Dr. Crazy has a great post today about trying to demystify the kind of identity loss process of graduate school, the full scale annihilation of self that has inspired and still inspires the worst sort of imposter syndrome in each of us.
As I read it, I thought, Man, I wish I had read this about ten years ago. And then I recalled having said that to myself about fifty times over the last four years since I started blogging. So it occurred to me that maybe we should keep some kind of compendium of required reading posts for surviving graduate school, a kind of edited one-time carnival.
So, if you wouldn't mind, dear readers, could you complete as many of the following tasks as possible:
a) Check your archives for as many posts as you think would be useful for such a collection.
b) Think of posts you've seen at other sites that would be good submissions.
c) If the mood strikes you, compose such a post.
d) Maybe announce and link this post so your readers (since my readership is comparatively small).
e) Keep this post in mind if in 3 months someone else posts an essential post on surviving graduate school.
So copy post addresses in the comments, or just gmail me at delightandinstruct . . . if I get enough good references (and I'll poke around for them, too), I'll put up the results ASAP.
Friday, June 01, 2007
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Heat
A question for the internets:
Anyone have any sense at all of the comparative ecological / economical impact of a heat pump (electrical) vs. furnace heat (natural gas)?
No, of course it doesn't have anything to do with the fatal flaw in our HVAC on what is thus far the hottest day of the year here. Nothing at all.
Anyone have any sense at all of the comparative ecological / economical impact of a heat pump (electrical) vs. furnace heat (natural gas)?
No, of course it doesn't have anything to do with the fatal flaw in our HVAC on what is thus far the hottest day of the year here. Nothing at all.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
No, Really, I'm Writing!
So I've set aside most weekday afternoons for writing, after a good workout and a relaxed lunch.
Writing, and IMing friends, and surfing YouTube for old REM videos, and reading EVERYONE ELSE'S blog.
But no, really, I'm writing now. I swear. A page so far this afternoon.
Writing, and IMing friends, and surfing YouTube for old REM videos, and reading EVERYONE ELSE'S blog.
But no, really, I'm writing now. I swear. A page so far this afternoon.
Monday, May 28, 2007
Warm Fuzzies
I'm snuggled into the recliner with Imperia, watching The Backyardigans, making her giggle with kisses, and I say, "You're my favorite girl in the whole world, did you know that?" and she looks at me and nods proudly.
"Am I your favorite Dad?" Another proud nod...
"Daddy, do you know who is my favorite favorite daddy?"
"No" I say coyly, enjoying the amplification...
"Evie's daddy, Jason."
Oof.
"Am I your favorite Dad?" Another proud nod...
"Daddy, do you know who is my favorite favorite daddy?"
"No" I say coyly, enjoying the amplification...
"Evie's daddy, Jason."
Oof.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Bedtime Songs
Lately, the children have been very interested in an increasing repertoire of bedtime songs, and Rambunctious in particular has decided that he no longer wants his lullaby cd. So I'm getting a longer and longer list of songs to sing, but seem to need even more to add.
Not every nice, soft, quiet song makes a good lullaby, though, for if it relies too much on background instrumentation, or is repetitive in its melodic verse structure, the voice is the only thing to carry the line, and the song gets boring very quickly. This, sadly, is the problem with some of my favorite lullabies for cds, "Hallelujah" and "Halfacre", which violate both rules.
Here's what's in the repertoire now, though some, (like "Scarborough Fair") only get one verse, sometimes repeated once, to avoid being too mundane, and some (like Don Henley's "Lilah") only get snippets because I don't know them all.
"Scarborough Fair"
"Lilah" (Don Henley)
"Sweet Baby James"
"Tender Shepherd"(A lullaby from the musical Peter Pan)
"Edelweiss"
"Unforgettable" (Our wedding song)
"The Impossible Dream" (or, as rambunctious calls it, "The Important Dream")
"Soon it's Gonna Rain" (from The Fantasticks)
"Black is the Color of my True Love's Hair"
"In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning"
"Cecilia"
"The Lion Sleeps Tonight"
and, my favorite, "Moon River"
Willow also sings a few not in my repertoire:
"My Funny Valentine"
"Desperado"
"Peaceful Easy Feeling" (Someone's a big Eagles fan)
"Somewhere over the Rainbow"
"The Rainbow Connection" (which she's just told me, and which I must add into the rotation)
So what lullabies do you remember loving? What have you sung to your children? What makes a good lullaby for you?
Not every nice, soft, quiet song makes a good lullaby, though, for if it relies too much on background instrumentation, or is repetitive in its melodic verse structure, the voice is the only thing to carry the line, and the song gets boring very quickly. This, sadly, is the problem with some of my favorite lullabies for cds, "Hallelujah" and "Halfacre", which violate both rules.
Here's what's in the repertoire now, though some, (like "Scarborough Fair") only get one verse, sometimes repeated once, to avoid being too mundane, and some (like Don Henley's "Lilah") only get snippets because I don't know them all.
"Scarborough Fair"
"Lilah" (Don Henley)
"Sweet Baby James"
"Tender Shepherd"(A lullaby from the musical Peter Pan)
"Edelweiss"
"Unforgettable" (Our wedding song)
"The Impossible Dream" (or, as rambunctious calls it, "The Important Dream")
"Soon it's Gonna Rain" (from The Fantasticks)
"Black is the Color of my True Love's Hair"
"In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning"
"Cecilia"
"The Lion Sleeps Tonight"
and, my favorite, "Moon River"
Willow also sings a few not in my repertoire:
"My Funny Valentine"
"Desperado"
"Peaceful Easy Feeling" (Someone's a big Eagles fan)
"Somewhere over the Rainbow"
"The Rainbow Connection" (which she's just told me, and which I must add into the rotation)
So what lullabies do you remember loving? What have you sung to your children? What makes a good lullaby for you?
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
The Wimp and the Blimp
This was originally a post from the very anonymous blog I was doing with photos of this weight loss plan, and which I abandoned for many reasons. This was a post I thought worth saving, and after the weight-room post, this seemed a good time to revive it, now slightly revised:
I was a small kid, always in the bottom 10th percentile for height and weight. I started 10th grade at 4' 9" and 87 pounds: the smallest person in my grade, male or female. Pics of me as a boy are all ribs and knees and elbows. I was a runt.
Because I was a small male, my masculinity was often questioned: Though I did not look particularly odd, I was often derided in my early attempts at romance…(perhaps it was my winning personality). I often imagined that I was more feminine than my peers: I looked at my delicate fingers and wondered if they were a sign that I was queer. I tried to make myself larger by trying to be larger than life. Flamboyant in some ways, just loud in others…too proud of my smarts, which was often the only thing I really believed I had going for me.
I am looking over some snapshots from the years before I met Willow:
I am ten and standing in swim trunks at the top of an island overlooking a lake. You can count my ribs.
Two pictures when I am twelve--one a baseball team photo: The bat and the hat both look too big for my body. Though I am not the youngest player on the team, I am the smallest. Same for the soccer photo. I was third string.
I am thirteen, and standing next to a classmate: he is a full foot taller than I am.
I am at my sixteenth birthday party, talking to a female classmate. My arms are as slender as hers are.
In every single prom and homecoming photo, I am thinner than my date, including the vegan tennis player.
I am a freshman in college: I fit into my dorm neighbor’s corset—she is a riot grrrl, and unrelated, tiny. I am 5’11” a 130 pounds. My roommate is pretending to lick my breasts.
I am a sophomore: my girlfriend likes my legs, likes how I look in her tights, in her pleated skirts. I wear her black pleated skirt and tights with a cashmere jacket and a daisy in my lapel. (Clearly, the Morrissey period).
I am in the first year of grad school. I am 22, and still only about 140 pounds. I’m on a camping trip with a girlfriend. I barely remember having those high, hollow cheeks, those slender arms, the breakable wrists, the elegant neck, the body that fit into women’s clothes.
An anecdote: I am in the sixth grade, and one of my female classmates in the gifted and talented class (G&T) and I have bonded over choose-your-own-adventure books. She is heavy, and has some poor social skills. I am a runt, and my social skills are hardly first rate. We write one another notes. On a G&T field trip (riding the short bus—another designation that we are “special”), we sit next to one another, huddled down and choosing our adventure—let’s say, page 46—and the whispers begin in the back seats…and a line gets uttered. Some laughter. A refrain. A chant: “The wimp and the blimp! The wimp and the blimp! The wimp and the blimp!” We are trapped there on that bus, trapped both in our own separate, embodied shames. I am ashamed of my body, and hers. She is ashamed of her body, and mine.
I arrived at adulthood believing myself to be small, effeminate, encased in a body that I could not control, whose codes were written for me, not by me. I believed that I could eat whatever I wanted and not gain weight, because trying to gain weight had never been successful before. I believed that I would never be a masculine man because I’d never have a man’s body.
What all of this means now is that I was completely unprepared to think about my body as really part of me, or rather, it was a precondition that I had to work around, and not a part of the self that could be crafted. I had no sense that I had to take care of my physical health, how, or to what degree.
Moreover, because of the ways that I developed my persona around my body, I went into my mid 20s (and probably well beyond) with people challenging my sexuality openly, vocally and to my face. I am ambivalent about this phenomenon, to be honest, because I certainly questioned it plenty, myself, and I don't want to suggest that to be read as queer was an insult. But for one, it's almost as presumptuous as compulsory heterosexuality. Two, I really wanted to say, "Really folks. Do you think I could be this deep into an education steeped in gender studies and not have thought hard my own identity?"
Finally, it still tells me a lot about the ways that dominant culture still wants to try to link gendered, sexed, and sexualized bodies and indexical to one another. I have been married to Willow for more than 7 years now, and so my sexuality seems generally accepted, and I therefore cannot tease this out from my expanding body. But I don't think I'm any less flamboyant than I was when I was 25, any less interested in challenging gender stereotypes when I can. I just don't look as good in a kicky skirt.
But somehow, because my body now looks more like a normative male body, I'm not a wimp (though to be honest, I'm no more interested in proving otherwise than I was 20 years ago), and while the former students who read this blog probably know more about how I appear in front of the classroom, I believe I'm no longer read (at least vocally) as simply deluding myself about my sexuality.
I was a small kid, always in the bottom 10th percentile for height and weight. I started 10th grade at 4' 9" and 87 pounds: the smallest person in my grade, male or female. Pics of me as a boy are all ribs and knees and elbows. I was a runt.
Because I was a small male, my masculinity was often questioned: Though I did not look particularly odd, I was often derided in my early attempts at romance…(perhaps it was my winning personality). I often imagined that I was more feminine than my peers: I looked at my delicate fingers and wondered if they were a sign that I was queer. I tried to make myself larger by trying to be larger than life. Flamboyant in some ways, just loud in others…too proud of my smarts, which was often the only thing I really believed I had going for me.
I am looking over some snapshots from the years before I met Willow:
I am ten and standing in swim trunks at the top of an island overlooking a lake. You can count my ribs.
Two pictures when I am twelve--one a baseball team photo: The bat and the hat both look too big for my body. Though I am not the youngest player on the team, I am the smallest. Same for the soccer photo. I was third string.
I am thirteen, and standing next to a classmate: he is a full foot taller than I am.
I am at my sixteenth birthday party, talking to a female classmate. My arms are as slender as hers are.
In every single prom and homecoming photo, I am thinner than my date, including the vegan tennis player.
I am a freshman in college: I fit into my dorm neighbor’s corset—she is a riot grrrl, and unrelated, tiny. I am 5’11” a 130 pounds. My roommate is pretending to lick my breasts.
I am a sophomore: my girlfriend likes my legs, likes how I look in her tights, in her pleated skirts. I wear her black pleated skirt and tights with a cashmere jacket and a daisy in my lapel. (Clearly, the Morrissey period).
I am in the first year of grad school. I am 22, and still only about 140 pounds. I’m on a camping trip with a girlfriend. I barely remember having those high, hollow cheeks, those slender arms, the breakable wrists, the elegant neck, the body that fit into women’s clothes.
An anecdote: I am in the sixth grade, and one of my female classmates in the gifted and talented class (G&T) and I have bonded over choose-your-own-adventure books. She is heavy, and has some poor social skills. I am a runt, and my social skills are hardly first rate. We write one another notes. On a G&T field trip (riding the short bus—another designation that we are “special”), we sit next to one another, huddled down and choosing our adventure—let’s say, page 46—and the whispers begin in the back seats…and a line gets uttered. Some laughter. A refrain. A chant: “The wimp and the blimp! The wimp and the blimp! The wimp and the blimp!” We are trapped there on that bus, trapped both in our own separate, embodied shames. I am ashamed of my body, and hers. She is ashamed of her body, and mine.
I arrived at adulthood believing myself to be small, effeminate, encased in a body that I could not control, whose codes were written for me, not by me. I believed that I could eat whatever I wanted and not gain weight, because trying to gain weight had never been successful before. I believed that I would never be a masculine man because I’d never have a man’s body.
What all of this means now is that I was completely unprepared to think about my body as really part of me, or rather, it was a precondition that I had to work around, and not a part of the self that could be crafted. I had no sense that I had to take care of my physical health, how, or to what degree.
Moreover, because of the ways that I developed my persona around my body, I went into my mid 20s (and probably well beyond) with people challenging my sexuality openly, vocally and to my face. I am ambivalent about this phenomenon, to be honest, because I certainly questioned it plenty, myself, and I don't want to suggest that to be read as queer was an insult. But for one, it's almost as presumptuous as compulsory heterosexuality. Two, I really wanted to say, "Really folks. Do you think I could be this deep into an education steeped in gender studies and not have thought hard my own identity?"
Finally, it still tells me a lot about the ways that dominant culture still wants to try to link gendered, sexed, and sexualized bodies and indexical to one another. I have been married to Willow for more than 7 years now, and so my sexuality seems generally accepted, and I therefore cannot tease this out from my expanding body. But I don't think I'm any less flamboyant than I was when I was 25, any less interested in challenging gender stereotypes when I can. I just don't look as good in a kicky skirt.
But somehow, because my body now looks more like a normative male body, I'm not a wimp (though to be honest, I'm no more interested in proving otherwise than I was 20 years ago), and while the former students who read this blog probably know more about how I appear in front of the classroom, I believe I'm no longer read (at least vocally) as simply deluding myself about my sexuality.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Parts on the Floor
In between posts about gyms, bodies and weight loss, I am supposed to be re-writing this essay for the collection I'm editing. I presented an introductory version of the essay at a conference last summer, and it will likely be published online in the very near future. But that was only a 14 page version, and this version needs to be significantly more substantive.
So all this blogging is clearly a distraction from the other windows open on my computer: an outline, and old version of the essay, a document with chunks of the old version copied into the outline, but in an order no longer coherent, with huge gaps. Around me are new articles and books to consider and copies of the old essay with comments from the faculty research group.
This was supposed to be my first big project of the summer, and I want it done by the end of May. keep your fingers crossed, because instead of this essay being a smoothly running machine, right now it's just disassembled parts on the floor.
So all this blogging is clearly a distraction from the other windows open on my computer: an outline, and old version of the essay, a document with chunks of the old version copied into the outline, but in an order no longer coherent, with huge gaps. Around me are new articles and books to consider and copies of the old essay with comments from the faculty research group.
This was supposed to be my first big project of the summer, and I want it done by the end of May. keep your fingers crossed, because instead of this essay being a smoothly running machine, right now it's just disassembled parts on the floor.
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