30 January 2007

Wading in...

In our department we create a guide to the field for the first year students, which, if they enroll in the basic 101 course, they are required to buy. It is a nice little money maker for our department. Actually, it funds itself and various happenings geared toward the first year students. It contains essays written by graduate students about different aspects of the field. Every spring there is also an essay contest from which student essays are chosen to illustrate certain types of assignments. Last year I submitted an essay. This year the Cajun Princess and I are on the editing committee.
Just recently Kendall/Hunt began publishing this little volume for us, which is nice because now it actually looks legitimate. The editing committee consists of three members –usually one veteran and two new people. The structure cuts down on the tendency for committees to start over from the beginning. Although I’ve not worked closely with our veteran committee member (VCM), I’ve heard rumors of her, for lack of a better term, flakiness. The tricky thing is I also get the sense that she is fairly territorial. Last semester she was distracted by comps so we didn’t expect her to be on the ball getting this thing going. However, I did contact our Director to make sure we weren’t missing any deadlines. She reassured me that all was well. Early last week, out of the blue, the Director sends a departmental email stating that submissions for our writing contest can be dropped of in the departmental office.
CP and I emailed, “Quoi?” to each other, but decided that when our presence was required we would be notified. Then there was another request last Friday – Could one of the committee members give a brief description of our project (graduate submissions and the student essay contest) at the next required meeting of TAs? (Tomorrow)
Not knowing who would respond, I said that I would speak at the meeting. Then I emailed VCM and CP to set up a meeting (which is today). Here’s the deal…I don’t want to step on VCM’s toes, but this thing needs to get done in a timely fashion. So far there doesn’t seem to be a problem. In her last email she thanked me for organizing this meeting. I’m not sure if that means I need to step back now or not. It’s just that for the last two years the book has arrived late to the bookstore, and I think that has a little to do with things at our end. One thing I am good at is organizing meetings, delegating, and following up to make sure stuff gets done, which means I want to play that role on this committee. The meeting this afternoon will probably tell me all I need to know. Whether it’s politically savvy or not, I have an agenda for this meeting and other commitments mean I need to make sure we stick to it.

27 January 2007

Don't it make my brown eyes green

This week my best friend here in Middletown, the Cajun Princess (CP), received hard copies of her first journal article. I knew it had been accepted. She worked on revisions all last semester. Yet, somehow seeing the actual journal and her name in print made it real. She is published. I am excited for her. I made her tell our favorite professor in her field. In fact, I think she should post it all over the department for all to see. Fortunately, she is far too self-deprecating for that.
The CP's response is, "It' s just a small article. It's not in my major field."
To which I replied, "So! It's your first article. It's a whole new section on your CV!"

Clearly I am pretty excited for her. Now about the title of this post...
There is also a little part of me that is jealous. Not in a mean way, CP worked hard for this. She is a better student and more focused scholar than I am. Maybe it's not even really jealousy. It's more like self-disappointment. During my MA at this university my friends were mostly PhD students, so when they did things like present at conferences and publish articles it didn't really feel like I was behind or missing out on something. They were supposed to be ahead of me in this process. However, CP and I started the PhD program together. We are in different fields, but we should be on fairly similar tracks. By publishing, she's moved ahead of me.

Seeing her name on a title page forced me to think about what I am doing (or rather NOT doing) to get myself in similar positions. In other places I've written (whined) about my inability to self-motivate and my profound ability to procrastinate so I don't want to rehash it here. For a long time I've felt the need to change those habits, but have failed to act on it. Maybe seeing CP's name on that title page and realizing that I want to see mine somewhere similar will help get me moving in the right direction.

25 January 2007

Where the day goes...

It amazes me how quickly a day can fill up with "stuff." Currently my schedule should be a dream. I'm not teaching, and I should have Fridays off. Since I'm not so great at making myself work on Fridays I started to organize a study group. We were supposed to start tomorrow at 1:00pm. Then I remembered that I agreed to take job candidates out to lunch, which also meant that I should attend at least one of the two job talks scheduled for the afternoon. Since all of that meant getting to campus at 11:00am, I figured why not go early and get some publicity for the Writing Center done. (Walk all over campus putting up posters.) So, before I had the day off. Now I'll be on campus from about 8:30 - 3:00, which pretty much guarantees I won't be in the mood to study when I get home.

I have the sneaking suspicion that when I get into "the real world" service and administrative duties will operate in this way as well.

Normally I enjoy volunteering to take candidates out to lunch. I like to meet new people and hear their stories. However, this year my department is doing an amazing amount of hiring. There are three positions open right now and I believe there will be something like three more in the fall. Everyone is nuts. I'm not sure how many more job talks any of us can sit through. The good side of it all is that the department dynamic will change with the addition of so many new people. It won't have too much of an effect on my studies, but it will be good for the newer graduate students.

22 January 2007

Opening Day

The Writing Center opened today. It seemed to all go smoothly. We were actually kind of busy in the afternoon. It's been a while since I've worked in a writing center. It was fun. I know in a couple of weeks I'll be singing a different tune, but it's good for now.

As I sat through a job talk today the silliness of the situation struck me. It's like a conference of one. A mini-teach can show how a candidate will perform in the classroom, but the job talk just puts everyone in an awkward position. As a candidate you have to condense your research into a short conference presentation. As a committee member you have to try to assess a candidates ability based on that presentation. It's insufficient. I don't have any alternative suggestions, but there has to be a better way to do that.

21 January 2007

Doing everything except what I love...

Last spring, in a moment of over confidence, I agreed to be a mentor to one of the new phd students (Little Momma). We get together every couple of weeks to have coffee and chat about this strange life we've chosen. Mostly, it's the blind leading the blind, but I think we do a fairly good job keeping each other sane.

This week was pretty hard for her so we got together on Saturday to talk things over. As we talked over the events of the week and discussed strategies to get through the semester she mentioned something that stuck with me. One of the things that draws each of us to this place is our love to read. Yet, when we get to this place all we seem to do is put off our reading. The thing we love to do becomes the very thing we avoid. Her observation probably made an impression because at the end of last semester I didn't read.

Normally, the promise of reading for pleasure gets me through the final push of writing seminar papers and grading student work. At the end of last spring I read four Val McDermid novels in three days. This year I couldn't do it. I started The Master and Margarita, but didn't finish. It's not because I didn't like it. I did. I just didn't feel like reading. Part of it was because I had other projects to complete, but that wasn't all of it. The heart of what we do is read, whether it's theory, student papers, or literature. Getting through this process shouldn't rob us of that love.

I have to hope that it doesn't. Hopefully, et just defers it for a while. I didn't share these thoughts with Little Momma. She has enough on her plate. I told her it probably all just boils down to one of the ways we are most like our students. We don't like to read things we are told to read. We want to read what we've chosen to read.

On that note, it's time to get to work reading On Rhetoric.

20 January 2007

Starting Out

The opening post is probably the hardest. Why do I think it's necessary to inflict my thoughts on the world? I'm not sure. Will this page a focus or theme? Probably not. Occasionally I think the area I study in is the most interesting thing in the world. The rest of the time, I try not to bore everyone around me by talking about it.

It doesn't sound too exciting, and I can't promise it will get better, but something interesting might happen every now and then.