*Sigh*

Anybody have about five hundred bucks and wants to spot me these Frye boots over at Zappos? Damn.

It's sad when you have your heart set on some tenure boots and you haven't even gotten a *job* yet. Alas. I shall just go and pine over their unattainable awesomeness. Droool...

Wine and Shoes Post

Where the hell did the weekend go? And what did I do for the whole of it???

Anyway, I'm having friends over later ---- as in later this week later ---- and I picked up some wine for us while grocery shopping today, and have already cracked one open today. Yum! But this is bad, and not just for the potential of drinking all the wine before the guests get here.

For example, I gave up wine and dessert, except for special occasions, back in early summer, and my weight has been very stable, slooooowly trending downward, although I'm not keeping a food journal or starving myself. I think I lost about 4 pounds. I know, less than a pound a month is not very impressive, unless you factor in the fact that I'm not really working at it, and that it is not turning me into a crazed and food-obsessed bitch, in which case it's kinda awesome.

But if I go back to going out and eating burgers and fries and drinking a lot with friends like I did and then drinking wine alone on other nights (to say nothing of how this brings up bad memories of my dad drinking himself into oblivion alone every night during my teen years), then I'm going to be fighting to maintain, or even fighting to slow weight gain, and that sucks. Of course, permanently giving up all the food I like also sucks. Ah, the drawbacks of being a foodie!

But then again, I want to be more social and people at school have finally gotten their fall quarter together (just as it is drawing to an end) enough to respond to my invitations to come out and play. And I don't want to be a complete hermit --- I like hermet-ing but for me it's really more of a hobby --- so I'm glad that people want to come out with me or come over. Except that I need to exercise more in compensation, or give up my lattes, or something. Meh.

Not to mention that if I have more wine it's gonna be hell getting up in time for my spin class tomorrow morning. Ah well. It's tasty wine. I am glowing. As Virginia Woolf put it, I think, I have a lamp lit at the base of my spine and am sure that when I get to Heaven Rembrandt will meet me there. Ahhhh. Isn't that nice? Except for the fact that I hate Rembrandt --- I hope he'll be so busy entertaining Ginny over there that he'll send Goya and Velazquez to meet me instead. Ahhh, Spanish painters. Why am I not traveling through Spain right now?

Anyway, that is not why I decided to post, or at least, not the only reason.

I have been fighting myself not buying a dress for the past few weeks now ---- it's expensive, like a hundred and sixty dollars, and I haven't even tried it on since it's in a catalog. I have no job right now, no money and no need of work clothes. So I have been holding off even though I have made the argument that I could treat myself with it for Christmas or my birthday or something.

But then Dr. Isis posted a link to a crapload of Nine West shoes all on sale for 19.95 and I got a couple of them instead. And now they are here:


My camera has been taking kinda blurry pictures lately, sorry. Put it at the bottom of the long list of things I'd like to replace if I had a paycheck.


As you can see, they have embroidery sewn into the leather, not printing or embossing. They are totally not my style; I pushed myself out of my usual comfort zone for them. Because, honestly, I prefer to have very very simple shoes in solid colors and then I tend towards very plain and simple clothing as well and you put it all together and it is dull. So this way, I figure, I can throw on a solid-colored top and jeans, or maybe they will go with my brown pinstripe pants, and they will be this little pop of something interesting down there by my toes.


So, yay! The other minor problem is that, when my feet fit width-wise, the shoes are always a bit long for my feet, so I've gotta put some padding in at the heel or something to keep it snug.

The other shoes are totally different ---- flats, metallic silver, they look very 80s. I'm more likely to wear them out and about on the town instead of my sneaks so I'm sure they will be seen by plenty. No need to drink wine and then document them here.

Well, I hope that I will work so hard at my actual stuff that I don't have time to post about anything this week. Will tell you how the dinner goes though. Eeek! Cooking for other people! Whoah.

Numbers, First Round

Initial round of job apps sent:

• 54 job applications (a couple were lecturer things, most were tenure-track)
  
• 7 postdocs

(last year I was more restrictive and sent out over 67 apps my first round, while this year I sent out to a lot of comp jobs and other places I clearly don't fit the ad, so there are definitely fewer jobs this year.)


Cost of dossier requests so far:

• 50$ reactivation fee
• 100$ initial mailings
• still have a max of 16 more mailings to be requested

Rejections so far: 1

Requests for more materials so far: zero (but it's still early, right?)

Number of department grad students who I want to kill, for various reasons, so far: 3

Number of days before I can start obsessing and checking the wiki: ______ (it's really more about how long I can hold out rather than any practical number, eh?

Amount of compensatory chocolate consumed, in pounds: _____ (I'm headed straight for the martinis tonight --- luckily with friends. Will move on to chocolate later, probably in tandem with the wiki-checking.)

And thus concludes your Cog's first Job Application Update.

Burnt *Out.*

Bleah. (Ok, I almost just hit post right there, as that pretty much says it all.)

It's approaching mid-November, or at least it's approaching the mid-November postdoc deadlines, which means I have set aside my diss book manuscript and other odds and ends to complete a bunch of stupid applications again. I hate them. I am sitting around right now desperately trying to find a way to not work on them.

I don't want to apply to any more jobs. I don't want to write any stupid statements of how I will teach your stupid fucking Great Books in a manner that is both mindblowingly original and yet deeply traditional and recognizably familiar to you the search committee. I don't even want to tell you about my own research any more. I do want to go back to doing it, though, which is why all these last little niggling deadlines are so damn annoying!

I got six hours of careful reading and annotation of my book project done on Tuesday, broken up with some rests and a nap. That is amazing dedication, for me. On Wednesday, with my various windows open to postdoc requirements and a blank sheet of paper before me, I got almost nothing done. Part of me is tempted to just send some half-assed crap, but the other part of me says that the people who will win these types of awards will have some carefully-crafted work of art of an application, and that I should do something amazing or nothing at all. You know which option I prefer.

In fact, while bitching and moaning and avoiding work on the postdocs I saw a late-posted ad for my field, and without even a break in my complaining I opened up my cv and diss abstract, opened up the copy of my letter that I had sent to a job very much like this one, went zip, zip on switching around some names and dates and zoom! emailed that fucker out in under a minute. See why I hate postdoc apps? Once the job materials are good I can apply for squillions of them just like that! But these damn "tell us how you would prepare a syllabus and teach a class for X theme and we get to pick the books" crap requirements ..... argh!

Can I just ignore these postdocs and not bother applying for these late-posting positions? Wahhhh! I hate this crap! I want to go back to doing what I love best, which is bitching and moaning about my own research and my writing struggles. These external annoyances just aren't fun.

Submerged

The reading-and-commenting continues apace. Well, not a very fast pace, but a steady one. I have now read several of my chapter introductions in quick succession, with interesting findings.

The first chapter intro I wrote came to me accidentally in the middle of my prospectus defense, and I actually had to stop in the middle of the post-exam celebrations and try to write down an offhand comment I had made. That intro just sort of appeared and I didn't ever do much to rewrite it and I have never ever had that experience since.

The second chapter intro I wrote took for. ever! and was highly frustrating and I must have rewritten it a bajillion different times before my advisor saw it, and she made me rewrite it from the ground up when I turned it in to her as a final draft.

The third chapter intro I wrote had just as long and painful a process.

Having read them all this week, after not looking at them for far longer than a year (well no, I might have edited them when I filed the diss, I don't remember), I can say with assurance that the earlier "difficult" one completely sucks worse than the later one. Progress! The writing process didn't necessarily get any easier, but the quality of the output got better. That is something at least.

As for actual chapter revision plans, besides needing to bring out a consistent "throughline" across the chapters (it's not surprising it isn't really there yet since when I was writing I didn't really know what discoveries I might make), my biggest problem with the first chapter is signposting.

I often go off on stretches where it's not clear where I am headed or how this is advancing my argument. Some places really are pointless, in that I felt obligated to give some background or discussion that I had researched (I read those history books! I must use everything I read!) or I became obsessively attached to a particular discovery or idea or phrase. But a lot of the places, after I had stared really really hard at them and maybe eaten a cookie, were relevant to my argument and were the perfect passage to advance my claims or link to previous themes of the chapter. My argument is there; it's just submerged.


And that's dangerous. How can I guide my readers across the slippery rocks of my mind if they can't distinguish between the water and the path? And the alligators?


(Yeah, I know, this isn't a very good visual, but I couldn't find an image of submerged creek paths that worked for me.)

Here's where we are going to go, I need to say. To get there, you'll need to cross from this rock to that one here to this other one that's a bit more slimy and you should not step on that rock over there, because that rock will snap off your leg faster than you can say Jack Robinson.

In short, I need to find the argument and all the connections that are already there (for these are not bad chapters) and bring those signposts out.

Now if anyone could suggest how best to account for this work on my InaDrwiMo challenge. I just got exhausted and need to go take a late nap.

Now, alduce me to introlow myslef.

Book introductions! What the hell are they? What goes in them? What should they do? What sort of structure should they have? What do you, personally, like to see in introductions, provided it's not too naughty? Or silly ---- I never do silly.

Since nobody made me write an introduction to the dissertation, I didn't. And now I have the feeling that I need one, probably somewhere near the beginning of the diss book manuscript. I'm thinking that it needs to be something other than a compendium of Monty Python quotes or the words "why yes, this is an introduction" copy-and-pasted into the document 1,000 times. Thoughts?

The initial reread of my manuscript is moving right along, by which I mean it is a slow and horrible process which is not made any easier by the fact that I have a short (good! heavily revised and completely reorganized!) article version and a long (sucky! random! endlessly burbling!) dissertation version of chapter 2. I will inform you of my progress, and process, at greater length in a later post. This post is all about my nonexistent introduction which I would like you to write for me to give me some advice about.

I want to 1) finish my initial manuscript reread, 2) make some plans for revisions and a rough timeline and 3)write a draft of my introduction (and maybe also put something together to contact presses for MLA, potentially) this month as part of InaDWriMo, the International Dissertation Writing (or Academic Writing) Month, as seen here and previously participated in by yours truly here, but I have no idea how long an introduction should be or how to do a daily count to keep track of all this crap. Any suggestions?

Right now, however, I am tired out and will go back to watching Monty Python episodes, like this one quoted in my title. Hmm, why yes, this sketch sounds exactly like the chapter I am reading!




Anyways, offer some advice and then come watch Monty Python with me. Oh, and bring chocolate. As long as it's not Crunchy Frog.

The Troubles with Toasters

I'm not much of a bread person, but I love toast. Especially some nice toasted sourdough (oddly wonderful with butter and honey) or a good sour rye bread toasted up nicely to accompany tomato or butternut squash soup, which doesn't really have much to chew.

Unfortunately, I would easily eat an entire loaf of bread if it was toasted up with the proper toppings, so I hardly ever buy bread.

So the other day I had some lovely soup and toast, lots of toast, and yesterday was cleaning up the kitchen and putting away the toaster, and decided to shake out the crumbs. I looked in and thought, "huh. That's a big, funny-looking crumb." I turned it upside down and shook it, but nothing came out. Then I got some tongs and fished out ...


what the...? It doesn't run anymore and the leather band is dried up like beef jerky.

I thought this was in the box I dump my keys. How did it get there? How long has it been in there?

I swear I clean up around here regularly. Pretty regularly. I swear.