My advisor and I don’t have the best relationship, but it’s not the worst either. Toward the end of my years in grad school s/he basically checked out. S/he wouldn’t read anything until about two weeks before my defense and s/he didn’t give me any advice about the job market. Towards the end of grad school I saw the differential treatment between me and hir other students through conversations I would have with these other students whose committees s/he chaired. Anyway, I don’t look back fondly on working with my advisor and really I’m happy to be free from hir. So you can imagine my surprise about having a dream with hir in it last night. I dreamt that we were in a car and I was in the back seat. I’m not sure if s/he was driving or who was driving. We were talking and I said that I missed having my meeting with hir at the beginning of the semester. But I was only saying that because I thought it would be a nice thing to say, not because I meant it. Then, hir eyes got a little teary and s/he hugged me and then I got out of the car.
If I was on television or a character in a novel maybe that would signal the closure of a relationship that dominates my current thoughts and that almost infuriates me when it comes to mind. I really wish it was closure because I’m pretty sure that I spend way more time thinking about hir then s/he does thinking about me. I should just take the cue from my dream and get over it. However, at the moment I need to email my advisor for a letter of recommendation for a program, so clearly my interactions with hir continue. Part of me fears that this dream signals not the closure of the tense part of our interactions, but foresees a continuation of my acquiescence to hir shenanigans in order to make hir feel better.
- I have been reminded once again that my academic network is not robust. I just read that someone I know will be on the editorial board of a journal that a family member of theirs is the editor. Additionally, a new, edited issue of a journal came out with someone I know publishing an article somewhat similar to an article I have written. I could have been in that issue had I known the person editing it and been more sufficiently connected to that network.
- I am going to complain about money again. I have a plan to get out of debt, but that will take extreme discipline and some deprivation (two things I don’t do well with when it comes to fiscal matters).
- I would really like to take an international trip but I just cannot swing it and I probably won’t be able to until next year. Sigh!
Solution: Basically I need to get my fiscal house in order so that I can travel and pursue the kinds of extra-academic activities that excite me. That way, I can hopefully also stop fretting about the shortcomings in my academic life and focus more on developing my non-academic life.
I just got paid today and after allocating money for all my bills I am only reminded that my budget is very tight. I won’t even get started about my dislike for being paid once a month. As a post doc I feel like my budget is tighter than when I was a grad student. It absolutely baffles me that I took one international spring break trip, went to Vegas, California, and had other fun romps during grad school. Right now, I can’t even think about traveling to the next town over. This is insane. It also doesn’t help that my university expects me to front the money for all the conferences I attend and for all research expenses and then they will reimburse me. That only makes my tight budget even tighter. But I have to spend this research money in order to make myself competitive for a better job where I can make more money. Academic poverty is a vicious cycle and I am dying to break the chain.
I haven’t written in a while and I’m not sure that anyone but myself really cares about that. I haven’t had to teach at all this semester, but oddly I feel just as tired as every other academic in the blogosphere who seems to be ending the term with exhaustion. I went to my big disciplinary conference and had a WONDERFUL time and then went home for Thanksgiving (which was GREAT!). And now it’s back to the grind. I would like to write a post about networking at conferences and general academic pr. I think that will be the next post. Right now I’m burned out and I’m not quite sure why. I began this semester and the beginning of my post-grad school life wanting to be prolific. I want to publish a lot. To that end, this semester I went to two conferences. I submitted an article to an area studies journal. I just completed an article for an online venue. I have in front of me an essay for an edited volume and a book review, both of which I do not want to do. When I met prolific people I used to ask them how they wrote so much. But that was when I had writers block and felt generally unsure of myself. Now I feel better and I write habitually. So the question for prolific people now becomes how do they stay the course and not get burned out?
I have recently developed a new obsession regarding the academic life. Reading about fictional representations of academics was not enough, as I have plunged into the literature on academic culture. English literature professors seem to be the main producers of this area, which I find interesting. As a social scientist, I would think that one of my tribe would lead the charge in interrogating the structures and cultural norms of academic life. I began my journey with the Minnesota Review’s 2001 issue on Academostars and from there I have only accumulated more sources. I won’t regale you with all the new insights I have gleaned, but I will admit that what I suspected, that prestige, hierarchy, and affiliation matter – has proven to not be only a figment of my imagination.
In the book Affiliations: Identity in Academic Culture, Joseph R. Urgo writes in his essay, “My experience is that this affiliation [with Bryant College, a business college] may be disfiguring but can also become, like a Hawthornesque birthmark, a gauge by which one sees how standards are perpetuated” (28). He then goes on the discuss how he is perceived by colleagues at conferences when they hear about his affiliation with a small business school. They question his choice to teach there and his ability to get another job. He goes on to discuss how he talks to job candidates when they visit campus and alerts them to the fact that in taking that job they are giving up high status. He writes, “The job one lands is definitional, even if it last for only a while; it is there, on the record of what you did and more, on the development of who you are. Far from filling a position, the candidate is filled by it, an identity is articulated from the moment the contract is signed” (31). I wonder how this description fares currently in the wake of the financial crisis and the dramatic decrease in tenure track jobs. I would think that surely just landing a job would indicate some kind of status. But from my experiences, I fear that it doesn’t. I have had friends get REALLY fancy jobs, and they are still the ones envied and lauded. Despite the manic movements of the market, the regime of status and placement still seems to remain firmly intact, almost as if it is this system that will safeguard us in the storm.
I’ve reached a point in the writing of an article when all the words are basically on the page thanks to writing more or less 500 words a day. Now I have to re-arrange paragraphs, work on sentences, fret over whether this quote works, and whether I have explained enough. It’s a good place to be in, but my new problem becomes how to benchmark progress when all the words are on the page. I keep returning to the same paragraphs and re-reading the same sentences. I think I’m going to try amstr’s method that she posted here. Go read it for yourself, but Amstr suggests reading through the paper and writing on the back of the pages what needs done. Then that makes it easier to cross off tasks in moving towards the final draft. That should satisfy my need to document progress and cross tasks out on a to-do list. This is why I love talking to other academics about writing, either virtually or in person, because someone always has a method that just might work.
I share an office with a faculty member who is currently on leave. Two days ago I was sitting in the office and s/he came in and said “It’s so nice to meet you,” s/he said. “How is everything going here for you?” S/he just came in for a minute and started to ruffle through some papers and books on the shelf.
I said everything’s fine and I liked it there so far. Then s/he said, “Well the library alone makes is worth it to be here. It has so many resources.” I said, “I know, the library has everything.”
Then, s/he paused, turned to me and said, “well not everything. But I’m sure if they don’t have it they can get it for you.”
Academic lesson #5341 I learned: Never be too enthusiastic or offer too much praise about anything. Always be critical, even in small talk.
A lot of my facebook friends who are academics constantly post that they are going to a “write on site” event in their city or university. I went to one of these last Friday here at Post doc university and found the experience to be so so. There were people there writing, but I didn’t know any of them. The pro was that there seemed to be no internet. I don’t know if the lack of internet was due to my technological ineptitude or the actual absence of it, but I must say, that part was genius.
In the Sunday New York Times from yesterday Oct. 7 I read an article in the Sunday Business section about productivity and hours worked. You can find it here. I thought the writer raised some interested questions about how an eight hour work day can actually limit productivity by putting emphasis on being in the office rather then meeting specific benchmarks. I’m not teaching this semester, but having the whole day to work is killing me. I always feel like I should get more done, even though I do work steadily everyday. I’m trying to think about productivity through meeting goals rather than hours worked. So I didn’t beat myself up today when I sat down and watched TV for an hour and a half this morning. Anyway, to that end I have made a semester plan and I’m working to meet my goals. I did like the writing advice offered in the column and I thought it was worthwhile to share it here:
WRITE FASTER Even if you need to create A-plus work for a project, it needn’t be perfect right off the bat. When some people sit down to write a long memo, they insist on perfecting each sentence before moving to the next one. They want to complete all the stages of the writing process at the same time — a most difficult task. In my experience, this leads to very slow writing.
A better approach separates the main steps in the writing process. First, compose an outline for what you are going to say, and in what order. Then write a rough draft, knowing it will be highly imperfect. Then go back over your work and revise as needed. This is the time to perfect the phrasing of those sentences.
In general, don’t waste your time creating A-plus work when B-plus is good enough. Use the extra time to create A-plus work where it matters most.
I normally don’t read the business section of the New York Times, but I’m glad I stumbled upon this yesterday. Now I can get on with the business of writing.
For some reason I like when the first of the month falls on a Monday. This seems like a great opportunity for a fresh start. It’s like new years but without all the baggage. I have gotten back on the writing horse with 500 words a day. I got out of the habit of writing 500 words a day, even though that strategy got me through my dissertation. My goal is to write at least 500 words everyday this week on this article I’m working on. Today I managed 522 words.
Other people have asked me how I do my 500 words so I thought I would share it here:
Routine for writing 500 words a day
- Before I start writing I write down the word count and add 500 to it so that I can see my target number of words
- I write – some days are easier than others. Some days it’s like pulling teeth to get to 500 and on others I just sail there in an hour or less. I can’t always predict what days will be what. It depends on my mood, the material, if I have an idea or not, and if I know where I’m going.
- I write 500 words for 5 or 6 days a week
- If I write more than 500 words on one day that does not subtract from the words I can write on the next day. Also, I cannot write less than 500 words, but if I do, the missing words do not accumulate to the next day. (For me I write so incrementally b/c the idea of having to produce a massive amount on one day overwhelms me. So it would be counterproductive to let my words accumulate to a later date)
I like writing 500 words because I need to be able to quantify my productivity with words on the page. I tried working for an hour a day or some specific time period and I would just not write for 2 hours. I would stare at the computer screen. So I had to start counting words. I like knowing that I can realistically write 10,000 words a month and knowing that helps me to plan what I can get done. I feel a little bit like an infomercial. Just send cash or money order to living academically if you found this advice helpful. 500 words a day changed my life, and for just $9.99 it can change yours too!
A Year of Living Academically 