So I've been wanting to get my livejournal printed and bound for awhile now, and so today, as a means of putting off work, I took the initial step of running it through LJBook's pdf creation app (which can then be edited and submitted to one of numerous online book publishers). I figured it would be too long for one volume, so I set it to include everything through graduation - the first four years I had it.
...that shit is *1100 pages long.* More than 375,000 words. I knew I wrote in it a lot as an undergrad but daaaaaaamn. By comparison, the next four years take up a mere 187 pages - granted I moved my public blogging here in the middle of that time and also did a lot of paper journalling for awhile in there too, but still. Wow.
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Adventures in Analogies
Being pleased instead of upset when mistaken for younger than you are : growing up :: feeling creeping horror rather than pride/elation when you realize your paper is going to be much too long : becoming a grad student
Sigh.
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Two-year anniversary in the Kingdom today (this account - I'm pushing a decade in total). Two years of wasting dramatic amounts of time and a not-insignificant couple hundred bucks or so in pursuit of cultural references, line-drawing aesthetics and completionist joy.
Worth it. Totally worth it.
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Text I just received from Kyle: im going to start telling people i live on the kanye westside so it sounds cooler
Writing is slow today - can you tell? I'm not sure why...out of practice probably, which always sends me relapsing into bad habits. How can it take so much time to write a totally reasonable 25 pages of answer when I already know exactly what I want to say?? It's so irritating.
Time to read me some inspirational Elbow quotes (helpfully listed on a sticky on the inside cover that I drew up last time I was having this issue), make a plan of attack, drink some more of this smoothie for energy and rally up.
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11:20pm. I'm calling it. I don't feel like I have nearly enough pages to show for my day, but I do have some - 6 to be precise, plus a solid pre-version of maybe 2/3 of the next one. I'm starting to see where I'll have to make cuts and where I need to allow time for more significant reshaping of material from my initial draft. I'm also getting a sense of where I'll be spending my limited strong-claim capital and where I'll be dressing up lit review in new clothing.
Wow I'm cracked out and tired and hungry and verging on incapable of recalling basic vocabulary. I need to step awayyyyyy from the keyboard - or at least the act of typing words, especially ones related to my draft.
Sigh.
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Two-year anniversary in the Kingdom today (this account - I'm pushing a decade in total). Two years of wasting dramatic amounts of time and a not-insignificant couple hundred bucks or so in pursuit of cultural references, line-drawing aesthetics and completionist joy.
Worth it. Totally worth it.
-----
Text I just received from Kyle: im going to start telling people i live on the kanye westside so it sounds cooler
Writing is slow today - can you tell? I'm not sure why...out of practice probably, which always sends me relapsing into bad habits. How can it take so much time to write a totally reasonable 25 pages of answer when I already know exactly what I want to say?? It's so irritating.
Time to read me some inspirational Elbow quotes (helpfully listed on a sticky on the inside cover that I drew up last time I was having this issue), make a plan of attack, drink some more of this smoothie for energy and rally up.
-----
11:20pm. I'm calling it. I don't feel like I have nearly enough pages to show for my day, but I do have some - 6 to be precise, plus a solid pre-version of maybe 2/3 of the next one. I'm starting to see where I'll have to make cuts and where I need to allow time for more significant reshaping of material from my initial draft. I'm also getting a sense of where I'll be spending my limited strong-claim capital and where I'll be dressing up lit review in new clothing.
Wow I'm cracked out and tired and hungry and verging on incapable of recalling basic vocabulary. I need to step awayyyyyy from the keyboard - or at least the act of typing words, especially ones related to my draft.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Slide!
The events of the past week or so are making me increasingly convinced - or perhaps more accurately, resigned to the fact - that Brandon Flowers is my spirit animal.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Adventures in Drafting (for 100 - to be clear)
It's a small thing, but it gave me a real sense of satisfaction to set up Thunderbird to send/receive emails for my E100 admin job. Despite my whole "digital writing = gist of my professional interests these days" thing I can be slow at updating software, adding new applications and programs to my daily routines, and other such tech-for-daily-living endeavors, so when I do take the time and initiative it feels good - and oddly empowering, especially when the directions fall a little short and I have to troubleshoot a little via instinct. I may not be a digital prodigy but damn it, I was brought up in a tech-friendly house and I am much more computer literate than I give myself credit for.
Spent an hour or so today doing my students' first writing assignment to use for all-class review tomorrow. It took more time than I expected even though I was pretty good about not revising as I went and just writing down what came to me - probably good to know in terms of assessing the workload I'm handing out. And it was enjoyable. The task was to "use your own life as evidence to research/explore a concept about writing." I chose the idea of writing as a means to an unknown end, and wrote about discovering that the reason I love writing in a journal/blog is because of the occasional yet amazing moment when you write your way into a truth or realization about yourself, the world, whatever, that you didn't have before.
But perhaps most interesting about the process was how heavily audience and rhetorical context shaped what I wrote. As instructors we're always lamenting that our students write for us, wishing they'd write for a wider, more specific and realistic audience - or even just write what they truly think. But it's kind of impossible not to consider audience, even when (as in this case) it's a piece that's supposed to seem written for a different imaginary audience (an instructor) than its actual one (my class). It wasn't even conscious (though vaguely so at times). But I wrote a very different essay than I'd have written for myself, or even for a 201 class. There are obvious sides to this - for example, I plan to tell them I wrote it at the end of class and so it can't reveal anything too personal or too authority-compromising. But more subtle ones too - I chose a different voice than I probably would have otherwise, wrote with a different sentence flow (lots of creative-runons, mounting clauses, etc). And then since it was for an all-class review, to model the idea of their first workshop Tuesday, I used a structure and a selection of points that doesn't fit as neatly, doesn't all seem totally relevant, to give them plenty of traction. I wasn't deliberately making it bad, by any means - just steering my SOCish writing away from connecting up points and towards making new ones. And such.
Anyhow, it was fun and interesting and a great way of putting off prelims for another few hours. Which I have *got* to stop doing.
Semester's going pretty well so far (aside from the "not enough prelims time" issue). Still enjoying being back on a schedule. Appreciating the arrival of fall (though it's accelerating a bit fast this week - don't rush it, Weather, it's officially summer still til the 22nd). Hoping to pick up some social slack and starting seeing people more regularly before long.
It could be a good term. I'm optimistic.
Spent an hour or so today doing my students' first writing assignment to use for all-class review tomorrow. It took more time than I expected even though I was pretty good about not revising as I went and just writing down what came to me - probably good to know in terms of assessing the workload I'm handing out. And it was enjoyable. The task was to "use your own life as evidence to research/explore a concept about writing." I chose the idea of writing as a means to an unknown end, and wrote about discovering that the reason I love writing in a journal/blog is because of the occasional yet amazing moment when you write your way into a truth or realization about yourself, the world, whatever, that you didn't have before.
But perhaps most interesting about the process was how heavily audience and rhetorical context shaped what I wrote. As instructors we're always lamenting that our students write for us, wishing they'd write for a wider, more specific and realistic audience - or even just write what they truly think. But it's kind of impossible not to consider audience, even when (as in this case) it's a piece that's supposed to seem written for a different imaginary audience (an instructor) than its actual one (my class). It wasn't even conscious (though vaguely so at times). But I wrote a very different essay than I'd have written for myself, or even for a 201 class. There are obvious sides to this - for example, I plan to tell them I wrote it at the end of class and so it can't reveal anything too personal or too authority-compromising. But more subtle ones too - I chose a different voice than I probably would have otherwise, wrote with a different sentence flow (lots of creative-runons, mounting clauses, etc). And then since it was for an all-class review, to model the idea of their first workshop Tuesday, I used a structure and a selection of points that doesn't fit as neatly, doesn't all seem totally relevant, to give them plenty of traction. I wasn't deliberately making it bad, by any means - just steering my SOCish writing away from connecting up points and towards making new ones. And such.
Anyhow, it was fun and interesting and a great way of putting off prelims for another few hours. Which I have *got* to stop doing.
Semester's going pretty well so far (aside from the "not enough prelims time" issue). Still enjoying being back on a schedule. Appreciating the arrival of fall (though it's accelerating a bit fast this week - don't rush it, Weather, it's officially summer still til the 22nd). Hoping to pick up some social slack and starting seeing people more regularly before long.
It could be a good term. I'm optimistic.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
omg wtf xkcd
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Now that it's getting cold out I'm remembering how annoyingly cold my fingers get when I type for extended periods in a house below 68 degrees. Though the semi-numbness from the chill does distract from the tingly-numbness from my compressed nerves. Look, I know I keep whining about this, but it's really fucking annoying. You know how if you *really* hit your funny bone - not a slight ding but the full-on slam into something that feels so incredibly not-good that you'd almost rather be in actual pain than have that feeling - the tingling in your last two fingers and the twinge in your elbow linger for a good while afterward? It's like that except in both arms any time I type for more than half an hour at a time. So. Lame. I'm getting an MRI next week (for reasons that aren't clear to me, but whatever), but I know that it'll boil down to "do these exercises and take Advil," only one of which I'll actually do on any regular basis, eventually leading to God knows what other kinds of issues. So yay.
In other news - I never thought I'd say this, but I really did enjoy reading my students' first papers. Why is that so surprising, you ask? Because they were personal narratives. With other components as well, but still - largely personal stories. And they were interesting (for the most part anyhow - this isn't MagicLand where everything is perfect and I have six ponies to pull my bejeweled carriage and a cushy tenure-track job)! I have some sharp-ass kids this semester.
First weekend back in the game
Ten years ago today I walked into homeroom after Senior Assembly just in time to see the second tower fall. My memory of the scene is incredibly vivid - particularly Mr. Raymond watching, how he was standing, his complete fixation yet lack of visible outward emotional sign. (This incredibly vivid visual recall of the moment of realization is something I know is incredibly common, and is one of the things that fascinates me most about 9/11 from a public memory perspective - that despite the incredible attention paid in academic work to the visual impact of media images, for me and many others the most vivid and personally "iconic" image of the event is relatively banal.) I remember seeing the first crash on TV while in Bio and laughing, everyone thinking it must be some stupid lost pilot in a Cessna. I remember wanting to feel it more deeply/seriously than I did, but really just reacting to the drama. How little I knew. How young I was.
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I'm reading through my long rambly draft of my prelims question to prepare for my meeting with Christa tomorrow, and it's actually kind of encouraging. I had been dreading it, but it turns out there's really a lot of good stuff here. And it reminds me that I often am capable of being a pretty damn good writer. Which in a time where I'm feeling pretty insecure about my ability to finish this shit and pass, is a welcome feeling.
It was a remarkably full/eventful weekend. [Aside - I have *got* to kick this habit I've fallen into of using slashes rather than making relatively simple word choices. It started in late spring in an effort to facilitate faster drafting, but it's gotten out of control.] I did a very respectable amount of work while also having two major social nights (each of a very different flavor to boot). After an August of the same monotone lethargy-tinged shit over and over day in and day out this is a nice change, but also an adjustment. It's hard to wrap my head around the fact that tomorrow starts another whole week full of activity, obligations and social potential. But while it's a change it's one I welcome. I'm tired, sure. But I'm alive again. The rhythm of the semester is cutting through the paralyzing influence of anxiety and grief - and for that I'm thankful.
Even if such liveliness, both personally and professionally, can sometimes be a pain in the ass..
-------
I'm reading through my long rambly draft of my prelims question to prepare for my meeting with Christa tomorrow, and it's actually kind of encouraging. I had been dreading it, but it turns out there's really a lot of good stuff here. And it reminds me that I often am capable of being a pretty damn good writer. Which in a time where I'm feeling pretty insecure about my ability to finish this shit and pass, is a welcome feeling.
It was a remarkably full/eventful weekend. [Aside - I have *got* to kick this habit I've fallen into of using slashes rather than making relatively simple word choices. It started in late spring in an effort to facilitate faster drafting, but it's gotten out of control.] I did a very respectable amount of work while also having two major social nights (each of a very different flavor to boot). After an August of the same monotone lethargy-tinged shit over and over day in and day out this is a nice change, but also an adjustment. It's hard to wrap my head around the fact that tomorrow starts another whole week full of activity, obligations and social potential. But while it's a change it's one I welcome. I'm tired, sure. But I'm alive again. The rhythm of the semester is cutting through the paralyzing influence of anxiety and grief - and for that I'm thankful.
Even if such liveliness, both personally and professionally, can sometimes be a pain in the ass..
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