Stage one: I survived a violent and difficult childhood yet still grew up to be creative and tenacious in what I wanted from life. I attended 18 schools in 8 years. My family lived in a several states and dozens of cities in those states. I graduated from high school without being pregnant. At 25, I married a man I did not know well and we lived in Japan. The marriage didn't last, and I returned to the United States.
Stage two: I returned from Japan with a baby, a box of baby toys, a suitcase of our clothes, and a perspective about life and culture that I could not have gained had I not lived in that marriage. Back in the US, I had to figure out how I would rear the child and form a meaningful life for us. And it was hard. I worked a series of meaningless jobs that paid a little more per week than the cost of child care. We struggled.
Returning to school seemed an idiotic choice (as others told me), but I felt it was the right thing. I'd always wanted to go to college, but I didn't know what it looked like. I didn't know HOW to go to college. Nevertheless, I signed up for courses at the local community college. I reasoned that if I earned an AA degree, I'd get a "great" job and I could provide for my family. I continued to the BA degree then the MA degree, all the while rearing my daughter, providing her a home, being involved in the community and youth activities. I held full-time jobs while attending school, but with increasing amounts of education, I could get positions that allowed us to live a more comfortable life.
During this phase, my daughter grew to be a creative, generous, talented, and forceful young woman. She grew up in one neighborhood. She attended school with many of the same children throughout their 12 years of required education. She graduated from college and now is in graduate school. She is not a statistic.
Earning the Ph.D. was a struggle in and of itself for me. It took nine years, but it's finished. Finally. With the Ph.D., I can move onto stage three of my life.
Stage three: It begins now. With all that has lead me to this point in my life, I am anticipating significant growth and change to occur in this stage. I'm ready for it. It begins now.
Earlier this week I realized that I'm done. I can't do any more. I can't. Finishing (and defending) the dissertation, conducting a national job search, teaching eight classes, handling a recurring medical issue, and dealing with the ordinary occurrences of life . . . I'm done. I can't do any more of anything. I can't. Who knew this year would end up being so hard. I surely didn't.
Therefore, some random bullets of crap:
As I ready myself for the next stage of my life and a new career, I reflect on the work I have done in the past. Jobs. I have had a lot of them. Some have been perfectly fine what they were -- ways to earn money. Others taught me a lot about myself or about what I wanted from life. Others taught me that I did not want that kind of existence. But I learned from them all.
A representative sample of the jobs I have held:
My first "real" job: For a few years, I worked at Mott's Five-and-Dime store. I don't know if they are still around. At the time, Mott's sold plastic flowers, plastic and tin kitchen items, polyester fabric, Butterick/Simplicity patterns, sewing notions, hardware, school supplies, candy. It had such a unique smell, the smell of cheap and dust. The "sales girls" all earned $1.00 an hour for our time, and we worked about 15 hours a week. The manager could get away with giving us only $1 an hour because we were all underage, 13, 14, 15. At the time, I didn't realize how wrong that was ... to hire underaged girls. But then, how else could the assistant manager show his employees porn? Anyone older might have said something.
o
My shortest job: For one day--or one shift--I worked in a greenhouse pulling growth shoots off tomato plants. I was in high school. It wasn't a bad job, but it wasn't too terribly interesting or challenging. However, I never remembered which was a "shoot" that would stifle tomato growth or which was the "branch" that would eventually grow a tomato, and for that one shift I pruned the wrong part of the plant. Maybe it was more challenging that I gave it credit for.
Continue reading "Lessons Learned (from a lifetime of work)" »
But it's new. To me.
Lannie Flowers, someone I knew and cared about long long ago, has finally produced an album of his own music, a CD called "Same Old Story." It's about time. I always loved his voice and the music he could create. I'm glad he was able to do this this. (To be fair, he's been involved in other recordings, but those recordings were in groups.) Reviews state that "Same Old Story" is "45-minute pop collage." Good description. None of the song snippets on the CD are more than two minutes long, and there are 36 of these snippets. It's an interesting concept, the song snippets. The parts. The pieces. The pieces of history, Lannie's musical history. It allows one to recreate the whole from the parts. I find this highly interesting, as any number of "wholes" are created from those parts.
I do, however, wish I could hear the entire songs that were created / crafted from these snippets.
As I listen to this CD, I'm reminded of his musical influences, those artists he introduced me to when we were teenagers: Artful Dodger, Elvis Costello, the Tubes, Mott the Hoople, the New York Dolls, the Velvet Underground, the Ramones (we did the pogo at Panther Hall*), Patti Smith, the Sex Pistols, and oh-so-many more musicians and artists. He introduced me to Springsteen's music. He probably didn't have any idea the impact that introduction would have in my life, but there you go.
But give the CD a listen. It's Barthian. It's postmodern. It's different. It's good.
* You'd have to know the place and its history to understand how truly bizarre this actually happened to be. Fun yet bizarre.
One of my favorite professors in grad school gave me a book: Tom Peters' Reinventing Work: The Brand You 50, Fifty Ways to Transform Yourself from an "Employee" into a Brand that Shouts Distinction, Commitment, and Passion. I pulled it off the shelf the other day after reading a book very similar to it but not as good: Me, 2.0.
The following items come from the Introduction to Peters' small book, in what he calls a contrast between "a-Day-in-Dilbertland-in-'Right-sized'-Towers" and the "Liberating-New-World-Order-of-brand-new-Brand-You" (6-7). I give you 10 of the 20 he lists:
|
|
“Brand You” World |
|
“Employee” World |
|
1 |
Working
on a memorable (WOW) project. (If it’s not WOW…I’ll make it WOW…or bust
trying!) |
|
Doing
what’s been assigned. |
|
2 |
Committed
to my craft. Intend to be incredibly
good at s-o-m-e-t-h-i-n-g. |
|
Working
assiduously on inbox contents. |
|
3 |
Don’t
waste a single lunch … networking is
my mantra. |
|
Lunch
is my business! |
|
4 |
Willing
to take a “lowly” task if I can turn it into something “cool.” |
|
Don’t
try to push bullshit off on me, bro. |
|
5 |
Understand
that Projects-Are-Me. Period. (This
ain’t funny: I am my project “portfolio.”) |
|
I show up. I don’t make waves. |
|
6 |
Think
“fun” is cool! |
|
A
day at work is a day at work. Don’t make a congressional case out of it. |
|
7 |
Am
(frequently) angry at our slowness to change. |
|
C’est
la vie. |
|
8 |
Love
bright colors. |
|
Gray
is beautiful. (Invisibility rules.) |
|
9 |
Embrace
life. |
|
There’s
enough shit that comes your way without asking for more. |
|
10 |
Chose
this project because it will add to my learning / because it will
s-t-r-e-t-c-h me / because it allows me to hang with cool people. |
|
It’s
what the boss told me to do. |
Not everyone will "get" this list, and that's OK. For those of us who do get it, well, we get it. But I I need to revisit this book from time to time, especially as I make changes in my life and remove myself from an "employee" world. If nothing else, this list reminds me that I recently made a very good decision.
A few years ago, a grad school professor told me there were three stages one must go through on the road to a Ph.D. He said there was coursework, the exams, and the dissertation. The coursework is the work you do, he said, as you learn what others have contributed to the field, and you do this work with other students and under the guidance of a professor. The exams are the work you do synthesizing the information from others into your own argument, and you do this, mostly, under the direction of a committee. Then there is the dissertation where you create your own "original" argument, and this work is done--more or less--by yourself.
I believe now, now that I'm going through it myself, that there is a fourth stage of this process, a stage that the first three stages do not prepared you for. It's that stage of professionalism that comes when one is on the academic job market. This stage has allowed me to know where I might fit in the larger scope of higher education.
Nowhere but academic job talks and campus interviews would I have had an opportunity to talk about my current or future research projects or how my research and my teaching inform one another; additionally, I have learned how to tailor my research to a specific location and population . . . to an audience who is (for the most part) really interested in what I have to say.
To also have the opportunity to visit a number of campuses has significantly broadened my perspective about the role of higher education in America. Institutions, depending on the population they serve and even their geographic region, have different missions and purposes. Clearly, one mission or style is not better than another. They are merely different, different purposes and different goals. Meeting administrators and faculty who oversee the implementation of these missions has helped me to not only understand the role the institution plays in its community, but also how I might (or might not) be a part of that system.
I have had the opportunity to visit different types of campuses and these visits have helped me know where I might be the most effective. As I started the job market process, I intentionally selected teaching institutions, as that is my strength, and over the past month or so, I have visited several teaching-focused universities: large state universities, satellite campuses of large state universities, small private colleges, rural universities, HSIs (Hispanic Serving Institutions), or HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities). I have been to universities that value Division I-A sports, but I have also been to Division II and Division III institutions where the sports culture isn't quite as prevalent.
The schools have been in the North, the South, the East and the Central United States. Snow country, pine trees and woods, oceans, mountains, prairies. Cloudless skies, open skies, lead skies, fiery sunsets, brilliant sunrises.
Student populations differed: some were very conservative and traditional (18-22 years old), some were returning students, some second-language learners, some were overprepared academically and some were underprepared academically, some were students who were resided on the campus and some commuted to campus.
I have learned about the job search process from a search committee's perspective. I have learned all about the "you snooze, you lose" process and the importance of timing in job searches.
The roles I would occupy at each also differed, so I was able to see myself in various positions within the academy. Some were positions that limited my teaching to only first-year writing (this limit would be for years). Other institutions allow a broad range of teaching and mentoring opportunities at the undergraduate and the graduate level. Some other positions combined teaching with administrative duties. Some institutions value community interactions and service-learning. Others avoid technology. All cities had a Starbucks (but one).
Over the next little while, I have choices to make-- and I'm so very fortunate to be in this position to have choices (this I know)-- and the choices come more easily after this job search experience. I am more and more certain of my professional identity after experiencing this fourth stage of a Ph.D.
About 1:00 p.m. this afternoon, I was walking to the library. As I crossed the street that hundreds of people cross each day, I noted a small group of students standing on the median of this busy street. They appeared to be talking and laughing. One young woman was wearing a campus t-shirt, as she could have been a tour guide or something. With her were two African-American men. I noted this because when I see African-American male students on campus, I look to see if I know them (the campus has such a small number of minority students, and I have had a very large percentage of them in my classes). I didn't recognize them. They continued their conversation; I crossed the street.
As I crossed the street, I looked back. A police cruiser had made a U-turn and come back to talk with the students who were standing on the median. He had his lights flashing. Suddenly, two more police cruisers appeared, also with lights flashing. Two officers separated the two men, each speaking with one of them. The third officer spoke with the woman in the campus t-shirt.
From my vantage point across the street, it looked as if the young woman was trying to explain (the situation?) to the police officers. The officers seemed to listen to her, but they did not seem to listen to the young men.
After about 10 minutes, the police officers drove away and the students crossed to the far side of the street.
I have lost count of "Good Things" lists, so I make up numbers. Hmmm. This sounds oddly like my bookkeeping strategies. But I digress. In order to shake off the sense of impending doom this job search creates, I think of the things for which I am grateful:
What are you grateful for today?
Found via DocMara at SurfnPoetry: Describe where you were and what you were doing when the following world-changing events happened.
1.)
Challenger space shuttle exploded (1986):
I was standing in my all-in-one living/bedroom/dining room in Tokyo, Japan. I had only been in the country a few weeks, and the only English language I could get was from an Armed Forces radio station. I heard about it then. And over the next few days, I heard it over and over and over.
2.) Berlin
Wall falls down (1989):
This one I don't really remember. I was back in the United States, and lived in a small duplex with my very young daughter. I remember seeing David Hasselhoff standing on the (then) wall.
3.) Oklahoma City federal building bombing
(1995):
I was in an English class at TCU, a British Novel course. The professor, an older (near retirement age) man began to cry. I remember asking him if he knew someone there, and if that was why he was so upset.
4.) OJ Verdict (1995):
I was in a 3rd floor sitting area of the English building at TCU. A few professors had small televisions so they could watch the verdict, and they told the rest of us what had happened.
5.)
Princess Diana dies (1997):
I was home. Until her death, the death of a "celebrity" had never really registered with me. It had never really mattered. Even though I was not a fan, I had seen her marry and divorce, and I noted the magazine covers at the grocery store. I had grown up with her in some ways. I went to church that day, and many people in the congregation had not yet heard about her death. It was odd to see so many people cry.
6.) Columbine massacre (1999):
I was at work, and I was horrified. Traumatized even. I can't really articulate why, but I felt a deep need to go home and be with my daughter. I remember at the time the mother of my daughter's close friend was encouraging her daughter and other "cool" girls to gang up on the lesser-liked girls. This woman did not get the connection between the bullying of kids in school and what happened at Columbine. My daughter was no longer friends with that little girl.
7.) JFK Jr. Plane crash (1999):
Again, I was at work -- I was teaching a Saturday class. I don't remember too much other than being very sad.
8.) Bush/Gore crazy election (2000):
I was about a year into my Ph.D. program, and I was so focused on that, work, and parenting that I didn't give the election too much thought. I wasn't surprised, though, that Gore won, but that Bush claimed the victory. I suppose I was cynical. Heh.
9.)
September 11, (2001):
I was about to go to a meeting, and I was listening to the radio in my office. I thought it was a joke-- you know, how those drive-time radio jocks pull bizarre pranks for ratings-- until I walked downstairs, and the library had televisions on that showed news programs. Dozens of people were gathered around the TVs, dumbfounded. No one knew what to do or think for a little while. Then everyone (including me) wanted to go home and be with our families. I remember seeing the image of Bush in an elementary classroom in Florida with a completely stupid look on his face.
10.) Space ship Columbia disintegrates (2003):
I was sitting in my kitchen making out a grocery list when I heard the explosion overhead. The shuttle was traveling over north central Texas when it disintegrated. I heard it go but didn't know what it was at the time. Just four or five days later, I was in Washington DC for a conference and I went to Arlington National Cemetery and saw where the Columbia astronauts were laid to rest.
11.) Hurricane Katrina hits (2005):
I was at work and it seemed so unreal to me at the time. What was happening couldn't possibly have been happening, I thought, and what was being said about individual lives and their worth by the leaders (and their family members) in our country was horrifying. Interestingly, a day or two after the flooding, a student appeared in one of my classes. It was still early in the semester, and I didn't recognize everyone yet. She introduced herself as a Katrina evacuee. I was so very touched that the former ICW students in the room (male student-athletes) were the first to welcome her to our campus, to our class. They offered to help her in any way that she needed. The ICW students were the epitome of grace and kindness in a horrible time in this woman's life.
Issues surrounding domestic violence have been on my mind for months. At the shelter where I volunteered, counselors stated that a woman (or a man) stays in an abusive relationship because she does not believe there are alternatives. The abuser tells her as much. He threatens her. He lies to her. He tells her that no one will ever believe her. And he's right. Few people believe her when she speaks of the abuse. When she does decide that she can leave, her limited (finances, resources, family, friends) options often keep her bound to the abuser. She stays. Or she returns. Indeed, when women do leave the abusive situation they are in, they return an average of seven times before (1) she finds the courage and the resources to break completely free from the abuser or (2) he kills her.
One of the many reasons she returns, though, is that she misses life as it was. Even though it was abusive, it was *her* life. Her home. Her friends. Her belongings. Her source of (questionable) support. It was what she knew. Yet she leaves (which is a positive step in reclaiming her life), and she's right to do so, but her life is suddenly much more difficult than it was (or difficult differently). He (or the abuser), on the other hand, moves on with life. For him (or this person), life does not change much. He has the support of family and friends because, after all, she is one who left. He can blame her. The family can blame her. She is gone, and she can't stand up for herself.
But she could never stand up for herself in this situation. He had all the control. But she's right. Right. Right? Then why does she feel so wrong?
Women do find their way out of these situations. It takes courage and strength, hope and faith, focus and drive. Women can make it out. It takes time. It takes resources. It takes a network of support. A woman (or a man) cannot do this alone.
So, today. Take that step. It'll be hard. You'll second-guess yourself. You'll want to go back. Going back will seem easier. But it's not. You need to leave. You need to move on. There are people who love you and who will support you. You can do this. You have to. It's the right thing to do. Take that first step. Today.
Found via Feministing: A Dubai organization combating intimate partner violence created these make up kits with a message. Specifically, each color in the palette represents a different kind of abuse. For example, one can use a specific color "If punched in the face...,"If hit with utensil," "If kicked in the stomach," "If smacked in the eye..."
The brush in the kit says: "Don't cover up injustice. Speak." It also includes the City of Hope's hotline number. The kits were given out at shopping malls in Dubai.
These should be constructed elsewhere. I wonder what kind of makeup could cover emotional, spiritual, and verbal abuses.
I sit at the computer, and I intend to write something profound. I sit, and look at the screen. I sit, and play with the dog. I sit, and shop on eBay. I sit, and wonder why I'm not writing. It's not as if I don't have subjects. I do. Lots of them, in fact. So why am I not writing? I . . . I, well,. . . I just don't know.
The end of the dissertation? The weirdness and stress that surrounds an academic job search? Maybe those are the real reasons, but I need to suck it up and just get over my bad self. And write.
If I was writing as much as I once did in this space, I'd be writing about the following (and these might just pop up as blog posts in the near future):
OK, that's the one I need to write about, how unusual but noteworthy these changes are for someone like me. I'll write about it later today, but that's where I'll start.
But in the meantime, a practice photo from my new camera, the Nikon D-90 (taken at lunch yesterday):
One would think that after the horrors of the dissertation (defense), the exhausting end of the semester, the stress of the job-search-disguised-as-dating-ritual I'm now suffering through, and the trauma-inducing assault in San Francisco, life would be just peachy. It isn't. I'm depressed. Therefore, random bullets. (Eventually I'll get back to writing something of substance. Today isn't the day.)
But whatever. Tomorrow I'll get up and start on this work. I'll go outside and walk. I might go to a museum. My friend wants to practice his job talk on me, and if I can stomach revisiting the world of Division I-A sports, there is a basketball game tomorrow night. I might like that.
I no longer make new year's resolutions. I used to. I would always resolve to save money, lose weight, exercise more, be a kinder person. Hopefully I was a kinder person, but the rest of those "resolutions"? Never happened. So instead, I've begun-- like many others, I believe-- to have a theme for the upcoming year. Last year, my theme was "intentionality." My plan was to go into each encounter with a sense of intention, with a sense of purpose. It worked. While last year was a challenge in many respects, it was (overall) a good year. In looking through my archives, here are the highlights of my 2008:
January:
February:
March:
Continue reading "Highlights of 2008 (the year of intentionality)" »
I was assaulted by a man this morning at an ATM machine on the corner of Bush and Kearny in San Francsico.
I walked to an ATM this morning to withdraw $20. I found an ATM not far from my hotel, an ATM built into the side of a building. The street was busy. I didn't think much about where I was or that it could be dangerous in any way. I insert ed my card into the ATM machine and worked my through the transaction. The money tried to come out of the machine, but it got stuck. The machine went "out of order."
I called the number on the front of the machine and told the folks who answered what happened. I had to give them the last four digits of my card number, and the technician was able to recount the steps I took to retrieve my cash. He said there was nothing he could do, that I needed to contact my bank and request the money be returned to me (or I could dispute the transaction and I wouldn't be charged for it). Whatever. It was $20, and I'd deal with it later.
About this time, a man came up behind me and started talking. He wanted to know what I was doing and who I was talking to. He spoke with an accent (Slavic, Russian, something). I told him my business was none of his business and to go away. I was still talking to the ATM technician on the phone. The man moved forward and wanted to know what I was doing. I told him to fuck off.
At that moment, the ATM technician asked me to open the cash dispenser to see if the money was stuck or if there was something there that would have caused the machine to malfunction. I opened the dispenser and noted that a tissue had been pushed up into the machine and behind that tissue was my $20. I told the technician what I saw. I pulled the tissue away and pulled out my $20.
The man behind me grabbed my arm and started screaming at me to give his money back. I dropped my phone and disconnected the technician.
The man punched me in the shoulders and the chest, screaming at me to return his money. I yelled back and fought him, kicked him, and screamed for help. A dozen or so men were across the street watching the assault occur. No one crossed the street to help. But one of them--God bless him--called the police.
The man who was hitting me pushed me into an alcove and blocked my way so I couldn't leave. He called me a bitch, a whore, a thief, a (*c*); every derogatory name he could think of, he used. He kept pushing me and threatening to punch me in the face with his fist.
The police arrived very quickly. They took his story and my story. They spoke to the man who witnessed it all (the one who called the police). I was shaking so hard I couldn't really talk much. I don't know that I made much sense for a while. But I had my ATM card, other ID, receipts from the machine, the tissue that I pulled from the machine was still on the ground near my phone, the phone number of the ATM maintenance company was in the phone's call log, and the wadded up $20 bill in my hand.
It took about 20 minutes of taking and checking my documents and ID and talking to witnesses, but the police believed that I had just been using the ATM and that I had not taken anything from the man who assaulted me. I'm not sure what they checked about the man. I was in the alcove and couldn't see. However, the police told me I was free to go. They were very kind and polite. They could not arrest the man, though, because I would be unable to come back to San Francisco for court appearances . . . lucky for him, I guess, that I live out of state. But the man kept arguing with them and trying to move back toward me. They arrested him anyway.
I am back at my hotel waiting on the shuttle to take me to the airport. I don't much feel like going outside and walking around. Now that I'm safe, sitting here in this room, and now that I've stopped shaking, I'm starting to feel his punches and shoves. My back and shoulders hurt. I think I'll take a shower. I wish I had gotten the identity of the man who called the police. I wonder if it's inappropriate to raid the minibar at 9:30 in the morning for alcohol.
Debra started the year-in-review meme last year, but since I'm feeling reflective and all, I'll start it this year. If you are so inclined, you are tagged to join in the fun. The rules? Work back through your blog's archives, and post the first sentence of the first post for each month.
January 2008: "My goal this year for Project 365 is to be (or to have) intentional unexpected encounters with the world around me."
February 2008: "In the car this morning, the Bundle and I had a conversation about today's Super Bowl."
March 2008: "I finished it."
April 2008: "RNF (Research Network Forum) was awesome, but it always is." [RBOC, NOLA Style]
May 2008: "One of my favorite "artistic-type" photographs (a photo I took last year of a chain-linked fence) has been used (under the Creative Commons license) on a domination and submission website."
June 2008: "The point about "good things" (at least for me) is to push away all the
negative thoughts and emotions (and there are lots of those these
days)." [Good Things]
July 2008: "How I spent part of my afternoon, writing the literature review for the dissertation ... oldskool style." [video embedded in original post]
August 2008: "For three days last week, I worked in the library, and that allowed me a few chance encounters with former ICW students."
September 2008: "Lately there has been so little time to write anything not work or dissertation related." [RBOC]
October 2008: "If you follow me on Twitter and Facebook updates, you know that I
submitted my completed dissertation to my committee this afternoon."
November 2008: "My composition students and I are participating in NaBloPoMo, writing a blog post everyday for 30 days."
December 2008: "I redesigned my blog, as it's given me something to do while I move through the end of this monumentally stressful semester."
Continue reading "Year-in-Review Meme (and some reflection) 2008" »
It might be a little soon to construct this list, as I've only been through (well, almost through) since Wednesday, but I'm feeling reflective.
Good things:
| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |||
| 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 |
| 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 |
| 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 |
| 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 |
www.flickr.com
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