I've just booked myself a self-catering flat in Paris for May! For two weeks! For a research trip. I started looking at apartments this morning and figured that I should get on the booking now, if I actually want to secure one of the less expensive ones, because I know that spring in Paris is going to book up quickly. (Less expensive is important because I probably won't get the SSHRC bucks, and I need to try and make my meagre start-up funds cover as much of this trip as possible.) So I've found a sweet studio in Montmartre, and it is RIDICULOUSLY inexpensive - like, shockingly, for Paris - but also has many, many glowing reviews from previous visitors.
I cannot wait! Even though it's eight months away, it provides me with a lot of light at the end of the tunnel of this year.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Friendship gush
I can feel that I'm coming down with something. Noooooo! Not surprising, given how run down I've gotten this week.
You could have had the joy of dealing with an enraged rant from me, earlier today. (Yes, more negativity from Hilaire.) Dudes, you would not BELIEVE the ignorant cows who live in this house and with whom I share my laundry facilities. But you were saved from me unleashing my fury on Blogger, because the phone rang - twice! - bringing me in rapid succession the voices of two good friends from across the country, one in Home City and one in Fun City One Province Over.
And now I just feel happy, and I want to talk instead about friendship.
The second caller was my friend M, whom I've mentioned before, like here and here. Other than GF, he's the person I talk to the most. Tonight he called me because he was feeling lonely. We talked for two and a half hours. And when I hung up, I had such a feeling of contentment and peace. I felt deeply, almost spiritually grateful for him. This man is a gem. More than that, our friendship is a gem. It's certainly rare that, as an adult, you meet someone you know will be in your life for a long, long time. He's one of those, for me. I know this, even though I have only known him for, really, less than 18 months.
My favourite aunt, F, introduced us. (M and I have talked about how she is owed a big thank you from the universe. If we ever manage to be in M's hometown, where my aunt lives, at the same time, we need to take her out for a wine-soaked dinner to thank her - I love wine-soaked dinners with F.) He and I have similar paths, both being academics in the same general field, and we're about a year apart in age. That's not enough to make a friendship, though, of course. But there is an almost uncanny affinity between us on a personal level, and it is only enriched by the academic connections. I think our friendship is so strong because of a deep interest in and respect for each other. Those sound like such dispassionate words, but they're not, not at all. They are the ground of our friendship. I've almost never felt such interest and respect, in either direction; in a way, my friendship with M shows me what those words can really mean.
And, lest that sound all too buttoned up and respectable, let me also say that M is one of the only people I talk about sex with, and that these are fabulous conversations in which we both laugh a lot and think a lot. (In fact, he laughs so loud I always worry about him pissing off his neighbours.) What's better than that combination, laughing and thinking? And that my New Year's Eve last year, spent drinking champagne with him, was one of the more fun ones I've ever had.
It just hit me tonight how really quite precious our friendship is. I had to share it, because it touched me. And I feel full of the love, blogfriends! Awww.....
You could have had the joy of dealing with an enraged rant from me, earlier today. (Yes, more negativity from Hilaire.) Dudes, you would not BELIEVE the ignorant cows who live in this house and with whom I share my laundry facilities. But you were saved from me unleashing my fury on Blogger, because the phone rang - twice! - bringing me in rapid succession the voices of two good friends from across the country, one in Home City and one in Fun City One Province Over.
And now I just feel happy, and I want to talk instead about friendship.
The second caller was my friend M, whom I've mentioned before, like here and here. Other than GF, he's the person I talk to the most. Tonight he called me because he was feeling lonely. We talked for two and a half hours. And when I hung up, I had such a feeling of contentment and peace. I felt deeply, almost spiritually grateful for him. This man is a gem. More than that, our friendship is a gem. It's certainly rare that, as an adult, you meet someone you know will be in your life for a long, long time. He's one of those, for me. I know this, even though I have only known him for, really, less than 18 months.
My favourite aunt, F, introduced us. (M and I have talked about how she is owed a big thank you from the universe. If we ever manage to be in M's hometown, where my aunt lives, at the same time, we need to take her out for a wine-soaked dinner to thank her - I love wine-soaked dinners with F.) He and I have similar paths, both being academics in the same general field, and we're about a year apart in age. That's not enough to make a friendship, though, of course. But there is an almost uncanny affinity between us on a personal level, and it is only enriched by the academic connections. I think our friendship is so strong because of a deep interest in and respect for each other. Those sound like such dispassionate words, but they're not, not at all. They are the ground of our friendship. I've almost never felt such interest and respect, in either direction; in a way, my friendship with M shows me what those words can really mean.
And, lest that sound all too buttoned up and respectable, let me also say that M is one of the only people I talk about sex with, and that these are fabulous conversations in which we both laugh a lot and think a lot. (In fact, he laughs so loud I always worry about him pissing off his neighbours.) What's better than that combination, laughing and thinking? And that my New Year's Eve last year, spent drinking champagne with him, was one of the more fun ones I've ever had.
It just hit me tonight how really quite precious our friendship is. I had to share it, because it touched me. And I feel full of the love, blogfriends! Awww.....
Friday, September 28, 2007
Consequences of fun
My week is sort of over. I had a productive day today - spent all day at the office, working my way steadily through a long to-do list. The most important part of it? I submitted my SSHRC application (well, submitted it for the rounds of my Chair's, my Dean's, and the university's signatures). That puppy nearly killed me. I easily spent 80-100 hours on that thing. I cannot tell you how happy I was to see the end of it. Though it's a little odd to think of 80+ hours spent on it, and me incredibly unlikely to reap anything from that. (Last year's success rate for the New Scholar category was 22% - though it was apparently closer to 50% at my uni, which is something.) Feels like a bit of a futile exercise.
The weekend is going to be a workfest, as all week has been. There were serious consequences to my mother's visit. Although I did some work every day, it wasn't enough. I got so behind that this week was easily the most stressful I've had in years. I did that awful thing, waking up at 5 in the morning - having worked until 11 the night before - because I hadn't finished my prep for the day. It's when I do things like that that I feel like life sucks.
That's fucked up, right? That we -and it's not only me, I know - face the consequences of having fun?? After all, I did in fact do some work every day. And yet that wasn't enough. There's something seriously out of whack here. And next weekend - Thanksgiving - my friend Kim is coming to visit for four days. I won't really be able to work during those four days: Kim is a very organized and efficient lawyer; she is so organized that, thought she works the crazy hours of any lawyer, she is also able to schedule time off and enjoy it with reckless abandon. That's what she'll be doing here next weekend. And all I can think of is the awful consequences of me spending the weekend having fun with her. Again - the consequences of fun. How ridiculous.
(And I fully recognize that I've taken much of this craziness on myself, organizing conference panels and initiatives and doing a SSHRC app without thinking about how they would actually play out in the fall.)
The weekend is going to be a workfest, as all week has been. There were serious consequences to my mother's visit. Although I did some work every day, it wasn't enough. I got so behind that this week was easily the most stressful I've had in years. I did that awful thing, waking up at 5 in the morning - having worked until 11 the night before - because I hadn't finished my prep for the day. It's when I do things like that that I feel like life sucks.
That's fucked up, right? That we -and it's not only me, I know - face the consequences of having fun?? After all, I did in fact do some work every day. And yet that wasn't enough. There's something seriously out of whack here. And next weekend - Thanksgiving - my friend Kim is coming to visit for four days. I won't really be able to work during those four days: Kim is a very organized and efficient lawyer; she is so organized that, thought she works the crazy hours of any lawyer, she is also able to schedule time off and enjoy it with reckless abandon. That's what she'll be doing here next weekend. And all I can think of is the awful consequences of me spending the weekend having fun with her. Again - the consequences of fun. How ridiculous.
(And I fully recognize that I've taken much of this craziness on myself, organizing conference panels and initiatives and doing a SSHRC app without thinking about how they would actually play out in the fall.)
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Books!
Adjunct Whore tagged me for a book meme! How perfect, since I have controversially declared this A Night Off - even in the face of all I have to do - and I am halfway through a bottle of really quite good wine, and sitting around thinking about books strikes me as exactly right...
Total number of books owned: Around 500, I'd guess
Last book bought: Caroline Cox, Seduction
Currently reading: Elsa Schiaparelli, Shocking Life. And the current issue of Bitch.
Five Books that Mean a Lot to You (with a bonus 6th because ya'll are doing it):
1. A Room of One's Own. I used a passage from it during the opening remarks at my dissertation defense, which were actually VERY meaningful to me. I got choked up as I read it. I teach this text and love it, for how it can be both such a product of its moment, and somehow so transcendent of that moment.
2. Simone de Beauvoir, La femme rompue. This collection of stories was the first I read - as a teenager - that described the intimate incorporation of oppression. I can't tell you what an impact that had on me.
3. Walter Benjamin, Illumations/Reflections. Illuminations with an introduction by Hannah Arendt. Adjunct Whore has these on her list. They were crucial for me, too. It marked the beginning of a new - and the most important - phase in my intellectual life to date. And the tragedy of it, of him, I found deeply touching. Arendt's introduction kills me.
4. Jan Truss, Jasmin. This was a young adult novel that I read over and over again. It was the story of a young girl who ran away. It is an incredibly solitary story - she's out there alone in the forest. The descriptions of profound alienation were really powerful to me at that age.
5. Carolyn Burke, Becoming Modern. Her biography of Mina Loy. More than any other text, this one is responsible for where I am now. (Ha - so maybe I can blame it for my unhappiness?)
6. Jeannette Winterson, The Passion. The title says it all. I read it over and over at a point when passion really mattered.
TAGS:
I don't like to pressure anyone, though I would truly like to see the answers to this from all my faithful blogfriends. Tell us about your books!
Total number of books owned: Around 500, I'd guess
Last book bought: Caroline Cox, Seduction
Currently reading: Elsa Schiaparelli, Shocking Life. And the current issue of Bitch.
Five Books that Mean a Lot to You (with a bonus 6th because ya'll are doing it):
1. A Room of One's Own. I used a passage from it during the opening remarks at my dissertation defense, which were actually VERY meaningful to me. I got choked up as I read it. I teach this text and love it, for how it can be both such a product of its moment, and somehow so transcendent of that moment.
2. Simone de Beauvoir, La femme rompue. This collection of stories was the first I read - as a teenager - that described the intimate incorporation of oppression. I can't tell you what an impact that had on me.
3. Walter Benjamin, Illumations/Reflections. Illuminations with an introduction by Hannah Arendt. Adjunct Whore has these on her list. They were crucial for me, too. It marked the beginning of a new - and the most important - phase in my intellectual life to date. And the tragedy of it, of him, I found deeply touching. Arendt's introduction kills me.
4. Jan Truss, Jasmin. This was a young adult novel that I read over and over again. It was the story of a young girl who ran away. It is an incredibly solitary story - she's out there alone in the forest. The descriptions of profound alienation were really powerful to me at that age.
5. Carolyn Burke, Becoming Modern. Her biography of Mina Loy. More than any other text, this one is responsible for where I am now. (Ha - so maybe I can blame it for my unhappiness?)
6. Jeannette Winterson, The Passion. The title says it all. I read it over and over at a point when passion really mattered.
TAGS:
I don't like to pressure anyone, though I would truly like to see the answers to this from all my faithful blogfriends. Tell us about your books!
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Post visit
My mother left late this afternoon. It was a much better visit than I'd have expected. I was able to keep a lid on myself, for the most part. We also had alone time - I couldn't take five days without doing any work, of course, so I had to be doing a bit every day. And she had some work to do on a couple of days, too. But every day we took some little excursion. Some of those excursions were sooooooo beautiful, my god! Seriously, this can be such an enchanted vacation-land. (Not such a nice place to live, as evidenced yet again by a phenomenal display of racist discourse in today's newspaper.)
What was good about the visit was that my mother is so incredibly easy to please. On Saturday morning, for instance, it was yucky and raining. We went to the farmer's market and then to the mall for boring towel- and sock-buying. Back by 12:30, and that was our activity for the day - a market in the rain, and a big, boring mall. But my mother gushed about what a "great day it has been." Not hard to entertain, see??
Of course, it is this over-the-top sunniness that I also find most difficult about my mother. Everything is beautiful - that's her favourite word. Last night we were out at a Japanese restaurant and she was eating her plain old steamed rice with soy sauce, and apparently that was "beautiful." Because everything is. It's just too much muchness, you know? I am actually quite a cynical person, and this kind of relentlessly celebratory attitude always feels to me like a grating over-simplification of it all.
Why so? Isn't happiness nice? Well, the thing is, we can't just be. I can't just be. There is always gushing over me. It feels like a lot of pressure, quite frankly. The other night, for instance, I was sitting there in my armchair, my legs swung over the arms, wearing some variety of pyjama-like clothes. "You look great in that chair," my mother beamed at me. For god's sake - I'm just freaking sitting in a chair in my pyjamas. Just let me be.
So that's the crux of it. I need to just be, and my mother has invested so much in me, her only child, that I chafe.
But anyway, it was a good visit, overall. I'm pleased about that - it felt like a hurdle. My mother is a very, very good and kind and lovely person. I need to remember that.
*
And now my heart feels like it's racing and all I can foresee over the next ten days is unbelievable quantities of work. I worry that I'll make myself sick with the state of stress I feel I'm in. Remind me never, ever to take on this much work at once, again!
What was good about the visit was that my mother is so incredibly easy to please. On Saturday morning, for instance, it was yucky and raining. We went to the farmer's market and then to the mall for boring towel- and sock-buying. Back by 12:30, and that was our activity for the day - a market in the rain, and a big, boring mall. But my mother gushed about what a "great day it has been." Not hard to entertain, see??
Of course, it is this over-the-top sunniness that I also find most difficult about my mother. Everything is beautiful - that's her favourite word. Last night we were out at a Japanese restaurant and she was eating her plain old steamed rice with soy sauce, and apparently that was "beautiful." Because everything is. It's just too much muchness, you know? I am actually quite a cynical person, and this kind of relentlessly celebratory attitude always feels to me like a grating over-simplification of it all.
Why so? Isn't happiness nice? Well, the thing is, we can't just be. I can't just be. There is always gushing over me. It feels like a lot of pressure, quite frankly. The other night, for instance, I was sitting there in my armchair, my legs swung over the arms, wearing some variety of pyjama-like clothes. "You look great in that chair," my mother beamed at me. For god's sake - I'm just freaking sitting in a chair in my pyjamas. Just let me be.
So that's the crux of it. I need to just be, and my mother has invested so much in me, her only child, that I chafe.
But anyway, it was a good visit, overall. I'm pleased about that - it felt like a hurdle. My mother is a very, very good and kind and lovely person. I need to remember that.
*
And now my heart feels like it's racing and all I can foresee over the next ten days is unbelievable quantities of work. I worry that I'll make myself sick with the state of stress I feel I'm in. Remind me never, ever to take on this much work at once, again!
Monday, September 24, 2007
Mr. K's new favourite thing
Thank you, all who commented that Mr. K would remember me if I sent him a well-worn t-shirt of mine. Above, he is sleeping on the t-shirt, which arrived today. R says that when she opened it up and put it on his bed, he went over to it and took his signature looooooooong sniffs of joy, while wagging his tail furiously. And now, she says, it is already his favourite thing.
Picture me smiling!
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Dudes, I miss my dog...
R sent this photo of Mr. K recently.
And this week Mr. K himself sent me a card. His hand bears a striking resemblance to R's own. :)
In it, he says, "R says that you're going to be home for Christmas - is that true? I've noticed that the air is starting to change and is getting colder, so I figure that must be pretty soon. I can't wait to see you, Hilaire - I'm going to go practice my bum wiggles now so I can give you a super good greeting when you come."
I miss him so much. I miss what it all feels like. I can't believe I will have to wait three months to see him...I so worry about him forgetting me. I think that would be the saddest thing of all. R always said I was his favourite, but I know that I will have been pushed out of that place after not seeing him for five months.
This week, in reponse to his card, I sent him one back. I also included a t-shirt I'd been sleeping in for a good many days. It smelled, well, slept-in by me, shall we say. I wanted to remind him of me. Maybe even to remind him of good things, like daily two-hour walks to the best parks. I wonder if dogs can have feeling evoked through smell. Probably not, but one can dream.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
The urge to flee
Sigh. I signed my name, along with four friends, to a letter to the editor of the local newspaper. We were commenting on an article recently published on the front page of said paper. The article reproduced racist stereotypes in a really shockingly blatant manner.
Anyway, so, five of us wrote a letter to the editor. And now some blinking IDIOT reporter who works at the paper (not the one who wrote the original piece) has written an infuriated and belligerent letter back to us. Not in the paper, mind, but sent to our personal emails. In which she calls us to task, saying that we are "burying our heads in the sand" and refusing to talk about racism, commanding us to, quote, "justify our actions," etc. When the bloody point of the letter is that we must talk about racism. She doesn't even understand the letter we wrote. For fuck's sake. The calibre of journalism in this city is so low that the reporter is practically illiterate. And thinks it's acceptable professional practice to send aggressive personal correspondence to writers of letters to the editor. Oy. You know, this place is quickly losing its Potential and becoming Scary City once again - around the time the offending article appeared, there was an egregious set of political decisions made that just make me sick. The better response, I know, would be to rouse my activist energies.
*
Anyway. My mother arrives tomorrow. For five days. This will be the longest I've spent with her in years. I remember going away with her for about four days, ten years ago. Otherwise, I've never spent more than a couple of days at a time with her. And we know how I get around my mother. This is going to be challenging. I really don't have time to play tourist with her, but I must do so at least some of the time. She doesn't drive, so she asked me to rent a car. So I must drive us on scenic outings. Eek. It all feels a little anxious - like the fact that I have 90 minutes between my two classes tomorrow, and I must during that time drive to the airport to pick her up, and then stash her in the office while I teach. Well, it shall all be a balancing act, that's all I can say.
Anyway, so, five of us wrote a letter to the editor. And now some blinking IDIOT reporter who works at the paper (not the one who wrote the original piece) has written an infuriated and belligerent letter back to us. Not in the paper, mind, but sent to our personal emails. In which she calls us to task, saying that we are "burying our heads in the sand" and refusing to talk about racism, commanding us to, quote, "justify our actions," etc. When the bloody point of the letter is that we must talk about racism. She doesn't even understand the letter we wrote. For fuck's sake. The calibre of journalism in this city is so low that the reporter is practically illiterate. And thinks it's acceptable professional practice to send aggressive personal correspondence to writers of letters to the editor. Oy. You know, this place is quickly losing its Potential and becoming Scary City once again - around the time the offending article appeared, there was an egregious set of political decisions made that just make me sick. The better response, I know, would be to rouse my activist energies.
*
Anyway. My mother arrives tomorrow. For five days. This will be the longest I've spent with her in years. I remember going away with her for about four days, ten years ago. Otherwise, I've never spent more than a couple of days at a time with her. And we know how I get around my mother. This is going to be challenging. I really don't have time to play tourist with her, but I must do so at least some of the time. She doesn't drive, so she asked me to rent a car. So I must drive us on scenic outings. Eek. It all feels a little anxious - like the fact that I have 90 minutes between my two classes tomorrow, and I must during that time drive to the airport to pick her up, and then stash her in the office while I teach. Well, it shall all be a balancing act, that's all I can say.
Monday, September 17, 2007
Not happy. But sometimes, riding home, I see the light
Dammit. This last couple of days has sucked. They have just confirmed how isolated I fucking feel here. For reasons having to do with structure, etc., that are unbloggable (which is really unfortunate, by the way; I'd love a good bitchfest about specifics, and how...).
That, and having fun menstrual and intestinal cramps for almost 48 hours now. Good times, good times. And today I was at the university for ten hours, all of them packed. Rode home as the sun set, getting here at almost 7:30. Knowing I could/should do hours more here. Had no break except for half an hour over my ever-so-virtuous home-packed lunch (when what I really wanted/NEEDED was nachos and whiskey), hearing terrible, terrible stories about terrible, terrible campus politics from my friend D. Yes, I know - not a break. Break would be stretching it. Major, major ugh is what most everything feels like right now.
You know, the one good thing in my life right now is my ride home. I mean, the ride to work is also fine, but it's 40 minutes of an UPHILL ride, and I'm always anxious to get there because I have to teach, etc. I don't stop to smell the roses, that's for sure. I think a lot about my screaming quads. But the way home - well, it's gorgeous. I can look around, can stop and say hi to horses, can pick apples, can look at bunnies, can watch the landscape unfold in front of me as I round certain bends. Sometimes - like today - I leave the campus completely dejected and exhausted and come home having gained a (bit of) lightness I'd never get if I had to drive, or take the bus.
(Might go poof, as they say...)
That, and having fun menstrual and intestinal cramps for almost 48 hours now. Good times, good times. And today I was at the university for ten hours, all of them packed. Rode home as the sun set, getting here at almost 7:30. Knowing I could/should do hours more here. Had no break except for half an hour over my ever-so-virtuous home-packed lunch (when what I really wanted/NEEDED was nachos and whiskey), hearing terrible, terrible stories about terrible, terrible campus politics from my friend D. Yes, I know - not a break. Break would be stretching it. Major, major ugh is what most everything feels like right now.
You know, the one good thing in my life right now is my ride home. I mean, the ride to work is also fine, but it's 40 minutes of an UPHILL ride, and I'm always anxious to get there because I have to teach, etc. I don't stop to smell the roses, that's for sure. I think a lot about my screaming quads. But the way home - well, it's gorgeous. I can look around, can stop and say hi to horses, can pick apples, can look at bunnies, can watch the landscape unfold in front of me as I round certain bends. Sometimes - like today - I leave the campus completely dejected and exhausted and come home having gained a (bit of) lightness I'd never get if I had to drive, or take the bus.
(Might go poof, as they say...)
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Sunday taking stock
I haven't been posting much of substance lately. I've not really had the inclination to reflect on things, strange as I feel right now. Which strangeness I think will last quite a long time.
But today I feel as if I can ask myself, how am I?
Well, I'm okay, I guess, thanks.
My classes are going great! Especially - and I can't believe I'm saying this - especially the large first-year one. They are a bunch of chatters. I ask questions of the lecture and get twenty raised hands. More importantly, they are asking questions like crazy. Even on the more ostensibly boring stuff, for which I expected a snore-fest on Thursday; they are completely engaged. The upper-year class is also lovely. So that is grand, and I'm very pleased about it.
My office feels as if it's a site of anxiety, though. I can't really relax in there. This has to do with a number of factors. For one thing, my back is to the door. I can't get over how much this bothers me. But it is anxiety-producing. (If I configure things differently, there is, like, no room in the office; it used to be different, and I was uncomfortable for different reasons.) And then because of the way my schedule is, I spend a lot of my time in my office either keyed up waiting for class to begin, or keyed up on adrenaline between classes or after the last one. There's a lot of anxious energy circulating in that small space. And then there's the lighting. Somewhere along the way I lost my own stand-up lamp that I put in my office, so now I have to rely on the bright overhead lighting. Which I LOATHE. Must change this by getting my own lamp!! I feel as if I need to also add plinky spa music and pieces of purple fabric draped around to make it feel soothing. :)
The research piece is good, though it's also a lot - too much, what with two upcoming conferences, two abstracts, the big grant application, an article recently submitted. I finished the first draft of my SSHRC application a week ago and sent it out to two people to look over for me. They're both about to send it back with their comments so that I can edit it. This whole exercise feels somewhat futile, since my chances are so low. But it's been actually quite good to have to write ten single-spaced pages detailing my project - I've nailed it in more detail than I ever have, and figured out exactly what I'm doing. Unfortunately, it's also a little disheartening to realize how different it will have to look from the picture I've painted, because I will very likely not get a grant and the tens of thousands of dollars that represents. The project could REALLY use that money.
The piece of the Teaching-Research-Service holy trinity that I am completely unenthused about is the service. Because I am spread too thin. Unfortunately, this job entails a huge service piece, what with developing a program. I couldn't even bring myself to think about it in any concrete way until yesterday, when I finally looked at some documents and mapped some things out. The thing - besides the fact that's there's too much else going on - is that I feel really unsupported. There's supportive talk - I had been led to believe that there would be help - but it is really clear that I will be doing all of this myself. And - meh. I realize that I like collaborative work, in lots of ways. Things like envisioning, which is what a lot of this work will be about, are much more fun when they are done with at least one other person. So that you can feed off each other's ideas and build some enthusiasm and momentum that way. In this case, when energy is hard to come by, given too much being spent elsewhere, I have nowhere to derive that momentum from.
Otherwise? Sadly, there's not much Otherwise. I have not much life. This concerns me. And it is certainly not what I have been before this. I always had a very rich and full life outside of work - partly because I was dancing and had that whole other universe to orbit in. Here, most people are work people, and most time spent at social occasions is talking about work. There is no escape. I did plough through the first season of Queer as Folk - a great pleasure, I found it - but that was in a really kind of over-the-top, come-home-exhausted-and-collapse-in-front-of-the-series-for-four-hours way. Balance must be found!
But today I feel as if I can ask myself, how am I?
Well, I'm okay, I guess, thanks.
My classes are going great! Especially - and I can't believe I'm saying this - especially the large first-year one. They are a bunch of chatters. I ask questions of the lecture and get twenty raised hands. More importantly, they are asking questions like crazy. Even on the more ostensibly boring stuff, for which I expected a snore-fest on Thursday; they are completely engaged. The upper-year class is also lovely. So that is grand, and I'm very pleased about it.
My office feels as if it's a site of anxiety, though. I can't really relax in there. This has to do with a number of factors. For one thing, my back is to the door. I can't get over how much this bothers me. But it is anxiety-producing. (If I configure things differently, there is, like, no room in the office; it used to be different, and I was uncomfortable for different reasons.) And then because of the way my schedule is, I spend a lot of my time in my office either keyed up waiting for class to begin, or keyed up on adrenaline between classes or after the last one. There's a lot of anxious energy circulating in that small space. And then there's the lighting. Somewhere along the way I lost my own stand-up lamp that I put in my office, so now I have to rely on the bright overhead lighting. Which I LOATHE. Must change this by getting my own lamp!! I feel as if I need to also add plinky spa music and pieces of purple fabric draped around to make it feel soothing. :)
The research piece is good, though it's also a lot - too much, what with two upcoming conferences, two abstracts, the big grant application, an article recently submitted. I finished the first draft of my SSHRC application a week ago and sent it out to two people to look over for me. They're both about to send it back with their comments so that I can edit it. This whole exercise feels somewhat futile, since my chances are so low. But it's been actually quite good to have to write ten single-spaced pages detailing my project - I've nailed it in more detail than I ever have, and figured out exactly what I'm doing. Unfortunately, it's also a little disheartening to realize how different it will have to look from the picture I've painted, because I will very likely not get a grant and the tens of thousands of dollars that represents. The project could REALLY use that money.
The piece of the Teaching-Research-Service holy trinity that I am completely unenthused about is the service. Because I am spread too thin. Unfortunately, this job entails a huge service piece, what with developing a program. I couldn't even bring myself to think about it in any concrete way until yesterday, when I finally looked at some documents and mapped some things out. The thing - besides the fact that's there's too much else going on - is that I feel really unsupported. There's supportive talk - I had been led to believe that there would be help - but it is really clear that I will be doing all of this myself. And - meh. I realize that I like collaborative work, in lots of ways. Things like envisioning, which is what a lot of this work will be about, are much more fun when they are done with at least one other person. So that you can feed off each other's ideas and build some enthusiasm and momentum that way. In this case, when energy is hard to come by, given too much being spent elsewhere, I have nowhere to derive that momentum from.
Otherwise? Sadly, there's not much Otherwise. I have not much life. This concerns me. And it is certainly not what I have been before this. I always had a very rich and full life outside of work - partly because I was dancing and had that whole other universe to orbit in. Here, most people are work people, and most time spent at social occasions is talking about work. There is no escape. I did plough through the first season of Queer as Folk - a great pleasure, I found it - but that was in a really kind of over-the-top, come-home-exhausted-and-collapse-in-front-of-the-series-for-four-hours way. Balance must be found!
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