"Don't Think Twice, It's All Right," Bob Dylan

All right, fine, then. I'm in with InDWriMo, because somehow the next chapter has to be written, come hell, high water, or crazed advisors. I'm pledging 15,000 words as a lowball goal, because this is the chapter on Most-Written-About Text in my field, and Second-Most-Written-About Text. And, of course, the one that my chair thinks has nothing to do with the rest of the argument of the dissertation. Woo.

As for the previous thing. Still processing, still mad, still not ready to talk to the committee.

(Thanks, Flavia, for the words of support. Did help.)

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"Happiness Is a *Warm Gun," The Beatles

The very bad things that happened previously with my committee have transformed into catastrophic things. They withdrew their support for my job search this fall. Which is, clearly, a non-negotiable decision.

So, that happened.

I don't know if anyone's paying attention here other than my mom (hi, Mom! I'll call you tomorrow), but for my imaginary friends, I'm still processing, and I'm not sure if I'll be doing that here.

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"That Teenage & Feeling," Neko Case

I'm in grading hell this weekend: thirtysome midterm exams, an equal number of essays, two days' worth of reading responses for my first-year class, and a bunch of weekly quizzes. All but the essays should go quickly, but gah all the same. My own stupid fault for having a week that kept me on public transit for approximately twice the number of hours I spent in class.

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"You Just Haven't ^ Earnt It Yet, Baby," Kirsty McColl

Apropos of nothing other than Flavia's new, pretty things, I recalled the one good thing that's come of this quarter's hellish teaching schedule: Because I have a hefty commute between UChaos and St. Happy, I wear my Chucks to trek, and take my lovely but brutal shoes to wear for class. Yes, it's reminiscent of office-ladies wearing their Reeboks on the subway while carrying their sensible pumps in their shoulder-bag, but it's also an excuse to break out the high, high-heeled pointy, pointy-toed lovelies for stalking around in front of the chalkboard.

In other news, this week still sucks. But Big Fancy Name in my field seemed persuaded as to the interestingness of my project.

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"Weird on Me," Lloyd Cole

I managed to fix up the writing sample last night, and while I'm now plotting to substantially rework the opening so I have a properly snappy intro, it's currently good enough for the school with the Monday deadline. Yeah, fine, whatever.

As I was writing up yet another abstract, this one for the sample, I realized why I hate the form so, so, so much. Waaaay back in my formative years--fifth grade, maybe?--I had a teacher who gave us an assignment to write one-sentence book reviews. Oh, god, how I hated that assignment. As I recall arguing to Mrs. Tanner, whom I otherwise loved, if the book can be summed up in one stinkin' sentence, why did the author bother to write the whole thing?

I feel the same way about abstracts. If I can distill the whole of the sample/chapter/dissertation into three or four sentences, why the hell am I writing 20/50/300 pages? Yeah, yeah, I get the usefulness of the abstract, in that it articulates the main points of the argument without getting into the whole process, and a good abstract can prepare your reader to approach the material with the most favorable attitude toward it. But. Gah.

I'm just so very tired of writing about my writing. On the other hand, though, the more I look over the summary of the next chapter on the docket, the more excited I am to write it. As C. said when he read over that chapter summary, "I really want to read this one!" Encouraging, at least.

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"White Girl," X

So, hi. There was a very bad weekend, followed by a rather bad week. There were tears, and general freaking-out, mediated by an emergency meeting with Sympathetic Job Committee Chair, where she talked me down and helped me sort out what needed to be done with the materials. And then I spent the whole weekend rewriting the letter, abstract, and c.v., as well as line-editing the two drafted chapters and slapping the Monster Chapter into draft status. Nearly kilt me, I tell ya. But! I was able to send an entirely new and complete batch of materials off to my committee on Sunday night.

Which meant I was able to show my face at My Field Event on Monday evening. I suspect that my chipper presence did as much to persuade as the materials themselves did. At least, I'm telling myself that, as I've heard not a peep since then from any of my referrers. Hm.

And then! Then, I crashed. Thank goodness this was midterm week for one class, because there was no way I could have done any more prep than I managed on the (very early) bus to campus.

There are now two application packets resting quietly in my desk at St. Happy, waiting to be sent out on Monday, along with one electronic application to be submitted the same day. But I still need to line-edit my writing sample and write up something that looks at least a little like a teaching philosophy for deadlines later this week.

Aaaaaannnnnndddd...I don't want to. I'm feeling sulky and recalcitrant. This is the nasty flip side to my short bursts of intense productivity. They wipe me out for, like, a week, and I have a miserable time re-motivating myself. Which is bad, because there's a heck of a lot to be done this weekend, in addition to the job stuff. I have midterms to grade, along with two piles of essays, plus reading for class, reading for another My Field Event on Monday, and reading for a Superstar Guest meeting on Wednesday. Who sucks at time management? I do!

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"This Is What I Do," Rhett Miller

I am finding myself in a very bad place. I sent off my job materials to the committee (late, I know) and immediately received a message from Cheerleader Advisor, in which she noted that my letter was riddled with typos and grammatical problems. And that my c.v. used the wrong format for degree titles. And that all versions of my abstract suck.

Now, my abstract probably does need work, which is why I'm sending it to you, damn it. And the vita thing, whatever, it's what my reference book said, but easy to change. But for the life of me, I cannot find the typos in the letter. And it's not like I'm bad at proofreading; I used to do it for a living. And when you tell me you need a "clean copy" of the long abstract, the copy editor in my rises up to cut a bitch for suggesting that I'm responsible for dirty copy.

So, ok, I fixed some things up and tried to clarify what she specified she was having problems with. And then I looked up some recent Chaos dissertations, purportedly to check citation style (MLA or Chicago?) but really to see what's been coming out. And, the abstracts for these completed dissertations? On par with my abstract for a still-partly-imaginary project. Or, excuse my snobbishness, worse. Obfuscatory language? Yep. Jargon for its own sake? Yep. A distinct sense of so what? Yep.

Possible explanations:

• [all redacted now, because I'm indulging a spot of paranoia]
  

Luckily, I have versions of all this stuff off to the rest of the committee, the job-search chairs, and our department secretary (a former academic editor). Unluckily, I have not heard back from any of them yet. I do hope some of their feedback balances this out.

N.B., This post may or may not disappear, in whole or in part, at some point in the future. Not that anyone's reading, but whatever. Safe>sorry, and all that.


Eta: You know what? I'm line-editing my first chapter, and it's freaking awesome. It's been at least a month since I've messed with it, and I forgot half the stuff I said, so it's like reading a brand-new piece. Repent and die, bastards. I'm good at some of this.

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"Think About It, Think, Think About It," Flight of the Conchords

I have been warned in the past that there will come a point where I am so heartily sick of my dissertation topic that I will want to finish just to get it out of my head. I thought this was going to happen because I would spend so much time thinking and writing about it.

I was half right.

I have written three different versions of a dissertation abstract, because apparently one needs different wording for the letter, the CV, and the official abstract. I now hate my project, at least in the abstract. I have four key terms, and I don't know how many more configurations I can wrestle them into before I descend into some wacked version of Shakespearean Mad Libs.

Also, my letter is exactly two pages, but I forgot to account for the letterhead crap, so now I have to do some more trimming there. My CV is pretty, though, except for the part where I don't have any publications.

Aaaaaaaand... the chapter isn't done. I'm going to send the job materials off to my committee tonight, but they're just going to have to wait on the chapter draft. Gah.

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"Four Leaf Clover," Old 97's

Accomplished:

• One job letter
• Two paragraphs of a teaching philosophy (including a clever metaphor)
• Appointment with Fancy Scholar in my sub-field, who is visiting Chaos this month
• A reminder that Terrifying Chapter (which is next on the draft docket) will be awesome when I finally write it.

[Seriously, reading over my proposal chapter summary for that one, I was like, "Damn, I want to read that chapter!"]

Still to be done:

• Reading student discussion responses for tomorrow's class
• Reading essay for same class
• Prepping same class
• Prepping other class
• Answering e-mail from Third Reader, who wants to make an appointment to talk about my drafts at exactly the times I can't possibly meet
• Finishing Nightmare Chapter

What I want to do:

• Watch baseball
• Watch Heroes
• Eat dinner
• Read about Britney's baby drama on the internets

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"Cruel to Be Kind," Nick Lowe

Ok, so that was annoying. A week in a hotel, all items in the apartment shifted to the south wall and draped in black tarps, construction, cleaning, bah. The cats seem to have recovered from their week at the pet hotel (we told them it was a corporate retreat), and are only marginally clingy and complainy. All my clothes are still packed in plastic and I'm not sure where my socks or underpants are. But I'm home, I have wireless access, and now I have until Wednesday to write my job letter, my teaching philosophy, my extended diss abstract, and oh yeah, my freaking Nightmare Chapter.

Also, tomorrow is the first of an expected four Terrible, Horrible, No-Good Days this quarter, in which I get up at 6 for class at 9, hold office hours, run around campus collecting materials for an event, catch the train to St. Happy for class at 1:30, travel back to UChaos for an event, and then drag myself all the way back north during rush hour. I'm predicting this will be at least a 13-hour day, all told, and I'm not sure where little things like lunch fit into it.

Oh, and I ran into Persnickety Prof. last week, who's heading my diss committee, and he had apparently forgotten that meeting we had in the spring where I told him I was on the market this year. He's already written all his letters and was surprised that he had one more batch to do. When did I become forgettable?

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