Random Bullets of "Yes, I'm Still Alive"

I knew I hadn't posted for a while, but when Comrade PhysioProf sends you a one-line e-mail inquiring as to your continued non-deadness, it's probably time to post, even if you can't do so in flowing prose. So, here's me the past few weeks, in bullet form:

• I thought the pace would slow after tenure. Instead, what I find is that my work allocation now consists almost entirely of scheduling meetings, attending (or chairing) meetings, and filling out and submitting paperwork (often itself meeting-related). Teaching and research get whatever's left over.
  
• Actually, now that I think of it, a chunk of my meetings are teaching-related: I decided that, in both my undergraduate classes, I gave students the opportunity to rewrite the first paper, but only if they met with me and present me with their plan for revisions. And my graduate students need to meet with me about their paper proposals.
  
• Last night, I finished a draft of a five-weeks-overdue guilt-inducing project for a professional organization. I feel much better now. I also feel like I should have gone with my instincts and said "no." I did, in fact, say no to an outside thing I'd really like to do, but have no time for.
• After almost two years, I may be ready to date again, but I have no idea how one goes about it.
  
• I haven't been doing daily writing or yoga, and I feel stiff in both cases. But it seems like my spare home minutes are about grading.
  
• Although I did take an entire work-free weekend to myself two weeks ago. It was nice. Put me behind, but it was nice.
  
• I'm headed to Puddletown tonight! For four days! There may or may not be family drama.
  
• Holy crap, I'm tired.
  

In Which Girl Scholar Ponders the Road Not Taken

Lately I've been thinking more about this whole research/teaching/life balance thing, and no more than yesterday, when I was having a conversation with a friend and junior colleague. We were just walking to another part of campus to grab a cup of coffee to take back to the office, and the subject turned to teaching, and our recently increased teaching load. We're up to a 3-4 now. That four-course semester is rough, but it's even rougher on some of my junior colleagues, many of whom have been protected from even three-course semesters.

So, this colleague was talking about how he was dealing with it, and was making noises about how he was not going to be able to publish with the extra course load. At first, I was inwardly incredulous -- after all, many of us have been teaching the "increased" load for most of our time there. But then I had two thoughts:

First thought: it's only partly how much you're teaching; the real shock comes with adding a course to what you're used to handling, regardless of the absolute numbers. Whether you're being increased from a 1-2 to a 2-2, or a 3-3 to a 4-4, it's going to feel like the world is coming crashing down on you head. So it's not really fair that my first, fleeting thought was "sack up, man!" Thought banished.

Second thought: As I was trying to make encouraging noises ("Hey, I think you can do it -- it just takes some getting used to." "If you want a writing partner to keep you going, let me know. I'm happy to have someone to work with."), I found myself doubling back. Because I realized what I'd given up to maintain even a semblance of productivity under increased teaching loads: when I'm keeping on top of both teaching and writing, I have no life outside work. None at all.

You may think I'm exaggerating. I'm really not, or at least not much. If I socialize here in Grit City, it's with work colleagues. I don't have "vacations" so much as work trips to places that sometimes offer interesting scenery while I'm there. I haven't been on anything resembling a date in almost two years. I haven't taken the camera out in weeks. Nada. And still, I only seem to have time for six hours of sleep a night. Meanwhile, my colleague has a happy marriage in which he and his husband spend time together, cook, see friends, go on trips. Doesn't that sound nice?

It occurs to me that I may have made a bad bargain.

"The World within Reach" (*some restrictions apply)

This is going to be a hellaciously busy week. I made it so by taking a day off work Saturday, so now I'm facing 50 papers to grade, a committee meeting to chair, reports from said committee to write up, an assessment presentation to prepare and present, and then Thursday I leave for a weekend workshop.

And if I wasn't so busy, I'd blog about how SUNY-Albany (motto: "The World within Reach") has just told all of its professors of French, Italian, German, and Latin to retire or look for work elsewhere, because said university is eliminating those programs, leaving Spanish as the only language taught at this 18,000-student, Ph.D.-granting university. I'm sure I'd rant and rave, and perhaps have at least one intelligent observation in there.

But it's past 8 a.m., meaning that I'm late leaving for work and the beginning of my Very Busy Week. So I'll just link to the story as reported in Inside Higher Ed, and leave the comments to others.

Undergraduate History Bloggers?

Time to ask my knowledgeable and web-literate readers out there: can anyone suggest some really good undergraduate history bloggers? I'm faculty advisor for our undergrad history club, and I'd love to put them onto some of these voices out there, if they exist.

So: suggestions of thoughtful undergraduate writers on either particular historical topics, or on the undergraduate experience as a history student -- I'd love to hear about these.

Open letter to the student who takes his lunch every day in the main quad near my office

Dear Student,

For the record, I appreciate guerrilla art in which public spaces are transformed into performance spaces.

Your 80s-style boom box is not that. It's just loud. Really, really loud. I'm inside with my windows closed, and I still can't focus on anything more mentally taxing than blogging.

If it were a single day of this, I'd love it. Here's a guy who has found a way to challenge the way this space is used. Even the music itself -- old-school hip-hop -- is an interesting and even appealing choice (although right now you're spinning "Ghostbusters," so I'm not sure what to think about that).

But the fact that you're doing it every day has taken it out of the realm of the interesting and into a pathological need for attention (which you do not seem to be getting). Either that, or you're conducting a long-term psychology experiment to see how long people will pretend some social convention is not being transgressed when it actually is. In which case, I guess we're potentially back to interesting again.

In short, I can't decide if you're being unthinkingly obnoxious or deliberately provocative. I guess, for the moment, I'm going to treat you like I treat trolls on my blogs and figure that you feed on attention, making the best reaction none at all.** That's the approach that everyone anywhere near your vicinity seems to have adopted over the weeks: give this guy a wide berth.

But sweetie-pie, if the day ever comes when you do want someone to sit next to you -- or even within 30 feet of you -- when you eat lunch, you should really turn it down, or invest in a pair of headphones.

Keeping it real in my own way,

--N.Ph.D.



**This is actually my policy, and one I recommend for my readers/commenters: Do not feed the trolls.

Can somebody please explain this to me?

Here are the facts:

1. I am caught up on my grading, with the exception of half a dozen short papers I took in from my grad students tonight.
2. My bills are paid, and I will have enough money (barely, but whatever) to make it to payday on Friday. My credit card debt is going down, rather than up.
   
3. There are no current family crises, other than the usual background chaos.
4. My committee work is fine and solid until Friday, when more stuff comes in.
5. I have a presentation a week from Wednesday that I feel prepared for.
6. My travel to an upcoming one-day symposium does not require me to present anything.
7. My session organizer paperwork for Kalamazoo is turned in.
8. Ditto on my travel authorization forms and applications for travel funding.
9. I have bits and pieces to finish on two projects due by the end of the month, but I can get them done by this weekend, no problem.
10. I have eaten decently today, though I probably could have had a little less sugar and a little more vegetable and/or whole grains, and I got a moderate amount of exercise (two 15-minute bike rides), though I've been short on sleep for a couple of nights now.
    

So can somebody please explain why I've been suffering from low-grade but constant anxiety for the past two hours, as if there were something important that I haven't done? I mean, I think I'll probably feel better when #9 is done, and there's a little worry that one of those two projects is going to be half-assed, but really -- what's up here?

Argh. I hate feeling like this.

Academic Couch-Surfing

I have reached a new milestone in the ongoing tug-of-war between my desire to maintain a research profile in my field, and the ever-shrinking support for research-related activity (archive trips, conferences, symposia) at my non-Research University.

I am couch-surfing.

Here's the way faculty funding has worked in the past: the individual colleges have had pools of money to help partially support faculty conference travel and the like. The individual departments also have pools, though much smaller. Junior faculty are prioritized over those with tenure; actual presentations are prioritized over chairing sessions; simple attendance is only funded if there's something left over in the pot at the end (so, very rarely). All this strikes me as reasonable.

Unfortunately, as our overall budget has shrunk, so has the pool for travel funding. We used to be able to count on partial funding once a semester. Then it was once per academic year. Then the funding ceiling for that once-a-year funding was cut by 25%, which usually still covers airfare and registration, though not food or lodging. So I've been watching myself, trying not to go to too many conferences or focusing on nearby ones. If there's a specialist seminar within a day's drive, I made sure to attend, to keep myself in the game on the cheap.

And then, an opportunity: A one-day seminar about 500 miles away. The topic fits with a particular teaching specialty that my department wants me to take the lead on. It also fits with the new direction my research has been taking, and so would allow me to dive into the new field. They've got Big International Name as the keynote speaker. It's even held on a day where neither seminar itself nor the two travel days would conflict with my teaching schedule at all. And there is no registration fee.

How could I not go?

And yet... I would not be presenting anything. I'd be sitting there, listening, and learning. An important opportunity for me, but not something that I could get funding for under the current circumstances and guidelines -- guidelines that I, in principle, agree with.

So, how am I pulling this off without going $600 into debt? Simple: I have a friend from Puddletown who has temporarily relocated to a city about 35 miles from Seminar Location. Her city is also the location of the nearest airport. So she, blessed woman, has joyfully agreed to put me up for two nights, and has even offered to lend me her car for the round-trip commute. My price for this? Round-trip airfare on a budget carrier, and I pick up the tab for two dinners out with friend and her son (who have simple tastes).

I'm of two minds on this. On the one hand, I wish it didn't come to this. "If I didn't have to subsidize my own job, maybe I could pay off my damn credit cards! AAARRGH!!"

But the more I think about it, the more absurdly pleased I am with the way this has shaken out. I'm looking forward to seeing my friend before and after a day of heavy academia. And as a person who grew up hunting for her school clothes at the Goodwill, I'm still proud of getting something really great for almost no money. And I'm reciprocating by hosting professor and grad student friends whose research & conference travel brings them into Grit City's orbit. So my karmic balance is cool.

But I do hope that this is not the shape of things to come. Because I don't yet have good friends in every major university town.