Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Well, crap.

Evidently there's nothing like setting a deadline to get me to not work. Yeah, I just don't do well with them. I'm still trying to figure this out. I did great at writing yesterday, then could barely get myself to even look at my materials today. (This may be in part because I received a tip for an outside, nonacadem job, and I've been spending a lot of time today processing through what that would mean and what I want out of my life and what do I want to apply for right now. But still.)

It's kinda like: my brain hates being under pressure, notices a deadline and thinks to itself, "Hey, if I just shut down completely until this deadline passes, I will escape the horrible period I am in." Yeah, thanks, brain. I guess I'm somehow the opposite of the last-minute binge writer; I do better if I plug away at it a teeny bit at a time; once you throw a deadline in where I have to pump out a lot in a short time ---- no good!

Dinner is cooking right now so there is still hope. I will eat and then try to flog my brain back into some sort of productivity this evening. And there is part of tomorrow outside of teaching commitments as well.

In other news, someone has posted some of my stuff to their Facebook account and lots of people are getting to the blog that way. But I can't view this person's profile or see what exactly zie is saying about my posts ---- hey, don't do that! You bring out the paranoiac in me!

So I created a Facebook account. For the other me. The fictitious alter ego. Sisyphus. The other other me already had an account. Confused yet? You ain't got nothin' on what it's like to be inside my head ---- we have to run our committee meetings by Roberts Rules of Order because the consensus process takes too long now. But anyway.

Would you like to befriend the fictitious me on Facebook? Unlike the other me, I kinda want to pimp out the Sisyphus me to befriend as many people as possible --- to be the Tila Tequila of the literary theory grad student set. Except not really like that at all. Well, whatever.

And while we're on the subject, what is the etiquette of befriending people on Facebook? So far, I've been sticking to (well, the other me, not the fictitious alter ego, just to clarify. Sisyphus has no friends at all :( right now.) only befriending people who I actually know and like, to some extent, in real life. Should I befriend everyone in my program? What about the grads who I've barely met? Or can't stand? Or professors? I see a couple of 'em listed.

And I haven't responded to a couple student (former student) requests to be my Facebook friend because a) I find that kinda creepy and like my distance and boundaries with my students and b) I don't want some search committee to look me up and find any hideously embarrassing rather than slightly embarrassing photos of me or my friends. Like giant banana suits or something. Right now we post pictures of ourselves fully clothed and play Scrabulous. The undergrad girls who wanted to befriend me? Not at all the same thing.

Feel free to debate on the intricacies of Facebook mores in the comments below. But do it soon --- as soon as this deadline passes I'll feel impelled to work, and then no more Facebooking for me for a while!

10 comments:

Amanda K Allen said...

Umm... the facebook thing? It might have been me. I LOVED your "Dissertation Leftovers: A Play," so I posted the link through my fb account a day or two ago. All I said was the title of your post, and then my own reaction (which was, quite simply, "LOVE it!").

Does this bother you? If so, I can totally delete it. (I just posted the link because everything you said was SO. DAMN. TRUE!!!)

kfluff said...

Ah yes, Facebook as time suck. I'm right there with you. Now, you and I are in different positions, but I will tell you that I did it FOR my students, in part. I try to respect their boundaries (e.g., I don't look at their pictures), but the young kinds nowadays, sometimes they need informal ways of talking to the profs. I don't know if I would have done it as a grad, however.

As to etiquette? Beats the hell out of me!! I'm reluctant to do it, but seriously, I've had people I don't actually know friend me. I'm nervous about friending people I haven't talked to in a month.

I'd love to be friends with Sisyphus, either the anonymous or the real!!

Maude said...

as far as SC's go, i have my myspace set to private. all you can see is my quote and my picture. outside of that, you can't see anything--not who my friends are, what pictures i have up, where i work, my interests, etc. you have to be "my friend" in order to view my profile. i don't know if facebook has something similar.

oh and yeah, i'm totally right there with you on the deadline thing. i do the exact same thing.

Acre said...

Yes, the deadline is a sure killer. And my response to extreme stress is to sleep. I just shut down, thanks, all done here, move along, nothing to see. And yet, with infinite amounts of time, I also do nothing. I apparently need something in between. An eventual deadline. Just not right now.

I stay far away from profs and students on facebook. I swear, complain, and say various inappropriate things in my status updates. I stick to people I like.

k8 said...

I've befriended a few of my professors. As for students, if they befriend me, I accept, but I don't seek them out. I use facebook probably more than I should, but some of the connections are follow-ups to people I've met at conferences and the like.

Susan said...

Well, if we want to be your facebook friend, which Sisyphus are you?

Of course this is an interesting way to out US.

Dr. Curmudgeon said...

I'm not sure there's a single Facebook etiquette. One of the benefits of it as a technology (and one of the pitfalls) is that you have a lot of latitude in how and why you use it.

I also created an account largely to provide an extra way to connect with students (part of my reasoning was that the technology solutions at my U are so uniformly awful and poorly thought out that I can't blame them for not checking campus e-mail). As I did it, though, I talked with students about it - and about what my boundaries were: how I'd use it and how I wouldn't.

It's been really useful for organizing students for different events. It's also been nice to have alumni respond to things now that they're out in the working world.

Sisyphus said...

Susan, are there multiple Sisyphus Cogs out there? This is fascinating. I, of course, took Sisyphus T. Cog, in homage to Felix The Cat.

And, if they would let _me_ create an imaginary identity, so could you --- we could have whole villages of imaginary people interacting with each other!

Of course, you'll want to be careful about doing that and bringing on the insanity.

So far, the "real me" is totally pwning the imaginary me. Interesting.

possiblyfuturedrgirl, I'm not mad in any way --- it's all about me and my craziness. In fact, it may be less about me as paranoid and more about me as the youngest child who could never handle being left out of anything.

ortho said...

My Facebookiquette is simple: (a) offer to few and (b) accept from all.

(a) I only "friend" people who I am friends with in "real life."

(b) I accept "friend requests" from every Facebooker.

Belle said...

Hmmm. Well, I'd befriend Sisyphus T. Cog if 1) I had a fb; 2) wanted a fb (I assume it's easy to figure out and 3) wanted more rejections. Because not being befriended? That would suck.

Kinda like a blog entry that garners no comments. I, dear Cog, am pathetic.