More than Halfway Up the Climbing Wall of Prelims...

Deborah pauses, moistens her hands with chalk from the bag tied around her waist, and tightens the muscles inside her climbing shoes so that they curl more firmly around the footholds.

She looks down toward her feet to find the next sturdy foothold, then looks up. Look! The top of the wall! It looks so close now that her oral defense date is set for October 5, and now that all the written exams must be completed by next Thursday.

Only a few more footholds, she thinks. You can do this. Twelve hours of written tests down this month, eight to go. Three more in-house exams of two hours each, and finishing up that take-home before preparing for the two hour oral defense.

Her mental muscles are getting tired and a bit trembly, but the adrenaline is high. Surely she can push through. Moistening her hands once more, she takes a deep breath and moves one of them up toward the next handhold.

Onward and upward. Onward and upward.

Thriving in the Third Year

So I'm learning/remembering a lot about my preferred working style/kind of life (including the writing life) by my first month of this, the third year of my PhD. Mostly, I'm confirming that I was right about myself, in that I thrive better when I don't have to take 3 classes while also doing a million other things.

It's not that I'm not fantastically busy. In fact, if possible, I'm busier than I was last year. But I'm finding that I enjoy the academic life much much more when I have more of a say in what I do when.

It's not that I don't have deadlines now: quite firm ones at times. I must finish these preliminary exams by September 24, for instance, because I'm given a month to do that. And I have a month to defend the exams. But I negotiated the timing of that, and have been able to choose what kinds of questions I wanted to take/prepare for when.

I chose to do this now, at the beginning of the semester, before my students have their major assignments due. This small juggling act I'm allowed to do allows me to be a better teacher, because I won't have so much other craziness at the end of the semester.

It also allows me to really focus on writing these prelims well, because while I have lesson planning (and have been really enjoying planning lessons this semester without 3 classes at the same time--having a chance to use my creativity to make up good new interactive activities), I don't have a huge amount of grading to do until the prelims are done.

It helps all of this so much that I only have one (last required) class I'm taking. I really like taking classes, but am glad the crazy 3-per-semester requirement is done.

I can begin to see the end of the tunnel a bit, and that helps too. After all, if I pass these exams, I'll be officially qualified to teach at the university level. After that, (just?) the dissertation, which is a topic I'm incredibly motivated to dig further into and have already collected and written a lot of material towards. (And since writing is my thing, and I wended my way through writing a 100 page MA thesis only a couple of years ago, the length of it doesn't overwhelm me too much. At least not at the moment.)

So, while I'm fantastically busy, I'm not minding that. I'm really enjoying this academic life of mine.

Sorry It's Been So Long...and Exam Progress

Sorry it's been so long since I posted last, but the beginning of the semester has overwhelmed my blogging impulse a bit. I'm teaching 2 sections, taking my last officially required grad class, and using the first month of classes to take my 20 written hours of the Big Nasty Tests (to be followed by an oral defense).

Plus I've been blessed this week with the usual 2nd-week-of-school seasonal allergies. Thanks, Indiana--I'll find a way to repay you for this someday. Maybe drop an anvil on one of your fallow fields while no one is there. (That would be not harmful for anyone, but incredibly cathartic, don't you think?)

Actually, despite the busyness and the stupid allergies, as I settle in to teaching this course I haven't taught before and write my exams in 2-hour chunks, I find myself enjoying myself quite a bit. I'm very much enjoying my students, the class I'm taking will definitely be helpful, and I'm getting intensely good at writing 2000 words (give or take 200 words) in 2 hours in response to each of my preliminary exam questions.

In fact, I'm appreciating the learning experience of these exams much more than I thought I would. Reviewing the materials I've been learning over the last couple of years is really helping me synthesize everything I've learned. And writing the answers to questions in the areas I've studied that I'm looking to dissertate on is also helping me to transition to that area in my head as well.

So, despite the Big Nastiness of these tests, I'm--dare I say--enjoying them. Weird, I know. But true. I think--hope--I'll even enjoy the oral defense of these written portions next month. (I actually did enjoy my MA thesis defense, so there's precedent.)

Anyway, I have a take-home to work on this weekend (Labor Day DOES mean labor, doesn't it?), a few final revisions to that creative writing project I got hired for this summer, and, more immediately, two classes to teach this afternoon, so I'll sign off for now. More later.

Eeeeek!

Well, I had a lovely vacation and now I'm back in the thick of it. Lots of assistantship hours in this last 2 weeks of summer, including revising that creative writing project.

Studying for my prelims, which I actually did quite a bit of while I was gone, but now, with less than 2 weeks left has become much more urgent. Making sure they're scheduled, etc.

Finishing up preps for school and teaching this fall. Getting ready to welcome and meet new classmates.

Yup, there will be little sleep in the next 2 weeks or so.

Nothing like 0-60 in 1.2 seconds. Or minutes. Or something. At any rate, it was pretty quick acceleration. Must...drink tea. Grab something to eat. Quickly, to move on to the next task.

Go team!

Oh, and I'll leave you with a great blog post reflecting on the question of whether writers need to be visible in the public eye. I find it particularly interesting since part of what they teach you at grad school is how to be visible within an academic community.

New Yorker Review of the Kindle

I'm away from email and Internet for a week and a half starting the day after tomorrow. But I leave you with a fascinating, extensive, and largely negative review of the Kindle at the New Yorker. I haven't tried the Kindle yet, but am not surprised, having come from working for a book publisher in the web usability field. As the review points out, these devices have a ways to go before they've really got it yet.

I first heard about the MIT E-Ink project in 1998 or 1999, and not to be show-off-y, predicted when I first heard about it that it would take quite some time for these things to be remotely usable (witness the 10 years before even early adopters started actually using the things). Along with an excellent reflexive/auto-ethnographic in situ review of one user's experience with the device, this article includes a good history of the ebook movement as well.

Personally, I'm waiting for the invention of a book with a series of flexible Bible-page-thin pagescreens that can be loaded up with electronic ink and at least a series of which could actually be turned back over/easily referred back to like normal pages (after all, what good is a mystery, for instance, if you can't look back and try to figure out the clues?), but then loaded up with a different ebook from memory at any time as well as having a search function, etc. It could be something like 100 pages long and reload itself as necessary. Careful work would have to be done, as the author above mentions, toward making sure illustrations worked properly and the typefaces and contrasts, indices, etc. were well-designed.

And if they want to do anything with the academic--or any kind of "books-for-studying"--markets, they MUST MUST MUST work with the others (creators of Zotero, Endnote, etc.) who are creating academic reading/citation/note-taking tools and with services like Google Scholar and Google Books, which academics and students are already using a ton. And with the libraries who are working with zillions of academic databases.

Hm, well, back to my studying.

By the way, my paid creative project is now past its first writing stages and has moved on to rewriting and revising, completely on schedule. It's nice to be getting past that awful first draft stage and to feel on track to finish it before my Big Nasty Exams start. Woohoo!

Offline

I'm on vacation as of later today. Granted, it will be a vacation in which I haul a large chunk of my books and binders for studying for my Big Nasty Tests with me, but still a vacation. I may post sometime early next week, but then I'll be offline for a week and a half.

It will probably be quite productive for my studying, though I would still prefer to have a laptop to take with me to type things in. Ah well, I'll survive, and likely thrive outside of those times when I have the deep urge to retrieve or create a new studying document.

A Plot, a Plot!

I'm ridiculously excited. I love the creative process when it goes this well.

Over the last couple of weeks, I've been doing extensive research for this creative writing project for my assistantship. I've been thinking through all the pieces of information I know, and seeing if they fit with the very rough story framework I came up with last week.

Talking with various people to confirm. Floating my ideas past people as the story evolved.

Last night, after I lit my candles in the living room, I was trawling through the web doing some more research and came up with a potential ending for my story.

I slept on it. I woke up. I called around to a few people to confirm that my story was feasible and sounded like it would work for the client. It is, and it does.

I've got a plot! Now just to write the story! Currently I'm waiting a bit on some final key research from some of my contacts, but that should arrive later today. And before then, I can at least start jotting down some parts of the story that don't relate so closely to it.

I love it when a plan comes together (visualize evil tenty fingers).

My New Writing Practice

I used to have this wonderful routine down, back before I went back to grad school. I was working more than full-time, so I'd work my 10 or 12 hours in a day. Then I'd come home, maybe play some piano, maybe take a walk (with or without my friend across the street) to clear my head from the stresses of the day.

And then, around 9 or 10 p.m., I'd sit down in the living room with the TV off, I'd journal out whatever thoughts were running around in my head, and I'd think and write at least 100 words of my creative project (often several pages). The writing would sometimes take me up till 2 or 3 a.m. And then I'd get up at 7 and start over again.

Retrospectively, I'm not sure how I had the stamina. But it worked well.

The problem with grad school is in part that I often work at home. It then becomes harder to find practices that clear my head and help me to move from one thing--and one kind of thing--to another. Especially when so much of my work of all kinds is done on the computer.

But I've begun exercising again (sans iPod because it died) and that is helping. And last night I discovered that lighting a few candles in my living room and staring at them for a few minutes also helps.

Which is good because I have to switch back and forth between heavily academic tasks, errands, and this creative project for my assistantship for the rest of the week. And the creative project has passed most of the research phase and moved into the writing stage. And there's a pretty strong deadline, so I need to get into the creative writing mode pretty frequently. And quickly. And well.

You go, candles. You go.

Thrilled

For the last few weeks of the summer, I have a grad assistantship where I get paid to write a creative narrative--for a digital application, even. I'm going to be extremely busy in the next few weeks, especially since my Big Nasty Exams are now only 6 weeks away, but the fact that I get to work creatively in my capacity as an academic is extremely motivating.

I love it when the two parts of my life come together like that.

Okay, back to work.

On the Joy of Research

So last night sometime around 1 or 2 a.m. I got inspired to do some research.

This research had nothing, really, to do with my studying for the Big Nasty Tests I've been studying for.

It was only rather tangentially related, or so I thought, to my dissertation.

Primarily, it was (primarily academic) background research for one of my creative projects.

In searching through Google Scholar and WorldCat for sources to interlibrary loan (reminding me of the beauty of having full access to the academic library system) I found a source that will help my understanding of my dissertation topic, as well as inspiration and good material for that and other potential creative projects.

I also remembered why I like researching these kinds of things. The thrill of the unexpected discovery is fabulous. It's these moments that remind me why I started doing this grad school thing in the first place, and why it's worth sticking it out through the annoying and difficult times.

Now just to plow that delight back into all the other projects I'm supposed to be working on.

Trying Not to Be Slightly Offended by This...

From a book on conducting qualitative research, talking about writing up field notes from participant observation of people in a setting:

"It happens that observers differ enormously in the detail and length of the field notes they keep. Some seem to be frustrated novelists and have been known to write 40 or more single-spaced pages on a three-hour period of observation." --Lofland and Lofland, Analyzing Social Settings (1984), p. 67

And people (well, maybe it's just me, but today it's an editorial pluralism) wonder why, although novelists and qualitative field researchers both learn from observing people in settings, these two groups are somewhat estranged from each other?

Stereotypes, stereotypes...My primary question is, since when did any frustrated novelist write that much? It seems most frustrated novelists' problem is more of the writing too little than writing too much...

But maybe that's just my perception of the way the writing world works.

The larger question is, why can't we all just get along, since fiction writers and qualitative researchers are doing remarkably similar things (I should know, since I'm part of both groups)?

Dear Semi Driver on I-57 N,

This is an open letter to the semi driver that brushed (not quite the right word, evoking gentleness instead of crunched steel and a shattered window) against my car Monday night at 7:50 p.m. in Urbana Champaign, then, after slowing a bit, continued to drive.

My writer's brain immediately thought through all the possibilities of your motives. Chances are, you just didn't look before coming over into the right lane. Not that that excuses you at all. But it's a fairly easy and logical explanation--likely the right one.

What is less simple is why you didn't stop. A witness stopped and called the police. I saw you slow down, so I know you had felt the weight of my little car against your large bulk. Why, I ask?

The most simple explanation was that you thought you'd get in trouble, which you probably would have, to be frank. But that doesn't mean that you are excused for not doing the right thing. Sometimes the right thing involves sacrifice.

Then again, maybe you are a Decepticon (ala Transformers). That's not really an excuse either, though, you know...you could always join the good guys if you wanted to. All you had to do was stop.

Whatever the reason, I just wanted to let you know that by not stopping, I'm afraid you removed the possibility that you would be on my Christmas card list. I hate to say it. But that's how it is. Without contact info, I simply can't put you on it.

So yeah, if you see this, please leave your info so I can add you back in. If you don't want to contact me directly, I'm sure the Illinois State Police would get in touch with me if you passed the info on to them.

In the meantime, I do hope life goes well for you. I hear that the Decepticons lose in the end, so I'm sorry about that ahead of time. I do wish you well--or at least I'm trying to. Sooner or later, forgiveness is likely to come, but frankly, it might take a few days.

Oh, and I hate to tell you this, but as I'm a writer, a version of this incident will likely appear in some of my work sooner or later. I'd contact you to make sure that's okay, but then, I don't have your contact info. Please consider this my attempt.

Sincerely,
Deborah Leiter

P.S. I should admit that I'm pretty bad about actually getting Christmas cards out. But if you were on the list, I'd make an extra effort.