The Academy’s Bench Warmer

Okay, I’ve got to get this off of my chest.  At the end of a very nice conversation the other day, one of my advisers said, “Oh, by the way.  That recommendation letter that you asked me to write?  Yeah, I didn’t get that sent until two days after the deadline.  I included an apologetic note, and in my experience these things aren’t a problem.  But you really have to stay on be about this sort of thing.”

what the fuck.

I had sent this person three separate e-mails as reminders about the letter, including one five days before it was due.  The first e-mail contained not only my request, but also the due dates, in bold.  To which the professor responded, “Happy to write the letters.  Send me the due dates so I can put them in my calendar.”  Okay, maybe she missed that in the original e-mail, so I sent the info again.  And then once more, along with a draft of my proposal, which I assume she didn’t read.  And still that wasn’t enough.  Apparently I need to call her the day before the letter is due and the due date itself.

So I’m learning to be a nag, which comes with its own perils (“Jeeze, that student sure is a pain in my ass.”).  But, c’mon, get your shit together.  I know $7,000 may not be a lot when you’re making six figures, but that’s a lot of coin to me.

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.

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.

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.

I note that my blog has been as boring as–per the saying–whale shit.  Actually, more boring; it turns out whale shit is quite interesting, as you’ll see here.  Many apologies to you all.  I hope to identify that little part of me that is interesting some time soon, and transfer it to the blog.  Meanwhile, I’m working away at my dissertation prospectus.  Had a productive morning yesterday, banging out half the outline.  Hope to do the same today, but I got barely a wink of sleep last night, so we’ll see how it goes.  Content-wise, I’m drifting more and more into work on the aftermath of colonialism in the 1960s and 1970s.  Suggestions on neocolonialism are most welcome.

One of the more depressing moments in a grad student’s life is when she figures out that she is simply not all that important to her advisor, at least compared to how important/influential the advisor is to her.  I–and I’m betting other grad students do this, too–idolize my advisor, and for good reason.  He’s written a brilliant book and finishing an even better one; he’s been published in academic as well as public-intellectual-type journals; he’s kind of famous, both in and out of acadame.  And I found out last week that my absolutely favorite historian, the Grand Poobah of my field, assigns my advisor’s book.  My first reaction was: AWESOME!  I’m that guy’s advisee!  Me!  And then I thought: who cares? I mean, who really gives a shit?  Certainly not the Grand Poobah or his students or their advisors or their other students or people who read journals or book editors or hiring committees.  And, sadly, probably not my advisor, either.  Not that he’s insensitive or mean; to the contrary, he’s probably one of the nicest people in this business.  But the fact of the matter is that I do absolutely nothing for him or his career.  I haven’t got my shit together and published the book and three articles I promised I would.  Hell, I haven’t even moved along in the program as fast as I thought/said I would.  All I am is a time-drain for him.  And it makes me feel like I did in junior high: the geeky fat kid who chummied up to the nice cool kid, who let me hang around out of pity.  What an icky feeling.

As I have already noted on this blog, I’m not the brightest bulb in the pack.  In fact, I’m quite mediocre compared to most of my graduate student colleagues and many of my students.  Part of that mediocrity, it occurred to me yesterday, stems from my upbringing.  Unlike many of my students and some of my friends, I am not the first person in my family to graduate from college.  My dad went to university, as did his parents–one went to Stanford and the other to Berkeley, for pete’s sake.  So the fact that I am now pursuing a PhD is hardly remarkable.  And despite my family’s collegiate history, I also did not grow up in a notably intellectual household.  The TV was always on; my mom listened to oldies, not NPR; the first “opera” I went to was actually Phantom of the Opera.  As I moved through the stages of academia, I came to know more and more people whose youth was spent in much more sophisticated environments–hosting guests in the parlor, going to the theatre (note the spelling), finding stacks of The New Yorker instead of Sports Illustrated in the bathroom, etc..

This particular life path has contributed to my mediocrity.  Unlike first-in-family students, I am not driven by a sense of family pride and purpose, the sort of relentless I’m-going-to-show-the-world-what-my-family-can-do motivation that I see in some of my friends and students.  I also don’t have the pressure of expectations that might come from growing up in an intellectual household; no one will be disappointed if I never publish a book or get a university job.  And so I float along, knowing that my family has given me every opportunity possible, but not entirely sure what I should do with those opportunities.

And that’s why I’m so frustrated: because I lack the imagination and creativity to do something remarkable with the freedom and opportunities I’ve been given.  I’m not constrained by family poverty or family expectations; I’m constrained by my own dullness.  That’s the source of my mediocrity, and I’m not sure how or whether I can get past that.

At the end of the day, of course, it’s not some earth-shattering problem.  I do my work, walk my dog, love my spouse: life is good.  Most of the time, that’s enough for me.

I’ve noticed that I’m getting increasingly pissy as the years go by.  Of course, this is more or less fine by me; I sometimes dream of being a grumpy old person sitting in a rocking chair on my porch, shooting the neighbor kids with a pellet gun.  But in the here and now, I’m just complaining and grumbling a lot (not nearly as fun as shooting neighbor kids, I imagine).  A couple things of late:

1) Long blog posts.  I’ve noticed this at DailyKos, especially, and some other places I like to frequent.   4,000 word-long blog posts?  Are you fucking kidding me?  Dude, I have a stack of books that reaches to the ceiling, and I’m expected to know them inside and out for my preliminary exams.  And even without that required reading, there’s a ton of other stuff by actually important people that I should be reading–you know, Eric Hobsbawm or E.H. Carr or Jane Jacobs.  4,000 word posts ain’t going to work for me–or many other people, I’d imagine.  Learn to write more efficiently, for shit’s sake.

2) Undergraduate employees in service jobs.  Was I really that stupid as an undergraduate?  They seem to be trained to not listen and give bullshit answers to questions that they don’t understand, then get all indignant about having to work a minimum-wage job.  Yeah, working sucks, which is why you’re in college and will hopefully get a better job once you’re out.  But for now, you’ve got dick for experience and training, and a bad attitude to boot.  Now get over it and get me my fucking hamburger.

Grrr.

My partner and I just spent four hours–four hours–cleaning house. It looks great; more importantly, when the place is a mess, I can’t think straight. As near as I can tell, that whole “mess=genius” equation must be true, because how else could you keep track of things in disorder if you weren’t brilliant? Anyway, while I’m glad–embarrassingly happy, actually–that the house is clean, I’m now wondering how I’m supposed to write summaries of this, this, this, and this, and when I’m going to find time to grade the forty papers on my desk, and when, exactly, the time will come to read this and this. All of this, of course, I’ve promised myself to finish this weekend. Good luck with that.

And that’s just the stuff that’s in the right-in-front-of-my-face file. There’s also the article I’m supposed to be working on, the book review that’s due in about a month (on a subject that I’m not nearly the expert I claim to be), and a half-dozen other projects that would add a bit of much-needed weight to my CV. The (albeit weakly developed) point: there is a serious disconnect between what departments say you should do–get something published, review a book or two, etc.–and the stuff they make you do–read books you don’t really need to (although perhaps want to), grade, and all of that.

And then there’s the dirty laundry!

“Would you please shut up? Shut up. Just shut the fuck up. I hate you.”

Such were my thoughts a couple weeks ago when I attended a “roundtable” in which the initial speakers* went on for twenty minutes each…despite having been told explicitly to take only four-to-five minutes each. But too many academics seem to lack the shut-up switch, preferring instead to go on and on and on and on, even when they, the audience, the chair, and everyone else knows they have gone on too long. And we all know not just because we (a) have watches, (b) are smart enough to keep track of time, and (c) can’t wait for the boring-ass talk to finish, but also because the speaker interjects, “I know I’m almost out of time, but I just want to say…” No, you are not almost out of time, you are officially out of time, and I don’t give a flying fuck* what else you have to say. And if I do, I’ll ask you about it during the discussion, which is why I came to this damn thing in the first place: to have a discussion. So just shut up for a while.

I’m inclined to believe that this is usually a function of innocent mistakes–not keeping track of time, getting carried away with your work, poor instructions, or at worst, lack of preparation. Still: get your shit together, practice your talk, take a watch with you, etc. And for those of you who think you are important or interesting enough to go way over your alloted time: you’re not. What you are is lucky: that the rest of us are too polite to get up and walk out. Because we’re all thinking about it.

Oh, shucks, I think I’ve gone beyond my allotted time. Anyone still here?

* Remember: roundtables imply general participation, not just presentation. The speakers are supposed to get things started for an open discussion, rather than simply presenting conclusions. At least that’s how I think of roundtables. Otherwise, what’s the difference from a standard panel?

** Perhaps one of my favorite expletives. Too bad it’s so nasty.