Money Troubles

My spouse and I are staring down the barrel of an ugly budget situation.  I’m teaching now, but come 2010, I got nothin’, and that’s putting us through a bit of stress.   There’s about a $500/month gap between our current expenses and our 2010 monthly income, and I’m entirely sure how we’re going to close that gap.  I’m not freaking out…yet.

This is part of being a graduate student, of course.  I remember a former adviser warning me that  graduate school is an exercise in well-read pauperism, or something to that effect.  It hasn’t been that bad for me, mostly because my spouse has been pulling the load.  But I’ve also had pretty steady work as a TA and now as an adjunct, so I’ve been chipping in to the family budget.  That stops in January.  Originally, the idea was that we would save up while I did the adjunct thing, and then I’d stop teaching and dissertate full-time.  That didn’t go quite according to plan, so now I find myself in a position very similar to that of other graduate students, I imagine.  I’m firing away fellowship applications, hoping that they come in so that I can pay for research and life expenses.  I’m hoping that  promised summer and fall teaching jobs come together, so we’ll have that income.  And I’m toying around with getting a proper job, at least enough to cover the expense/income gap.

For the next couple of years, this will probably be my life.  There will be times when the cash is flush (while I’m teaching or when a fellowship comes in), and there will be times when we’re leaning pretty hard on my spouse’s salary.  It’s not a condition unique to graduate students–migrant workers, seasonal labor, or start-up/slow-down factory workers all have to deal with this shit.  And hell, that’s real work, so I really shouldn’t be complaining.  I just wish I had learned this particular lesson earlier.

Stolen: Wind from My Sails

For about one hour this morning, I was in a state of inspired productivity.  I came up with an intro for a paper that I’ll be presenting in March; I had an idea for a lecture that I’ve been struggling to conceptualize; and I think I figured out how to restructure an article that I’ve been editing.  I was riding high.  And then I looked up the name of this fellow who I had been told might be working on something similar to my dissertation.  Similar?  Try exactly the same.  This guy’s got an article coming out, and he’s been nice enough to post it on-line; reading it, I felt like I was reading my own thoughts.  Shit, he even started his piece with a quotation that I used in my dissertation prospectus.  What the fuck?  I actually sobbed a little.  Crushing.

Fortunately, my adviser’s quite good at talking people down from their ledges.  He reassured me that I have nothing to worry about.  My topic is big enough for the both of us, me and this other guy, and probably more people, too.  He also reminded me that I am an environmental historian, and noted that this other guy is a diplomatic historian, so it’s not exactly the same thing; in fact, these are very different approaches.  And this might help when I go to look for a job, because this other fellow’s book (he’s a professor at Harvard) will be out five-six years before mine, so I’ll have a literature to directly engage.  All it really means is (a) I gotta get my ass moving on this and (b) I need to make sure to clearly define my environmental history approach to the whole thing.

Still, I’m a bit deflated.  It looked like I was going to kick some serious ass today–on a Friday, no less!–but now, not so much.  Instead, it may turn into a day of administrative work and video gaming.

My Writing Process

It seems that the longer I spend writing, the longer my writing process becomes.  I’m now up to no fewer that five steps:

1) The warm-up.  Getting the fingers going and the brain clicking.  Blog posts are good for this, although it means that you, dear reader, have to put up with it.  It’s kind of like the first batch of pancakes–the griddle’s not quite hot and the batter hasn’t fully set, but you’ve got to throw something on there anyway.

2) The page puke.  Get all that crap in my head out on a piece of paper so I can get a sense of what I’m dealing with and what ideas I want to hit.  Others call this a “brainstorm,” but that sounds far too creative.

3) The outline.  My outlines have become monsters.  We’re not talking broad ideas here; my outlines stretch from thesis all the way down to the pieces of evidence I’m going to use.  I have a feeling that this is going to have to change as I work on longer projects–say, a dissertation–but this has served me pretty well so far.  This is really where I’m doing the thinking and creating–building the argument, finding connections, creating segues, etc..  That’s probably why my outlines are so detailed–I want to make sure I don’t forget how it all goes together in the next step.

4) First draft.  A steaming pile of crap.  For a while, I was trying edit-while-writing, but that road leads to one sentence a day for me.  So I just try to push through without worrying about grammar, punctuation, slick sentences, etc..  Just get the logic worked out.  Evidence can also wait–put some brackets where I’ll want it later on.

5) Second draft.  Where the major revisions occur: style, argument, evidence.  This is also the point of no return; once I’ve committed to this level of revision, I’m committed to finishing the project.

6) Final-ish drafts.  Here’s where I put the thing out to my friend-reviewers.  Their comments can take me all the way back to step four.  Rinse and repeat until draft is shiny, soft, and full of volume.

Grumpy Bastard

I’ve been doing my level best* to confine my teaching–including prep work, etc.–to Tuesdays and Thursdays, leaving M/W/F for dissertation.  But I keep falling behind, and this week I had to stay up late on Monday and get up early on Tuesday to grade and prep lectures.  Predictably, classes yesterday went poorly.  Fine; we’re allowed bad days, I say.  I’m more concerned that I was a truly grumpy and unpleasant bastard from Monday night through Tuesday.  The students, fortunately, didn’t bear the brunt of it.  My spouse, unfortunately, did.  Turns out I’ve developed an impossible need for absolute silence when I work, and it becomes even more exacerbated when I’m under the gun.  My spouse having the audacity to breathe or offer me a glass of water–well, that was simply unacceptable, and I delivered a few sharp and extremely ill-advised remarks.  Ugh.  Apologies galore, and my spouse forgave and understood, proving once again that I am the junior partner in the relationship.

Lessons learned?  Get my shit done during the day, especially if it’s due tomorrow.  If I’m going to work in the evening, choose stuff that’s not time-sensitive–reading a book for my dissertation is fine, but grading papers that need to be returned tomorrow is not.  And if that means that I need to do teaching prep during part of a dissertation day, so be it.

* I love that phrase.  It ranks right up there with “I don’t give a flying fuck.”  Which, of course, I shouldn’t say.  Dirty, dirty words.

Don’t Worry, Because The Job Market Always Sucks

The brilliant, insightful, and eminently likable kungfuramone is on the job market, and it’s freaking him out a little bit.  To which I have three thoughts:

1) Don’t Panic, because there’s nothing to be done about the history job market.  It probably sucks.  It’s always sucked.  The only thing you can do is work your ass off–write a good dissertation, do some teaching, maybe get an article published–and cross your fingers.  If you’ve got connections or favors, call them in.  But try not think about the state of the job market; doing so only wastes time that you might spend getting something else done.

2) Then again, if KFR is worried, what hope is there for me?  KFR is fucking brilliant and really nice.  If KFR can’t get a job, that either (a) proves that it’s all just a crap shot or (b) bodes ill for the less skilled, like me.  Which brings me to…

3) Back-up plans.  In this area, I think people who have worked outside the academy have an advantage: we know that regular work isn’t the end of the world.  Serve coffee?  Okay.  Computer support?  I guess so.  Sales?  I’d rather not, but it’s a job.  I’ve done shitty work in the past, and I’ll do it again if I have to.  So will KFR; that kid hasn’t been locked in the tower all his life.  But the Straight-Throughs (k-12 -> undergrad -> grad) seem unable to conceptualize doing regular work.  Maybe that’s why I notice younger grad students clutching their pearls more than older grad students.  Except for occasional lapses like KFR’s.

And mine, right now.

The Gambler, Graduate-Style

Yesterday I spent somewhere in the neighborhood of five hours searching for fellowships and grants for next year.  What a mind-numbing experience.  Also a bit frustrating, because I’m pretty sure that I won’t be getting any of those fellowships.  No Ivy League credentials, no publications, and (gasp!) a lot of time spent teaching instead of researching.  I suppose there’s a chance that I’ll get lucky; it’s pretty much a crap shoot, as far as I can tell, depending more on the mood of the reviewer than the quality of the application.   It’s kind of like playing the lottery, except that I’ll spend hours-upon-hours of writing time instead of dropping a buck and getting a squishee at the Qwik-E-Mart.  Sigh.

Still…wouldn’t it be great if I got one?  And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the sentiment that will keep me coming back for more.  I believe it’s also what keeps people at the slot machines.

Corkboard tech

Zotero’s a great tool for note-keeping, reference-gathering, and citation generation, but there’s something about punching a hole in a notecard that makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something.

The Joys of Scheduling

Yesterday, my adviser called me and told me to do two things.  First: don’t cock up the conference paper I’ll be giving in March at the American Society for Environmental History; apparently, my panel’s chair/commenter does not tolerate shit work.  Okay, my adviser didn’t say that exactly, but that’s the gist of it.  Second: make a dissertation schedule and work diary.  This is fantastic for at least three reasons:

1) My adviser seems to have a pretty good feel for what I need in the way of direction.  Just the other day I was musing about how to proceed as ABD, and then BAM!, a phone call telling me what to do.  I suppose there’s an off-chance that my adviser reads this blog, but I’d rather think that my adviser (a) knows me well enough to give me a push when one is needed and (b) has seen enough ABDs treading water to know that an adviser’s intervention can be very important at this stage.  In short: my adviser’s advising, which is excellent.

2) Turns out that maybe I do matter to my adviser.  Nice to get the attention.

3) I get to make lists and schedules and calendars!  I have a perverse affection for to-do lists and the like, and my adviser has basically given me license to schedule to my heart’s content.  In addition to creating a calendar for finishing the dissertation and making a schedule that builds in dissertation time every day, my adviser also wants me to write a work diary, to keep track of what I do (and don’t accomplish) each day.  At first I thought to put that on this here blog, but (a) how mind-numbingly boring would that be! and (b) I’ve come to see this blog serving a different function for my academic development, extra-dissertation-wise.  Plus, it means I get to buy a cool notebook.  Bonus.

On Schedule, Or Getting There

About a month ago, I became/went ABD (All But Dissertation, for those fortunate to have avoided such a silly acronym).  I did so before the official beginning of my fourth year in the PhD program, which puts me right on track with the norm.  In our program, you’re meant to be done with your coursework, minor field, comprehensive exams, and dissertation prospectus by the end of your third year, and I just made it.  So hoo-ray for that.  Since then, I’ve been busying myself with teaching two classes (African American history is going quite well, thank you for asking), occasionally looking through microfilm for an article I’m revising, and playing Civilization, one of my favorite video games of all time.  What I haven’t been doing is my dissertation.  I’ve read a few books, spoken with some people in the field, and put in a few billable hours of “thought” or “conceptualization,” but I haven’t done any real research.  Nor have I looked into fellowships and grants, which I’m pretty sure I should be doing.

Today, I make a concerted effort to do what I should be doing.  But what should I be doing, exactly?  The last three years have consisted of identifiable hoops through which to jump.  Now I’m on my own, equipped with a vague sense of what I need to accomplish–get fellowships, write a dissertation, get a job–but little idea of how to do those things, exactly.  There are some more experienced graduate students whose example I can try to follow, but (a) I’m frankly unimpressed by much of their work and their (lack of) progress; (b) no one provides specifics on what they’re doing, exactly; and (c) everyone’s case is different.

So off I go.

The Weeds in Weeds

A non-academic interlude…

My spouse and I have been watching Weeds on DVD.  I’m not entirely sure why.  I’ve seen a couple episodes over the past few years, but when we signed up for Netflix, we decided to put Weeds on there, and now we’re hooked.  Sure, there are some cool things about the show.  Mary Louise Parker is gorgeous.  The original premise–suburban mom selling pot to her over-medicated and under-worked neighbors–is funny, interesting, and strikes a chord about the character of American suburbia.  Nancy (Parker’s character) has some obvious psychological issues with her deceased husband, and that help explain a lot of what she’s doing.  Her brother-in-law is funny, as is Kevin Nealon’s character, and the kids are likable enough (although Silas’s teenage angst is a bit over the top at times).  So, it’s pretty good for a TV show.

But I’m getting increasingly irritated with all of the balls dropped by the writers.  There are simply too many things that get brought up, floated around, and then disappear without explanation.  A short list:

• Whatever happened to Celia’s other daughter, the one Silas was dating in the first episode and then, if I remember right, got shipped off to Mexico?
• In the first season, the writers gave Celia cancer and turned her into a nice mother.  But by the second season, she was a mean mom again, now that the cancer had cleared.  It’s as though the writers decided that they needed a mean character, and they were trying to get out of the story arc they created.
• Nancy’s DEA boyfriend/husband seemed like a really, really nice guy.  But then he turned into an asshole: abusive of Nancy’s children, violent, and totally and utterly corrupt.  But without explanation.  Again, it’s like the writers regretted their decision and tried to undo it: they created this DEA character, killed him off, and then turned him into a real asshole so that the viewers wouldn’t feel bad that he got killed.
• Did Nancy keep the rest of the dead-DEA-husband’s life insurance policy, or did she pay it all back to the agent’s first wife?  And what about his pension–it got brought up once, but it’s been forgotten.  Is Nancy getting that check or what?
• Why did Matthew Modine’s character get off so easy for owning Celia’s drug house?  All he had to say to the DEA agent was: I owned it, but I gave it to this other women (without a paper trail), so talk to her.  Bam.  Done.  WTF? as the kids say.

We’ve only just started watching  the fourth season, so I suppose there’s hope that these loose ends will come up again.  There’s also a good chance that all of this has already been explained on the interwebs, but because I don’t want to spoil the rest of the season, I’ll wait until I get caught up.  But for now, I’m kind of hoping that season five will be the show’s last, so I can be released from this unfortunate addiction.

This sort of crap never would have gone down in Arrested Development.