A Tale of Two Taskmasters

As I read around the academic blogosphere, I see that you all are coming into the home stretch. You're reading papers, managing student freak-outs, and switching into summer mode: simultaneous relaxation and research. So congrats to all of you. While you're busy feeling both exhausted but accomplished, I'm relaxed and freaking out: my leave is OVER!! And what do I have to show for it?!!

As per usual, I find myself oscillating between two opposing poles. On the one hand, my inner sadistic schoolmarm is flagellating me. What's worse that wasting a three month leave? That one is ostensibly given for research? Shouldn't I have mapped out a fabulous book project by now? Or drafted three articles? Or painted the Mona Lisa, trained for a marathon, and cooked my way through all of Alice Waters' books?

On the other hand, my inner overly-compassionate voice (who I imagine as an old school, baked, middle-aged hippie) is talking me down. The origins of sabbatical, after all, lie in "sabbath," as in rest. And I've done a lot of resting, that's for sure. I've traveled, I've reconnected with friends and family. I've spent a lot of time thinking about the kinds of bad work habits I've accumulated over the past five years. I've become pretty conscious about the consistent, negative talk in my head that goes on (see sadistic schoolmarm, above), and convinces me that it's not worth starting anything. For the record, it's sort of shocking, when you really write it down. Here's a sampling:

•"I didn't follow-up trying to publish my diss, so I've wasted all that work."
•"I didn't continue my diss research, and now I'm so far behind I'll never keep up."
•"I've given far too many conference presentations and failed to turn them into articles."
•"It's too late for me to pick a research field now."
•"Everyone I know has done/can do x, and I have tried and I can't, so I should just give up."

What a total and complete bitch that schoolmarm is! And just so you know, I totally recognize that this is textbook, and that I sound like a case study in a "pathetic academic psychoses" review.

I'm trying to go with the baked hippie, here. (Please don't ask me where these characters come from. Why can't the hippie be a Buddhist or something? Beats hell out of me. But he's a hippie, for sure.) For as much as the arguments that the schoolmarm are making aren't wrong, exactly, I think that for me, the last three months have been about slowing down enough to realize the accumulation of crap that I've built up during the tenure process in a toxic department. (The schoolmarm narrowly missed being a nun, but that would make her so close to an actual colleague of mine, whose discourse is so close to this kind of negativity, that if I had her talking in my head, I'd have to quit my job and move to Woodstock.) Sure, it would have been great if I could have just jumped at the chance of a leave to dive into a pre-established project that was a natural extension of the work that I'd done on the diss and continued doing throughout my years as an assistant prof. But that's not what my career trajectory looks like. Instead, it's a messy testament to getting interested in a number of topics and ideas that are loosely aggregated around a couple of consistent big ideas. I'm still learning how to focus those and describe their relevance. And more importantly, I think I'm figuring out who I want them to be relevant to, and that might not be a strictly academic audience.

So suck it, sadistic schoolmarm! You can have my spring leave, but I've still got my hippie summer! Here's to hoping for some compassionate, productive research in the coming months, that comes out of peace, love and folk music, rather than pain, suffering and judgmental silence.

Oil Me.

I can't help feeling a bit like the Tin Man as I return to this blog---I'm so rusty I'm frozen in place. Perhaps some girl with cute shoes and a dog will come and rescue me? And then I can go and get a heart! Or discover that I had one after all!

In the spirit of full disclosure, I really hate The Wizard of Oz. I know it's heresy to all of you Garland-worshippers and members of the Lollipop Guild, but I've never been able to get on board the train (flying house? whatever). But the metaphor remains, I think, and since I appear to only be able to think in metaphors, it will have to do until I can find another.

So what have I been doing since, oh, JULY 31st? (good grief.) Mulling. Wandering, sometimes in the desert. I did effectuate a house move, which really threw me for a loop (I don't recommend it, kids, I really don't. Especially not the weekend before classes start). I taught my first semester with tenure. I backed out of a major conference at the last minute because I couldn't finish my paper. I pulled off a pretty tremendous athletic feat, only to beat myself up about it later. I weathered the pedagogical nightmare of the most severely disabled student (and her team of resource people) I've ever had. And, as you might imagine, I complained. A lot.

Here's the part that's going to be tricky: garnering your sympathy, even as I reveal my incredible, incredible privilege. Because here's the deal: I'm on leave this semester. For good behavior. And it is everything you might imagine it to be: lots of time to read, and think. Weekends are mine own. I've seen movies, I sleep through the night, unplagued by anxiety dreams. I work out when I want to (and because I have to, because leave=fatness, let me tell you). Bliss. Thank you, oh gods of academe, for this most excellent of job perks.

In the midst of all of this goodness, then, what could I possibly have to complain about?! Truly, bitch, wtf? Feel free to do some slapping around, if you must; it's nothing I haven't said to myself already. The economy has tanked, taking the profession with it. I'm lucky to have a job, lucky to be tenured, incredibly lucky not to be furloughed. And yet, I'm plagued by this rudderless feeling. Call it mid-life crisis, call it bourgeois pseudo-nausea...I attribute it directly to the post-tenure moment, and I'm stuck between wondering if it's a professional problem or it's one that I've just created for myself by running my career in the wrong way. Basically, it goes something like this: work work work to get into college, work work work to get into graduate school, work work work to finish dissertation, work work work to get a job, work work work to get tenure, work work work to? for? Bueller?

I think that I've always imagined that I was a pretty independent thinker. I've been lucky to have been in situations where people that I admire and respect were willing to listen to some pretty hare-brained, cockamamie ideas that I had and to help me to go forward with them. This post-tenure, academic leave situation, however, gives the lie to that whole idea. For what feels like the first time in my life, I'm without an inspirer/mentor, and really, without a clear goal. And without those things, all work seems arbitrary. Could I write an article on this contemporary novelist that no one is publishing on? Sure. Could I research a famous columnist who needs more academic attention? Yup. But I could also learn to play an instrument, or build a website, or practice my armpit farts. They all seems equally valid and exciting on any given day. All this directionlessness is making me absolutely fucking batshit crazy. And sendentary---because without a direction, I can't bring myself to move at all. I'm going to assume that someone would tell me if there were an albatross hanging around my neck, right? [Look, Ma, from The Wizard of Oz to Moby Dick in 10 paragraphs or less!]

My return to the blog, then, is a bit of a flail, but one that I'm hoping will be productive. I've missed this little thing, and those of you who remain (and how impressed I am by those of you who continue to write! Kudos! I bet you have goals and shiz!). Let the navel-gazing begin!

Cement Boots in Quicksand

Somebody shoot me. Please. I've been writing my tenure letter for the past three hours, and I'm only on section three of six.
--Surely, Fluff, that indicates that you've been carefully crafting your prose, and that the sections you have written are lovely and a study in clarity!

--Why no, actually, it's just a vomit draft, thus far.

--Then obviously, Fluff, you have been consciously selecting the most important parts of your teaching, research, and service and describing the import of these for committee members who may not be conversant with the conventions in your discipline!

--Actually, I'm sort of winging it, writing my way into the relevance of any of the elements that I'm describing.

--Well, Fluff, if nothing else, there's precious little trouble you can get into when you're tied to your computer all day!

--Tell that to the empty candy wrappers that surround me.

Internal Time/External Time

On Wednesday, I met with a colleague to discuss our capstone course, since both of us are teaching it in the fall. Er, in a week and a half. When we had set the date for our meeting, he mentioned that scheduling it would inspire him to work on his syllabus. Two days later, he arrived at my house with a draft. I, on the other hand, had to search for my book order to remember what I planned to teach.

It will come as no surprise to anyone who reads this that I'm no good with deadlines. What I excel at, really, is the performative self-flagellation and denigration that precedes finishing any task. I've got varsity letters in the "waking up at 4 in the morning" event; and I could compete at the Olympic level in the "number of ways to call yourself a loser/punish yourself rather than actually do the work" race.

As my colleague left, he was quick to console me about my as-yet non-existent syllabus: "you have plenty of time, don't worry." And strangely, I wasn't. I know that I have about 8 days to produce three syllabi. One of those is a repeated class with minimal change-ups, but the other two are new, and so will require some work. I can fuss and overthink syllabi as much as any person I know, and yet I just can't get too worried about this. The syllabi will happen, and I'll be damned if I'm going to waste my last few golden remaining days of summer wearing the procrastinator's hairshirt. Remind me that I said this, of course, next Sunday when I'm up til 3 finishing the class schedules.
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While I'm grasping at the final days of summer, of course, I've already received two emails from my department chair about meetings and projects for the upcoming year---one of which apparently needs to be discussed on the first day of the semester. I am fully aware that administrators and chairs run on different times than faculty. HOWEVER. I am steadfastly refusing to respond until the beginning of next week. After 7 years as a faculty member at different institutions, I've only now resigned to the idea that the week before classes is work too---filled with obligatory meetings, social events, etc., in which I need to put on my dust off my happy mask (which has been moldering in a box all summer long, since my actual happy face has been working for me) and interact with people. I can accept that, with minimal grumbling. But that's the limit! No more! I refuse to relinquish the TWO weeks before the start of the semester! You can't make me! [throws self on floor, kicks and screams.]

RBOC, Haters Edition

•If my backyard is any indication, then any second now Morgan Freeman is going to show up and demand that I build a very large wooden conveyance for the animals. Even if he required that I grow the Noah beard, I'd do it, and for two specific reasons: first, I could get Lauren Graham as my wife, and then I could give help her get in a major motion picture that's a hit, which she so richly deserves, because she's super, and we could be the bestest of friends because I too love Amy Sherman-Palladino and can talk really fast. Second, because building a fucking ark is preferable to finishing this god-forsaken article.

•What the crap happened to the bulleted list function in Blogger? Did it disappear? Do I have to hand-code it or something? Screw that!! Although, again, preferable to
finishing aforementioned article.

•Clearly, I need to get writing, and I'm looking for inspiration. So, I've been thinking that upon the increasingly-slim chance that I ever finish, I am going to fully embrace my (not so inner) geek girl and buy this t-shirt, despite the fact that it has cap sleeves, which have the delightful tendency to make my arms look like stuffed sausages:



•You people who write all the time and are super productive? What's your stinkin' secret? And what's the deal with nothing ever being done? I keep finishing stuff, only to have to do revisions. Writing is like No Exit, only with words.

•I really really need to buy an external hard drive and back up my computer, but damn things are expensive. In the Fluff calculus, they're roughly equivalent to a really beautiful pair of fall boots. Who chooses storage over that? The people who don't lose their documents, that's who.

•Dammit. I'm running low on hatin' and thus it must be time to write.

So Easily Daunted

3 a.m. revelation: the difference between school year sleep and summer sleep (other than sweatiness) is the frequency of the wide-awake fretting sessions. During the year, I have these at least once a week. This summer, there have been relatively few. Until last night, wherein I realized that I'm quickly backing myself into a corner with this research project. If I don't get it off the ground soon, I'm going to have to offer the editor sexual favors. Normally, I'm not above that kind of thing, but it does put a cramp in my professionalism (and other parts, depending on the favor...).

So, I finally lowered my 4 a.m. pulse rate with the promise that I would start today, even if it were something small. One page of text, regardless of how good or bad it is. Start with the primary text, just to see what you're dealing with.

Now, I should note that my primary text is a set of videos. No, not like the Truffaut collection, but rather a collection of YouTube videos. When I first proposed this article, there were a small set of them (maybe 15). I've been sporadically favoriting them all spring, with the idea that I'd return to them as a data set. Well, well. I looked at the folder this morning, and realized that 3 of the 15 had been removed. Horror! So I typed in the keywords to the YouTube search, just to see what else came up. 373. !!!!!!! Guess what I'm going to be doing this morning?

You know, when I was but a nervous and wary graduate student, my plan was to become a scholar of British Modernism. Somewhere along the way, that morphed and morphed again. There are times when I'm happy not to be writing about something that has been written about by thousands of other researchers who are undoubtedly better readers and writers than I of those canonical primary texts. But occasionally, I just wish that my new/emerging primary texts would stand still.

Slack

Slack. noun. Origin: Latin. def 1: part of something that hangs loose, without strain. def 2: something of which I've been cutting myself too much. def 3: a paticularly hideous word for pants, associated largely with polyester stretch, which I avoid at all costs.

Slacker. noun. Origin: Southern California/Valley. Def 1: my current identity, particularly in the face of the things that I should be doing/have done. Related words: loser, lazer, irresponsible...

Somewhere post-April (and after the article/conference paper/grading bonanza blowout), I lost my will to care about deadlines. I used to feel terrible about these kinds of things, and the idea that I would be late, and thus be revealed to others as someone who is irresponsible and doesn't do things would be all of the motivation I needed to get stuff done. I'd wake up in the middle of the night worried about deadlines, about getting things to people, about all of the things that I hadn't accomplished.

I think April broke me.

It's the 13th of June (hello, Friday the 13th! Welcome to M. Night Shyamalan's world!). I have an article due for a collection in 17 days, and I just started the research for it yesterday. [In my defense, I laid out a preliminary outline that makes use of a number of sources I've been using in papers and my last article, so I'm not starting from scratch. Still. Procrastinate much?]

Meanwhile, I have yet to order books for two of my fall classes. The bookstore guy, who is the chillest human ever, is going to have my head. I'm going to have to turn in hard copies of the order forms with a dime bag stapled to each of them. At 5 this morning, I was worried about this. Right now? I'm realizing that it's noon on Friday, so I might as well plan on getting it to him on Monday---hell, he's not around on the weekend!

I can't manage to work up enough mojo to get worried that I'm not worried enough: I'm so meta, it hurts! I think I have to assume that this is the natural consequence of doing too much for too long. Last year at this time, I was attending a summer workshop in the Midwest after having taught a summer class after having attended a tortuous graduation ceremony aftern having taught new courses for the full year. Next week will mark my triumphant return home, and the anticipation of the nasty, itchy skin condition that lasted for a month. Basically, it boils down to this: I'm tired, bitches. In fact, if I could incite myself to move, I'd channel the queen of tired, Lily von Schtupp, linked here for your viewing pleasure.

I'm off to locate my motivation. If you see it anywhere, send it packing, will you? I don't want to have to put its picture on the back of a milk carton.

There is No Perfect Class

I frothed myself into a tizzy last night, as today is the first day of classes and I was, at 5 p.m., still without two syllabi. Then there was flogging of the "why didn't I do more of this over break?" and "why do I decide to teach new courses?" and "why don't I teach things in my old, familiar specialties instead of stuff that I'm learning?"

By 10 p.m., however, lulled into a false sense of security by the first episode of The Sarah Connor Chronicles*, I simply started plugging in secondary readings, firmed up my last few films for one class, and the online readings for the other. Why? Because eventually I get worn down by trying to pick the perfect readings and pair them with the perfect primary texts while devising the perfect assignment for the students while devising the perfect schedule. Bitch, please. It's a good thing that the semester begins, or else I'd still be trying to read more, watch more, in hopes of making the classes perfect. So: No, Virginia, there is no perfect class.


*I went into that show with great trepidation and very low expectations. Or, in the way that we express it in this household: "Pleeez don't let this super-suck. It's going to suck, right? I mean what are the chances this isn't going to suck?" But I was much heartened by the casting of Summer Glau, also known as River Tam from The Whedon's unnecessarily-benighted series Firefly. Do you ever have a series that you think is really dumb at the time (who the hell is interested in a sci-fi western?!!), and then later figure out that it's brilliant and you were too blind to see it? Yeah, well.

And for the record, I'd link all of this stuff, but dammit, it's the first day of class and I don't know what I'm going to wear!!

Just Say Yes

In the world of English, you have a choice to make about the week before Thanksgiving. Do you:

1. Make paper drafts due now, and thus hand them back before the break, or
2. Make them due the day before break?

This year, I chose #1, for a couple of reasons. First, because there's really only a week of classes left after the break, and that's just not enough time for a significant revision. There was also that very selfish consideration wherein the thought of a Thanksgiving break spent reading paper drafts fills me with existential dread. It's so lovely when pedagogical rationale and personal care-taking overlap!

What I did not anticipate, however, was a call-for-papers on the new project that I've been working on, with a deadline that fell in the paper-reading window. And when I say "a new project that I've been working on" what I mean is "something I've been thinking about, ordering books on, and accumulating various primary texts from around the web." Not "I have 15 pages of researched, polished prose that are well on their way to becoming an article." And so last week, I found myself faced with a dilemma: do I devote my precious few hours of acute mental energy to finishing up grading those last few assignments in order to clear the decks for the paper avalanche that came at the end of the week, or do I research and write a kick-ass abstract?

Normally, I would have made this decision by not making a decision. I would have dithered about it, feeling guilty about both, and thus spent those few hours reading all y'all's blogs and looking at sweaters online while trying to decide the best thing to do. This week, however, in the spirit of "stop punishing yourself," I chose, authoratatively and firmly. I chose option B, and I wrote my abstract.

I don't know if this makes me a bad teacher. I know that there are those of us out there who do it all: prep and teach great classes, manage massive service loads, AND do scads of brilliant research. I bow down before your efficiency and energy. I am not one of these people. If I've learned anything in the last four years, it's that I can't prep, teach, attend meetings, run a program, and do research all at the same time. And I've got the CV to prove it. For me, seeing to the students has always come first. And I've got the CV to prove it. So this time, I said yes to the research. And it reminded me that, contrary to my oft-held belief that I'm useless at the end of a long day, I could indeed sit in my office from 5-7 and write semi-comprehensible prose. And then I could run off to drink wine with my Theory-head reading group. Apparently, I can bring home the bacon and fry it up in the pan.

Perhaps it's the case that choosing actually shows me that I can do more than I think I can do. Or better: choosing, with the understanding that I can't do it all, actually enables me to do more than I thought I could. All I'm saying is, there are benefits to saying yes to work, instead of saying no to everything until work is done.

On that happy note, I'm off to read drafts to hand back next week.