home leftover eclairs from his class event.




First- Many thanks to those readers who have given me your insightful comments about dealing with tantrums. They haven't subsided yet, maybe th

Between Work and Family

"[M]otherhood was invented by someone who had to have a word for it because the ones that had the children didn’t care whether there was a word for it or not."
- William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying



In a recent Chronicle essay, the author writes that what academics really need is to have a passion outside of academia and their research--throwing pottery, writing novels, photography. In the same essay, though, he writes,

"Accept that you will not be there for everything for everyone. Certainly, a reasonable administrator will accommodate an assistant professor who, for example, cannot schedule classes on Tuesday afternoons because that's when he helps his elderly mother shop. But on the other side -- and trust me on this -- your kids will not grow up to hate you if you don't attend every soccer game and ballet recital."

My first impulse upon reading this was utter disgust. Of course he can say these things. I'm sure that his children didn't hate him for missing an occasional soccer game or ballet recital, but that's not the point. Not really.

It's not about whether your children hate you or whether they're irreparably damaged by your devotion to work. It's really about what you miss. This, for me at least, is one of the things I constantly wrestle with- how much is enough? Of work? Of family? How much do I miss when I drop Little Man off at daycare during spring break? On days when I'm not uber-productive, and just really need a break myself? How much am I willing to give up?

Because here's the thing- in the grand scheme of things, what I do professionally is not really important. No one will die if I only publish 2 articles instead of 3 one year. The world will not really be any worse off if my monograph on the way the culture of books effected the formation of a modernist canon doesn't get published next year--or ever. I am not a doctor curing diseases and healing ills; I am not a scientist working for the greater good; I am not even a lawyer protecting my clients from whatever they need protecting. No. I study literature. I love what I do--I love the rare books room and the archive; I love that I get to read for a living; I even love writing. But what I do professionally does not really change the world.

I was talking to J yesterday over lunch about this essay in the Chronicle and how frustrating it is. But it is also extraordinarily freeing. As I get closer to finishing, and as I prepare myself to be "on the market" (like a slab of beef), it's becoming more and more clear what I am willing to do.

I am willing to put everything I can into my work and produce the best work I can produce, but I am not willing to give up those 3 or 4 hours in the evening that are work-free, that are just to be with my husband and child.

I am willing to put everything I can into the job market, to make a real effort to get a tenure-track position, but I am not willing to make a second try.

I am not willing to work as an adjunct or a community college. It's not that I think those positions are beneath me, but I know that they are not me at all. At heart, I'm a researcher, a writer, an editor even, but at heart, I am not-at the very core of my being-a teacher. I like teaching. I admire my students and want the best for them. But, without the possibility to research and then incorporate that research into my teaching, without the possibility to have an upper-division course or to even supervise graduate students, teaching would eventually eat away at my soul. I'd rather work retail--seriously. PhD or not, I would take retail over adjuncting.

I am also not willing to work 60, 70, or 80 hour weeks. I refuse to give up my family life for an extra article or two that ten years from now--nay, three years from now--no one will read, no one will remember. I am willing to work hard, to be an active member of my discipline, but I am not willing to miss soccer games or ballet recitals. I have forever to get tenure; I get less than 18 years of my son's childhood. I will not give up witnessing that. Besides, no university will pay me enough to work regularly 80 hour weeks. When they start paying English profs 6 figures, I'll gladly put in my time. There's a reason I didn't go to law school.

I am willing to be open about my future. I can just as easily see myself working in publishing as I can being an assistant professor. Not getting a job next year will destroy me only a little. Then I'll pick myself up and go for plan B--maybe another baby, maybe freelance writing, maybe getting into publishing. I'm willing to accept that I don't have what it takes to be a professor at least somewhat gracefully.

Because the bottom line is that I do have other interests outside of my research. I am interested in building a life with my husband for many years to come. I am interested in raising a child who will make the world a better place through his very being in it. Those are the places where I can have an impact. My family is my primary passion. And I have hobbies besides.

The thing is, I can imagine a world where I am not an academic- where I'm not even using one of my many degrees. I cannot, however, imagine living in a world where I am not J's wife or Little Man's mother. Nor should I have to.

Whooah, we're half way there...

So Faulkner is out, which means that I have 1/2 of my thesis finished. whoo-hoo.

And the other half is the half I'm looking forward to :)

This is the year...

J has been saying that a lot lately.

This is the year....
"for professionalization"
"to get stuff done"
"that we need to really work hard"
"that everything is riding on"

The list goes on and on. I can feel his anxiety about his dissertation, his place in the program, his future possibilities on the job market. These anxieties ooze out of him and seem to hang in the air, mingling with my own.

But as much as I want to support him and be a good cheerleader, I can't help but think that he's wrong. It really isn't about this particular year. One year does not make a job candidate or a future professor. It certainly can effect them, but it doesn't make one.

I don't think you just wake up one morning and think, "today's the day. I will stop acting like a consummate student and begin acting like the professor I want to become." No. I think that's a transformation that you work at, that evolves, and that takes time. It's a transformation that I think J, and myself, have been working at for quite a few years now. I know that deep down he knows this and I know that these recent proclamations are his attempt to calm his fears and anxieties about the importance of this year, but I can't help but worry that he's putting a bit too much importance on it.

The truth of the matter is that he will, more likely than not, get a job if he finishes even 1/3 of his dissertation well. The truth is that that job will most likely pay at least twice what any job I will receive will pay and that as we negotiate which offer(s) to accept, where to move our little family, how to proceed in the next few years, his offer will most likely make the most financial sense. And the truth is that there is a very, very good possibility that my career will lose out--at least at first. Because there are loans and credit cards to pay off, moving expenses to think about, and the future well-being of one very bright and precocious toddler to think about, finances will indeed matter.

We've been very lucky so far. We both got into every grad school we applied to, except one--the one school I was already at. But as newly married couple, we had real choices about where to go--and because we had those choices, we have dealt with out disappointments over our prospective programs jointly and have been able to support each other through the difficulties that the last 4 years or so have brought with us. The job search, however, might be a whole new ballgame.

The real problem is that when we first got engaged and then got married, I didn't know what I really wanted. I do now. And I know that teaching at a community college or indefinitely as a lecturer is just not for me. I'd go back to retail before I made either of those my career. And while the chances are better than good that J will get a job next year, mine are only about 40%. The market in English is tough, and with that I also have to deal with a series of people in classes before me who haven't finished on time or didn't get jobs their first years out who will now be my competition. So instead of 2 or 3 modernists on the market this year, there may be 5 or 6. Or more. I have no idea how I look on paper compared to them-- whether they also have articles or big conferences on their CVs, whether their dissertations are getting finished or still a mire of notes and reading. And that makes me nervous--especially when people on my committee are also on theirs.

I'm in competition with them, with job candidates across the country, and with J. Because unless we both get offers in the same area or the same school, decisions will have to be made. Marriages and families are much, much more important than careers and jobs.

So yes, this is a big year. But I have too much to worry about to think about becoming a professional. I already am one. Now I just have to convince someone else of that fact.

One More Day

One more day of enjoying my mostly destroyed house and my sweet-as-pie toddler without worrying about work.

One more day of not counting calories, not worrying about why my stomach seems "bloated," not trying to get my 5-a-day.

One more day of scouting out vacation condos and planning a Vegas blowout for our 30th birthdays (in 2009).

One more day of oogling the Mandalay Bay's website and thinking it wouldn't be so bad if we were turning 30 this year.

One more day of not worrying that I have two conference proposals accepted and not a single paper for either one.

One more day of vacation.

Because on Monday
I start getting up at 6AM
I get my butt back on the elliptical machine and start the weights again.
I stop eating crap and start losing the last of this baby weight so I can look far too good for the mother of a two year old in Florida this year.
I get back to work and 1) plan the first few weeks of class--lesson plans, lectures, and power points; get myself to the library and start looking at Faulkner's *%@#! manuscripts, and 3) start revising the Fitzgerald piece so that my CV kicks the ass of at least 70% of the other 20th century applicants on this year's (that's right folks--the time is finally here!) job market.

Because if J can shave off his beloved beard in an attempt to get professional, I think I can do the small thing of writing one measly little thesis.

Another One Bites the Dust

The exams and papers are graded, the final grades are posted and sent off, and now I can officially check yet another semester of my long and accomplished list of semesters-I've-finished-as-a-student.

And although I'm fairly sick and tired of still being a student, I have to say that the steady progression of 15 week periods is not all that bad of a way to watch your life pass. Unlike most American professions, where the five-day-a-week grind is punctuated only by a fleeting week of vacation here and there, the life of an academic is punctuated by a nice 1-3 month break between times when I have to officially show up somewhere. Which is not to say it's a vacation. Those weeks and months in between "fall" and "spring" are still work time, but they're my work time. No classes to get to. No papers to grade. No office hours to sit in, knowing that no one is going to stop by, at least not until I run out to get a cup of coffee.

The end of this semester feels different, though. I only have one more fall and two more springs as a "student." When I think about how quickly this last year has flown by, I wonder how it's possible that in just one year more it will be me sitting nervously, waiting anxiously for someone, anyone to want to interview me. That in just one year more, I will forgo Christmas Eve for pre-interview preparations. That in just a few months I will be drafting the application letter and teaching statement.

Being the good Virgos that we are, J and I talk about the next year and a half compulsively. We imagine what type of place we'll move into next. We wonder out loud together and silently to ourselves who will get the better job--the job that will be the deciding factor for the next who-knows-how-many years of our life. We talk through the various locations we are willing to move to--North Dakota, definitely out. This coming year has been a long time coming.

So another semester is done. But this one seems different. Semesters usually follow semesters without much difference. This ending feels like the end of something bigger. This is, for all intents and purposes, the beginning of our last year as students. With any luck, in just over a year, I'll be able to start watching a different type of semester come and go.

Committee-- check

I've finally got around to arranging a 4th member for my committee. With only a short break to sew up a new tree skirt (pictures to come later), I've been working fairly non-stop on catching up on reading and on this stupid %#%(!# fellowship proposal. God I hate writing these. My chair told me to "brag and be forceful in the first paragraph." I wish my project was just so obviously brilliant that I didn't have to figure out how to brag about its strengths. I have about 36 hours to figure it out.

Blech.

And suddenly, it's real

For the last 7 years, I've been working toward this far off date when I would finally be done, finally have this thing called a dissertation finished and on the shelf. It's been five years, then four years, then three years, then two years away. Now, it's just over a year.

I think I realized just how solid a reality that future is yesterday when I was looking over a proposal I was writing and noticed the title I've selected. It sounded so authoritative and real--like something someone would actually write. And then it dawned on me, I am writing it. Slowly and surely, the jumble of half formed ideas I've been wading through for the last three years is becoming a dissertation...the first draft of a book.

It's strange when you work and work and plan and plan, and then, suddenly, you realize that it's working.

Back on Track

I've been in a holding pattern lately.

After I finished the Fitzgerald chapter, I kind of stalled. I took a little break, then we had to do some traveling, then J got the weird opportunity to apply for a job we weren't planning for, and then suddenly it's the end of October and I have no third chapter done yet. Really, no third chapter even started.

Lately, I've been unfocused. With all the grading and running around, it's been hard to get back to a routine where I'm really getting something done. I've started waking up at 6AM to work, and I think that's helping a little. But I need to get cracking.

Lately, though, all I want to do is play with my new sewing machine.
It looks kind of like this (only blue) and it's so easy to use. The only machines I've ever used are older-than-sin-Singers, so I was a little unsure about not buying a Singer.

I really never saw myself as the sewing type. I'm not all that great at it, but it sure is a great stress reliever when the machine works. Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzip and you have yourself a table runner. Twenty minutes or so and there is actually a tangible finished product. In the midst of this interminable dissertation, having something that has a real end point--an easily attainable end point--seems absolutely delicious right now.

But I really do need to get started on something more in line with my real work. I have a bunch of things that I should start working on, so maybe after my meeting (finally!) with my chair on Thursday, I'll have either the inspiration or the impetus to start something.

Researcher Discovers that Computers Eat Time

For the last few weeks--since we got back from Memphis in early August--I've been working like I haven't worked in a long, long time. So far, I've pumped out close to 40 pages of a draft of my Fitzgerald Chapter and right now I'm on the home stretch of finishing up this article, which is a revision of my May conference presentation and my first chapter.

All summer I wanted to be able to work like this. I tried to set a routine. I tried to accomplish something every day. I even tried getting up at 6AM to get work done before my 8:00 class. But all summer, it seems like all I did was sit, trying to figure out what to do with myself until we picked up Little Man at 3:30 every day. The clock would stand still and I would fight the urge to give up and just go get him 3 hours early.

Now, however, I've discovered that computers actually eat time.

I sit down to work at my trusty desktop at around 9:30 every morning and suddenly I realize that my eyes no longer focus, my stomach is growling, and it's noon. After lunch, the same thing happens. Just as I am getting started, I realize it's either time to go teach or time to pick up the munchkin. After he's in bed around 8:00, I sit down once again, only to discover the clock is suddenly far past 10:30 and I've missed Oprah once again.

I'm accomplishing a lot, but there's never enough time to finish what I start. But the good news is that I feel like I'm finally getting into the professional mode I've been attempting to approximate for the last few years. I hope I can keep it up.

Goup's On

Everyday I sit in front of my computer and wonder why the words just won't come.

Then about 5 minutes later I switch over to looking at cheesy gossip blogs and reading other mom's blogs (which are brilliant and I love).

Then about an hour later I realize I've just wasted an hour that I could be with Little Man. An entire hour of accomplishing nothing but the small thing of turning what used to be viable, gray brain matter into a soupy mush that might just at this very moment be leaking from my ears.

(Note to self- invest in ear plugs.)

I've just done it again. An entire hour that I should have been working hard or playing with my child has been wasted. The worst part is, I know I'll do it again tomorrow...and the day after that...and the day after that.

I have this delusional idea that someday the words will just come: my thoughts will coalesce into this amazingly coherent thing that will get me a job that pays enough money to support that sweet little guy. But all I seem to have left is mushy gray goop incapable of sustaining actual lucid thought and ideas.

Irony

I am currently teaching a Study Skills course this summer where I'm trying to teach the students how not to procrastinate.

My Fitzgerald chapter is now 3 1/2 months late and I spent the last two days re-reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince so I could be ready for Saturday's big release.

Uf.