I'm so brilliant they add letters to the word for me...

Belle over at Scattered and Random gave me an award! Yay! I'm sure it's for bravery in the face of an enemy dissertation. Here are the things I have to do once nominated:

1. Put the logo on your blog.
2. Add a link to the person who awarded it to you.
3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs.
4. Add links to these blogs on your blog.
5. Leave a message for your nominee on their blog.

I hereby nominate The Age of Perfection, Fretful Porpentine (Quills), Kermit's Log, Clashing Hats, Highly Magnified, Thoroughly Educated, Not Quite Grown Up, and Who Doesn't Love Roses for this award. While not not all of them are showing bravery in the face of a dissertation exactly, they are all undertaking or are about to undertake new challenges and transitions of one sort or another, just like me, and that type of adventure is always interesting to follow.

So go read them! Just don't tell them about the hazing period they have to go through with the paddles and the live goat before being officially given the award.

How to Cook a Dissertation

(While working on the finishing stages of my dissertation I thought other people would like some advice on how to start, continue, or complete such a prodigious undertaking. However, you're certainly not going to get anything like that on this blog. So have a recipe instead.)

- You will need the materials from your Half-Baked Idea. (see Prospectus, the)

- FINELY CHOP logic. Keep separate from the garlic and onions for now.

- RE-HASH other peoples’ work on your topic. This will probably turn out overdone, but it can’t be helped.

- generously SEASON dissertation with Theory and some fresh rosemary to taste. You will be adding a lot of thyme later.

- BLANCH at the amount of quote-sorting and filing you’ll need to do. Cut it fine but don’t cut corners!

- SIMMER your key texts on the back burner for a long time, or perhaps longer. While waiting, your advisor will MAKE MINCEMEAT of your previous seminar papers for you.

- vigorously WHIP up the cream skimmed off the Half-Baked Idea until it forms stiff peaks and produces a fellowship. If no fellowship appears, repeat this step.

- STEW over the whole thing until the entire process seems pointless. Repeat.

- ADD a dash of BITTERS and stir. Those of you who are out of funding can skip from this step directly to the addition of bourbon instead.

- IT IS VITALLY IMPORTANT THAT YOU NOT MESS UP STEP NUMBER 10. WE ARE NOT GOING TO TELL YOU WHAT IT IS.

- CHILL out over the larger ramifications of the project, but don’t let the entire thing get cold.

- AGE all materials in a cool, dark place until the ideas start to gel. You’re aiming for a fine Gruyere here, not Limburger.

- CHURN the dissertation until long. taffy-like sentences form. Pull and pull and pull and pull and pull and pull at the sentences. Then re-knead them and pull them all again. If you start to feel like Brer Rabbit stuck to the Tar-Baby, don’t feel surprised.

- PRESSURE-COOK the last few chapters with a grain of salt. Don’t have a pressure cooker? Your advisor will apply pressure for you.

- TURN the finished mass onto an ornamental platter and serve. Don’t look at it too closely. GARNISH with heartfelt and not so heartfelt thanks and dedications. Then dump the entire thing in the trash and call out for Domino’s. You wouldn’t want to actually eat that shit, would you?

I Luv You Man!

Just got back from a party for some select few grads ---- drinks and gossip, dirt-dishing and more drinks. Let me tell you, I had not realized the extent to which Shit Has Gone Down in this department. The only difference between me and my fellow grads, however, is that deep down I don't think these unethicalities (unethicalities? sure, it's a word) are in any way unique to this department ---- I bet they're pretty par for the course across academia. But I don't want to talk about that now; I want to note how great it was to sit there with a few friends who have had my back for all these years and dish with them and share our stories, and most importantly to see some of them going off to new and wonderful things and feel really proud. It's so weird that I'm so glad to be done here and we all have been so miserable and bitter and anxious to be out of here, and now that some of us are moving I am very sad: Oh, don't leave, I will be heartbroken! I say, despite the fact that we have not hung out in months, and furthermore, I wish them only the best ---- they are going off to exactly the kinds of exciting jobs and lives I want and I am genuinely pleased they are getting these rewards. Isn't it strange? It's not like I won't see them about as often as I do here, and keep track of them by email and internet, and yet I am all maudlin and sad. Yes, isn't the whole thing strange?

Thank God for Form!!!!!!

They don't want to write poems for their final paper any more.

Whew!

(Yes, I am evil. Ha!)

Putting it to a Vote

So, someone in class today requested that the final paper --- we're being Introduced to Poetry right now --- be the option of either writing a traditional analysis or a poem. There was much agreement among the class and agitation for us to enact this new option. "What if I don't like your poems?" I asked. They responded that I would like them. "What if they are bad poems, what then? Would I mark you down for not writing good poetry?" I asked. They responded that they could write up an analysis of their own poem explaining it and how they had used all sorts of the devices we were learning about. And besides, who better to explain a poem than its author? I don't know about that, I said. One student agreed with me: "that might be hard. How would we put our own words into our own words, if that's what paraphrasing means?" I said I would ponder the matter and get back to them.

As I see it, this option has its ups and downs:

• pro: I would have to read fewer essays
• con: I would have to read student-written poems.

I thought I'd throw it open to the wisdom of teh internets: what do you think? Vote "yes," "no," or "splunge" in the comments box below. Or, if you have other fun/sadistic/confusing suggestions for what they should do in class or in their paper, make those suggestions too. They have hit the "last-week blahs" behavior and craziness a week early, and I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with them. Beating them with sticks seems like too much work, but just letting them out early every day and having them go off and write poems seems like not enough work. Where's the fun in it without the beatings? Hmm. I await everyone's advice. (lurkers especially! everyone join in!)

Not Another Monday!

Shoot me now. I can't face two more weeks of this. And as soon as I'm done with students being bitchy and lazy, I get to write an enormous amount of my dissertation and then revise and revise and revise and then format the whole thing and file it and get my ass in gear to send out my already-rejected articles again and rewrite my job letter and apply to the fucking adjunct jobs and get back on the fucking job market wheel and revise the diss. into a book and and and and...


Shit, forget the chocolate. I need to go straight to hard liquor. It's after 10 am somewhere in the world, isn't it?

Saturday Academic Productivity Update (Shorter Version: Ha!!!)

Last weekend I went through all my piles of writing and sorta organized them. I found two paragraphs which I had thought I had written but were saved in odd places so I had no idea where they were, leaving me with the conclusion that I was insane or delusional or both and was now fantasizing the existence of dissertation chunks in order to be done more quickly. But with the recovery of these pieces, I know I am no more insane than usual. So I cut and pasted them into the larger draft.

This weekend, today, I went swimming and tamed some of the piles of crap in the living room. Then I ate a snack and moved the laptop to the kitchen table with a virtuous heart, intent on getting lots of work done. Skimming over the front end of my draft, I realized that a couple paragraphs were more of an information dump than an argument, without any clear signposting that would lead the reader along to my next point. "X idea is dropping out of these paragraphs," I wrote in the margin. "And why do I need to give the reader this information in order to get to this new point? What does it have to do with my new point and how will I keep it all connected to idea X?"

It was not long before I had unpicked these paragraphs and was left with a tangle of words, even more confused as to why I needed this information there. Worse, I had the sinking feeling that there was no relevant and interesting connection between all this information and X. It was like making negative progress on the chapter.

At this point my snack kicked in and, like a boxer socked with a KO, all the blood diverted from my brain and muscles to go hang out in my stomach ---- that was where the party was, or at least all the good food. So I dragged my groggy self to the sofa, with the chapter printout, and settled in under a blanket to "work."

Immediately I was dreaming that* I was the only hope to convoy an important shipment of tapioca to Antarctica for use in the rescue of Lord Shackleton. Saddling my trusty Iditarod sled dogs I bravely ventured forth, only to become bogged down in the thick Amazonian jungle. Undaunted I continued on, and the next thing I knew I was fleeing across the ice from giant mutant flesh-eating penguins with laser-shooting eyes. I tried to beat them down using my rolled-up dissertation chapter but in the end had to take a death-defying leap off a snowy cliff, only to land on the back of a giant white whale in the freezing ocean. With my bare hands I subdued it, bringing the giant kraken under my mind control, and it seemed that all would be fine until it submerged itself in the icy waters. When I recovered from the bitter cold of the ocean, I found myself trapped, stuck in an enormous spider web, or perhaps made very very small in an ordinary spider web. "Help meeee, help meeee," I piped in a tiny voice, but the giant Ann Coulter crept ever closer along the web, slavering, madness and death burning from each of her 8 little red eyes. How I was ever going to escape from being chained to the railroad track and save grandma's farm I did not know!

Luckily, at about this time I woke up. Is it any wonder that I'm so tired I need another nap again? I gotta watch out for this whole "writing my dissertation" thing --- it's obviously bad for my health.





* well, ok, no, the dream was totally boring and not at all like this. But where would the fun be in writing the truth?