Today has been a deeply hard day in the land of this particular dissertator.

I have this chapter draft.  I have helpful comments from my advisor.  I have a recording of the helpful conversation I had with my advisor last month.  When I read the notes, or listen to the recording, I feel like I have a very clear picture of what needs to happen with ( Read more... )

I can never really allow myself to think about it being spring, or nearly spring, until it is actually March--this despite the fact that I have lived all of my life in places where it is not unusual to get snow well into April or May.  And February is traditionally a cruel month to me and mine, so even a mild February feels treacherous and ( Read more... )

Sometimes I think I had better focus before I was a grad student.  Before the mountain of work seemed so vast that the temptation to run away from it was as strong, or stronger, than the desire to do it, because even with an enormous shovel the pile never seems to get any smaller.  Some of the emotionally and intellectually hardest work of writing ( Read more... )

For a long time, people would ask me how the wedding planning was going and I'd say "Oh, fine.  We have a venue and a cake lady and a photographer and an officiant and I'll think about the rest of it later."

Then suddenly it was later.  Now we're down to the under-three-month mark and I've been spending a lot of time and energy getting details ( Read more... )

I had a truly amazing and inspiring weekend at the Iron Pentacle workshop I attended.  I knew I needed to do the work that the Iron Pentacle calls for (the points are sex, pride, self, power, and passion, for the curious) but was feeling a fair amount of trepidation about what it would mean to work on those points and engage the shadow side of them ( Read more... )

Our friends are awesome.

lyonesse , nacht_musik , veek , and And/or housemate M. got Tish and I an early wedding present of tickets to the opening night of Jewels and a dinner at Mistral.  We haven't had the dinner yet, but tonight was opening night for the ballet and we had ninth-row seats to see it in all its glory.

Jewels was first performed in 1967.  It is a full- ( Read more... )

I end a lot of my days right now with a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment, the feeling that I have Kept On Top of Things and Accomplished Work.  I am, or at least it feels like I am, getting better about following up on things like email, phone calls I need to make, small chores, etc.  In the evening I look behind me and see a trail of ( Read more... )

There were the minutes that crept away from me, vanishing into cracks and crannies despite my frantic efforts to hold them in my hands ( Read more... )

A few months back some of the students in my department decided that they wanted to take a more active approach to learning to be good and effective teachers and so have gone about organizing some pedagogy workshops with administrators and professors.  They have also set up a "pedagogy buddy" system, where grad students are paired and commit to ( Read more... )

I don't tend to think of myself as an indecisive person.  Sure, when I'm tired or worn out I'll be more likely to turn decision-making over to somebody else when trying to decide where to eat dinner or what movie to see.  And I'm sometimes I'm equally happy any one of mutliple options.  But I get stymied when I am presented with truly vast arrays ( Read more... )