A Few Quick Links

First, I must say: I hate deadlines! Arrrrrgh! I have something almost done that I have to send off before tonight. Unfortunately, it isn't even job related. But it must be done. (side note: do conference papers have to have, um, endings? or can they just stop? 'Cause depending on my time limits, I may take the "run off the edge of a cliff" approach to the ending.)

So, I am busy tootling along these days, but didn't want you to think I had forgotten my lovely readers, including my newly-met delurkers. Yay, readers! I owe you an update on writing the teaching philosophy and on how my dissertation is coming (rather than going up the hill, it's looking a lot like this:

Yes, everything is coming back at me right now.)

But I thought I'd take a couple minutes to point at some other great posts by fellow grad students under pressure. Grad school? Why yes, it feels like this:


To summarize: both adjunct whore and Mano are currently writing their job application letters, which I am behind on revising (see above pic). Adjunct whore discusses the tricky genre that is the cover letter, while Mano succinctly boils down all the advice on the cover letter to highlight its frustration (is it coincidence that she has recently found a gray hair? I think not.)

Still related to the job market, "maude lebowski" can tell you what it feels like to read through the Job Information List when going on the market. It took me a while to realize that I wasn't having caffiene overload --- literally, my heart rate speeds up uncomfortably whenever I page through the JIL site. I had thought I was drinking too much coffee until I did it first thing one morning. It's almost as bad as after the time I had a severe allergic reaction and they shot me full of ephedrine. I thought I was about to have a seizure. (thanks for not telling the patient
what you're injecting, emergency room folks!)

And I missed the window of opportunity to bitch about funding and its tenuousness back when Ancrene Wiseass and Half an Acre had such good things to say a few months ago --- basically how much it sucks to try and eke things out until the first fall check comes through. But Kisha over at the 10-Year-Plan has just written about one of my top peeves: how much time and effort we spend just applying for our grad funding, time that we could spend on our actual research. In related news, go check out this NYT article on "trying to get Ph.D. students finished faster." Oh, there's a lot there for me to rip into when I have time.

But time? Who has time? I have to write a thing and prepare to apply for jobs and scrounge up some funding for the rest of this year. And I need to buy some food and clean this filth hole. Don't even get me started on time.