Surgeries

Yes, I know I should be writing my diss. Or prepping my job apps. Fuck off.

The past two days I have been committing mutilations on a mass scale. Chopping, hacking, slashing --- I don’t know if I am more closely imitating Victor Frankenstein or Orlan. It has been an incredibly frustrating process, mangling my baby. But I think I’ve gotten to a point where I can seek outside help.

You see, I had a chapter, once. It was a good chapter. Very lively and fun. I think I complained a little bit about the difficulties of cutting it down to send off to a journal here. Or at least that is when I was finally done. It is a complex chapter that covers many topics and has many subheadings (those lovely academic ways of avoiding having to write transitions!). It was difficult to cut it as the advice people gave me was that I couldn’t leave out any of the different subheadings ---- just hacking off a limb or two would easily bring it down to fighting weight, I argued, but instead I was told to sculpt it down through plastic surgery, cut out all the fat and filler.
So I did. It was frustrating and tough work, but I finally managed to get it into shape, a shape I was proud of, that flowed and made sense, that was still well-rounded enough that someone could encounter it in a journal and get enough background and a sense of my larger project. It still had bits of sparkle and complexity, but managed to come (just barely) in under the word limit.

Unfortunately, that word limit is very high. (I chose the journal partly because it fits my topic and partly because it accepts much longer articles.) Now, I must chop it down again to fit the various page limits for writing samples. Only this time there is no repetition or fat to cut out.

I had an unsettling conversation with my advisor on Tuesday --- how many ways can you write “frustrating”? I’ve depleted my thesaurus --- one of those weird conversations where you’re not quite sure if you’re talking past each other or not. She argued strongly that I need to send out this as my writing sample, as it is my most interesting and best-written chapter. I was puzzled, as I am in agreement with her (why are we arguing then?). I was pushing for advice on how to cut it down further ---- as in, by half, to hit a 20-page limit.

Do I just leave off part IV? I asked? Oh no, she says in horror, that’s your most interesting part. And be careful not to shrink the close reading passage down too much or else you won’t look “literary” enough to more traditional departments. Well, what about this section? No, no, you don’t want to rip out all the areas that prove you’ve read the criticism. And this section definitely can’t go because it’s so out there and crazy, it hasn’t been touched by any other critics at all. Well, what’s left? All my lovely little lyrical bits and bizarre similes (have I mentioned before that I am Queen of Inappropriate Metaphors?), then? Those are my favorite parts.

It’s like how Anne Bradstreet has that poem comparing her book of verses to a child that has been sent out into the world too soon --- I don’t want to cut any more of it; I love it. All its little quirks and choice phrasings are marvelous to me. It is good. I have distilled down my language to something concentrated and intense. I have made it sharp and in focus. I don’t want to get rid of any more stuff, especially when I think it works as it is.

Now, I don’t think it looks too good. Its proportion is off, its limbs are all wobbly and distorted, it has scars and visible stitchings and gaping holes where there should be an ear or an eye. I have a lot of things on my plate right now and my advisor, despite repeated remindings, is not cognizant of the fact that I have already sent out applications and have at least another 10 due before the first (and that I need to get ALL of them out as soon as possible, before I go out of town.) I did not follow her advice. She said, sit down and reread the whole thing holistically. Think about what you really need, what you really want to say. Rewrite whole sections to boil it down or reframe the direction. Figure out which are the sexy bits and which are the dull dissertation bits. Perhaps you’ll need to re-arrange the order, to get the page count down as far as you need to. Really think deeply on how to revise it. And then, once you have it cut down, send it out to a journal right away, to get something on the publications section of your CV. (Uh, don’t you remember that I already did this??? WTF???)



Well, I don’t have the time and don’t have the patience. And I wanted more specific directions on where and how. So I slashed and burned like a cattle rancher chopping through rain forest, or perhaps a psychotic chainsaw-wielding maniac (ooh, I should get a pic of Christian Bale in here. Nah, too late.) I was ruthless. And sloppy. I’ve turned my copy around back to Advisor already, as she said she wouldn’t work on any line-by-line readings for improving the quality until I had done the cut down. So, here it is. Have fun with it. I sure didn’t.

ick, I'm sick

I have been feeling cruddy all week now ---- right on the edge of a cold but not blowing up into a full-fledged attack just yet. I blame my sister and my dad, who both have colds and who I talked to on the phone this weekend. (What? Reality should be no limit to good blaming.)

Feeling crappy, of course, does nothing to help with the craziness of the job market, which is now in full swing. (Know how I know? Today I just got a rejection letter from last year's job run ---- fuckers. Isn't it in the middle of your fucking next semester already? Haven't you already posted two jobs for your this year's search? Gah. I cough all my germs in your direction.)

So, I have sent out some stuff and am in the mad dash for finalizing more stuff and everything hits the fan almost immediately. I have to try and get a bit more done before collapsing, but in the next day or so I'll bring you a post about hacking up your babies. Till then,

Yours in aches, pains and general job-market bile,
Sisyphus

If I have to compete academically, this is how I want it to be

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.

Hello, who are you?

Ah, the problems of being on the West Coast! Evidently everyone has been having fun participating in Mofo Delurk Day while I was hard at work. Or, perhaps, hard at avoiding my conference paper by obsessively organizing and re-organizing my job materials. And I don't mean the content-related materials, like the CV or letter or dissertation abstract. I mean the envelopes and labels and pens and things, thank you very much. Hey, it keeps me calm and is soothing --- as my brother the engineer likes to say, I needed to up my serotonin levels. Of course, I think he needs to admit that he feels overwhelmed and depressed and perhaps, shocker, talk to someone about it, but as an engineer he thinks the mind and body are machines that should be treated solely with medication or quick fixes.

But enough about me and my silly brother! Today is all about you! Yes, you --- the lurkers who have been reading my blog (I see you over there when I check on Sitemeter!) and do not comment. Come out come out wherever you are and say hi! I've been linked to by big fancy places recently and my blog traffic has gone way up, so I know I have some new readers. Stop a bit. Introduce yourself. Say hi. Have a virtual cocktail or something. That? Don't look over there ---- that huge messy pile is my dissertation research. I can shovel the piles of dirty clothes off the sofa and find you a seat, even. Uh, don't make too much contact with the seat --- I don't know when I last cleaned around here. Let me open a can of chickpeas for you! ... cause that's all I have for you to eat around here right now. Unless you'd prefer to eat job application materials. Or pencils? I have pencils.

Because, really, it's all about you ... you, and me being hospitable to you. I'm trying very hard. I'm thinking that I need to actually get the book from one of my new favorite writer/actress/comediennes/whatevers, Amy Sedaris, to more fully hospital-ize you and make my place properly spiffed up. Here, have some chickpeas. Because these chickpeas? They are sending you a message. And that message is I like you.

Seriously, if I could hand you a roast fowl the way that woman could, I would. Leave me some comments!

Eating Crow

I hate to admit, after all the fun with yesterday's post, that I got an email response from a committee member and went in to her office hours today, and then caught my advisor in her office hours and made an appointment for Thurs (as she was frantically trying to eat lunch and prep for class --- part of me was sympathetic, but part thought, "you do know that people need to be able to come to your office hours and actually talk with you, right?"). So after all that complaining, it's raining advice and I'm actually getting help in moving everything along.

But I must explain why I wrote the post, and tell you all the story (one of many; ask me over a drink sometime) about last year's job market run. You see, all of my committee members were at least a month late getting their letters in. All of them. I had a bunch with early deadlines, like September 15, and about 10 sprinkled throughout October, and I thought asking for letters back in June with gentle, frequent reminders in August would be enough lead time for them to get things done. This meant that I got to be very close with the lady who runs the dossier service (we don't use Interfolio but a campus-specific office thingy over at Career Services), as I went over every single day, I think, of the month of September, asking if my letters had been delivered. I finally had to stand guard over one committee member and watch her write it when I finally tracked her down in office hours. Then I walked it over. I think it was Oct 20 or so ---- I had time to send out all those November 1st deadlines without using the extra-expensive rush option, but I assume that I got tossed for all those earlier jobs.

This was not a good experience to have one's first run on the market. This time I am considerably more Zen about the whole process (as a knowledgeable veteran rather than a confused complete newbie) and am surprisingly unworried; I can remind the committee members but I can't write their letters for them. If it happens, it happens. If not; I did everything that was within my control. I vaguely remember being incredibly anxious and jumpy last year, and felt powerless and helpless. I didn't know how to do anything or what my materials should look like and I got very spotty help looking over drafts ---- plus I was sure that somehow everything about my life would be ruined if I didn't somehow get those letters over to the career center.

This time --- eh. It might be a self-protective tactic, but I haven't been spending that much time on job stuff. I have a letter and diss abstract that were good enough to send out last year; if no one has time to work with me on these materials I can just send 'em out again. Ditto on the letters ---- would a search committee really notice if the letters hadn't been updated? It's not like last year where I had nothing to send if my committee members forgot to write the letters. And now that I've been through a whole round of rejections I know what that feels like and I know I'm going to get rejected from most of the places anyway; it's not like getting dropped from a few for not having a complete application is going to change the end result of my run that much. (I just need one job offer, after all.) I haven't even been looking much at the ads ---- I scan them and anything I remotely fit, I print and file away in my binder, writing up a little note on my Excel sheet of deadlines. No searching websites or poring over Craigslist to see if it's in a cute neighborhood this time ---- I kept getting invested in places and then being crushed. This time, let's save the crushing disappointment for only the places that ask for materials or interviews.

While I'd like a job ---- I'm not picky; I'll take a job anywhere there's a job, whatever ---- I now have practice not getting a job. Yes, surviving the job market takes practice. I can deal with telling everyone in my dept. that I got no offers, since I had to do that once already; I can deal with writing while waiting, since I've done that too. I can make plans and figure out where my life will go next spring; last year I took not even getting any flybacks as a sign of my unworthiness or a rejection of my work; I've been thinking about this all a lot since then and I've realized that I have other interests, other skills ---- I will not have to move back home and be taken care of by my parents if I can't get a job in academia. (I may do that to get some family sympathy for a week or two after the rejections come, heh! Oh wait, my family is not the sympathetic type.) So, even as I'm prepping for the job market, I'm planning my alternate plans for after filing ---- adjunct or work somewhere else? Aim for CCs instead of four years next year? Or walk away from the professor track entirely? This job, no matter how great the institution is, is not a life. And these jobs have a lot going against them besides all their great advantages. I'm not willing to put my "life" on hold indefinitely while waiting for the perfect job to pan out, because it might never come.

My committee members have all mentioned that they are hard at work on updating my letters or are about to --- I think they feel bad for missing things last time, which they should. Like I said, I took the empty dossier, and my poor showing on the job market, very personally last year, and they know it. I had at least one huge tearful and freaked-out confrontation with my advisor, trying to make her see that I was terrified and frantic because the UC had irrevocably cut me off from any more teaching because I have been here too long, and I couldn't figure out whether to file a 4-chapter dissertation and leave or stay a grad student another year and have to pay fees without any TA fee remissions. At the time I was so angry with her because she didn't see the gravity of the situation --- she kept saying I could get other kinds of work, or adjunct at a variety of different types of schools in the area, and keep my student status. Now, after thinking about it a long time, I think I'm coming around to her point. I can do other things. A lot of people have to put up with sucky and unrelated jobs to help put them through the last bits of school. But, again, I'm still thinking through the costs, and whether it's worth it.

Advisor Watch 2007!

Folks, if you’re just tuning in to K-COG you are in for some exciting times. A low-pressure front moving in from the north, coupled with vast temperature changes stemming from the incoming marine layer means that we are scheduled to see some actual advisor sightings any time now. Our forecasters tell us that we should see sprinklings of advisor sightings and graduate advisor sightings, with even a few committee members, before this front pushes them further into the Southland, where, Academiforcaster Bob tells me, there will be torrents of advisor appearances, it will be, almost literally, raining advisors later this month. Over to you, Bob.

Bob: Yes viewers, it is just as Jim has been telling you. Although we don’t see any actual advisors at this moment, academicorological conditions predict that soon, very soon, we will be deluged in advisors --- and not a minute too soon, Jim, for California has been in a drought of advice and we really need advisors for those thirsty little job candidates to grow! Back to you, Jim.

Jim: Why don’t you explain, Bob, for the benefit of our viewers, exactly how you’ve been tracking the advisor developments. Could we see the maps?

Bob: Of course Jim. Here you’ll see a very promising local map without the pressure systems, but with the advisor clusters marked in green.


Jim: Uh, Bob. I’m not seeing any moving masses of advisors there. Am I missing something?

Bob: We have every confidence that the advisors, despite all evidence to the contrary, are appearing and are indeed moving this way!

Jim: So … we have recorded hallway sightings then, Bob?

Bob: Not a one, Jim.

Jim: What about our email Doppler radar, Bob?

Bob: We’ve sent out multiple missives but have not yet recorded any contacts.

Jim: Coffeehouses?

Bob: Nary an advisor in sight.

Jim: The preschool?

Bob: It’s like a virgin wilderness, free from even the shadow of an advisor.

Jim: Bob, weren’t you telling me that advisors were sighted at the recent department party?

Bob: Uh, no Jim. I forgot to go to that. Sorry about that. But we do have the perfect academicorological conditions for the appearance of advisors any day now.

Jim: But you were at the job market meeting, Bob. Do you have any footage of at least Job Placement Advisors, if not the perfect storm of Dissertation Advisors with Attendant Committee Members?

Bob: Well Jim, funny you should say that. You would think that, with the time of day, the wind, the UV index, the title of the meeting, it would have been the perfect conditions to see some JPAs, but, surprisingly, there were a dearth of advisors present at that meeting. Crowds turned out for the historic occasion but there were only sprinkles of job market advice. … But we have GPS satellites scanning the area and email tags primed for tracking and we are ready to leap into action at the first glimpses of an advisor!

Jim: So, Bob, what you are telling me is that none of our scientific instruments have sighted any advisor activity and there are absolutely no signs of advisors on the immediate horizon … why, then do you think that, contrary to all the evidence, advisors will appear?

Bob: Well, it’s the right season, isn’t it?