January 23, 2008

i can has female role model?

Posted by dogpossum on January 23, 2008 6:21 PM in the category academia

My hormones are rumbling, and I'm beginning to feel a little self-doubting.

This year's plan is as follows:
1. (semester one): make book.

2. (semester two): make teaching and/or research.

But things have gotten complicated. I've been offered different work by different university departments. Teaching? I has it. Exploitative first year tutoring? I choose not to has it. Researching? Hmmm. Interesting repeat teaching of last semester's Mega Teaching Experience, offering op to rework lectures and tutes and general Make It Gooder? I think I choose to has it.

Book? Oh, yeah, it's harder than it seemed. Rewrite? Why? It was a perfect thesis - there were no corrections needed! And what if I break it? Rewrite? But how? I mean, what exactly should I do? How should I do it? This rewriting - what exactly do you mean by that? Publishers. Yes, well. I choose Routledge. I choose them because it is an Impossible Dream, and we are in proximity to the Big Dream type stuff. Don't hold your breath though, homies - could be a long wait. There may be some resistance to my Choice.
And then, of course, there's the long, unbroken future spent tappa-tapping away at home, on my own, far, far away from other academic types. Trapped in a kind of netherworld, the Land of Far Far Away from Institutional Support. But also the land Relatively Close To (but not actually in) An Early Career.

I'm finding I'm more than a little needy with middle aged women academics. I'm looking for validation. For direction. For sound advice and useful criticism of my written work. I want pencilled comments in the margin of my work. I want an hour of uninterrupted Me Time with someone I admire and respect (and whose entire function, during that hour, is to listen to me, be interested in me, and most importantly, let me know how I'm going). I don't really know how to do this sort of larger project all on my own. Not only is the writing style I've spent 4 degrees and about 15 years perfecting almost completely inappropriate, every word I write seems to scream 'Feelings of inadequacy! Lacks confidence in own thinking! Overly defensive!' It's like I'm reading the internal monologue of a young woman dancer from the local McDance school. GoDAMN this whole over-achiever thing. I am hopelessly institutionalised and no longer capable of functioning on my own without a role model.

All these feelings are of course the product of my rampaging hormones. Premenstrual anxiety and self doubt? I HAS it.

This lolcat has, consequently, assumed disproportionate importance in my life:

Posted by dogpossum on January 23, 2008 6:21 PM in the category academia