book!

76. Lifting a Ton of Feathers: A Woman's Guide to Surviving in the Academic World by Paula J. Caplan

This book gets a post all of its own, as it has been a real eye opener to me. I mean, of course women are discriminated against and all that, but I had never seen it written out in black and white how this would specifically affect me in academia. A lot of the book is about the "maleness" of academia, and how women are socialized differently and therefore unable to fit in easily. The parts that most spoke to me were about women generally being harder on themselves, and assuming that if they are not a perfect teacher, they are a bad one. When in actuality they are most likely a good teacher who is not perfect. There is also a lot about the way academia isolates women, making them feel like they are crazy if they notice any of these problems. I have totally been made to feel like I am crazy many times, and this book really helped me see I am more normal than I thought. Seriously, if you are a woman in academia, or know a woman in academia, or probably even if you are a man in academia, you should read this book. If I ever get to have grad students I am going to give this to them. It has really helped me look at how I think about myself and my work, and to feel better about it.

books!

73. Dragonsblood by Todd McCaffrey
This book involves some of the original settlers of Pern, and I don't like them as much as the characters I first met, so this book was a little less enjoyable than Dragon's Kin. BUT it was still great! I am tempted to re-read all the Pern books, but maybe I will put that on my long long list of things to do when I am finished with my dissertation. :)

74. Shopaholic Takes Manhattan by Sophie Kinsella
The second in this series. I think these are well-written, fun books. I'm glad Becky learns lessons, but never completely overcomes her shopping weakness. :)

75. The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus
I just got this book because of the movie coming out and I was curious about it. It was way better than I expected. Very interesting, and I just felt terrible for a lot of the people in it. It was actually quite painful in a way, but a good book. I think it will be hard to translate a lot of it to the screen though.

yay!

People! Here I am writing from my new YELLOW computer which is actually connected to our actual wireless connection. woo! I got the computer on Monday, but a mere 3 hours after turning it on, it decided to break. Yesterday a Dell tech came out and replaced the screen and motherboard, so now it works. But last night we had a hard time getting it to connect to the wireless. I still don't know what made it decide to work, but it does and that is all that matters. The new computer is so fast, and thin and light. And did I mention, YELLOW!

Sick, but better

Now I am felled by a terrible stomach flu. It is not fun. I have been bed ridden for two days. BUT it cannot get me down as I talked to someone helpful who helped me decipher my academic problem, and realize it is not as much of a problem as I had thought. However, it did indicate to me, yet again, the many failings of academia and its crappy treatment of graduate students. Oh well. My character grows every day. Soon I'll have so much character I won't fit in the apartment.

Also, my new computer finally shipped! I ordered it 3 weeks ago, thinking it would ship Sept 6. Then I got an email saying it was delayed and it would not ship until Oct 8 BUT then I got another email, and it shipped yesterday! woo!

Anyway, posting may be slight until it is up and running, as my current computer refuses to work with our internet. I am using other wireless right now, but I am not sure it will always be available.

blogging struggle

Here I am again, apologizing for my lack of blogging. The Monday Poem is going on hiatus. I just can't keep up with it. I am having some issues with academia that I can't really write about, but they are making me very tired. Like so tired I feel I have lived 70 years instead of my mere 30.

In good news, the weather is cooling off, I went to Pilates last night, and my second chapter is shaping up awesomely. woo, second chapter! Now I have to go read the articles I am teaching this afternoon.

topics for discussion

Today you get subheadings with comments:

Teaching
I am really enjoying my class so far. I only have 10 students and am teaching my specialty. It is like a whole different world. So fun! It gives me more motivation to graduate and get a job where I can hopefully do something kind of like this more often.

Dissertating
It is possible this is not a real word, but some people in R's program use it and I love it. It sounds so cool: "what are you doing today?" "Why, I'm dissertating, of course." :)
I did some awesome data analysis yesterday, and my confidence with statistics grows by leaps and bounds every day. It may all work out for me in the end. Also, my results mean things!

Job Search
It is still early days for this, but I am slowly working on a draft cover letter for my first deadline. I am also going to make a sample syllabus for a course I have dreamed of teaching for many years. I am really excited about making this syllabus! Is that weird?

Life
The weather has finally started to be cooler, so R and I took a picnic to the park yesterday. It was very fun. We need to get out more. This weekend people are coming over on Saturday, and Maggie and I are volunteering to walk dogs on Sunday. I also signed up to read to kids one night next week. I had some disgruntled-ness earlier in the week, which I think was brought on by my lack of social time. Long ago, I thought I was shy, but I am more and more realizing my extrovertedness and that I need to be around people to recharge. So maybe the volunteering will help with that.

book!

70. The Valley of the Horses by Jean M Auel
Another sort of trashy book about prehistoric people. This one was also fun, although there was one major plot leap that bothered me some. I liked the animals Ayla tamed alot. Still a fun series and I will continue on with it.

71. Winds of Fate by Mercedes Lackey
The first book of a trilogy continuing the Arrows of the Queen series. This heroine is a little less vulnerable, and I will never love these as much as the other series, but still very good.

72. Dragon's Kin by Anne McCaffrey and Todd McCaffrey
OK, in my high school days the Dragonriders of Pern series was right up there with the Heralds of Valdemar as books I totally lost myself in. I just found out that McCaffrey wrote this one recently with her son, and then he wrote one all by himself. I was disappointed in some of the later Pern books written by Anne, but this one was just as good as the ones from her heyday. Very very good. I can't wait to read the one Todd wrote alone.

On hold with Sony

Did you know that Sony has come up with a "revolutionary new screen technology that rivals paper"? Who knew someone could come up with something equal to the technology of paper!

Poem

A day late and a dollar short......

Air

Naturally it is night.
Under the overturned lute with its
One string I am going my way
Which has a strange sound.

This way the dust, that way the dust.
I listen to both sides
But I keep right on.
I remember the leaves sitting in judgment
And then winter.

I remember the rain with its bundle of roads.
The rain taking all its roads.
Nowhere.

Young as I am, old as I am,

I forget tomorrow, the blind man.
I forget the life among the buried windows.
The eyes in the curtains.
The wall
Growing through the immortelles.
I forget silence
The owner of the smile.

This must be what I wanted to be doing,
Walking at night between the two deserts,
Singing.

W.S. Merwin

Academia

Just wanted to share this post from Dean Dad. It speaks to a lot of what I have been going through regarding the job market, looking to the future, etc. Anyway, I found the last two paragraphs very heartening, and they made me feel less crazy. :)

In other news, data analysis continues! I did it all wrong twice already, so I should be getting close to the correct solution. Now I am off to learn more stats.

me me me

Recently I went back to the town of my University and had a hard core 3 days working with my advisor on my first 2 diss chapters and another paper. It was good to get so much work done. It was also good because we decided I should be able to graduate in May. Woo! To this end I am bucking down more than ever as I want a complete draft of the whole shebang by Christmas. Also, if I will be graduating in May I will need a job in August 2008. Thus, I am a going on the job market. I have a lovely excel sheet of places to apply and will be churning out applications this fall.

Things are going really well in the school/career department, but I am afraid the blog may suffer. I feel guilty for just doing the poetry and books, but I really can't make this too much of a priority right now. We'll see, though, sometimes when I am working hardest I post a lot. But this is fair warning that I am diving hard core into dissertation/job app land so don't know how much you'll see from me. Maybe one day I can give the poor blog the attention it deserves.

books!

65. Arrows of the Queen
66. Arrow in Flight
67. Arrow's Fall all by Mercedes Lackey
These are a fantasy series that was really important to me in high school. They've got it all and I still love to re-read them: strong yet vulnerable main female character, self-sacrificing heroes and magical horses! Awesome.

68. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
A blurb on the front says this is a "moving portrait of modern Afghanistan" which is pretty true. It is the story of a boy in Afghanistan who ends up moving to the US but then returns to fulfill a task. It is a pretty good book, but I think I am at my quota of serious, deep books for awhile because I couldn't really get into it. It is a good book, though, and it was interesting to read about Afghanistan, as it is a place I do not really know much about.

69. In Her Shoes by Jennifer Weiner
Another alleged "chick lit" book. Again, I liked this one a lot. Weiner is a seriously good writer with a gift for characters. This was recently a movie, so you may have heard the basic plot -- two sisters, one skinny and with a messed up life, one overweight and with a seemingly together life. They kind of learn and grow together, and a retirement community in Florida is involved. The addition of the old people characters in this book is great. Good book.

Poem for you!

Eating Poetry

Ink runs from the corners of my mouth.
There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry.

The librarian does not believe what she sees.
Her eyes are sad
and she walks with her hands in her dress.

The poems are gone.
The light is dim.
The dogs are on the basement stairs and coming up.

Their eyeballs roll,
their blond legs burn like brush.
The poor librarian begins to stamp her feet and weep.

She does not understand.
When I get on my knees and lick her hand,
she screams.

I am a new man.
I snarl at her and bark.
I romp with joy in the bookish dark.

Mark Strand

Poem!

Expect Nothing

Expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise.
become a stranger
To need of pity
Or, if compassion be freely
Given out
Take only enough
Stop short of urge to plead
Then purge away the need.

Wish for nothing larger
Than your own small heart
Or greater than a star;
Tame wild disappointment
With caress unmoved and cold
Make of it a parka
For your soul.

Discover the reason why
So tiny human midget
Exists at all
So scared unwise
But expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise.

--Alice Walker

more books!

61. Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel
So I am apparently the only anthropologist to never read this. I actually know a few people who say they got into anthropology because of this book. I found it on a free shelf, so I thought, why not? This is not the most beautifully written or most well-plotted book, but it was pretty fun! Drama amongst the Neandertals! Who can resist? It was really fun reading and I have later books in the series on request at the library. I hear the sex heats up as the books go on.

62. Confessions of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella
Another fun fluff book. I've been diving back into the chick lit, and this book was pretty enjoyable. The main character is really engaging, although her disorganization and immaturity did get to me some at the beginning. I'm also planning on reading the rest of this series.

63. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
As I mentioned in another post, I had heard a lot about this book but was pretty sure I would hate it. I thought I'd try it anyway, and I loved it! I don't know why it spoke to me so much. I think it is because the author talked so much about taking time out to do things she enjoyed, and to learn to be forgiving of herself. These are definitely things I need to work on, and the book really inspired me to do so.

64. Good In Bed by Jennifer Weiner
This one was supposed to be chick lit, but aside from the fact that there is a breakup and a female heroine I thought it was generally too heavy to be what I think of as "chick lit". It was a good book, though, well written and with very engaging characters. It was just more serious than I was prepared for or wanted at the time.

book!

60. Maximum Ride: Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports by James Patterson
This is the third in a series of young adult novels about some genetically engineered kids who have wings and can fly. I have not read the first two novels in the series, but I don't think that impeded my understanding of the story too much. So there is a 'flock' of kids from about 6-14 who were genetically engineered to have wings, and in this book they have to save the world from a plot by evil scientists all the while running around evading the scientists who want to kill them. They are lead by the title character, called Max, a 14 year old girl. I really liked the main character although some of the others seemed a little thin. But Max is really spunky, strong, adventurous and a good leader. The story is pretty good and gives us good messages about family, teamwork, and how anyone can make a difference, but I was never really very clear on exactly what the evil scientists' plan was, or why they made that plan. There's also a lot of really self-referential stuff in the book. Like one of the characters has a blog which really exists -- it's used is a plot point in the book, but sometimes it seemed like Patterson was trying to hard. Like he wanted to be all cool for the teens but over did it. Anyway, I am an old fuddy duddy, so what do I know? I'd be interested to see what actual young adults think of the books. I think this book is worth it though for the action and the awesome character of Max. She is a really great, strong female character, so I am happy about that no matter what.

*disclaimer: I received a copy of the book and an Amazon gift certificate in exchange for a review.

Poetry Monday!

Landscape With The Fall Of Icarus

According to Brueghel
when Icarus fell
it was spring

a farmer was ploughing
his field
the whole pageantry

of the year was
awake tingling
near

the edge of the sea
concerned
with itself

sweating in the sun
that melted
the wings' wax

unsignificantly
off the coast
there was

a splash quite unnoticed
this was
Icarus drowning

William Carlos Williams

Trial by Fire

I was thinking last night about what grad school has been to me, about all the problems I am having making myself just write the freaking dissertation already, and about how I've changed in grad school. One thing I realized recently is that the me I am now, after 5 years of grad school, is the me I am. This came to me a while ago when I was having some kind of crisis over the fact that I would never finish and suffering some serious impostor syndrome. I said to R, "I hate that grad school makes me act so emotional. This isn't me." But then I realized that wait, if I have been acting a certain way for 5 years, that is probably me. It is just a different me than I was 5 years ago.

Months ago Dr. Crazy wrote a really good post about graduate school being a process of breaking a person down and creating them anew as an academic/scholar/professor/whatever. I think this is really hitting the nail on the head, and exactly what I have gone through. Every step of grad school is, in a way, something I am not ready for and after I go through it I can't believe it is over. But then I look back and it is so easy. Like the morning of my MA defense I was soooo nervous, I felt like I was going to throw up. I seriously thought I had food poisoning because never before in my entire life have I ever been that nervous. But as soon as I was done, it was no big deal. And now, facing down my dissertation looming over me and seeming like it will never be done, I would love to just have a master's thesis to write again. I feel like I could do a really good job with it. But it does seem that with every step I need to fall apart, in order to put myself back together. It is a little like how I write, really. I write a ton of crap, then delete it all and start over and end up with much better stuff than I had before.

I'm hoping that now that I've seen this system, I can be a little gentler with myself as I go through it. I'm reading Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. Gilbert takes a year and travels, exploring pleasure in Italy, devotion in India and then trying to find balance between them in Indonesia. I'll write more about the book later but it has really been speaking to me. At the part I am at now, in her yoga practice, she is working on seeing the divine within herself and opening herself to what she calls God's love. I am not totally comfortable with those terms, but I would like to work on being more gentle with myself. I tend to get on tracks of how I am the laziest person ever and don't deserve a PhD, and will never succeed out of grad school, when, to paraphrase Gilbert, I need to learn I am just a human, and an average one at that.

blargh

I am home today with a bad bad headache. Perhaps a migraine? I do not know the official definition of migraine though. It sucks because I have large amounts of guilt whenever I am sick -- I see it as a personal failure as though I should be able to overcome whatever is wrong with me by force of will. This is a problem with being headstrong and stubborn. As I can usually get most things by sheer force of will, it is very troubling when I cannot. Anyway, yesterday I felt all weird too, so I am going to lay around today and hopefully get better.

In other news, I think I am going to buy a new computer. I am not into the $1600 price tag when I don't have a job, BUT my current computer does not allow me to open more than 3 word documents/ excel files at once which is really impeding my dissertation writing. Also the constant freezing is a problem. I was planning to buy a new computer after graduating and getting a job, but my new plan is to pay this one off when that happens. I'm just buying it in advance. I don't know, it feels a little frivolous, but seriously, I do need word and excel open at the same time.

Poetry Monday

late, sorry!

Starfish
Eleanor Lerman

This is what life does. It lets you walk up to
the store to buy breakfast and the paper, on a
stiff knee. It lets you choose the way you have
your eggs, your coffee. Then it sits a fisherman
down beside you at the counter who says, Last night,
the channel was full of starfish. And you wonder,
is this a message, finally, or just another day?

Life lets you take the dog for a walk down to the
pond, where whole generations of biological
processes are boiling beneath the mud. Reeds
speak to you of the natural world: they whisper,
they sing. And herons pass by. Are you old
enough to appreciate the moment? Too old?
There is movement beneath the water, but it
may be nothing. There may be nothing going on.

And then life suggests that you remember the
years you ran around, the years you developed
a shocking lifestyle, advocated careless abandon,
owned a chilly heart. Upon reflection, you are
genuinely surprised to find how quiet you have
become. And then life lets you go home to think
about all this. Which you do, for quite a long time.
Later, you wake up beside your old love, the one
who never had any conditions, the one who waited
you out. This is life's way of letting you know that
you are lucky. (It won't give you smart or brave,
so you'll have to settle for lucky.) Because you
were born at a good time. Because you were able
to listen when people spoke to you. Because you
stopped when you should have and started again.
So life lets you have a sandwich, and pie for your
late night dessert. (Pie for the dog, as well.) And
then life sends you back to bed, to dreamland,
while outside, the starfish drift through the channel,
with smiles on their starry faces as they head
out to deep water, to the far and boundless sea.