After my spring break meeting with Indiana, I've found myself in a pattern of having to say no. So if I don't answer the phone, return your phone call or seem distant, it's not because I don't like you. It's because Indiana has convinced me that I have to refocus myself and concentrate on Geraldine in a new way.
That being said, I turned down my 4th job offer to teach German this week. This may come as a surprise to some of you reading this. You might be thinking "wait a minute, you applied to teach German? Since when?!" Let me tell you that I am equally surprised with this job offer because I haven't applied for any jobs to teach German for over two years, but that doesn't stop school districts from calling me and asking me "When can you start?" Because "Never" isn't a very professional response, I've become very good at explaining that I am happily employed at the university and unable to take a long-term sub job teaching German. It was weird the first time I received a phone call of this nature, but when a high school principal called me out of the blue on Wednesday to schedule an interview for another job that I didn't apply for, I felt guilty saying no. Especially since I really liked the program and school in need of a German teacher. Oh well. I've learned to say no to extra jobs and extra money. Between Geraldine and teaching online, I already have a full time job with overtime. Although I could consistently use an extra $100 at the end of each month, any delays in defending Geraldine will result in another year without a real pay check with retirement benefits. It's tough saying no to jobs that I would likely enjoy a lot right now, but self denial now will result in less self denial come retirement age.
In addition to turning down another job offer, I withdrew my name from writing a book review for publication last week. I've had to say no to spending time with Hubby and friends and haven't been able to bake like I would like to. All of this was on my mind when I hung up the phone after talking to the high school principal on Tuesday. As I returned to my research for a quick half hour of work, I felt a growing sense of dedication. I jotted down a few questions for Indiana and headed to his office to obtain his approval of my next moves. He seemed annoyed to see me (probably because he didn't have much time to talk before his class started) and ended the conversation by saying, "You're not making progress." Ouch. If my best friend had stabbed me in the side I don't think I could have been taken more off guard. I'm not making progress? I'm not working hard enough? Does he really think that?! Am I suppose to get angry? Panic? Depressed? The truth is I felt all of these and it distracted me from working on Geraldine. Although I'd like to write that I overcame these feelings and had a super productive week, they were replaced with an e-mail regarding my funding for next week from my department chair. The good news: I still have funding. The bad news: I have to give up my online course and going back to teaching face to face. For two days I felt outraged. Those of you that talked to me already know this. I thought about all of the reasons why I should continue to teach online and why my fellow TAs shouldn't. This resulted in me feeling negative thoughts toward three of my close friends, outrage and, ultimately, I was too distracted by this to focus on Geraldine.
It wasn't until I talked to Indiana again (wow, twice in one week!) that I felt better. In our short conversation in the student union, he told me "You are the golden child of the department and we need to be able to gloat about you when you get hired at another university next year. You can teach anything and we all know that, don't worry about it." Me? The golden child? This was quickly followed by Indiana refering to another doctoral candidate while tracing a downward spiral with his finger, whistling and making an explosion sound. Then he did something I've never seen: he broke character! Suddenly he started giggling, pointed to someone behind me and between hysterics managed to say, "Look at that guy's pants!" I turned around and saw some student's butt covered with bright purple plaid boxer shorts framed with sagging jeans. Apparently Indiana has never been into his kids' schools during passing periods or he would already be accustomed to this sight. Indiana regained control of his character with a quick switch into German "Ich bin zu alt das zu verstehen" (I'm too old to understand that) and walked away in full leather-elbow-patch-sweater-vest-professor-character reestablished.
And the lesson I've learned? I have good friends, not just good allies, and my department still respects me. I overreact to stupid things instead of burrying myself in my work like I should be doing, and my phone shouldn't be turned on in the first place to receive phone calls since Hubby isn't the one calling and my mom can find other methods to track me down if it becomes necessary. Indiana's right, I need to work harder this month if I want to defend a prospectus before the semester ends. With Holy Week starting tomorrow and ca. 100 pieces of music to sing this week, I'll need practice the art of being a hermit until I can brag about a major accomplishment with Geraldine. I you need to talk to me, I have office hours and will be at church every day but Wednesday this week. So unless you're needing academic or devine intervention, you won't see me for a while.
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Monday, March 26, 2012
On Travelling During Spring Break
To travel or not to travel? There are many rules about graduate school that students generally don't know when they start out. I have learned most of these rules and observe them strictly. Below are a few of them:
1) never tell your advisor when you are going out of town
2) never tell your advisor that you are going on vacation
3) don't go on vacation
4) if you go on vacation, don't tell anyone
5) make sure it's sunny out on campus if you do go on vacation, so that no one figures it out if you suddenly show up in the office with a tan
With that being said, I told Indiana that I was going out of town for part of spring break. D'oh! I told him this as an update of my progress on Geraldine. My trip to the Library of Doom didn't provide me with everything I needed for my database and my friends at another midwestern university have been inviting me to visit for a while. As many of my interlibrary loan books have come from their university's library, I figured it couldn't hurt. So I told Indiana: "Geraldine has this many languages in her database. I expect to have a complete database by the end of spring break. I have exhausted my sources at the following libraries: X Y and Z. I will be in town L for the last weekend of spring break and expect to find the remainding Papuan, Australian, African and North American language sources there..."
And Indiana's response? A lecture. I am spreading myself too thin. I need to focus. Do I want to work and make an insignificant income to buy beer or do I want to graduate and get a tenure track job? Getting trashed on Friday night is acceptable, but traveling is not. Ugh.
Well Indiana, if you're reading this, I am happy to report that I have a (nearly) complete database after this trip. I spent three days in the library here and another day working from a friend's house. I elicited data from a native speaker of Pular and made contacts for more data from another African language. Numerically speaking, I still need 3 African languages to reach the magic number to calculate statistics. Preferably two more Nilo-Saharan and another Khoisan language. I can do this some other time.
My database is more or less complete and I can change my focus to work on my prospectus. Yay!
Here is a picture of me in the library. It is typical of one of my walks into the stacks.
Below is a picture of Saturday's stack of books. This is typical of a library day when I have physical books compared to electronic readings.
1) never tell your advisor when you are going out of town
2) never tell your advisor that you are going on vacation
3) don't go on vacation
4) if you go on vacation, don't tell anyone
5) make sure it's sunny out on campus if you do go on vacation, so that no one figures it out if you suddenly show up in the office with a tan
With that being said, I told Indiana that I was going out of town for part of spring break. D'oh! I told him this as an update of my progress on Geraldine. My trip to the Library of Doom didn't provide me with everything I needed for my database and my friends at another midwestern university have been inviting me to visit for a while. As many of my interlibrary loan books have come from their university's library, I figured it couldn't hurt. So I told Indiana: "Geraldine has this many languages in her database. I expect to have a complete database by the end of spring break. I have exhausted my sources at the following libraries: X Y and Z. I will be in town L for the last weekend of spring break and expect to find the remainding Papuan, Australian, African and North American language sources there..."
And Indiana's response? A lecture. I am spreading myself too thin. I need to focus. Do I want to work and make an insignificant income to buy beer or do I want to graduate and get a tenure track job? Getting trashed on Friday night is acceptable, but traveling is not. Ugh.
Well Indiana, if you're reading this, I am happy to report that I have a (nearly) complete database after this trip. I spent three days in the library here and another day working from a friend's house. I elicited data from a native speaker of Pular and made contacts for more data from another African language. Numerically speaking, I still need 3 African languages to reach the magic number to calculate statistics. Preferably two more Nilo-Saharan and another Khoisan language. I can do this some other time.
My database is more or less complete and I can change my focus to work on my prospectus. Yay!
Below is a picture of Saturday's stack of books. This is typical of a library day when I have physical books compared to electronic readings.
Pictures of the Library of Doom
Here is a picture of us after surviving the Library of Doom. As you can all tell, I am the disturbed one whereas my friend thinks my imagination is too big for my own good. :)
Surviving the Library of Doom
I know you've all been waiting desperately to hear about my trip to the Library of Doom (LoD). Today I will satisfy your impatience, and I hope not to disappoint you in the process.
I drove to the LoD on a Monday morning. After careful planning, a friend and I worked out the details of carpooling and the like. I was distracted with reading articles in the morning and didn't leave when I was suppose to, thus my friend had to wait at the designated park n' ride for about 20 minutes before I showed up. Meanwhile, it started raining and by the time we finally hit the road, there was a typical midwest downpour.
Coming from Seattle, rain doesn't mean much. It's wet all the time, and when it's not wet, everyone is outside. Waiting for a sunny day to go for a walk would mean that everyone in the northwest would be overweight, but, as that is not the case, we northwesteners get used to walking outside in the rain. We wear fleece and gortex and get over it. In the midwest, however, the rain is a different monster. Actually, I think that the weather here in general is a different monster, but that's another blog. Rain in the midwest comes in big spurts. Seattle rain is usually the equivalent to someone in the heavens using a giant spray bottle or sprinkler. This mysterious heavenly being must not like the midwest, because here rain equals someone dumping over buckets of water. Growing up, I got used to the radio announcement that followed strange beeping and static reading "This is a test, this is only a test of the Emergency Broadcasting Network." Enter the midwest and there were no longer tests. When it rains here in summer and spring, the strange beeping and static sounds are followed with directions to seek shelter immediately and quit driving. At least I haven't had to run into a cellar yet with a tornado warning.
Back to the LoD. We weren't listening to the radio during the drive, so I don't know if there were severe rain storm warnings. I made it through the rain in one piece and then the day turned hot an muggy. Eventually we made it to the other state university's campus. I took a couple of unintentional detours only to find out that my prize parking spots from last summer are no longer free! I wrestled with the new parking meters and thankfully let my friend take over as I failed miserably. Kelsie: 0, parking meter: 2. Friend: 5, parking meter: 2. Clearly I made a good decision in bringing my friend.
A few days before traveling to the LoD, a professor friend of mine and I were talking about my reasearch. I mentioned the necessity of traveling to the LoD and my upcoming trip. She told me that the LoD is a scary place. The cages there are creepy and when she studied there as an undergraduate in the 70s, there were all sorts of crazy people on LSD camped out in the LoD, which was then opened for 24 hr/ day. Among the crazies was a man who walked backwards carrying a huge axe. The townspeople were split on their opinions of axe-man. Most people thought he was harmless, until one day he was in the library and attacked a girl in the stacks with his axe. The girl supposedly survived and my professor friend's med-school friend was in the university hospital when the patient came in. Axe-man was arrested and is supposedly in jail now. Did this really happen? Maybe not, but it could have. And I wouldn't be surprised if I turned a corner in the LoD stacks one day and came face to face with him. Lucky for me, I got everything I needed from the LoD and don't have to go back anytime soon. Phew!
Our adventure continued after fighting with the parking meter, and we crossed the street to catch the bus. Suddenly my bladder acted up and I had to find a bathroom immediately. Only there was no bathroom. Just a busstop surrounded by a field. And we had to wait for the bus for 15 minutes. I started to panic, thinking that I would pee my pants in front of my friend and my day would be ruined. Another annoying feature of the midwest is that there are no convenient places to pull over on the side of the road to go to the bathroom when an emergency hits. In the northwest, there are evergreens everywhere that conveniently give a person parked on the side of the road privacy. Here, the trees are small and bare for most of the year. When the trees have foilage, it is only at the top of the tree and there is no privacy. To make matters worse, there is generally snow on the ground at any given time for 6 months of the year. Not only is there no privacy in the snow, but anyone can follow your footsteps and see the evidence of another's personal roadside emergency. These thoughts flooded my mind while I waited for the bus. Finally, it came and I made it to the LoD and a washroom. Having triumphantly beat the odds of peeing my pants, I waited for my friend to get a visitor's pass and we were off to find the journals in question.
Finding the needed journals was more difficult than usual. The library was in the process of moving things. (why do libraries always have to move things? And if they're moving things, why can't they move the books that I don't want? I'm sure there are plenty of math or education books somewhere that no one is reading....) Eventually someone helped us and I found the old journals I needed. There were 100 years old and the pages were brittle. Only after going through half of the journals did I realize that the cover was decomposing on my sweater. I was covered in brown journal powder but it didn't matter. We found 5 articles that were relevant to Geraldine and I headed off to a scanner. Meanwhile, we somehow managed to eat an entire package of cookies. So much for my lenten fast...
We spent the remaining hours in the stacks looking for grammars. Together we pulled about 20 and I ended up checking most of them out and bringing them back home with me. To celebrate the day, we enjoyed Thai food at a local restaurant that I like and drove home. Safe and sound. No crazy men with axes, no more rain, no crazy protesters. Just two grad students that ate too many cookies. No more, no less.
I drove to the LoD on a Monday morning. After careful planning, a friend and I worked out the details of carpooling and the like. I was distracted with reading articles in the morning and didn't leave when I was suppose to, thus my friend had to wait at the designated park n' ride for about 20 minutes before I showed up. Meanwhile, it started raining and by the time we finally hit the road, there was a typical midwest downpour.
Coming from Seattle, rain doesn't mean much. It's wet all the time, and when it's not wet, everyone is outside. Waiting for a sunny day to go for a walk would mean that everyone in the northwest would be overweight, but, as that is not the case, we northwesteners get used to walking outside in the rain. We wear fleece and gortex and get over it. In the midwest, however, the rain is a different monster. Actually, I think that the weather here in general is a different monster, but that's another blog. Rain in the midwest comes in big spurts. Seattle rain is usually the equivalent to someone in the heavens using a giant spray bottle or sprinkler. This mysterious heavenly being must not like the midwest, because here rain equals someone dumping over buckets of water. Growing up, I got used to the radio announcement that followed strange beeping and static reading "This is a test, this is only a test of the Emergency Broadcasting Network." Enter the midwest and there were no longer tests. When it rains here in summer and spring, the strange beeping and static sounds are followed with directions to seek shelter immediately and quit driving. At least I haven't had to run into a cellar yet with a tornado warning.
Back to the LoD. We weren't listening to the radio during the drive, so I don't know if there were severe rain storm warnings. I made it through the rain in one piece and then the day turned hot an muggy. Eventually we made it to the other state university's campus. I took a couple of unintentional detours only to find out that my prize parking spots from last summer are no longer free! I wrestled with the new parking meters and thankfully let my friend take over as I failed miserably. Kelsie: 0, parking meter: 2. Friend: 5, parking meter: 2. Clearly I made a good decision in bringing my friend.
A few days before traveling to the LoD, a professor friend of mine and I were talking about my reasearch. I mentioned the necessity of traveling to the LoD and my upcoming trip. She told me that the LoD is a scary place. The cages there are creepy and when she studied there as an undergraduate in the 70s, there were all sorts of crazy people on LSD camped out in the LoD, which was then opened for 24 hr/ day. Among the crazies was a man who walked backwards carrying a huge axe. The townspeople were split on their opinions of axe-man. Most people thought he was harmless, until one day he was in the library and attacked a girl in the stacks with his axe. The girl supposedly survived and my professor friend's med-school friend was in the university hospital when the patient came in. Axe-man was arrested and is supposedly in jail now. Did this really happen? Maybe not, but it could have. And I wouldn't be surprised if I turned a corner in the LoD stacks one day and came face to face with him. Lucky for me, I got everything I needed from the LoD and don't have to go back anytime soon. Phew!
Our adventure continued after fighting with the parking meter, and we crossed the street to catch the bus. Suddenly my bladder acted up and I had to find a bathroom immediately. Only there was no bathroom. Just a busstop surrounded by a field. And we had to wait for the bus for 15 minutes. I started to panic, thinking that I would pee my pants in front of my friend and my day would be ruined. Another annoying feature of the midwest is that there are no convenient places to pull over on the side of the road to go to the bathroom when an emergency hits. In the northwest, there are evergreens everywhere that conveniently give a person parked on the side of the road privacy. Here, the trees are small and bare for most of the year. When the trees have foilage, it is only at the top of the tree and there is no privacy. To make matters worse, there is generally snow on the ground at any given time for 6 months of the year. Not only is there no privacy in the snow, but anyone can follow your footsteps and see the evidence of another's personal roadside emergency. These thoughts flooded my mind while I waited for the bus. Finally, it came and I made it to the LoD and a washroom. Having triumphantly beat the odds of peeing my pants, I waited for my friend to get a visitor's pass and we were off to find the journals in question.
Finding the needed journals was more difficult than usual. The library was in the process of moving things. (why do libraries always have to move things? And if they're moving things, why can't they move the books that I don't want? I'm sure there are plenty of math or education books somewhere that no one is reading....) Eventually someone helped us and I found the old journals I needed. There were 100 years old and the pages were brittle. Only after going through half of the journals did I realize that the cover was decomposing on my sweater. I was covered in brown journal powder but it didn't matter. We found 5 articles that were relevant to Geraldine and I headed off to a scanner. Meanwhile, we somehow managed to eat an entire package of cookies. So much for my lenten fast...
We spent the remaining hours in the stacks looking for grammars. Together we pulled about 20 and I ended up checking most of them out and bringing them back home with me. To celebrate the day, we enjoyed Thai food at a local restaurant that I like and drove home. Safe and sound. No crazy men with axes, no more rain, no crazy protesters. Just two grad students that ate too many cookies. No more, no less.
Monday, March 19, 2012
On the perplexities of what to do next
I just had an impromptu meeting with Indiana. In this case, impromptu refers to: I e-mailed him about setting up an appointment to meet sometime next week and asked what I should prepare but he wrote back and asked me to come today. Being that it is spring break and I have no valid excuse not to be on campus, I naturally stopped by for an impromptu meeting.
Our meeting started out as a Where's Waldo exercise. I stopped in the main office to check my mailbox (I even had mail that someone actually placed a stamp on and hand addressed to me!) and a voice from down the hall asked me if I was stopping by. How'd he do that? Indiana's rarely on my floor and whenever he is, he doesn't talk to me (unless nodding in my direction is considered talking to me). The voice said, "I'll be in my office in 5 minutes waiting for you." I ran to the bank and arrived at his office 8 minutes later. No Indiana. I ran back downstairs. No Indiana. I walked into the department office and asked around. No Indiana. I started to run up the stairs again. My department secretary yelled into the stairwell at me, "Hey Kelsie, he's in his office waiting for you. He just called to ask where you are." *sigh*
The meeting went fine. I showed off my database, received helpful feedback, and then the tennis match of question and answer began. I don't play tennis, but anyone listening in on our conversation would have had to move his head from side to side as we debated back and forth about what exactly I'm supposed to be doing next. My current interpretation of Geraldine is that she will be much smaller than I have been anticipating. My department specifies 200-pages as a general guideline for dissertation sizes. When I mentioned this to Indiana, he asked me for my source of this guideline. I pointed out that this is specified on the department webpage (which, for everyone else's knowledge, Indiana maintains, thus he typed that information at some point or another and he is the one who made this information available to me). His response is that page numbers don't matter, I just need to focus on my data. I need to focus on my data. Ugh. He tells me this every time we meet, but when I try to talk about my data, he tells me to save it for my dissertation. My response is as follows: ???????????????!!!!!!!!!??????????????
At first, I walked away from this meeting feeling confident, but the more time I have to think about it, the less secure I feel. There have been a lot of differences between earning my MA and PhD and today reminds me of these. My MA program was established over 30 years ago. There was a form for everything, a student handbook, as well as a coordinator and two office managers that could explain everything. I never had to ask "what do I do next" because everything was transparent. On top of that, I served as a student rep in every official meeting, I received meeting minutes, there were meetings for students and a department social at the beginning of every semester. Everyone knew what they were suppose to do next.
Then I started my PhD in a department where everything is clear as mud. My program is 1.5 years old. I will be one of the first students to receive a degree from it. For the most part, there are no forms. There are no meetings. There are no socials organized by the department. There is no 'student rep' position and no one here really knows what is going on. This year is a lot better than last year, but it's still a confusing place to be. I'm free to ask questions, but deciding whose answer is best should be a dissertation of its own. Rather than respond with "oh, I don't know the answer to that. I'll make sure I add that to this month's meeting minutes" every professor in this department makes up an answer, and the answer changes with each student. This results in a lot of gossip, a lot of confusion, and a lot of uncertainty.
Having written this, I realize that I have no frustrations with Indiana today. I have frustrations with my department. As to conclusions from today's meetings, they are as follows:
1) I am suppose to focus on my data. (check)
2) I am suppose to have a meeting again with Indiana and Dumbeldore sometime this semester. (check)
3) I will write a prospectus sometime. (check?)
4) My dissertation will write itself after I write and defend my prospectus. (check?)
5) I will need to analyze my data before I write my prospectus so that I can argue for what I'm going to analyze in my dissertation. (huh?)
6) Indiana's interpretation of my prospectus sounds very similar to a 2nd or 3rd draft of a dissertation minus the interpretation and conclusion chapters.
7) I am not suppose to be doing anything with my life right now other than work on my dissertation-- no conferences, no publications, no colloquia, nothing.
8) I am, however, suppose to take a break every Friday night to "get trashed." (Apparently Indiana doesn't know that I don't exactly drink alcohol anymore and I am already a really big dork without a social life)
9) I have officially become a doctoral student that has no idea what to do next (other than focus on my data, whatever that means...).
So, according to the PhD comics I receive in my e-mail inbox, I'm right on track and no one should be worrying about me or Geraldine. I guess...
Our meeting started out as a Where's Waldo exercise. I stopped in the main office to check my mailbox (I even had mail that someone actually placed a stamp on and hand addressed to me!) and a voice from down the hall asked me if I was stopping by. How'd he do that? Indiana's rarely on my floor and whenever he is, he doesn't talk to me (unless nodding in my direction is considered talking to me). The voice said, "I'll be in my office in 5 minutes waiting for you." I ran to the bank and arrived at his office 8 minutes later. No Indiana. I ran back downstairs. No Indiana. I walked into the department office and asked around. No Indiana. I started to run up the stairs again. My department secretary yelled into the stairwell at me, "Hey Kelsie, he's in his office waiting for you. He just called to ask where you are." *sigh*
The meeting went fine. I showed off my database, received helpful feedback, and then the tennis match of question and answer began. I don't play tennis, but anyone listening in on our conversation would have had to move his head from side to side as we debated back and forth about what exactly I'm supposed to be doing next. My current interpretation of Geraldine is that she will be much smaller than I have been anticipating. My department specifies 200-pages as a general guideline for dissertation sizes. When I mentioned this to Indiana, he asked me for my source of this guideline. I pointed out that this is specified on the department webpage (which, for everyone else's knowledge, Indiana maintains, thus he typed that information at some point or another and he is the one who made this information available to me). His response is that page numbers don't matter, I just need to focus on my data. I need to focus on my data. Ugh. He tells me this every time we meet, but when I try to talk about my data, he tells me to save it for my dissertation. My response is as follows: ???????????????!!!!!!!!!??????????????
At first, I walked away from this meeting feeling confident, but the more time I have to think about it, the less secure I feel. There have been a lot of differences between earning my MA and PhD and today reminds me of these. My MA program was established over 30 years ago. There was a form for everything, a student handbook, as well as a coordinator and two office managers that could explain everything. I never had to ask "what do I do next" because everything was transparent. On top of that, I served as a student rep in every official meeting, I received meeting minutes, there were meetings for students and a department social at the beginning of every semester. Everyone knew what they were suppose to do next.
Then I started my PhD in a department where everything is clear as mud. My program is 1.5 years old. I will be one of the first students to receive a degree from it. For the most part, there are no forms. There are no meetings. There are no socials organized by the department. There is no 'student rep' position and no one here really knows what is going on. This year is a lot better than last year, but it's still a confusing place to be. I'm free to ask questions, but deciding whose answer is best should be a dissertation of its own. Rather than respond with "oh, I don't know the answer to that. I'll make sure I add that to this month's meeting minutes" every professor in this department makes up an answer, and the answer changes with each student. This results in a lot of gossip, a lot of confusion, and a lot of uncertainty.
Having written this, I realize that I have no frustrations with Indiana today. I have frustrations with my department. As to conclusions from today's meetings, they are as follows:
1) I am suppose to focus on my data. (check)
2) I am suppose to have a meeting again with Indiana and Dumbeldore sometime this semester. (check)
3) I will write a prospectus sometime. (check?)
4) My dissertation will write itself after I write and defend my prospectus. (check?)
5) I will need to analyze my data before I write my prospectus so that I can argue for what I'm going to analyze in my dissertation. (huh?)
6) Indiana's interpretation of my prospectus sounds very similar to a 2nd or 3rd draft of a dissertation minus the interpretation and conclusion chapters.
7) I am not suppose to be doing anything with my life right now other than work on my dissertation-- no conferences, no publications, no colloquia, nothing.
8) I am, however, suppose to take a break every Friday night to "get trashed." (Apparently Indiana doesn't know that I don't exactly drink alcohol anymore and I am already a really big dork without a social life)
9) I have officially become a doctoral student that has no idea what to do next (other than focus on my data, whatever that means...).
So, according to the PhD comics I receive in my e-mail inbox, I'm right on track and no one should be worrying about me or Geraldine. I guess...
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
This week's happenings
I've accomplished a lot of small things in the last week. They don't make up a blog entry on their own, but if I combine everything together then maybe I will feel better about my progress with Geraldine.
First, I went to the Library of Doom yesterday and survived. That deserves a blog of its own, so stay posted.
Last week was full of applications. I had to re-apply for a TAship, I applied for a dissertation fellowship from the library and a dissertation fellowship from the graduate school. The TAship application made me nervous. I'm sure that I have nothing to worry about, but the format changed from a 1-page application to a 4-paged application. It suddenly made me sounds like I've been receiving funding from the linguistics department forever and that I'm not making progress. For the record, the department has funded me for two years, I am only in my 2nd year as a doctoral student and I expect to be done writing my dissertation next May. The new TA application form makes it sound like I've been here for 5 years and asks questions that none of the TAs here can answer (such as 'how many chapters of your dissertation have you completed?', 'what's the title of your dissertation?'). Honestly, my department doesn't even have forms to make things like chapters and titles official. My advisers have the last say on everything (as they are the ones who decide if I become a Dr. or not, thus making them happy must be my first goal), maybe they should have had a role in designing this new TAship form. Oh well. At least there was a spot to write my preferences for courses to teach next year. I hope that I get to keep teaching online, as it has been great for Geraldine's development.
The library fellowship was easy to apply for. It took me an hour or so to complete, essay and all. The committe will grant awards to more than one student, so I hope that I am competitive enough to receive it. If I happen to be so lucky, the library foundation will give me $5,000 to finish Geraldine, travel to archives, and present at conferences. In short, it would mean becoming competitive enough to have a chance at a postdoc or tenture track job once I'm done so that I don't get stuck lecturing for the rest of my life. With that written, I hope no one from the library has been reading my blog about how annoyed I've been with it... And if someone has, may they know that I go to the library daily and use its services enough to employ every student worker there. And, although I obviously didn't write it in my application, my research is awesome and the library should give me funding because Geraldine will join the books shelved in section P204.(enter library of congress code here).
My third application was for a dissertation fellowship from the grad school. I met Indiana last week after a building fire alarm went off. And NO, I did not pull the fire alarm in order to meet with my adviser (even though everyone keeps accusing me of doing so). As I exited the building with a huge stack of books and my laptop, Indiana mysteriously appeared and offered to carry my books to the library for me. He then bought me a coffee (he was disappointed that I ordered decaf) and told me to apply for a fellowship for $15,000. Our conversation went something like this:
Indi: You should apply for the dissertation fellowship.
me: Wasn't the deadline for that a month ago?
Indi: No, this is something different.
me: But it's for less money than I earn as a dissertator working for the department.
Indi: Where are your priorities? Don't teach if someone gives you money, finish your dissertation.
me: Hmmmm....
Indi: Think about it.
After having the afternoon to think about it, I decided to apply. Indiana told me that he'd work it out so I could be his TA next year for a smaller appointment to make up the difference in funding as well. It sounded too good to be true. It was. The next day I found out that the deadline was February 3rd, as I had originally suspected. Oh well. At least I finally came up with a working title for Geraldine: Cross-linguist tendencies and grammatical extensions of human limb nomenclature. That probably means nothing to anyone reading this, but I think it's a pretty good title. There is no colon : to add in a witty side comment and I used all of Dumbeldore's terms, so she will be happy. And if she is happy, Indiana will be happy. And if both of them are happy, my entire committee will agree and I in turn will also be happy. Yay!
Otherwise? I wrote a 100-word abstract for the conference I'm presenting at next month (often we write abstracts that are a page long only to later have to shorten them to 1/5th of what we submitted). I bought plane tickets so that I can party with Uyghurs and Uyghur-wannabes during spring break. I am planning another library trip to a different university library for next week and I have 127 languages in my database. I should come back from spring break ready to start my proposal. And what does all this mean? I'm right on track and my advisers can brag about me. :)
First, I went to the Library of Doom yesterday and survived. That deserves a blog of its own, so stay posted.
Last week was full of applications. I had to re-apply for a TAship, I applied for a dissertation fellowship from the library and a dissertation fellowship from the graduate school. The TAship application made me nervous. I'm sure that I have nothing to worry about, but the format changed from a 1-page application to a 4-paged application. It suddenly made me sounds like I've been receiving funding from the linguistics department forever and that I'm not making progress. For the record, the department has funded me for two years, I am only in my 2nd year as a doctoral student and I expect to be done writing my dissertation next May. The new TA application form makes it sound like I've been here for 5 years and asks questions that none of the TAs here can answer (such as 'how many chapters of your dissertation have you completed?', 'what's the title of your dissertation?'). Honestly, my department doesn't even have forms to make things like chapters and titles official. My advisers have the last say on everything (as they are the ones who decide if I become a Dr. or not, thus making them happy must be my first goal), maybe they should have had a role in designing this new TAship form. Oh well. At least there was a spot to write my preferences for courses to teach next year. I hope that I get to keep teaching online, as it has been great for Geraldine's development.
The library fellowship was easy to apply for. It took me an hour or so to complete, essay and all. The committe will grant awards to more than one student, so I hope that I am competitive enough to receive it. If I happen to be so lucky, the library foundation will give me $5,000 to finish Geraldine, travel to archives, and present at conferences. In short, it would mean becoming competitive enough to have a chance at a postdoc or tenture track job once I'm done so that I don't get stuck lecturing for the rest of my life. With that written, I hope no one from the library has been reading my blog about how annoyed I've been with it... And if someone has, may they know that I go to the library daily and use its services enough to employ every student worker there. And, although I obviously didn't write it in my application, my research is awesome and the library should give me funding because Geraldine will join the books shelved in section P204.(enter library of congress code here).
My third application was for a dissertation fellowship from the grad school. I met Indiana last week after a building fire alarm went off. And NO, I did not pull the fire alarm in order to meet with my adviser (even though everyone keeps accusing me of doing so). As I exited the building with a huge stack of books and my laptop, Indiana mysteriously appeared and offered to carry my books to the library for me. He then bought me a coffee (he was disappointed that I ordered decaf) and told me to apply for a fellowship for $15,000. Our conversation went something like this:
Indi: You should apply for the dissertation fellowship.
me: Wasn't the deadline for that a month ago?
Indi: No, this is something different.
me: But it's for less money than I earn as a dissertator working for the department.
Indi: Where are your priorities? Don't teach if someone gives you money, finish your dissertation.
me: Hmmmm....
Indi: Think about it.
After having the afternoon to think about it, I decided to apply. Indiana told me that he'd work it out so I could be his TA next year for a smaller appointment to make up the difference in funding as well. It sounded too good to be true. It was. The next day I found out that the deadline was February 3rd, as I had originally suspected. Oh well. At least I finally came up with a working title for Geraldine: Cross-linguist tendencies and grammatical extensions of human limb nomenclature. That probably means nothing to anyone reading this, but I think it's a pretty good title. There is no colon : to add in a witty side comment and I used all of Dumbeldore's terms, so she will be happy. And if she is happy, Indiana will be happy. And if both of them are happy, my entire committee will agree and I in turn will also be happy. Yay!
Otherwise? I wrote a 100-word abstract for the conference I'm presenting at next month (often we write abstracts that are a page long only to later have to shorten them to 1/5th of what we submitted). I bought plane tickets so that I can party with Uyghurs and Uyghur-wannabes during spring break. I am planning another library trip to a different university library for next week and I have 127 languages in my database. I should come back from spring break ready to start my proposal. And what does all this mean? I'm right on track and my advisers can brag about me. :)
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Into the Great Wide Open
I took a partial break from Geraldine today to edit a manuscript I intend to submit for publication. The original version was a term paper a year ago. The professor for the seminar told me to publish it, so I am taking her advice and feel like I'm about to jump out of a plane.
About a year ago at this time, my professor announced in front of the whole seminar that Kelly and I had both written great literature reviews. Although I like praise, it's always embarasing to receive it when a professor singles me out in front of the class. Geraldine started as a beautiful paper. When Dumbeldore announced "and Kelsie wrote a beautiful paper" (but the rest of your rough drafts really stink), Kelly and "Ron" never let me live it down. They took full advantage of teasing me about my beautiful paper with every opportunity they could find. Luckily, they didn't expect me to replace e-mails to them with notes on fancy stationary. I thought it was a fluke that my work turned out to be that praiseworthy, but it seems that I'm able to write a good paper. But can I write a publishable paper?
I wrote the first version of my manuscript while recovering from surgery. I couldn't walk anywhere, didn't have internet and had nothing to do but read and write. I had a similar situation when I started the prototype for Geraldine 4 years ago (only that time there was no surgery, rather there was lots of snow and I was house sitting). I placed publishing my seminar paper on the bottom of my to-do list until last week. My professor keeps encouraging me to submit it for publication, and I have finally given in to the peer pressure.
There are a few caveats to my decision to sumit this paper for publication. The journal I'm submiting it to is a little quirky. First, its title is redundant. It uses 'language' twice in its 5 word title. Next, it requires that all of the abstracts are translated into another language. English is the main language for linguistic publications, so it seems weird that I have to translate my abstract into something else. And by something else, the journal doesn't specify which language it should be in. It can be any language. Third, the journal translates all of the abstracts for papers that it publishes into Esperanto. Esperanto! (for those of you reading this that don't know what that is, it's a made up language. You can compare it to Elvish from Lord of the Rings or Klingon from Star Trek. It's a "geek language" for linguists and world peace activists).Wow. Nevertheless, my professor insists that this is a good journal and I can't afford to be too picky right now. Publish, or never get tenure (or a tenure track job)!
The other part about submitting this paper for publication that makes me nervous is the thought that doing so will result in having future visa applications for a certain country rejected. My paper is a literature review and I simply add questions to the dialogue that doesn't exist, so I think I'm over reacting. The people I reference in my paper still get visas, why wouldn't I? Well, it seems that commenting on a nation's language planning policies could be viewed negatively by that nation. But, if that's the case, I'll deal with that if and when it happens. As it takes around 6 months to have a journal accept or reject submissions and then can easily take another year and a half to actually publish the article, I figure I have two years to go to the desert, ride some camels, buy hats and tight rope walk before anyone knows who I am. Perhaps the Esperanto part will work to my advantage afterall!
In short, I just sent off copies of my manuscript to my professor for feedback. Once we are both happy with it, I'll translate my abstract and send it to an editor in Canada. At this point, I'm looking forward to clicking 'send' and having my work go into the great wide open of publication land. Wish me luck!
About a year ago at this time, my professor announced in front of the whole seminar that Kelly and I had both written great literature reviews. Although I like praise, it's always embarasing to receive it when a professor singles me out in front of the class. Geraldine started as a beautiful paper. When Dumbeldore announced "and Kelsie wrote a beautiful paper" (but the rest of your rough drafts really stink), Kelly and "Ron" never let me live it down. They took full advantage of teasing me about my beautiful paper with every opportunity they could find. Luckily, they didn't expect me to replace e-mails to them with notes on fancy stationary. I thought it was a fluke that my work turned out to be that praiseworthy, but it seems that I'm able to write a good paper. But can I write a publishable paper?
I wrote the first version of my manuscript while recovering from surgery. I couldn't walk anywhere, didn't have internet and had nothing to do but read and write. I had a similar situation when I started the prototype for Geraldine 4 years ago (only that time there was no surgery, rather there was lots of snow and I was house sitting). I placed publishing my seminar paper on the bottom of my to-do list until last week. My professor keeps encouraging me to submit it for publication, and I have finally given in to the peer pressure.
There are a few caveats to my decision to sumit this paper for publication. The journal I'm submiting it to is a little quirky. First, its title is redundant. It uses 'language' twice in its 5 word title. Next, it requires that all of the abstracts are translated into another language. English is the main language for linguistic publications, so it seems weird that I have to translate my abstract into something else. And by something else, the journal doesn't specify which language it should be in. It can be any language. Third, the journal translates all of the abstracts for papers that it publishes into Esperanto. Esperanto! (for those of you reading this that don't know what that is, it's a made up language. You can compare it to Elvish from Lord of the Rings or Klingon from Star Trek. It's a "geek language" for linguists and world peace activists).Wow. Nevertheless, my professor insists that this is a good journal and I can't afford to be too picky right now. Publish, or never get tenure (or a tenure track job)!
The other part about submitting this paper for publication that makes me nervous is the thought that doing so will result in having future visa applications for a certain country rejected. My paper is a literature review and I simply add questions to the dialogue that doesn't exist, so I think I'm over reacting. The people I reference in my paper still get visas, why wouldn't I? Well, it seems that commenting on a nation's language planning policies could be viewed negatively by that nation. But, if that's the case, I'll deal with that if and when it happens. As it takes around 6 months to have a journal accept or reject submissions and then can easily take another year and a half to actually publish the article, I figure I have two years to go to the desert, ride some camels, buy hats and tight rope walk before anyone knows who I am. Perhaps the Esperanto part will work to my advantage afterall!
In short, I just sent off copies of my manuscript to my professor for feedback. Once we are both happy with it, I'll translate my abstract and send it to an editor in Canada. At this point, I'm looking forward to clicking 'send' and having my work go into the great wide open of publication land. Wish me luck!
Saturday, March 3, 2012
On quiet places
A year or so ago, I heard a radio program on NPR about quiet places. The author interviewed spoke of how few quiet places there are left in the US. And by quiet places, he meant locations out in nature where planes did not fly, thus the only thing able to make noise were the elements, such as wind, animals and the people that happened to be in there at the time.
I used to fantasize about owning a mountain cabin in the Cascades. Sometimes I still think about having a nice log cabin, but I'm not sure that it will happen any time soon and most of my current fantasies revolve around finding exciting data for Geraldine. The mountain cabin idea is still a nice one and if I ever find the right place, I'll let you all know. Besides the awe inspiring nature and hiking possibilities surrounding a mountain cabin, the solitude and quiet are inspiring and rare.
Today, I understand the author's longing for quiet spaces, as well as Hubby's insisting that he cant' study at home because my studying is "too loud." (Hey, it's not like I'm studying for a phonetics quiz anymore, all I do is type and turn pages!)
Today's research took me back to (you guessed it) the library. I located enough books to make a huge pile and I proudly walked to a large table where I could drop them and get started. Shortly after making myself comfortable, someone around the corner started talking on his cellphone.
I know that I do not represent the majority of Americans when it comes to cellphones, but I still expect a little etiquette. It drives me crazy when people talk on their phones in public spaces, such as the bus, the hall outside my office or at a restaurant. I don't want to know about your illness, your relative's illnesses, your birth control, the cute thing your kid did, or what you had for lunch. Nor do I want to listen to you plan a jam session, a drug deal or make booty calls. You might think that I'm over reacting, but these are all conversations I have over heard this week while working on Geraldine, eating dinner, or riding the bus to work. And all of these conversations were from people talking on their phones. Not only were they on their phones in these places, but they were so loud and obnoxious that everyone in the same space could hear about their private lives as well.
Today was the last straw. After I heard the man make his third cell phone call telling who knows whom that he was busy studying for a midterm in the library, I had my fill. I walked around the corner and politely smiled and held my finger up to my lip. He waved, said sorry, then talked even louder about how some librarian ("or at least she looks like a librarian") chewed him out for talking on his phone in the library. I tried to ignore it and keep working, but it was not going well. When I'm not reading articles, my research consists of reading dictionaries and grammars (Yes, I am writing a PhD based off of my daily committment to reading the dictionary... I am a dork and I probably did look like a librarian today). It was no use. I couldn't concentrate because this man was so loud and obnoxious. Everyone around me had left. I was alone in the stacks with loud-obnoxious-cell phone-man. Annoyed, I returned to his desk and asked him politely to either please take his conversation to the first floor or not talk on his phone in the stacks. And what did he do? He tried to start a conversation with me. "What's your name? Where are you from? Sorry, I'm from New York and I don't like football so I don't really fit in here." Meanwhile, I smiled politely and said, "I need to study. I'd really appreciate it if you would stay quiet while in the stacks." And then???? Of course there's an 'and then!' He came over to my table to talk to me, apologize, vent not once, but 5 times!!! I was bewildered! I asked him to leave me alone and stop bothering with his second visit. After the 5th, when he started his 5th phone call, I packed up my things and carried my stack of 15 dictionaries to the basement. I passed Hubby along the way, who made eye contact with me, gestured in the direction of the cell phone man and looked crossed. So it wasn't just me and I wasn't overreacting.
Apparently there is a large area reserved for quiet study in a basement corner that I didn't know about until today. There are even windows along the ceiling so that one can see daylight. Why just one corner of a 5 floor university library is reserved for quiet study is beyond me. The Library of Doom forbids the use of cell phones completely from its library. And here? There is a corner. Woopee. Finding myself in the quiet corner, I accomplished a lot of work, until Stravinsky-man showed up. 30 feet from me, as I type this, there is a young man wearing headphones listening to Stravinsky. Yes, he is really 30 feet away from me, and I can hear his headphones, and I know that it is Stravinsky. And too geeky looking guys are two table away laughing and whispering about something geeky. Ugh. I give up. It's time to go home (or buy a mountain cabin.)
So mysterious author of NPR interviews, if you have any quiet places suggestions for me, Geraldine, Hubby and I would love to know where they are. And if anyone wants to buy me a cocktail, I would appreciate one right about now. :)
I used to fantasize about owning a mountain cabin in the Cascades. Sometimes I still think about having a nice log cabin, but I'm not sure that it will happen any time soon and most of my current fantasies revolve around finding exciting data for Geraldine. The mountain cabin idea is still a nice one and if I ever find the right place, I'll let you all know. Besides the awe inspiring nature and hiking possibilities surrounding a mountain cabin, the solitude and quiet are inspiring and rare.
Today, I understand the author's longing for quiet spaces, as well as Hubby's insisting that he cant' study at home because my studying is "too loud." (Hey, it's not like I'm studying for a phonetics quiz anymore, all I do is type and turn pages!)
Today's research took me back to (you guessed it) the library. I located enough books to make a huge pile and I proudly walked to a large table where I could drop them and get started. Shortly after making myself comfortable, someone around the corner started talking on his cellphone.
I know that I do not represent the majority of Americans when it comes to cellphones, but I still expect a little etiquette. It drives me crazy when people talk on their phones in public spaces, such as the bus, the hall outside my office or at a restaurant. I don't want to know about your illness, your relative's illnesses, your birth control, the cute thing your kid did, or what you had for lunch. Nor do I want to listen to you plan a jam session, a drug deal or make booty calls. You might think that I'm over reacting, but these are all conversations I have over heard this week while working on Geraldine, eating dinner, or riding the bus to work. And all of these conversations were from people talking on their phones. Not only were they on their phones in these places, but they were so loud and obnoxious that everyone in the same space could hear about their private lives as well.
Today was the last straw. After I heard the man make his third cell phone call telling who knows whom that he was busy studying for a midterm in the library, I had my fill. I walked around the corner and politely smiled and held my finger up to my lip. He waved, said sorry, then talked even louder about how some librarian ("or at least she looks like a librarian") chewed him out for talking on his phone in the library. I tried to ignore it and keep working, but it was not going well. When I'm not reading articles, my research consists of reading dictionaries and grammars (Yes, I am writing a PhD based off of my daily committment to reading the dictionary... I am a dork and I probably did look like a librarian today). It was no use. I couldn't concentrate because this man was so loud and obnoxious. Everyone around me had left. I was alone in the stacks with loud-obnoxious-cell phone-man. Annoyed, I returned to his desk and asked him politely to either please take his conversation to the first floor or not talk on his phone in the stacks. And what did he do? He tried to start a conversation with me. "What's your name? Where are you from? Sorry, I'm from New York and I don't like football so I don't really fit in here." Meanwhile, I smiled politely and said, "I need to study. I'd really appreciate it if you would stay quiet while in the stacks." And then???? Of course there's an 'and then!' He came over to my table to talk to me, apologize, vent not once, but 5 times!!! I was bewildered! I asked him to leave me alone and stop bothering with his second visit. After the 5th, when he started his 5th phone call, I packed up my things and carried my stack of 15 dictionaries to the basement. I passed Hubby along the way, who made eye contact with me, gestured in the direction of the cell phone man and looked crossed. So it wasn't just me and I wasn't overreacting.
Apparently there is a large area reserved for quiet study in a basement corner that I didn't know about until today. There are even windows along the ceiling so that one can see daylight. Why just one corner of a 5 floor university library is reserved for quiet study is beyond me. The Library of Doom forbids the use of cell phones completely from its library. And here? There is a corner. Woopee. Finding myself in the quiet corner, I accomplished a lot of work, until Stravinsky-man showed up. 30 feet from me, as I type this, there is a young man wearing headphones listening to Stravinsky. Yes, he is really 30 feet away from me, and I can hear his headphones, and I know that it is Stravinsky. And too geeky looking guys are two table away laughing and whispering about something geeky. Ugh. I give up. It's time to go home (or buy a mountain cabin.)
So mysterious author of NPR interviews, if you have any quiet places suggestions for me, Geraldine, Hubby and I would love to know where they are. And if anyone wants to buy me a cocktail, I would appreciate one right about now. :)
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