In January, Hubby unexpectedly received $900 in the mail from the American Association for Teachers of German as a reimbursement for travel expenses to Leipzig. We used the cash to pay off a credit card balance. In the same month, we both received surprise checks from the US government of roughly $18 for credit card settlements. It was enough to go to the bar and hang out with each other for more than 15 minutes. I'm not exactly sure how we made it onto the free money via the US mail list, but I can't complain. It must have something to do with magic bubble bath (and if that's the case, I must buy stock in this bubble bath and then order it for everyone I know).
As you may recall, I applied for the Library Dissertation Fellowship for $5000 in March, found out at the end of April that I was a finalist, and interviewed for the award on May 7th. You might also remember that I felt terrible after my interview, felt rushed through the entire thing, thought the woman in black who was leading the interview hated my stinking guts, had horrible back pain leading up to the interview, felt like puking after being asked to leave the library when my interview ended, and have been having stress nightmares all month. My back pain started easing up a week ago and I've had a few sporadic solid nights of sleep since then. I was supposed to hear about the fellowship by the end of the semester, which officially ended on the 20th. I heard nothing and assumed that my love-hate relationship with the library resulted in a rejected application for this fellowship. I tried not to let it bother me, but I was disappointed. Dumbledore asked me about the award at least two times a week all month. Each time I half-heartedly responded that I knew nothing and didn't think that I received it. She always had a baffled look on her face that made me wonder whether she was thinking:
a) Kelsie, you are impatient.
b) If the library doesn't select your project as most representational of using library resources, I will discontinue my membership in the Friends of the Library organization.
c) Hmmmm, maybe you're not as bright as I thought you were.
d) I never liked the library anyways.
I'll never know what she was really thinking, but it turns out her instincts were better than mine because I found out today that I received the fellowship. Wow! The library loves me (or at least I will live with this illusion for the rest of the weekend).
Since my prospectus hearing, I've felt deflated. I keep thinking about Geraldine, feel overwhelmed, don't know what to do next, feel guilty for doing anything unrelated to Geraldine (which included everything that I have done since my hearing), and am driving Hubby crazy by talking about it. We walked to a bakery this morning so that Hubby could indulge in a roll (we despise the owners of the bakery, but boy do they make good bread) and I talked his ear off the whole way there and back. Lucky for Hubby, the bakery is only 4 blocks away, but I still lamented my frustrations to him while trying to set a game plan for the day. When we came home, the mail had already been delivered and two envelops had my name on them. One was from the Chancellor's Office and I my heart sank as I recognized a rejection letter. I fought back tears while walking up the stairs to our flat, opened the letter full of self pity, read the first line and nearly fell over when I read:
"Dear Kelsie, I am delighted to inform you..." Delighted?!? How can this be?!?! I then saw the official name of the fellowship, a number with a $-sign in front of it and a closure of, "Again, congratulations." How in the world did that happen?!?! I squealed until the sudden shock caused my glottis to half close which then produced a really weird sound of murmured voice mixed with hysteria. Hubby thought I was dying as I started jumping up and down while crying until I flinged my hands in the air, slapped my sides and sang "I got 5 thousand dollars, I got 5 thousand dollars, I got....!" Apparently Hubby's mom (who lives below us and is our landlord) thought that our pet rabbit died with all the screaming and thumping, but even the rabbit is happy with the unexpected fortune announced in today's mail.
And with this exceptional news, I have a much needed renewed sense of hope and accomplishment. I will finish my dissertation, more than the 5 people on my committee will actually read my dissertation, and even if they don't, I'll still become a doctor in a year. Life is good.
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Summary of my Prospectus Hearing
Yesterday must have been the most stressful and overwhelming day I've had as a graduate student. I didn't know that I was stressed out until after my hearing, when Indiana spent two hours debriefing the morning's events and giving me a pep talk. I think I have talked to him more in the last two days than I have in the last 3 years. For the first 30 minutes or so following the hearing, I realized that I was about to cry and tried not to. Then I started crying, said, I didn't know why I was crying and cried for about an hour (there were no dogs in the conference room for me to burry my face in like in my dream, but that would have been nice).
In brief, my committee likes my work, but Geraldine had major surgery yesterday. Remember the scene in the Wizard of Oz in which the 4 main characters are in the Emerald City receiving makeovers? Geraldine was the Scare Crow yesterday: she was gutted and restuffed and now looks shiny and new. And the only chapter of Geraldine's make up that stayed the same is the introduction, which I am not writing until December.
Below is Indiana's summary of the morning:
Dear Kelsie,
Thank you for presenting your dissertation prospectus to the committee today (Tentative title: Cross-linguistic Generalizations in the Nomenclature of Human Limbs). Congratulations! The committee accepted your prospectus and the necessary signed warrant was given to you to take to the graduate school.
The committee discussed a number of changes that we would like to see incorporated into the dissertation. Here is a summary. Other members of the committee may also wish to add their specific comments on these and other points:
General:
1) the committee feels that the hypothesis of the dissertation needs some focusing. Our suggestion is that you first look closely at the Indo-European data in your database and see what generalizations can be made based just on these data. Once these generalizations are established, you could craft a hypothesis stating that you expect the same generalizations to hold for other (non-IE) languages in your database of some 150 languages. You could then confirm or refute the original hypothesis by testing it against your database. You can work with me as needed on the IE data.
2) the committee feels that the generalizations arrived at in 1) above could be best explained within the frame work of a current theory of methaphorization. (Sweetser 1990 and Traugott and Dasher 2001 may provide something of a starting point.) Please work with Prof. Jolly Green Giant on this.
3) The committee also feels that the background chapter should be focused more specifically on background that pertains to your hypothesis rather than to a general overview of the literature. These and other changes are reflected in the tentative chapters for the dissertation suggested below.
1. Introduction
2. Methods and Hypothesis
3. Background (as per 3. above)
4, Theoretical Framework of Metaphorization
5. Generalizations based on the IE data in your database
6. Analysis of your database based on the results of ch. 5
7. Conclusions
8. Directions for Further Research
Further points: the committee wonders whether there may be a data base program available that would be better suited to the tasks required in your research. Please look into this and explore options. Also, please explore with the graduate school as to whether it would be acceptable to submit your database to the grad school in CD format (rather than as a hardcopy). This could help with some of the formatting problems you are having currently.
Please work closely with the committee over the course of the summer on these issues so that you are ready for heavy-duty writing by the fall.
With congratulations and every good wish,
Indiana Jones
That's the jist of it. Now I am going to the doctor and will write more later.
In brief, my committee likes my work, but Geraldine had major surgery yesterday. Remember the scene in the Wizard of Oz in which the 4 main characters are in the Emerald City receiving makeovers? Geraldine was the Scare Crow yesterday: she was gutted and restuffed and now looks shiny and new. And the only chapter of Geraldine's make up that stayed the same is the introduction, which I am not writing until December.
Below is Indiana's summary of the morning:
Dear Kelsie,
Thank you for presenting your dissertation prospectus to the committee today (Tentative title: Cross-linguistic Generalizations in the Nomenclature of Human Limbs). Congratulations! The committee accepted your prospectus and the necessary signed warrant was given to you to take to the graduate school.
The committee discussed a number of changes that we would like to see incorporated into the dissertation. Here is a summary. Other members of the committee may also wish to add their specific comments on these and other points:
General:
1) the committee feels that the hypothesis of the dissertation needs some focusing. Our suggestion is that you first look closely at the Indo-European data in your database and see what generalizations can be made based just on these data. Once these generalizations are established, you could craft a hypothesis stating that you expect the same generalizations to hold for other (non-IE) languages in your database of some 150 languages. You could then confirm or refute the original hypothesis by testing it against your database. You can work with me as needed on the IE data.
2) the committee feels that the generalizations arrived at in 1) above could be best explained within the frame work of a current theory of methaphorization. (Sweetser 1990 and Traugott and Dasher 2001 may provide something of a starting point.) Please work with Prof. Jolly Green Giant on this.
3) The committee also feels that the background chapter should be focused more specifically on background that pertains to your hypothesis rather than to a general overview of the literature. These and other changes are reflected in the tentative chapters for the dissertation suggested below.
1. Introduction
2. Methods and Hypothesis
3. Background (as per 3. above)
4, Theoretical Framework of Metaphorization
5. Generalizations based on the IE data in your database
6. Analysis of your database based on the results of ch. 5
7. Conclusions
8. Directions for Further Research
Further points: the committee wonders whether there may be a data base program available that would be better suited to the tasks required in your research. Please look into this and explore options. Also, please explore with the graduate school as to whether it would be acceptable to submit your database to the grad school in CD format (rather than as a hardcopy). This could help with some of the formatting problems you are having currently.
Please work closely with the committee over the course of the summer on these issues so that you are ready for heavy-duty writing by the fall.
With congratulations and every good wish,
Indiana Jones
That's the jist of it. Now I am going to the doctor and will write more later.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
On the Edge of Glory
Tomorrow is my prospectus defense. This event marks the final preparations for Geraldine and the start of grueling dissertation compositions. Indiana and I will face three other professors who will question my methods, my data and entire proposed form of Geraldine at 9:00am and I will have to be awake and sound polished. Luckily the last 5 months have left me feeling very confident about this defense. So far every question that Indiana has brought up has been easy to answer. To make an analogy of my feelings regarding my preparation, if I were a gladiator, tomorrow's fight would be Indi and I against three very large stuffed animals (with big stuffed teeth and horns). In fact, I'm surprised at how easy it has been to answer questions.
For the first time, I feel like a true expert in my field and I'm starting to realize what it means to have a PhD. It doesn't mean that I know all of the answers but I do know more than anyone else in my department about my particular research topic and because of that, I'm the best suited person to answer my questions. Indi's role is simply to sit next to me, look impressed with my work, and tell everyone else how awesome I am. I've never been to a sitar concert, but I'm told that sitar concerts have a similar figure. This person sits at the front of the stage near the main sitar player and informs the audience how amazing the sitar player is. This only happens for the first half of the sitar concert. During the second half, the "look-at-what-a-superstar-our-main-player is-guy" plays the sitar as well.
I just met with Indi and I'm smiling and singing to myself, which has never happened. Our meeting lasted two hours and is a preview of tomorrow's events. During the first hour, Indi asked me potential questions for tomorrow and I answered them with ease. We decided that I will need more chapters in Geraldine than I proposed. One of these chapters has been informally titled mea culpa. In it I will need to write about everything that is problematic with Geraldine, but doesn't really contribute to any claims that I make in the dissertation. This can be compared to the warning notices that are printed on things like beach balls in 30 languages: don't eat this beach ball, this beach ball isn't a life saving devise, don't let an infant sleep with or on this beach ball, this beach ball will not protect you in the event of a shark attack, this beach ball will not protect you from developing skin cancer... and the like. This chapter is to protect me so that when some smarty pants of the future decides to read a part of my dissertation, he can't say "but you didn't do this and now the whole thing is invalid." Ah, the fine print.
The second half of my meeting with Indi today was devoted to my data. I think this was the first time that Indiana actually read through my data (and it will likely be the only time that he will). When we got to my extensions of 'hand'-terms, Indi started laughing. Finally, the moment I've anticipated for months occurred. Indi read my Southern Paiute data in which the term for 'hand' has been extended to 'masturbator.'When I found this data in February, I laughed hard, then collected myself and entered it into my data base along with every other extension out there for 'hand.' Those of you that have been reading my blogs since the beginning know that Indi is very difficult to interpret and he plays the role of "professor" very well. He's slow to talk, always looks like he's thinking about something important, and never says what he really thinks. The laughter today was another layer of the professor facade peeling away in which I can say that after being my advisor for 5 years, Indi is finally warming up to me. I think I also got over the fact that I have to both write about the term masturbate in my dissertation and talk about it when I defend my dissertation next spring. Apparently this small detail also made it okay for Indiana to drop an f-bomb in my presence about an hour later when he said that he would "F***ing go to the board and demand that they give [me] a contract" at this fine university next year if I don't land a position of the post doc or tenure track variety. Wow. I guess that means Indiana officially approves of me, my work, and that we are a team. Bring on the stuffed animals!
I had a nightmare a few nights ago that I was in a library with my committee for my prospectus defense. They asked me the first question and I stuttered and struggled to answer. Dumbledore declared that I wasn't ready and with that, the whole committee stood up and dramatically left the room. I started screaming German obscenities, remembered that half of my committee speaks German and then threw myself on the floor, shoved my face into the furry coat of a random dog that just happened to be in the library and cried until I woke up. Dreams are silly. :) Thankfully there will be no dogs at tomorrow's event, we will not be in the library, and any German that we speak during the defense will be related to Geraldine.
Between now and the impromptu department party this evening, I will prepare a plethora of snazzy charts for displaying my data while singing Lady Gaga. Good thing no one is around to hear the cacophony.
For the first time, I feel like a true expert in my field and I'm starting to realize what it means to have a PhD. It doesn't mean that I know all of the answers but I do know more than anyone else in my department about my particular research topic and because of that, I'm the best suited person to answer my questions. Indi's role is simply to sit next to me, look impressed with my work, and tell everyone else how awesome I am. I've never been to a sitar concert, but I'm told that sitar concerts have a similar figure. This person sits at the front of the stage near the main sitar player and informs the audience how amazing the sitar player is. This only happens for the first half of the sitar concert. During the second half, the "look-at-what-a-superstar-our-main-player is-guy" plays the sitar as well.
I just met with Indi and I'm smiling and singing to myself, which has never happened. Our meeting lasted two hours and is a preview of tomorrow's events. During the first hour, Indi asked me potential questions for tomorrow and I answered them with ease. We decided that I will need more chapters in Geraldine than I proposed. One of these chapters has been informally titled mea culpa. In it I will need to write about everything that is problematic with Geraldine, but doesn't really contribute to any claims that I make in the dissertation. This can be compared to the warning notices that are printed on things like beach balls in 30 languages: don't eat this beach ball, this beach ball isn't a life saving devise, don't let an infant sleep with or on this beach ball, this beach ball will not protect you in the event of a shark attack, this beach ball will not protect you from developing skin cancer... and the like. This chapter is to protect me so that when some smarty pants of the future decides to read a part of my dissertation, he can't say "but you didn't do this and now the whole thing is invalid." Ah, the fine print.
The second half of my meeting with Indi today was devoted to my data. I think this was the first time that Indiana actually read through my data (and it will likely be the only time that he will). When we got to my extensions of 'hand'-terms, Indi started laughing. Finally, the moment I've anticipated for months occurred. Indi read my Southern Paiute data in which the term for 'hand' has been extended to 'masturbator.'When I found this data in February, I laughed hard, then collected myself and entered it into my data base along with every other extension out there for 'hand.' Those of you that have been reading my blogs since the beginning know that Indi is very difficult to interpret and he plays the role of "professor" very well. He's slow to talk, always looks like he's thinking about something important, and never says what he really thinks. The laughter today was another layer of the professor facade peeling away in which I can say that after being my advisor for 5 years, Indi is finally warming up to me. I think I also got over the fact that I have to both write about the term masturbate in my dissertation and talk about it when I defend my dissertation next spring. Apparently this small detail also made it okay for Indiana to drop an f-bomb in my presence about an hour later when he said that he would "F***ing go to the board and demand that they give [me] a contract" at this fine university next year if I don't land a position of the post doc or tenure track variety. Wow. I guess that means Indiana officially approves of me, my work, and that we are a team. Bring on the stuffed animals!
I had a nightmare a few nights ago that I was in a library with my committee for my prospectus defense. They asked me the first question and I stuttered and struggled to answer. Dumbledore declared that I wasn't ready and with that, the whole committee stood up and dramatically left the room. I started screaming German obscenities, remembered that half of my committee speaks German and then threw myself on the floor, shoved my face into the furry coat of a random dog that just happened to be in the library and cried until I woke up. Dreams are silly. :) Thankfully there will be no dogs at tomorrow's event, we will not be in the library, and any German that we speak during the defense will be related to Geraldine.
Between now and the impromptu department party this evening, I will prepare a plethora of snazzy charts for displaying my data while singing Lady Gaga. Good thing no one is around to hear the cacophony.
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
On Stress Nightmares
I haven't had a good night's sleep in two weeks. My back still hurts and the fact that I have gone to the bar twice in the last week hasn't helped. If I consume alcohol, I can't stay asleep and I become dehydrated very easily. I didn't know how stressed out I felt until after my interview on Monday, when the urge to vomit, cry, run 10 miles and curl up into a ball hidden somewhere in the stacks hit me at exactly the same time. No wonder Hubby thinks I'm crazy and indecisive.
I have reoccuring nightmares that arrive when I have high moments of stress. The first type of nightmare places me in a car that has malfunctioning brakes. In these dreams I press on the brake but the car won't stop. Sometimes the car speeds up (usually because I am rolling downhill) and othertimes it doesn't. The car never really stops, it just slows down enough to shift gears and roll in a new direction and the sensation of being out of control, knowing that the car is going to crash with me in it continues until I wake up. Often the car is on a bridge or a narrow road. I side swipe fences, trees, houses, and other cars as I frantically try to control the runaway car. I never hit anything (because that would actually stop the car), I just come really, really, really close to crashing until I change direction and then nearly crash into something else. I had this type of dream on Saturday night.
I have the other type of reoccuring stress dream at the end of every summer when I know that I have to return to the classroom. In these dreams, I'm teaching a class that is made up of all the most obnoxious, rude, mean and disrespectful students I've ever taught. Now that I've taught more than 1,000 students, these classes tend to be really big. In these dreams, I'm trying desperately to control the classroom and teach something (usually German), but the students are throwing things and yelling at me. They say things like "Why should we listen to you?" "Shut up!" or "Are you done yet?" Then they all leave the classroom and I remain alone, wondering what I did wrong. Or they stay and continue to rob me of my sleep until I wake up and remember that I will never teach a class with 13-, 16-, 18-, 21- and 30-year-olds in the same class, especially not with all of my worst students together (This is exactly why I left the school district that would be stupid enough to actually place such students together in one class... and that district is doing that to its language teachers next year!).
I haven't had the typical teaching nightmare since August, but on Sunday night I dreamt that my brightest, most talented and inspirational students were together in the same class and they were disappointed in me. I wasn't challenging them enough and my classes weren't interesting anymore. This dream was worse than the out-of-control-classroom nightmare, because rather than annoying people who weren't doing what they were supposed to, I was boring people because I suddenly wasn't good enough anymore.
That should suffice for nightmares, right? Well on Monday night I had a new stress nightmare-- the academic nightmare! In this nightmare, I was at a big linguistics conference at a big shot university somewhere far away. I had just stepped away from the microphone after successfully presenting a paper only to find out that I had to present another paper in another room somewhere else in 10 minutes. I looked at the conference bill and wondered "How can this be?! Conferences only allow the submission of one abstract! I didn't submit two abstracts!" I read the title of my second talk and wondered what on earth I would have to say about famous field linguist X's work and the implications it had for typological sampling methods (this was the equivalence of making the argument that because people saw a movie of a a dog eating, I should change the way that I organize the cards in my wallet... they have nothing to do with each other and no one would want to hear me talk about that). Nevertheless, the second conference room was packed with people waiting to hear me talk and I had nothing to say. Then, while pondering how this conundrum realized itself in the first place, I discovered that I had two talks the next day as well... on linguistic topics that I know nothing about! Then I woke up. Apparently these dreams aren't uncommon among academics because when I mentioned them in the department office yesterday, two professors started laughing and welcomed me to the world of academia. Both professors have had the same dream. We laughed and talked about other stress nightmares.
I often have failure dreams in which I am in a high school basement looking for my math or science class that I haven't attended since the first week of the semester. I realize that I am going to fail and won't graduate high school. Somehow I always end up with a guidance councelor who tells me that I am not going to graduate. In these dreams, I argue with the councelor in this order: "But I graduated from high school 11 years ago!" "But I already graduated from college!" "But I taught high school for 2.5 years!" "But I have two more college degrees than you do AND I am going to have a PhD in a year!" The reponse to each of my arguments is a slow negating shake of the head, a blank face, and "It doesn't count. You're going to fail." Thankfully I haven't had that dream too this week, but it won't surprise me if I do.
Last night I only slept for 2 hours, so I wasn't able to have a nightmare. I'm thankful for the break from bad dreams, but some beauty sleep wouldn't hurt. My laptop AC power chord isn't working well, so I ordered another one. While I looked at Amazon's shipping options, I decided to order myself a hammock as well. For $18, I figure I can't go wrong. Especially since it took off $8 for shiping the power chord. So let's hope that the extra $10 for the hammock will lead to a summer with relaxation and copious amounts of progress writing Geraldine.
I have reoccuring nightmares that arrive when I have high moments of stress. The first type of nightmare places me in a car that has malfunctioning brakes. In these dreams I press on the brake but the car won't stop. Sometimes the car speeds up (usually because I am rolling downhill) and othertimes it doesn't. The car never really stops, it just slows down enough to shift gears and roll in a new direction and the sensation of being out of control, knowing that the car is going to crash with me in it continues until I wake up. Often the car is on a bridge or a narrow road. I side swipe fences, trees, houses, and other cars as I frantically try to control the runaway car. I never hit anything (because that would actually stop the car), I just come really, really, really close to crashing until I change direction and then nearly crash into something else. I had this type of dream on Saturday night.
I have the other type of reoccuring stress dream at the end of every summer when I know that I have to return to the classroom. In these dreams, I'm teaching a class that is made up of all the most obnoxious, rude, mean and disrespectful students I've ever taught. Now that I've taught more than 1,000 students, these classes tend to be really big. In these dreams, I'm trying desperately to control the classroom and teach something (usually German), but the students are throwing things and yelling at me. They say things like "Why should we listen to you?" "Shut up!" or "Are you done yet?" Then they all leave the classroom and I remain alone, wondering what I did wrong. Or they stay and continue to rob me of my sleep until I wake up and remember that I will never teach a class with 13-, 16-, 18-, 21- and 30-year-olds in the same class, especially not with all of my worst students together (This is exactly why I left the school district that would be stupid enough to actually place such students together in one class... and that district is doing that to its language teachers next year!).
I haven't had the typical teaching nightmare since August, but on Sunday night I dreamt that my brightest, most talented and inspirational students were together in the same class and they were disappointed in me. I wasn't challenging them enough and my classes weren't interesting anymore. This dream was worse than the out-of-control-classroom nightmare, because rather than annoying people who weren't doing what they were supposed to, I was boring people because I suddenly wasn't good enough anymore.
That should suffice for nightmares, right? Well on Monday night I had a new stress nightmare-- the academic nightmare! In this nightmare, I was at a big linguistics conference at a big shot university somewhere far away. I had just stepped away from the microphone after successfully presenting a paper only to find out that I had to present another paper in another room somewhere else in 10 minutes. I looked at the conference bill and wondered "How can this be?! Conferences only allow the submission of one abstract! I didn't submit two abstracts!" I read the title of my second talk and wondered what on earth I would have to say about famous field linguist X's work and the implications it had for typological sampling methods (this was the equivalence of making the argument that because people saw a movie of a a dog eating, I should change the way that I organize the cards in my wallet... they have nothing to do with each other and no one would want to hear me talk about that). Nevertheless, the second conference room was packed with people waiting to hear me talk and I had nothing to say. Then, while pondering how this conundrum realized itself in the first place, I discovered that I had two talks the next day as well... on linguistic topics that I know nothing about! Then I woke up. Apparently these dreams aren't uncommon among academics because when I mentioned them in the department office yesterday, two professors started laughing and welcomed me to the world of academia. Both professors have had the same dream. We laughed and talked about other stress nightmares.
I often have failure dreams in which I am in a high school basement looking for my math or science class that I haven't attended since the first week of the semester. I realize that I am going to fail and won't graduate high school. Somehow I always end up with a guidance councelor who tells me that I am not going to graduate. In these dreams, I argue with the councelor in this order: "But I graduated from high school 11 years ago!" "But I already graduated from college!" "But I taught high school for 2.5 years!" "But I have two more college degrees than you do AND I am going to have a PhD in a year!" The reponse to each of my arguments is a slow negating shake of the head, a blank face, and "It doesn't count. You're going to fail." Thankfully I haven't had that dream too this week, but it won't surprise me if I do.
Last night I only slept for 2 hours, so I wasn't able to have a nightmare. I'm thankful for the break from bad dreams, but some beauty sleep wouldn't hurt. My laptop AC power chord isn't working well, so I ordered another one. While I looked at Amazon's shipping options, I decided to order myself a hammock as well. For $18, I figure I can't go wrong. Especially since it took off $8 for shiping the power chord. So let's hope that the extra $10 for the hammock will lead to a summer with relaxation and copious amounts of progress writing Geraldine.
Monday, May 7, 2012
On Interviewing
I had my fellowship interview today! I devoted the morning to deciding what to wear and my time in my office preparing a brochure about Geraldine. I tried to rehearse responses to likely interview questions all weekend long, but it wasn't until this morning that I was able to practice saying responses aloud.
My back has been hurting for the past two weeks. I injured it 13 years ago when I fell off the roof (I was putting up Christmas lights and the ladder fell out from underneath me). Sometimes the injury flares up and there's not much that I can do to make the pain go away. In the past week, I've had 4 chiropractic appointments. My back pain goes away after the adjustment, but returns as soon as I get in the car and turn my head to the left. Today my chiropractor told me that I must have high stress levels and that is why my back pain isn't disappearing. I didn't feel stressed out this week, but now that my interview is over, my back doesn't hurt and I feel better. I guess he was right.
And now for the description of my prep work: I decided to wear blue and red today. I used to have a green interview outfit that I wore for interviews, but after being turned down for 3 German teaching jobs in a row, I switched to a red cardigan with a blue floral dress and it seemed to work. Scholars don't tend to dress in exciting clothing. Think about it: librarians wear cardigans, historians wear turtlenecks, and everyone else wears a tweed jacket with leather elbow patches (and yes, I have outfits to meet each of these descriptions). I planned to wear the tweed jacket until I decided that color could help my project seem more exciting. I had the 4th interview slot of the afternoon and 5 more people had to interview after me. Red and blue seemed bright and cheery for a white conference room with no windows. I also pinned up my hair. If I didn't impress the fellowship committee with my awesome research, at least I gave them something nice to look at for 15 minutes.
I placed sticky notes in a grammar/dictionary before walking over to the library. In my mind, I planned to give each member of the committee the brochure I prepared about my project, but the interview went so quickly and the head of the committee rushed me out of the room before I could tactfully hand out my brochure. I hope the book did the trick. After all, it was a research interview for the library. The main question beside "what's your research" was "how will you use the library." The book I brought not only exemplified what I'm looking for in my project but it also proved that I actually go to the library to do my research. But more about that book later.
The actual interview was nerve wracking. A woman in black met me and brought me into the interview room. She commented on how warm it was in the interview room and how she was happy to leave it to pick me up. Hmmm.... I'm not sure how to respond to that one... I simply smiled and nodded. During my whole interview, the same woman in black kept looking at the clock behind me. At least, I assume that there was a clock behind me, because she did not maintain eye contact with me and seemed to be timing the length of my responses. She sat directly in front of me, so it was hard to ignore her. I tried to look at every member of the committee as best as I could, but that was challenging as well, especially since the members were spaced unevenly around a huge conference table.
Before I sat down, the woman in black asked me to explain my project before they asked me questions. It felt from the start that she wanted to get out of the room as soon as possible. I explained Geraldine concisely and felt relief when everyone started writing notes at the same time. The first question was how do I select which languages to use in my study. The next person asked me how I am able to collect the data with various scripts. Having the book on hand was a good way to show that the data I want does exist and that I can read it. The person farthest from me didn't really ask me a question at all, but rather spoke about his background in linguistics and did he understand typology correctly. I told him yes, and related my project to other fields and subfields of linguistics. He looked pleased. The last question was how I will use the library's resources and how would I use the funding. I expected the standard "Do you have any questions for us?" but the woman in black was shooing me out the door before I could even say thank you. Luckily the man furthest from me stood up to hand me my grammar and commented on the author, who was my former professor that passed away when I started my PhD. It gave me a chance to say "yes, I miss him, I was his student and this is a great grammar" before the woman in black was able to shove me out.
Upon leaving the room, I felt very nervous and wanted to cry. The interview went very well, I was confident the entire time and did my best, but after the fact, I realized how stressed out about it I really was. It took me about 2 hours to feel normal again. If interviewing for $5,000 is like this, what's it like to have a 24-48 hour job interview as a tenure-track candidate? How will I ever survive interviewing in a hotel room at the Linguistics Society of America meeting if I can't handle a 15 minute "tell-us-more-about-your-research" interview without wanting to vomit. I guess I'll answer those questions for you once I go on the job market.
In the meantime, I feel disappointed. Why did I get so worked up for such a short interview? I'm not going to have another chance to apply for funding for next year. If I'm not selected for this award, it won't affect my research that much but I still want to earn it. Waiting and preparing myself for a rejection e-mail or call is unpleasant, but hoping for divine intervention seems a little too wishful.
The interviews were scheduled to end 35 minutes ago. The subcommittee could still be deciding which dissertation they liked the best. They could also be out drinking alcohol somewhere... or in their offices grading.... or drinking while grading (because that's the only think that grading tends to motivate me to do). Will they notify us today or make us wait? Do they have to nominate their picks to a larger committee before they can announce the award recipients? Do they give names to the secretary and wait for her to send out the notification? Probably all of those. I will try to be patient and wait until the end of next week, but it's not going to be easy.
My back has been hurting for the past two weeks. I injured it 13 years ago when I fell off the roof (I was putting up Christmas lights and the ladder fell out from underneath me). Sometimes the injury flares up and there's not much that I can do to make the pain go away. In the past week, I've had 4 chiropractic appointments. My back pain goes away after the adjustment, but returns as soon as I get in the car and turn my head to the left. Today my chiropractor told me that I must have high stress levels and that is why my back pain isn't disappearing. I didn't feel stressed out this week, but now that my interview is over, my back doesn't hurt and I feel better. I guess he was right.
And now for the description of my prep work: I decided to wear blue and red today. I used to have a green interview outfit that I wore for interviews, but after being turned down for 3 German teaching jobs in a row, I switched to a red cardigan with a blue floral dress and it seemed to work. Scholars don't tend to dress in exciting clothing. Think about it: librarians wear cardigans, historians wear turtlenecks, and everyone else wears a tweed jacket with leather elbow patches (and yes, I have outfits to meet each of these descriptions). I planned to wear the tweed jacket until I decided that color could help my project seem more exciting. I had the 4th interview slot of the afternoon and 5 more people had to interview after me. Red and blue seemed bright and cheery for a white conference room with no windows. I also pinned up my hair. If I didn't impress the fellowship committee with my awesome research, at least I gave them something nice to look at for 15 minutes.
I placed sticky notes in a grammar/dictionary before walking over to the library. In my mind, I planned to give each member of the committee the brochure I prepared about my project, but the interview went so quickly and the head of the committee rushed me out of the room before I could tactfully hand out my brochure. I hope the book did the trick. After all, it was a research interview for the library. The main question beside "what's your research" was "how will you use the library." The book I brought not only exemplified what I'm looking for in my project but it also proved that I actually go to the library to do my research. But more about that book later.
The actual interview was nerve wracking. A woman in black met me and brought me into the interview room. She commented on how warm it was in the interview room and how she was happy to leave it to pick me up. Hmmm.... I'm not sure how to respond to that one... I simply smiled and nodded. During my whole interview, the same woman in black kept looking at the clock behind me. At least, I assume that there was a clock behind me, because she did not maintain eye contact with me and seemed to be timing the length of my responses. She sat directly in front of me, so it was hard to ignore her. I tried to look at every member of the committee as best as I could, but that was challenging as well, especially since the members were spaced unevenly around a huge conference table.
Before I sat down, the woman in black asked me to explain my project before they asked me questions. It felt from the start that she wanted to get out of the room as soon as possible. I explained Geraldine concisely and felt relief when everyone started writing notes at the same time. The first question was how do I select which languages to use in my study. The next person asked me how I am able to collect the data with various scripts. Having the book on hand was a good way to show that the data I want does exist and that I can read it. The person farthest from me didn't really ask me a question at all, but rather spoke about his background in linguistics and did he understand typology correctly. I told him yes, and related my project to other fields and subfields of linguistics. He looked pleased. The last question was how I will use the library's resources and how would I use the funding. I expected the standard "Do you have any questions for us?" but the woman in black was shooing me out the door before I could even say thank you. Luckily the man furthest from me stood up to hand me my grammar and commented on the author, who was my former professor that passed away when I started my PhD. It gave me a chance to say "yes, I miss him, I was his student and this is a great grammar" before the woman in black was able to shove me out.
Upon leaving the room, I felt very nervous and wanted to cry. The interview went very well, I was confident the entire time and did my best, but after the fact, I realized how stressed out about it I really was. It took me about 2 hours to feel normal again. If interviewing for $5,000 is like this, what's it like to have a 24-48 hour job interview as a tenure-track candidate? How will I ever survive interviewing in a hotel room at the Linguistics Society of America meeting if I can't handle a 15 minute "tell-us-more-about-your-research" interview without wanting to vomit. I guess I'll answer those questions for you once I go on the job market.
In the meantime, I feel disappointed. Why did I get so worked up for such a short interview? I'm not going to have another chance to apply for funding for next year. If I'm not selected for this award, it won't affect my research that much but I still want to earn it. Waiting and preparing myself for a rejection e-mail or call is unpleasant, but hoping for divine intervention seems a little too wishful.
The interviews were scheduled to end 35 minutes ago. The subcommittee could still be deciding which dissertation they liked the best. They could also be out drinking alcohol somewhere... or in their offices grading.... or drinking while grading (because that's the only think that grading tends to motivate me to do). Will they notify us today or make us wait? Do they have to nominate their picks to a larger committee before they can announce the award recipients? Do they give names to the secretary and wait for her to send out the notification? Probably all of those. I will try to be patient and wait until the end of next week, but it's not going to be easy.
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
More difficult decisions
Today brought another handful of opportunities. I have to remind myself that each of these are opportunities, not just tough decisions. I have funding, a job, a place to live and Geraldine. With this perspective, everything else is just a detail, but why are these details so darn pesky?!
First, the desperate student. After heavy consideration, I decided not to give any extensions. I know that I am perfectly justified in my decision, but I feel like a jerk. The empathetic side of me asks what I would want my instructors to do for me if I were in the student's situation. The practical side of me reminds me that I would have dropped the course immediately and not turned it in to my instructor's problem. In the end, I am mean, my department supports my decision and I have more time to work on Geraldine. Time to move on (until I open my e-mail tomorrow and have another 5-page e-mail about how difficult life is and have to remind myself that I made the right choice).
Next, summer funding. I was suppose to hear about my summer funding by April 30th. Yesterday I received an e-mail that asked me if I am still interested in attending classes. Then it kind of said that I am on a waiting list. It was very strange. I like direct e-mails. It is easy to write "You have funding" or "We regret to inform you that you do not have funding." Even writing "We regret to inform you that you do not have funding, but you are on a waiting list." Instead, I keep getting something more like "um, we still haven't been able to work it out, but we did make up our minds. We'll write again, sometime soon, we hope, to let you know what we decided." Gee... thanks...
And now, another opportunity! If you don't know already, I am a linguist. Within linguistics, I specialize in something called typology. Geraldine is a big fat typology project. When someone wants to become an astronaut, he needs to get a job at NASA. It's possible to go into space without working at NASA, but working there as an astronaut increases the odds. Linguistic typology has its own research center of the universe. It's called the Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI-EVA for short). Last spring, I applied to work there as a doctoral student and was rejected. Today, my former professor who resembles Buzz Lightyear forwarded a position announcement to me. The position is for 3 years, at MPI-EVA and is closely related to my work on Geraldine. The deadline has been extended, which means there weren't enough applicants and I have much better odds than I did last spring. Buzz has told me that I would be an idiot not to apply. He is probably right and I should probably apply. But thinking about applying leads to 1,000 other thoughts. Here are a few factors to consider: 1) the position starts as early as next month, 2) MPI-EVA is in Germany, 3) the position requires 20 hours of work a week.
Some of my thoughts:
Wow, do I really qualify for this?
Yes, and you should apply.
But what about Geraldine?
Uh, you work on Geraldine and the other project, then publish like crazy and become extremely successful.
Oh crap, next month?
You can start later if they give you a position. Apply first, idiot.
Wow, hubby could totally study in Leipzig and that solves a lot of problems.
If I have kids in the next 3 years, I wouldn't have to worry about how they would become bilingual.
Kids?!? Finish Geraldine. She is your first child. She just calls you 'doctor' instead of 'mom'. If there are other children, they will just have to call you 'doctor mom.'
German jobs come with 4-weeks paid vacation.
3 years away from here? That's a long time. But I guess I have to start applying for jobs anyways and there aren't going to be any here. Get used to it.
But I like my job and life right now. Why would I think about moving back to Germany?
If you get a job there, you can get a job anywhere after that, including Greenland. Time to become the Armstrong of linguistics.
4-weeks paid vacation means I can come home (and get paid).
Well, you wanted to start speaking German more at home.
How do I explain this idea to anyone?
It would be a pain to explain to the German embassy why I have different names on my different IDs.
Where are my release papers from the German police department so that I can live in Germany again (note: everyone gets these papers when they move away from Germany, I didn't do anything to be on the German police radar)
Hubby claims to know nothing about his German police release papers. Would that be a problem?
Didn't you forget about something, like applying???
Hmmm, I guess I better come up with a research statement.
Do I ask Buzz or Indiana for a letter of recommendation?
Indiana is my adviser, it should come from him. Buzz is more well known and already has a letter ready for you, plus he told you to apply, so he would write one.
Does this mean I would need to sell my car? Do I have to sell everything?
Hubby is going to think I am crazy.
Everyone is going to think I am crazy.
I am crazy, what else is new?
Well, why not? Isn't this how being an academic goes? You apply for everything and hope that you get something.
So, here goes. It's like jumping in the deep end. Again, it's an opportunity, not a problem. They probably aren't interested in my anyways.
First, the desperate student. After heavy consideration, I decided not to give any extensions. I know that I am perfectly justified in my decision, but I feel like a jerk. The empathetic side of me asks what I would want my instructors to do for me if I were in the student's situation. The practical side of me reminds me that I would have dropped the course immediately and not turned it in to my instructor's problem. In the end, I am mean, my department supports my decision and I have more time to work on Geraldine. Time to move on (until I open my e-mail tomorrow and have another 5-page e-mail about how difficult life is and have to remind myself that I made the right choice).
Next, summer funding. I was suppose to hear about my summer funding by April 30th. Yesterday I received an e-mail that asked me if I am still interested in attending classes. Then it kind of said that I am on a waiting list. It was very strange. I like direct e-mails. It is easy to write "You have funding" or "We regret to inform you that you do not have funding." Even writing "We regret to inform you that you do not have funding, but you are on a waiting list." Instead, I keep getting something more like "um, we still haven't been able to work it out, but we did make up our minds. We'll write again, sometime soon, we hope, to let you know what we decided." Gee... thanks...
And now, another opportunity! If you don't know already, I am a linguist. Within linguistics, I specialize in something called typology. Geraldine is a big fat typology project. When someone wants to become an astronaut, he needs to get a job at NASA. It's possible to go into space without working at NASA, but working there as an astronaut increases the odds. Linguistic typology has its own research center of the universe. It's called the Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI-EVA for short). Last spring, I applied to work there as a doctoral student and was rejected. Today, my former professor who resembles Buzz Lightyear forwarded a position announcement to me. The position is for 3 years, at MPI-EVA and is closely related to my work on Geraldine. The deadline has been extended, which means there weren't enough applicants and I have much better odds than I did last spring. Buzz has told me that I would be an idiot not to apply. He is probably right and I should probably apply. But thinking about applying leads to 1,000 other thoughts. Here are a few factors to consider: 1) the position starts as early as next month, 2) MPI-EVA is in Germany, 3) the position requires 20 hours of work a week.
Some of my thoughts:
Wow, do I really qualify for this?
Yes, and you should apply.
But what about Geraldine?
Uh, you work on Geraldine and the other project, then publish like crazy and become extremely successful.
Oh crap, next month?
You can start later if they give you a position. Apply first, idiot.
Wow, hubby could totally study in Leipzig and that solves a lot of problems.
If I have kids in the next 3 years, I wouldn't have to worry about how they would become bilingual.
Kids?!? Finish Geraldine. She is your first child. She just calls you 'doctor' instead of 'mom'. If there are other children, they will just have to call you 'doctor mom.'
German jobs come with 4-weeks paid vacation.
3 years away from here? That's a long time. But I guess I have to start applying for jobs anyways and there aren't going to be any here. Get used to it.
But I like my job and life right now. Why would I think about moving back to Germany?
If you get a job there, you can get a job anywhere after that, including Greenland. Time to become the Armstrong of linguistics.
4-weeks paid vacation means I can come home (and get paid).
Well, you wanted to start speaking German more at home.
How do I explain this idea to anyone?
It would be a pain to explain to the German embassy why I have different names on my different IDs.
Where are my release papers from the German police department so that I can live in Germany again (note: everyone gets these papers when they move away from Germany, I didn't do anything to be on the German police radar)
Hubby claims to know nothing about his German police release papers. Would that be a problem?
Didn't you forget about something, like applying???
Hmmm, I guess I better come up with a research statement.
Do I ask Buzz or Indiana for a letter of recommendation?
Indiana is my adviser, it should come from him. Buzz is more well known and already has a letter ready for you, plus he told you to apply, so he would write one.
Does this mean I would need to sell my car? Do I have to sell everything?
Hubby is going to think I am crazy.
Everyone is going to think I am crazy.
I am crazy, what else is new?
Well, why not? Isn't this how being an academic goes? You apply for everything and hope that you get something.
So, here goes. It's like jumping in the deep end. Again, it's an opportunity, not a problem. They probably aren't interested in my anyways.
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