Also, I rescued orphans from a burning building

My day, in order:

I woke up just after 6am after a very busy and late-night weekend. I was in the library basement by about 7:45.

I dressed up today, because I would go straight from my research to our fundraiser auction. Because of that, plus the fact that I was sitting at the big microfilm scanner computer, and the microforms librarian was gone for the day, I was repeatedly mistaken for a librarian. I spent the whole day with people asking me for help loading their microfilm into the readers, or to find a specific roll of film.

Okay, and then I somewhat pretended to be the librarian to make a loud study group go away and actually use a group study room. (The library basement is a designated silent study area and it's full of grad student carrels, so I wasn't just being a jerk.)

But I still managed to read more than six months' worth of German newspapers. Brain doesn't function. Accidentally said "unpossible" because the German word is "unmöglich."

Made a copy of an article from 1931 because its headline was "Beer for Babies." (But in German.)

And then went straight to the auction, where our band raised $800! (The reserve price we were looking for was $300, and for $350 we would add in an encore; for this amount, we are now committed to playing at the conference itself and taking requests). It went well, and the World's Best Kid played egg shakers and did a crazy beatnik dance for us during the encore. Those of you who know me on Facebook should go and watch the videos. You'll also see me dressed as a librarian.

Today's been nuts, and I don't know why I'm still awake. Tomorrow will be here so quickly, because I need to now turn around and read at least eight months' worth of newspaper.

Distractions of the day

Two different cool (but unrelated) things from my day:

1. This evening I went to a practice for a band formed for the fundraiser auction we have each year. (This year I'm not Vanna.) Historians on guitars, mandolin, bongos, harp and flute playing Fleetwood Mac with lyrics altered to be about grad school. And it was ridiculously good, and kind of folky. (They have to raise a certain amount for us to play!)

2. My copy of The Blythes are Quoted arrived today! Here's my initial reaction to the book: I've only scanned over it quickly, but it looks like most of the short stories are the same as in 1974's The Road to Yesterday (with one exception, which had appeared in a slightly different form in Among the Shadows), but with the addition of poems attributed to either Anne or to her son Walter, and some framing dialogue between the Blythes. A lot of the "adultery, illegitimacy, despair, misogyny, murder, revenge, bitterness, hatred, aging, and death," which the editor thinks will shock L. M. Montgomery's regular fans, occurs in short stories that were already pretty widely in circulation. Like, I read these stories when I was a teenager and they weren't really that far off from her novels from the later 1920s and the 1930s. Instead of all that sensationalism (which is mostly targeted at selling the book to people who normally think of LMM as too cheerful or something), I'm more interested in the poetry attributed to Walter and the aftermath of World War I: you really see her backtracking from the idealism about the First World War that you see in Rilla of Ingleside. Between that and her clear ambivalence about the beginning of the Second World War: this is really interesting. (In fact, this ambivalence is clearest in a poem and discussion about the war that LMM herself had cut out but kept for posterity, which the editor decided to include anyway.)

So: it's worth it, and looks really good (and is much better in this original form than in The Road To Yesterday), but Benjamin Lefebvre really underestimates her fans by playing up the "shocking" elements.

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.)

Christina more than earned herself a thesis defense cake yesterday

(And wow, am I ever pleased with how it turned out! We still have a whole bunch of it left, and are planning on having some for breakfast.)

Late-night cake baking

It's 11:00 on a Sunday evening, and yet my house is still buzzing with activity. The washer and dryer have been going for most of the day. Christina and I just went over her plans for her MA thesis defense tomorrow morning, and now she's blow-drying her hair and getting all the last details ready. Chris is in our room, finishing up unit review hand-outs for his students, in anticipation of their approaching final exams. And I'm sitting here on the couch, getting a little sleepy, but waiting for a white chocolate cake to finish baking. It's going to be Christina's "Hooray! You're finished your Master's Degree!" cake; when I posted my picture of Meg's birthday cake, Christina asked if I'd make the very same cake for her thesis defense, and now I'm living up to my promise. (Well, the only difference is that this time I'm making my own frosting.)

I think that's a pretty good illustration of all the busyness of the past week or so. I can't believe that it's been less than a week since all the bloggers and conference-goers left town. The time since then has been a whirlwind of German novels and preparations for Christina's defense. It's been pleasant. (And everyone wish Christina luck! She defends tomorrow morning.)

(Remind me to post pictures of the placemats, cloth napkins and pot holder that Christina sewed us as a thank you present. I have so many talented friends, and I'm continually reaping the benefits. I'm useless with sewing, knitting, crocheting, and all that. But I do bake cakes pretty well.)

Also, it keeps me awake at night

Yesterday afternoon, I was standing in a line-up at Toys 'R Us, buying a water bottle. (Meg saw that they had a good deal on the exact size I've been looking for, and the store is in the mall where I pick up Chris from the bus.) The cashier threw me for a loop for a moment when she mentioned to me, and hadn't to anyone else in line, that they had baby socks on sale for 99 cents.

It threw me for a moment, "Uh, I wouldn't have any use for those," I told her.

Afterwards, I looked at myself in a mirror, and wondered: of everyone in that line, why did I seem the mostly likely to be a mother of a small child? I looked down at my clothes and realised that my "I've been writing all day and I'm bleary-eyed, am wearing slightly shabby clothes and am long over-due for a hair-cut. My clothes are a little tight because I put on weight during comps, but do you like my sensible hiking shoes?" look could also be mistaken for "mother of a small child who doesn't get any sleep or time for haircuts or new clothes."

It's funny, because I always joke (with those people who ask why we haven't had kids yet) that my dissertation is my first baby. Apparently I'm looking the part.

In retrospect, it could also be the fact that I was a nearly-28-year-old woman standing in a line at Toys 'R Us in the middle of a work day.

Signs that I'm well into grad school now

Chris and I were driving to the University library this evening so that I could return a 3-day Reserve book. As we drove, I fretted that I would probably run into everyone I knew this evening, as I was looking a little more like a crazy person than usual (well, mostly I was leaving the house with fairly pronounced bobbly pigtails in my hair). That's when Chris pointed out that there was no chance I was going to see anyone at all at the library.

Seeing as we were going to the University library at 10:00 on a Sunday evening at the beginning of our Spring Break. Yeah, that place was a ghost town.

Is it sad that Spring Break has absolutely no effect on me? My work load is exactly the same. No, wait. It has one small effect: I'm actually feeling more inclined to go to campus this week, excited that fewer people will be around. And this will be a good week for going to get my build-up allergy shots, because no one else will be at Health Services.

I think I've officially become a Stereotypical 3rd Year PhD Student. (Now I just need to get past these comps and be a Normal 3rd Year PhD Student!)

Murphy's Law, or possibly the result of my own disorganization

I was running a little behind this morning, sending out a million e-mails about tomorrow's fundraising auction. It was getting late into the morning, but I hadn't had a chance to shower or get dressed. And then the phone rang, and it was our grad secretary.

"Aren't you bringing Andrea's papers to school this morning? The student who is doing her marking is already here." Right. I'd told Andrea that I'd deliver them first thing in the morning.

And so I threw some grungy-ish clothes, tied my greasy hair back in a ponytail and ran for the bus. I thought to myself, "I'll just drop off the papers, grab a couple of books from the library and come home and work. I hope I don't see anyone today. But I hardly ever run into anyone at school these days."

After that, I:

• Had a spontaneous final meeting with the other organisers for the auction, after we all unexpectedly showed up in the history office at the same time;
• Presented at our history graduate student society's monthly meeting, to let them know what's happening with the auction and the conference (Whoops! Forgot that I'd promised to do that this afternoon);
• Ran into pretty much everyone imaginable, including seemingly every student I've ever taught, and my supervisor;
  
• Interviewed a candidate for a faculty position.*

All while feeling completely gross and greasy, and looking vaguely like I'd just stepped outside to take out the garbage.

In unrelated news, this article is the best thing I've read in a while. It makes me so happy to know that things like that actually happen.

* Candidates go through all kinds of hoops in our department -- presenting to faculty members, giving a guest lecture, meeting with undergraduates, and finally meeting with a pair of grad students. We're interviewing for a Europeanist and one of the two interviewers wasn't able to make it, and they were hoping that someone who knew something about European history could be involved. My friend Christina seemed so panicky about the prospect of having to do this alone. And so I went to this meeting. While the interviewee was dressed so nicely, and I looked kind of homeless.

And all I want to do is nap

Between now and suppertime I have to bus to the University, read one more book (I just finished one), get an allergy shot, get together for coffee and consultation with a few PhD students, bus to a place where I'm exchanging books with a prof before our meeting on Tuesday (you know, the day when I fly to Regina?), and get back here to finish cleaning up before our houseguest arrives. (Also, I might spend the evening getting started on another book.)

Is that a lot of work for one day? It's been so long since I had a "real" job that I can no longer tell what a normal amount of work is.

Throwing off national statistics since 2003

I just participated in a Statistics Canada National Graduate Survey. They picked a bunch of people who graduated from a post-secondary institution in 2005, to find out about the effect of post-secondary education on employment and income.

I think I just threw off their entire system. Especially when you consider the fact that, since I finished my Master's degree in 2005, I've been employed for an average of four hours a week, for eight months a year, bringing in a poverty-level income. I am currently unemployed (unless you count scholarship money, which they don't), and I think that I'll have more of that four-hours-a-week employment in the fall.

What did amaze the surveyer was the amount of scholarship money I have won since I began my post-secondary education. She got out the calculator an actually said "Wow!" Well, until I mentioned that that money has been my primary income over the past nine years. When you divide that number by nine...

You know, graduate school is really depressing when you boil it down to the numbers like that.

Actual exchange between the surveyer and me (after we'd gotten to the point where we both were recognising the hilarity of this situation and had gotten chatty):
Stats Canada: And what is the purpose of your current degree?
Me: Employment. Seriously, you can't get a job in my field without a PhD.
SC: That's so sad.

(At least I didn't inform her of how little I expect to earn upon completing this degree!)