Comprehensive Exams In Social Media

So... I'm working on an eloquent, thoughtful post about what it is like to be an academic and a mom, but at the moment, my brains have dribbled out my ears, so I thought, to give a taste of what it is like by giving you a sampling of my social media posts over the past month while I've been plodding through Comps.

Comps day 1: I'm weirdly excited about my question set. I must remember this is not the time or forum to write a scathing tract calling for disciplinary reform.


Comps Day 4: I had a dream last night that I was having lunch with Kofi Agawu and debating a point I'm making in my 1st comps essay.


wishes she lived in a world where words have simple meanings... the genius who brought her this delicious crepe has never spent 5 days considering the essential nature of the banana or the meaning of the word 'text.' (Consider this the Comps Day 5 report)


Brain no worky. Time for sleeps... back at it in the morning... 2500 words to write by sundown Sunday. 


Plan for today: eat yummy Mexican food, reread some cultural theory, buy cheap kid clothes, eat ice cream, write 700 words. I'm that cool.


My child just handed me my copy of the Turabian Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations. Am I reading too much into this, or is she saying 'get to work, lady?'


Comps Day 8: A day behind schedule. I think this is fine, if I can get essay 1 sorted today, and essay 2 should be easier, so will take less time, right?


Comps day 9: I seem to be going through all of the stages I usually go through developing a project, but in quicker succession-- excitement, panic, crippling self-doubt, bitter anger. Usually I have several months to cycle through all of this. In other news, I've written the same footnote so many times I no longer need to consult the publication info in the front of the book


Comps Day 10: I have realized that my interest in Charles Ives may stem from a sense that at least my writing is more organized than his. So I'm going to bed... perhaps clarity will be with me in the morning.


People who have an undergrad degree in anything think they know what grad school is like: undergrad w/ more reading, less drinking. That's like saying you know what parenting is like because you used to babysit in high school or you have a dog.


Comps Day 11, you are dead to me. Comps Day 12, I still have hope you can make up for your neighbor's shortcomings.


Mid-day report for Comps day 12: Out of negative word-count territory and in need of a break before they think I'm moving into this coffee shop. Heading to the Magnolia-league music library with a baggie full of change so I can make the copies I need before the weekend.


It is very weird to cite your friends in scholarly prose. I want to say 'so-and-so, who I've been roaringly drunk with multiple times….'


You should see what my kid can do with a bowl of oatmeal.


What is 1500 words between friends? Or between student lackey and established academicians determining her fate forever?


Then it's a good thing my problem isn't a shortage?


It seems like I spend more and more time reading things and thinking 'that sucks' even when it is stuff I'm supposed to respect.


Comps Days 13 and 14 report: I have decided that Scrivener is the best writing tool ever. The more I work through these projects, the more features I start using. Essay number 1 is almost finished and essay number 2 is in progress. Essay number 3... well, according to the schedule, I don't have to worry about that until tomorrow.


Thank you, Google Books for being so utterly useless.


If I'm ironic and no one hears it does it mean I wasn't ironic or just that no one gives a shit? Or that I'm a hipster?


Yes. I know it is weird to sit in the coffee lounge of the YMCA working with musical scores. You don't need to glare at me.


Comps Day 17: Just dug out my dog-eared old copy of Rosen's The Classical Style. This thing might really be going off the rails.


I hate end notes. I always have. I hate them even more in e-books.


Comps Day 18: Wrestling coherence out of an incoherent mass. Also, realizing my paper-saving strategies might be a profit-boosting scheme for my eye doctor.


More in statements in parenting that I never thought I'd hear: 'Don't yell into the toilet, please.'


Comps Day 22: It is amazing just how much of my work process involves making tea and shopping for shoes on the internet.


Comps day 24: I'm quickly reaching the point where hygiene is optional. I've also learned exactly one thing about my discipline: we hate trees


Comps day whatever: moment of truth time. Essay 1: 6524/5000 words. Essay 2: 3275/5000 words. Essay 3: 2853/5000 words. I know what to write, now it is just doing it in crunch time. The editing task does flummox me a bit, though.


Back to the mines. I'm finally confronting the major source of my word overage, so today's goal is to let a couple of respected scholars off the hook. At least for the sake of comps.


Going to bed now. Comps essay number 1, for the spectators out there, is written and edited, but for the formatting and its lack of a title.


Thinks 'Because I Hate Myself' is a bad title for her last essay, no?


Comps, the Final Hours: Me, 3 essays, one PB&J, CBC, and the CMS. 1 Hour of fixing crap, and I'm DONE. If it isn't done by then, it must not be important.


And DONE. (Assuming no technology SNAFU) All research materials are officially grounded until further notice and I'm going out for cake. Then I'm going to sleep.

Less Than Perfect

So I'm really good at my job. That is, I'm really good at the job for which I go to a place and spew knowledge at the masses. I've been slacking at the one where I'm an attentive and interested mom and the one where I finish my graduate degree before the apocalypse. But for the teaching gig, I'm in the top 5% of my peers. (Before you make this into me being a great educator, my competition includes an individual who makes presentations interesting by including animated gifs of cats shuffling cards.)

So I've come to a conclusion. I have to stop being so good at job C to be better at jobs A (being a good mom) and B (Ph.D before social security kicks in). I think I'll still be in the top tier of my fellow adjunct instructors of random class that kids take to fill up requirements, but I just can't keep acting like this role is more important than the other stuff. Because if I do that, it may lead me to never finish my degree and for my daughter to wind up on the pole, because she never got enough attention from her mom. She already sometimes calls the sitter Mommy.

I was a teen in the 1990s. Slacking should come way more naturally than it does.

Whatever.

I (heart) My Job

So as part of my 'first-day-of-classes' spiel, I mention that I change more than my share of diapers while at home, so I rather expect my students to behave as through they are (metaphorically) potty-trained. I say (and have a power-point slide to back me up, so you know it's serious) 'Since you have been admitted to this university, I expect that you are at least 17 years old, and therefore an adult. I expect you to comport yourself as such.'

Now, let us pretend for a moment that they all know what the word 'comport' means. The thing is, one of my sections is made up almost entirely of brand-spankin'-new freshmen. (Are we calling them fresh-people these days?) They need their hands held for every task I expect them to accomplish.

In some ways, it is exactly like parenting a toddler.

Bad Mommy

So, the Bug has had an illness since Saturday. (It is now either Thursday or the First of Octember,  I am honestly not sure which at this point.) The cold/flu/whatever (more on that in a minute) came pretty much on the heels of immunizations, so we've had 2 weeks of lousy sleep and clingy toddler and Mommy staying up until midnight to get her work done. (Or just not doing it. My students barely notice that they're supposed to be in class. If I use the wrong word, how likely is it that they think I was speaking Portuguese and so weren't listening anyway?)

So what does the Bug have? Well, she either has a cold or she has hand-foot-and-mouth disease. When we went to the baby doctor on Tuesday (while the Bug had a freak out on account of being in the same place where a week before they had stuck her with needles. Note that she remembers the needles, not the Popsicle she had as a consolation prize), she had a red throat and a sore on her tongue, so the doctor came to the conclusion that it could be HFM, but that it could be instead a cold with a coincidental bite to the tongue.

It doesn't really matter. Treatment is the same for both: rest, fluids, cuddles.

So last night, her fever went away, totally for the first time in days. Although she slept with us, once she was in with us, she slept like a rock. (A 31.25" rock that slept horizontally in the bed, leaving me with about 18" of the bed to sleep in. Whatever. She spent the night before last flopping her head onto my stomach and kicking DH in the armpit.) This morning, she woke up cheerful and ready to play. She even ate some breakfast. She had no fever. I checked. 3 times I checked.

So I decided to take a chance. Even though, strictly speaking, she didn't quite meet the 24-hours fever free, I took her to 'school' this morning. I told a big whopper little white lie that she had been fever free for the officially sanctioned amount of time. Within 2 hours they called me because she had been mopey during gym time and wouldn't eat her lunch, so they checked her temp. 100.6. So I got her, brought her home, and now she's napping. I'm feeling a bit guilty, since she could have stayed home with me from the start, but... them's the breaks, I guess.

I Miss Being a TA

Before the Bug was born, I had what was, in some senses, the perfect job. While it paid almost nothing, it also had almost zero real responsibility. There was enough busy work to leave me feeling as though I had earned my paycheck, but not so much that I was truly overburdened.

Now that I am fancy-pants adjunct instructor of meaningless-liberal-arts-whatever, however, I have all the responsibility I used to so gleefully upward delegate. Grades, curves, all of this are 100% up to me, which is kind of scary. Also in my corner are the 10.000 whiny e-mails that will go like this:

Student: I don't understand why I got an F in your class. I came to class, I did pretty well on the tests.

Me: Well, actually, Student, you did okay on the tests, but you failed to turn in any of the written work.

Student: I didn't know it was assigned.

Me: It was listed on the syllabus, mentioned in class, and an assignment sheet was posted to the course website. 

Student: It's not fair. I'm telling, and I'll do what I have to to get my grade changed to the grade I think I deserve. 

I so wish this was an example was an exaggeration, but sadly, not even a little. Indeed, I might be representing the Student in this exchange as though they were being more reasonable and mature than they actually will be when the excrement hits the fan.

Therefore, I miss my old job. Seriously. I have no desire to deal with any of this. I want to head into summer blissful and ignorant of what a terrible and unfair human being I am. Growing up sucks.

A New Adventure

So, in addition to teaching, dealing with random campus lockdowns, a baby who had a hella cold last week, and everything else, let's add one new adventure to parenthood. Travel with the Bug in tow on work matters.

Since the Bug is still nursing, it seems imprudent to travel for longer than a work day without her with me. So, if I go, she goes. Also, since the DH works long, occasionally unpredictable hours, it seems like I am the natural and ordinary baby supervisor.

So of course, last year, when I was relatively unencumbered, no matter how many abstracts I submitted to conferences, I couldn't get anything programmed. I probably wouldn't have been able to get a letter to the editor published in a local paper. This year, I am, for conferences I have heard back from, 3 for 3. I am actually programmed on 3 separate conferences, one of which will require international travel.

And I have to attend these with the Bug in tow. One of them, I have already persuaded the DH to come along and Bug wrangle. The other is being held about 45 minutes from my parent's house. While this will involve a plane flight, it is essentially a scam on my part to get my employer to pay me to take her for a visit with her grandparents.

I'm trying to convince my parents that they want to take a vacation to the international conference. We could all go together. They could spend 4 straight days playing with their granddaughter. I might tear my hair out (there is, after all, a reason I asked to go to boarding school at the age of 15), but they'll all have a splendid time.

But how do I balance my party-girl conference self (in so much as academics are, in fact, party girls) with my mom-self?

Also, how to take the pack 'n' play on a plane then a train and get us and my sanity there in one piece? Is it possible to do such a thing with a 15-month-old and remain sane?

I'm not really sure, but what I am sure of is that some hilarious posts will ensue.

Balance?!?!? WTF Was I Thinking?

So I'm working Mom now. 3 days a week, I venture out in the wee hours of the morning and impart wisdom on young minds. I teach them important things, although the recent batch of tests may make that statement appear to be untrue. At least, I stand at the front of a room and say important things. If they're not listening it isn't my fault.

And my life has swung wildly out of balance. I'm on the crazy-swing-ride that lands right in the middle of crazy town. I had finally found some sort of rhythm to the stay-at-home mama thing... I could balance most of what I wanted to do with the needs of the Bug and my DH's inertia. I'm doing all sorts of things I never used to do in my working life or my mom life. I'm letting the Bug watch TV to keep her busy, I'm not exercising, I'm eating fast food more frequently than I care to admit.  (I recognize that some of these are only contributing to the problem of lack of balance.) I'm burning the candle at both ends, and things are getting kind of toasty here in the middle, too. I get up at 5:30am, but I don't go to bed until midnight. I do work on weekends, and I'm fantasizing about a pedicure that I never seem to have time for.

In other words, this is hard, trying to be a good mom, while also trying to be a good adjunct lecturer. Both are hard by themselves. Together, I feel like the whole thing is held together with string, scotch tape and baling wire, and this is without making the time I need to get my research back on track.