I'll admit I've been keeping my cards close to my chest lately

Well, I didn't intend to disappear for such a long time! At first, right after I wrote that last post, I got very sick (as part of a series of stress-related illnesses), and stayed sick until the New Year. (Also, I got to try all kinds of powerful antibiotics, and may have experienced some rheumatic fever! Fun times at Christmas.) (As another aside, I am your perfect sick party guest: hobbling around, whining about "my rheumatiz." You guys missed a magical time.)

After I got home from that second trip home, my life was divided between the Bloggable But Stressful (Get the crazy chapter under control and come up with a workable plan for finishing soon!) and the Very Unbloggable Thanks To IRL People Reading This Blog (Let's apply for work closer to home! What if we start a family now?). Some days, it felt like every decision we were facing were some of the biggest decisions we'd ever made in our lives. And somehow they seemed so much scarier than the Big Decisions we made before (or maybe we were younger and more flippant than we are now.) Get married? Sounds like a wonderful plan! Move across the country for grad school? Hey, why not? Sounds fun. (Oh, to be 24 years old again.)

But now, we've made some decisions, finalized plans, and have even announced them on Facebook (you know, after I told people in person first, because I'm not a monster). We're moving home, and I'm pregnant!

Dear goodness, those words are simultaneously exciting and terrifying.

I seriously can't believe this is all happening. And I know that "I'm pregnant and we're moving home to the prairies" sounds like the beginning of a novel about giving up on your dreams, but both of these really feel like the fulfillment of life-long dreams for us. We got Chris a good job in our hometown, in the same city as our entire families. And, barring something major happening, we're staying there. I'm insanely determined to get this dissertation finished, and then I'll figure out what I'm doing. It's been years since I realised that I wasn't cut out for the tenure-track life, but I'll carve my own path. I love working with students, and I'd love to do something university- or research-adjacent. There will be something for me (and it's not urgent for me to find it: the top priority is finishing the dissertation and having this baby; Chris will be making enough to support us until I find something).

There's this part of me that fears some people will think I'm crazy for having a baby right now (well, at the end of December), or that I'm somehow wasting all this education by not aggressively pursuing a tenure-track position. Or that I'm crazy for having a baby at a point when I don't qualify for EI maternity pay. (But do you know how long it would be until I would qualify? And seriously: we'll be financially fine.)

Okay. Enough (heading-towards-an-outie) navel-gazing. I'll save the crazy medical details (How I've Spent The Past Month In Doctor's Waiting Rooms, and Why I Keep Baffling Medical Professionals*) for another post.

In honour of the move back to the homeland, let's finish off with an old school Question Time!

Time? 1:39pm

Surroundings? I'm in my office, surrounded by dirty dishes, kleenex boxes, and scraps of printed off translation material. (By the way, I have a cold, and the inability to take cold medicine: pure torture.)

Tea? Murchies Library Tea. (Why no, I haven't completely cut out caffeine. Why yes, I do know about the risks, but I also have read a terrifying number of medical journal articles and stay well under the safe limit.)

Wearing? Pyjamas, rubber-soled slippers, TARDIS bathrobe, hair that is standing straight on end. (It might be time to bathe soon.) (Uh, you guys, I just found out how much my sister spent on my new bathrobe...)

Stuck in my head? "A Hundred and One Pounds of Fun" from South Pacific. Because I forced Chris to watched the movie with me this weekend, and this is what I get in return. Mitzi Gaynor's voice in my head for the rest of my life.

What am I most thankful for? My Christopher. He's been phenomenal lately, doing all the cooking and cleaning (in addition to dealing with the madness of the end of the school year), since I've been so sick, sore and tired for the past couple of months. He's a good'un.


* Working title.

Negligent Me

 Or "How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Dijon Mustard."

I'm terrified by how quickly February's disappearing.  This past month of non-blogging has been surprisingly busy with three things: 1.) writing my dissertation (and then realising that I need to look up something, and then realising that it's been too long since I last checked the journals for anything new, and discovering that my field has shifted...); 2.) preparing to teach my first course that's all my own (and oh my goodness, I'm supposed to finalise my textbook choice tomorrow); 3.) cooking a lot.

And so I'm going to talk about cooking, because it's been a really pleasant distraction between my angst about whether I need to assign a sourcebook (and whether the textbook I love is too expensive to allow for assigning as sourcebook), and angst about the fact that a historian recently referred to the study of the Neue Frau as "overdone," just as I'm making major findings about the Neue Frau. 

But but but!  In the midst of that, I've been reveling in French cookery.  It started with a fascination with Laura Calder's Food Network show French Food at Home.  And then I read Julia Child's My Life in France.  And then I started to DVR FFaH.  And then I bought Laura Calder's recent cookbook French Style.  Since then, I've gone a little crazy in the kitchen.  Like, buying-lots-of-fennel crazy.  And making-crème-caramel-twice-in-one-week crazy.  Basing-entire-meals-around-dijon-mustard crazy. (And I didn't even like mustard before.)

Speaking of crème caramel: it has seriously become an obsession of mine.  I used to be a little intimidated by it, because I'm a little scared of anything that needs to keep its shape when you unmould it.  But it involves two of my most favourite things to make: caramel and custard.  Anything that involves a water bath?  I'm there.  Also, being encouraged to push caramel to be as dark as possible, but without burning it?  Bring it on.  In a consequence-free world, I would make caramel sauce every day for the next year.

I made my first crème caramels for Valentine's Day, and because I adapted the recipe a little too much, I ended up overcooking them a little, but they were still pretty:

I made a big cake-sized one on Friday for a potluck, and even though the whole thing broke apart because it jiggled too much in the car, it was amazing!  And it worked!  I keep raving to people about how the whole process seems like magic to me: you let caramel harden in the bottom of the pan, and then you pour custard over top of it.  Then, as the custard cooks and sets, the custard melts the caramel!  And then you flip it upside down on a plate, and the caramel sauce runs all over this jiggly yellow cake, and you feel like you just performed a magic trick using just eggs, milk and sugar (well, along with vanilla and sometimes orange zest).  (And by "you" I mean "I.")  Also, if you put a pan of caramel in a water bath without the custard, it doesn't melt, because it's actually the custard itself that liquifies the caramel and not just the heat.  Science!

So, yeah.  I've been seriously geeking out in the kitchen lately.  Now, I just need to bring this sense of nerdy wonder back into my academic self.  Because the angst thing is quickly growing old.

Cubicle Living

The building that houses my department is undergoing repairs for the next few months, and so we're all in exile until the Fall.  Our department office is operating out of a seminar room in a different wing of the building, while the grad offices have been relocated to what Trillwing calls a "cubicle farm."  But a really, really nice cubicle farm. 

I only vaguely recognised the name of the building when the department announced where we were going.  Okay, and I wasn't putting too much thought into it, because my main thought was "Ugh, giving up our office for cubicles in a space we have to share with other departments? I guess I'm really going to work from home this summer."  However, when I got talking to my friends from the department it turned out that I was just not recognising the new name for the library (now that the library has been doubled in size to include office space).  In fact, it turned out that our new space is on the same floor of the library that holds all the books I use; you go to this obscure corner of the floor, to this unmarked door that has a keypad on the handle, and behind that door is a huge, airy space that is surrounded on three sides by floor-to-ceiling windows.  I had no idea.  Actually, I was talking to one of the head librarians this afternoon, and he had no idea either. 

So, I decided to work from one of our cubicles today.  On Twitter I started to list all the pluses and minuses of working in that space: we have wonderfully bright light and full wireless signal, and all the windows were open meaning that we had a lot of fresh air.  I did a whole lot of research that I've been putting off, because it was so easy to go and grab more books.  However, it also meant that I spent far too much time gazing outside at the nice view (this is not a problem in my basement-suite home office) and it got really cold when the wind picked up.  And the construction site is right next to the building, and so I had to use my iPod to drown out the "beep beep beep" of the giant trucks.  Also, I had to have Chris come and pick me up because I ended up bringing home half the library. 

I'd say that today went well.  I got a ton of work done, and while I shouldn't work there every day, I think this will be a good summer. 

Five small reflections on my week

These could have five small blog posts, but I kept procrastinating. And so you get them all at once.

One

We took the KitchenAid mixer to the repair guy today. We pulled up to a 1950s-or-earlier house, and went up to the little door under the carport. And I mean "little": it was probably only about five feet tall and we had to crouch to get into the shop; the door had a laminated sign, stuck on with thumbtacks. We were greeted by a grey-haired man and ushered into a low-ceilinged shop full of tools and little boxes with hand-written labels that said things like "ball bearings". The repair man (who calls himself "Tom," but is called "Tommy" by everyone I've met) was straightforward and helpful, and said that he'd phone first if it turned out to be an expensive part that needed replacing.

As we walked to the car, Chris said, "He was the friendliest of the hobbits." And then said that he would love to have a shop like that (albeit with higher ceilings).

Two

I went to a Christian-graduate-student small group this week, and there I met a fellow PhD student from my department, whom I'd never met before. And he's in his second year. Everyone was all, "Oh well of course you both probably know each other, considering the fact that you share an office..." I've heard his name before, and he knows a few of my friends, but I've somehow gone for a year and a half without meeting one of our PhDs. I should probably show up on campus a little more often.

(It was really funny, because we were all talking about how easy it is to become completely isolated on campus, and how most of us have only met people in our own department since we've moved here. But apparently I haven't even met everyone who shares my office!)

Three

I find myself fascinated by the Microsoft OneNote website, and all the information about the newest version of Office being released this year. I seriously love that program; I spend more time using it than I do Word, because it works as if I had a stack of notebooks for my research and my comps reading notes, but also all my recipes and notes-to-self, but searchable and not a complete mess (as my life was when I was relying on physical notebooks).

I find it strange that I am rhapsodizing about a Microsoft product, while all my friends and family seem to be going full-out Apple. (I was amused when I found a Lifehacker review saying the same thing, but in more detail.)

Four

I went a little overboard on the "but if we buy four it's cheaper!" school of grocery shopping today. Does anyone have a good recipe that calls for chickpeas? (Other than hummus? I already have a good one of those.) I find myself with five cans of chickpeas. And so very many cans of whole tomatoes.

Five

I went to a talk given by a huge name in my field (seriously: he changed everything). It's nice to find out that someone who is your hero is also a nice person. (I also found out from a friend that another Big Name has a "prickly" personality, and this I find funny.)

It was also good to take off the "Writing My Dissertation" cardigan and put on my "Going to a Conference" blazer, and think of myself as a little bit ambitious for a while. (And stop mentally putting the word "just" in front of my description of my research.)

GiST: Actually Remembering to Do This Edition

1. Breakfast smoothies, already made for me and waiting in the fridge by the time I wake up in the morning. (I am spoiled rotten.)
2. Encouragement from my academic hero (this happened several days ago now, but it's still keeping me encouraged), who reminded me that she did all her dissertation research in short trips to Germany, and got better work done because of it.
3. Finding out that much of the primary research material I need actually is available on microfilm in North America. And then ordering four years' worth of a newspaper on microfilm, after getting advice from the Interlibrary Loans librarian. (Translation: I'm about to start doing research that I thought I could only do in Germany.)
4. Ice cream
5. Making arrangements to have two different new-to-Victoria/from-Saskatchewan friends over for supper (one on Thursday and one on Sunday). Now I just need two good meal ideas.
6. My VCR (yes, I'm a dinosaur) is set for two versions of So You Think You Can Dance and for Glee! (Keep in mind that I love musicals, and was heavily involved in show choir when I was in high school.)

A bouquet of freshly-sharpened pencils

Last night, I tried to write a post about coming to terms with the end of summer. I entitled it "Summer Gone" (referencing David Macfarlane's melancholy novel that takes place over several Labour Day weekends), and wrote about how it was the last night before Chris went back to teaching, about how I had to shut the windows because of all the rain, and return to wearing socks.

I ended up deleting the post because writing it made me feel more melancholy than I already was. I was tired (having just cleaned the whole house in anticipation of the busyness of Chris's first week of school), and wasn't forming words clearly.

But then this morning I sent Chris off to his first day of school, said goodbye to Ky as she left for her conference in London, and took the bus to the university. I'd been hoping that, seeing as it was the last day before classes began, it would be a little less crazy on campus today than it will be tomorrow. I somehow forgot about orientation, and the president's barbeque, and the hoards of first-year students who don't yet know that they don't need to spend every waking hour on campus. I walked by hundreds (possibly thousands) of students, lined up all the way across the campus green, behind two small tables of free hotdogs and hamburgers. I ran into several friends, including one who just moved here from Saskatchewan to get her MA here. I met people from my department as they milled around smiling and wearing brightly-coloured name tags.

I went to the department office and received a copy of the brand new journal that our grad students put together. I went to Health Services and joke with my nurse about the crazy first-year kids that have filled the campus today, questioning whether the free hamburger was ever worth a more-than-an-hour wait in a line.

And I got a ton of work accomplished. Even though the school calendar doesn't have any effect on my work schedule,* there's something about the cooler air and the bustling crowds that inspires me to make real progress and to cross even the intimidating parts off of my to-do list.

As I bussed home, I found myself smiling. I was actually looking forward to my necessary trip back to campus on Thursday.



* I sometimes have little patience for the "When are you starting again in the fall?" line of questioning I continually get. Because you must be taking classes if you're going to school, right? (I mostly get these questions from the same people, over and over.)

Better

As I said yesterday (and am feeling even more today), it's strange how okay I am right now. Each time I was rejected for [Shirk] funding, I would hit a low point and would have trouble facing my research for a while. With [German travel funding], however, somehow there is no pain. I'm actually more driven to get my research done now, because I have a clear plan and am not waiting back to hear from anyone. Today I came up with a really decent list of newspapers I want to survey, and tomorrow I'm going to track them down and figure out how to order their microfilm. And I'm really not too worried about the financial side of my research. In fact, a friend reminded me that I'll be able to get a bit of travel funding from our department (and a couple hundred from the Faculty of Grad Studies -- even more if I can find a way to present at a conference while I'm there). So, that will help.

It might be that I've finally learned to separate my feeling of worth from my level (and sources) of funding. I'm not sure that it's entirely true, but it's possible.

What I do know is that I'm very much ready to move forward. I have a year ahead of me that's free from funding applications and teaching work; all I have is my dissertation. I need to make good use of this year, get this thing written, and move on with my life. That would be good.

(Next step: learning to be okay with telling people that I'm starting my fifth year of my PhD.)

I'd better get money out of this

Everything ridiculous about this application I'm working on,* presented in bullet form:

• On Friday, I'm going to have to courier a 116 page application package to NYC. (They want everything in quadruplicate.)
• The main webpage's instructions include the instructions to ignore the instructions provided on the last page of the pdf application, and then a link to the instructions I'm actually supposed to follow. Exactly.
  
• There is also a spot on the pdf application where I'm supposed to affix my photo, with lots of instructions about exactly how I should affix this photo. But, if you look at the real instructions (provided in the link), you find out that North Americans are not supposed to include a photo.
  
• I just filled out a detailed online application, each field of which had a specific maximum number of allowed characters. You only get to see the final pdf that is created after you finalise the application and click "Send." It turns out that some of the online fields are too long for the pdf form, and so my application says I was awarded my MA on "23 Novemb" with no year, and there's no way to change it. It's a good thing they also have my full online application on file and will have all my transcripts in quadruplicate.
  
• So, I have to print off a six-page pdf application form that's generated after I fill out the online application. This pdf has a solid green background on every single page. That's going to use up most of my printer's wee little colour cartridge.
• They required my high school final average (but no high school transcripts, thankfully). It's a really good thing I keep things like that.

If I win this funding, it will all be worth it. (If I don't, I will be pointing back to all the complaints listed here.)

* I think they're a wonderful organization that does so much good for my field. They just also have confusing amounts of red tape and need some employees to manage their online presence better. And after I've dealt with the much-more streamlined Canadian system (it's still strange to say that), I notice it a lot.

Relief

The German professor was much, much more lenient with me than I could have ever expected.

We sat down and had a conversation in German about what I study and what I'm going to do in Germany. He started off with easy stuff (asking me my name and such) and then gradually worked toward more complicated conversation, repeating or explaining himself whenever I didn't quite know what he meant. And I didn't do perfectly, sometimes garbling my sentence structure or forgetting words, but I managed to answer his questions.

And then, when he got to the form, where he had to evaluate me on a scale of "a" (fluent) to "e" (extreme difficulty understanding anything), I was inwardly praying "Please don't give me any 'e's. I'd be happy with 'd'." And he gave me "c" on both understanding and speaking (that means I can handle more than just basic sentences!) and then when he got to the writing and reading part he said, "You took the reading course? Well that means you'd have an easier time with reading than with speaking. And do you find that it's easier to write than to speak?" I confirmed that I had an easier time writing, because then I had a chance to stop and think of case endings and word choice. And so he gave me "b" on both of those. Which is huge. He just told them I'm a step below fluency, on both writing and reading (which are the important ones, when you're researching). I don't think I deserve it, but that's going to be really helpful for my application.

(And then he recommended that they pay for me to get a couple months of a German course once I'm in Berlin! He said that it won't hinder my application any, and would make my transition to Germany easier. That would be very helpful.)

That means I just might have a solid application to send. I'm going to start breathing again.

Trying to stay calm

At 1:30 this afternoon, I will sit down with a member of the German department and he will fill out a German language proficiency evaluation for me. We'll sit down for half an hour and he'll evaluate my level of German proficiency; that will help determine whether I win this much-needed travel funding.

I've been cramming for this for months, and all I'm hoping is that he won't check any of the boxes on the form that say "Has extreme difficulty [understanding simple sentences/writing a simple sentence/making any sense speaking German/reading simple sentences]." If I can get to the level above that, I'll feel pretty good. (I know that one year of Rosetta stone, a few months getting tutoring, and a single German reading course do not make you fluent. I just want some of my effort to be reflected on this form, and I'm worried that my level of German skills will keep me from getting funding.)

So, could you think of me at about 1:30 this afternoon? I'm just trying to stay calm so that I can do the best I can. (And then after this, my life will be much easier for a while. This application has taken over my life!)

This is my brain on funding application

Whoops! I went for a very long time without posting here. I have an important funding application due in a week (I really hope I get this one, because it would pay for my flights and expenses for my entire research trip to Germany), and it has taken over my brain.

This is much more work than the [Shirk-alike] applications. Yes, for [Shirk] I had to go to tons of meetings, fine-tune a Program of Study and track down recommendation letters. But [major German organization] wants me to have all that, plus an official invitation from a German university,* a whole bunch more documents (including my high school grades!), and also a German language proficiency test. And then I have to mail this huge application across the continent, along with three photocopies of everything. And the instructions are confusing and sometimes contradictory.

And you have to do their online application in one sitting!

So, I've been dreaming in German and longing for the simplicity of Canadian bureaucracy. There's something troubling about that.

(And now I'd better spend at least another hour working on German before Chris gets home!)

* But at least, after a full year of trying to track down a German Doktorvater, I have an invitation from a German university! Dr. Supervisor is a miracle worker. Yesterday I sent him an email, worrying because we hadn't found anyone, and today he found someone who will fax me an invitation on his university's letterhead. This means I'll have a stronger chance of winning funding!

This semester just got more interesting

So, I'm TAing for one of my favourite profs for half of this semester. It's only for half because she's in the late stages of pregnancy (her due date is at the beginning of Spring Break), and after Spring Break a sessional's taking over for her. (And that sessional's contract only starts after Spring Break.) She's been preparing us for the "What if I go into labour early, or end up on bedrest, considering the fact that I'm due in three weeks." The plan involves closely-related DVDs and the other TA and I not lecturing, but we hadn't gotten to the place where we'd gotten any of the materials yet.

So, I just got word that the prof went into labour today and is now in the hospital.

My thought process, immediately following this news: 1.) "I hope she and the baby are okay;" 2.) "Oh my goodness, I think I'm temporarily in charge of a course that's outside of my field;"
3.) "It's sure a good thing that I've already scheduled a meeting with the sessional for tomorrow morning."

So, I'm sure the department has some sort of contingiency plan in place (I really hope that the plan is "start the sessional's contract three weeks earlier than expected," since she's taught the course a billion times before, or maybe the prof has already gotten this set of DVDs together and this is what I'm going to be doing twice a week for the next few weeks), but dude. Dude.

Tea and Illya

Do you know what's nice? Taking a day off on purpose. I did that today: I've spent the whole afternoon watching Man from U.N.C.L.E. episodes* and drinking tea. And it wasn't an "I wasted the whole day procrastinating because I was stressed out about important work and avoiding it" kind of break. It was an "I've gotten lots of work done and deserve an afternoon off for play" kind of break.

I also took an afternoon on Friday and had a Downtown Adventure with Ky. It was wonderful allowing myself to take a break without guilt. (It helped that I'd made a bunch of progress and felt like I was allowed to take a break.) I felt light; I chatted excitedly with shopkeepers and art gallery curators.

I need to remember to do this more often: work when I work and play when I play. Not live in the fuzzy, guilty in-between. (And I know I've said this a million times before.)





* I got it for Very Early Birthday-Christmas from Chris, my sister, my brother, and my sister-in-law-to-be!

They are a-changing

Early yesterday morning (on the first day of my fourth year as a PhD student), I drove my friend Christina and her rabbit named Basil to the airport and they moved home to Ontario. Christina was one of my first friends in this department; she started her MA at the same time as I started my PhD. Now that she's gone, the only ones left of my cohort are the handful of us PhD candidates that haven't quit or gone on leave. And most of them are away researching right now.

Academically speaking, I'm going through so much transition right now. I remember how hard it was, three years ago, when I had to start back into coursework. I hated it, because I was used to the solitary life of thesis-writing. Coursework forced me to focus away from my own research! I had to meet new people! I had to talk all day!

And now it's hard transitioning back. My dissertation has stood off in the distance for so long that it's intimidating to approach it at last. And this intimidation has made it hard for me to put my thoughts into words (which is a big reason for the significant blog silence over the summer).

But now I'm finding ways to get to work. It helps that Ky's here: she and I worked together through our undergrad degrees, and she acted as a sounding board when I wrote my MA thesis (and I did the same for her). I'm on my way over to work with her for a while today; she's going through that same back-to-coursework transition that I went through three years ago and so maybe I can help her through that transition a bit. It's nice having some familiarity around. I even have some other familiar faces from my undergrad years kicking around the city now, and somehow that helps me feel more grounded.

Fourth-year PhD candidate. That sounds daunting to me.

Veering toward the political for a moment

The problem with letting your brain go on vacation is that you miss major news for a few months and then one day you wake up and discover that your federal government is trying to make your academic life more difficult. So, have you heard about Bill C-61?

"New Copyright Bill Harms Educators and Researchers" - Canadian Association of University Teachers Bulletin.

"Lock up that Lecture Good & Tight" - Laura Murray.

Seriously, Bill C-61 is bad news for Canadian academics. I'm going to have to wholesale copy and paste the "Limitations" section of the Bill's Education and Research Amendments fact sheet because this is where you really see the problems (with my own italics for emphasis):

• Technology-Enhanced Learning: Schools would have to ensure that Internet access to a lesson is restricted to teachers and students in the course and that the lesson could not be copied or distributed by students. After a course has ended, schools would have to destroy the recordings of the lessons from that course.
  
  Schools must also take measures to limit the distribution of digitally delivered course materials to students in that course, and to prevent students from copying or distributing course materials (e.g., other than making one print copy for themselves).
• Educational Use of Internet Material: Teachers and students could not rely on the exception if their use of the Internet material has been restricted by a digital lock or prohibited by a clearly visible notice. The exception would not apply to material posted on the Internet without the consent of the copyright owner.
• Library Materials: The patron receiving the electronically transmitted material [from interlibrary loans] could not make permanent copies, digital or otherwise, other than a single print copy, and could not distribute it further. Electronic access to the material would terminate after five business days.
  
  The library must ensure that only the intended recipients receive the protected material and that they abide by other conditions set out in the provisions.

According to the Canadian Library Association's statement, that last limitation would "force many libraries back to delivering interlibrary loan via paper copies" because of a lack of resources available to digitally lock these journal articles (which would slow down the research process, and be both a financial and environmental nightmare). And destroying all online course notes if they contain any copyrighted materials? Seriously, this is a bad idea.

And did I mention that you could be fined $500 for having downloaded music on your computer?

Not living up to my name very well

It's going to shock you when I tell you that I haven't been posting because I've been too busy doing actual work. Like, making actual progress on things that I've put off for a long time. (This post runs long, but it's full of news, and so those who know me might want to hang on and keep reading.)

I know: it's stunning. I'll give you a moment to collect yourselves.

I was getting really stressed out because I had planned on applying for a Big Fancy Travel Fellowship by the end of June, which meant that by the end of June I would have had to:
a.) have found a Doktorvater (essentially a supervisor) in Germany
b.) have become fluent in German, or some good-enough equivalent.

Unfortunately, I had made these plans when I thought I'd be done my comps by the end of January. And all of these plans hinged on me being able to go to Germany by next January, which gave me a single semester (plus whatever I could get done while in Saskatchewan this summer) to do, uh, all of my dissertation research. Absolutely everything, so that I could go to Germany and plug whatever holes were left by my secondary sources and cultural sources (my novels, movies, artworks...).

So, for the month of May I mistakenly thought that the reason why I felt so freaked out and frozen by my plans was because I had problems with anxiety. Finally this week I sat down and tried to plan everything out and realised: I'm not frozen by anxiety problems; I'm anxious because I've given myself an impossible task.

And so I started re-adjusting my plans. First, I found out that I really ought to be applying to Big Fancy Travel Fellowship in November instead of this summer (the foundation added a bunch of new deadlines for short-term travel fellowships since the last time I'd checked their site). If I applied now, I'd have to use the funding by next winter. If I wait to apply in November, I could wait until the following autumn to go to Germany.

It's official: my big trip has now been postponed from January to September 2009.

After I made that decision, I realised that if I didn't start preparing for the Big Fellowship right now, summer would disappear and it would be September and I'd be freaking out saying, "I only have a month to learn German and find a Doktorvater!" (Again.) I had to be proactive this time. This meant that I needed to find something that would force me to immerse myself in German learning right now (and I don't have time to take a German course by November, since I'll be in Saskatchewan in July and August). And so I bought a 12-month subscription to Rosetta Stone. That way, it was cheaper than buying the CD-ROM collection, and would force me to get to work right away, so that I could get my money's worth.

Seriously? Rosetta Stone is the best thing ever. I love it so much. It works like my brain does, which means that I want to work on my German every day. I finished an entire unit this week, because I was having so much fun. I remember words and grammar without trying to memorize them. And, since it has speech recognition, I get feedback that tells me when I'm saying things wrong.

So, that's where I've been this week: feverishly working away at everything that I've been avoiding for a month. Suddenly, I'm making progress on my language learning, and I have a solid plan for how I can get my dissertation done in a timely fashion. And I'm actually enjoying myself.

What? First I start running and now I'm not procrastinating?

Still processing this news story

From The Guardian: "The 29 fakes behind the rewriting of history."

Very close to the finish line

A few more hours and then I bus to the university for that final written exam. My neck's feeling mostly better (still kind of inflamed, but workable), and my thoughts for this exam are mostly in order. It's kind of intimidating because it's the theory-based exam, my "topical field" in cultural history.

It's neat how much I've learned through this whole process. I feel like a completely different person than I was before I began reading for these exams. My Canadian history prof says that I act differently now, too. I'm apparently more confident when I talk about these topics. I'm less apologetic. I allow myself to be an expert more.

And now, as I write these exams, I feel like I'm learning even more. It's like I'm finally having a chance to think creatively and all the pieces are coming together.

And now I just have to learn to be proud of myself for what I've accomplished, instead of beating myself up for not being in this place six months ago.

Rejection letters that don't sting

I heard back from the committee for a scholarship I'd applied for many months ago. When I got the envelope, I was filled with fear, dreading that I was about to read yet another form letter that began with "we regret" and told me about all the worthy applications they'd received.

I didn't win the award. Maybe it's the fact that this is one of many possible funding sources (and I'm putting a lot more hope in a different grant), but the rejection didn't hurt. In fact, it made me feel a little better about myself. This particular sentence is what made me feel better:

"It may be some consolation to learn that you were a finalist, highly recommended by your provincial committee of selection."

Hey, wait a minute: I was a finalist! I made it past the provincial competition and was also ranked highly in the national competition! That's the first time in a long time that I've made it that far in a competition! Somehow, that makes me feel a wee bit more competent.

Wrinkled Plans

This weekend, I discovered that there is a snag in my exam schedule: two of my four examiners will be out of town during the week we'd booked for my oral exam, and for half the week after that. (Did I mention that two of my examiners are married to each other?)

My written exam schedule is supposed to go like this:
Tuesday, March 25th
Thursday, March 27th
Monday, March 31st

And then we'd have the oral exam during the following week, tentatively on April 8th. But my profs are gone from the 7th to the 16th, and the longest I can wait between my last written exam and the oral exam is two weeks (which would be April 14th).

So. I guess I have two options: see if we can book the oral exam for the same week as the last written exam, or move my written exams a week or two later. (I'm pretty sure that my profs don't have to be in town for when I'm writing the exams.)

I confess that I had a panicked call to my friend Andrea (who is doing her exams at the same time, but with different profs), so that I could freak out about both of these options. (I feel nervous about having fewer days to prepare for the oral exam, but I'm also nervous about leaving the exams until later and not being done immediately.) But I think I've made my peace with the situation now. I'm continuing my intensive reviewing as if I am starting my written exams in a little more than two weeks. And, if I do my oral exam at the end of the week when I finish my written exam, it means that everything will be fresher in my head. And, if I have to postpone my exams for a week or two, it's not the end of the world. So I get a couple more weeks to prepare for exams that have been haunting me for the past year.

(To be honest, I think I'm starting to root for the "postpone the exams by maybe a week" option. I've been in contact with some of my profs, and it's sounding like at least one of them would prefer that we wait until later -- in fact, he's proposed that we hold off on booking our review meeting until we've ironed out the exam date situation.)

On the up side, I think I'm handling this well; perhaps my coping skills have improved.