A headcold. A snot-train can't breathe without making a lot of noise, drag me out, have to give two back-to-back lectures tomorrow and an office hour and then practice my seminar for the rest of the afternoon while sneezing all the while, headcold. Thanks to the chemistry department where I am currently teaching, where everyone seems to have picked up a little viral something over the course of "Study Break" (oh man, that cracks me up every time)....now I too, have caught the beast. Hub says, "Yes, [cold remedy of choice] should be taken as much as possible, but it won't really help. You will still feel like shit." Ah, thank you darling. You know how to make a girl feel special.
Interview on Thursday. Headcold on Tuesday prior to interview. Agh isn't just a cry of anguish, it's pretty much the only sound I'll be able to make on Thursday. Remember I said this is going to be an all-day (12 hour, no word of a lie) interview? Think of the commercial: Now, with more mucus! Woohoo!
What outfit goes with slime? I will have to scour the closet to find the exact match.
Luckily, the talk is pretty much ready, I just have to practice it a few times. I have to do some other funding research and read over exactly what it is that I promised them in my letter of application, and that's about it.
"That's about it," translates to: this is a full day's worth of stuff to do, and I don't have enough overheads to teach on Friday.
I'd fret, but the drugs are starting to kick in.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Wherein I Discuss What One Wears to an Academic Interview
Because as you know, it's not the product, it's the packaging.
I have been considering my attire for next Thursday's interview extravaganza, a little 12-hour affair that will take me from meeting the Department Chair at 09:00 to finally saying good evening after dinner, somewhere around 21:00. I don't yet know where dinner will be, but I know that lunch is at the Faculty Club, not a pretentious sort of place (this is a school founded on veterinary and agricultural faculties after all) but posh enough to expect that I won't show up in "my best jeans". At least two of the last few interviews that I participated in at my former employer had the candidates show up in jeans and their good shirts, but there is no way in hell that I will be making a foray into that arena.
Scientists are not a dressy lot. Let's face it, many of us have to spend parts of the day crawling around behind instruments, actually hands-on doing experiments, or teaching. Teaching is a dirty job in an of itself depending on the room temperature (anywhere from 10 to 30C depending on the heat or airconditioning facilities), whether you're on a whiteboard (marker dust) or a chalkboard (chalk dust, so black is a bad choice) or powerpoint (clean mostly, but then you have to move around a lot and be entertaining while your students frantically copy down your slides). It's potentially messy. We do also sit behind a desk a lot of the time and think, which would be mostly clean if we weren't distracted eaters. Anyway, I digress. Scientists don't really dress up, but we are expected to look presentable, and I'm pretty sure this has just been a rant on not wearing jeans to an interview. By the way, both those candidates got the jobs too.
It's not as though I don't have clothes to wear, I have lots of clothes and I suspect that it'll come down to black pants and a turtleneck sweater, because that's what I look good in and that's comfortable for a 12-hour day where I don't want to show anybody up and yet where I don't want to fade into the background. I have several choices for the sweater, that's not a worry either. I don't have a suit and wouldn't consider one, it's too much.
No, the problem isn't the clothes, and the problem isn't the jewellery and the problem isn't the hair; all of those things are fine. They're the things that when I leave the house, I'll be perfectly satisfied with how they look, and so I won't give a thought to them all day.
The problem, of course, is the shoes.
I am not tall and I don't have long feet, so while the 3.5in wedge-heeled sandals are fantastic for a dinner out, they suck for walking around all day, standing to give a 1.5h lecture, or any other part of this interview. Plus, it'll be March 1, in Canada. Can you say snow/freezing rain/-20C or any combo of the above? I knew you could. So sandals are stupid.
Next up, two pairs of possible Fluevogs: mod black boots (2in heels, no pic available, they're old), burgundy blunt-heeled shoes (2in)........both of these are good choices, and both have been worn for extended days with little subsequent damage to me. Even a 2in heel is hard on the knees after a full day (I suffer from mild arthritis symptoms. A surgeon has assured me that I am riddled with arthritis, but I am mostly, right now, asymptomatic) so I'd rather something even smaller. The next possible choices in that category are fine for mountainside traversing, not so good for an interview, so they're off the list.
Lastly, a pair of black and burgundy brogues or a pair of red loafers with about a 1in heel. Both of these are borderline suitable.
All of my shoes are Fluevogs. I know that The Manolo wouldn't approve, but they fit me and they're in my price range, and every single pair was comfortable from the moment I put them on. And actually, it's not true, I have other shoes but none in the suitable category.
So this is my agony: shoes for Thursday. Perhaps you are thinking I should just go and buy a good, suitable pair of shoes? Nothing would thrill me more than racing out to find some fancy footwear, however, I'm off the shopping until Easter. It's my lenten penance: no shopping, with the exception of food and liquor.
Really. We have to live after all.
I can't buy the shoes then, and have to make do with what is available in the closet. It's a matter of colour-matching the shoes and the rest of the outfit, unless I stick to all-black above, which leaves the colour of the footwear to my whim on Thursday morning. I won't have a lot of time for whimming of course, and I'm sure it'll all be a matter of what I grab as I'm heading out the door.
Which brings me to my other problem: last-minute-itis.
I'm supposed to be in the chair's office at 09:00. This means that I have to drop off Big One at her friend's house at 08:20 so that I have time to get to the school, park, and stroll to the building without worry of being late. Translated: the child will be dropped off at 08:30, I will have to rush to the school, figure out where the devil I'm supposed to park, find out it's way the hell across campus, run to the building, and get to the chair's office at 09:03. This isn't late, this is how I work. You see again how choice of footwear could impact upon me before the interview begins. Keep in mind I normally wear jeans, sweater, jacket, hiking shoes/boots to work, (Let me remind you: Winter. Canada. Dirty work, teaching. Chemist.) so running isn't normally a problem. I could leave on time, but I know me, and I won't. I do not like to be early.
All this, plus getting the research seminar ready. It is mostly ready, but not good and ready, and I have to add four or five slides at the end to tell them "where the research is going", code for "most of this shit is really dull, tell us the super science fantasy part where we find out how you're going to invoke world peace by a single reaction". These four or five slides have to rock their world...in a chemist-y sort of way of course. Never underestimate nerd power.
Well there we have it. Five days left to plan and perfect, along with doing my regular first year teaching gig over at the other, larger school. There's call for snow and freezing rain Sunday night into Monday, but I doubt there'll be a snow day out of it, and I can't hope for that, so have to finish up the week's teaching stuff today and tomorrow. The plate is full, the heat is on, and all the other cliches you can come up with.
I leave you then with a quote from Hedy Lamarr, who said, "Any girl can be glamorous. All you have to do is stand still and look stupid."
I have been considering my attire for next Thursday's interview extravaganza, a little 12-hour affair that will take me from meeting the Department Chair at 09:00 to finally saying good evening after dinner, somewhere around 21:00. I don't yet know where dinner will be, but I know that lunch is at the Faculty Club, not a pretentious sort of place (this is a school founded on veterinary and agricultural faculties after all) but posh enough to expect that I won't show up in "my best jeans". At least two of the last few interviews that I participated in at my former employer had the candidates show up in jeans and their good shirts, but there is no way in hell that I will be making a foray into that arena.
Scientists are not a dressy lot. Let's face it, many of us have to spend parts of the day crawling around behind instruments, actually hands-on doing experiments, or teaching. Teaching is a dirty job in an of itself depending on the room temperature (anywhere from 10 to 30C depending on the heat or airconditioning facilities), whether you're on a whiteboard (marker dust) or a chalkboard (chalk dust, so black is a bad choice) or powerpoint (clean mostly, but then you have to move around a lot and be entertaining while your students frantically copy down your slides). It's potentially messy. We do also sit behind a desk a lot of the time and think, which would be mostly clean if we weren't distracted eaters. Anyway, I digress. Scientists don't really dress up, but we are expected to look presentable, and I'm pretty sure this has just been a rant on not wearing jeans to an interview. By the way, both those candidates got the jobs too.
It's not as though I don't have clothes to wear, I have lots of clothes and I suspect that it'll come down to black pants and a turtleneck sweater, because that's what I look good in and that's comfortable for a 12-hour day where I don't want to show anybody up and yet where I don't want to fade into the background. I have several choices for the sweater, that's not a worry either. I don't have a suit and wouldn't consider one, it's too much.
No, the problem isn't the clothes, and the problem isn't the jewellery and the problem isn't the hair; all of those things are fine. They're the things that when I leave the house, I'll be perfectly satisfied with how they look, and so I won't give a thought to them all day.
The problem, of course, is the shoes.
I am not tall and I don't have long feet, so while the 3.5in wedge-heeled sandals are fantastic for a dinner out, they suck for walking around all day, standing to give a 1.5h lecture, or any other part of this interview. Plus, it'll be March 1, in Canada. Can you say snow/freezing rain/-20C or any combo of the above? I knew you could. So sandals are stupid.
Next up, two pairs of possible Fluevogs: mod black boots (2in heels, no pic available, they're old), burgundy blunt-heeled shoes (2in)........both of these are good choices, and both have been worn for extended days with little subsequent damage to me. Even a 2in heel is hard on the knees after a full day (I suffer from mild arthritis symptoms. A surgeon has assured me that I am riddled with arthritis, but I am mostly, right now, asymptomatic) so I'd rather something even smaller. The next possible choices in that category are fine for mountainside traversing, not so good for an interview, so they're off the list.
Lastly, a pair of black and burgundy brogues or a pair of red loafers with about a 1in heel. Both of these are borderline suitable.
All of my shoes are Fluevogs. I know that The Manolo wouldn't approve, but they fit me and they're in my price range, and every single pair was comfortable from the moment I put them on. And actually, it's not true, I have other shoes but none in the suitable category.
So this is my agony: shoes for Thursday. Perhaps you are thinking I should just go and buy a good, suitable pair of shoes? Nothing would thrill me more than racing out to find some fancy footwear, however, I'm off the shopping until Easter. It's my lenten penance: no shopping, with the exception of food and liquor.
Really. We have to live after all.
I can't buy the shoes then, and have to make do with what is available in the closet. It's a matter of colour-matching the shoes and the rest of the outfit, unless I stick to all-black above, which leaves the colour of the footwear to my whim on Thursday morning. I won't have a lot of time for whimming of course, and I'm sure it'll all be a matter of what I grab as I'm heading out the door.
Which brings me to my other problem: last-minute-itis.
I'm supposed to be in the chair's office at 09:00. This means that I have to drop off Big One at her friend's house at 08:20 so that I have time to get to the school, park, and stroll to the building without worry of being late. Translated: the child will be dropped off at 08:30, I will have to rush to the school, figure out where the devil I'm supposed to park, find out it's way the hell across campus, run to the building, and get to the chair's office at 09:03. This isn't late, this is how I work. You see again how choice of footwear could impact upon me before the interview begins. Keep in mind I normally wear jeans, sweater, jacket, hiking shoes/boots to work, (Let me remind you: Winter. Canada. Dirty work, teaching. Chemist.) so running isn't normally a problem. I could leave on time, but I know me, and I won't. I do not like to be early.
All this, plus getting the research seminar ready. It is mostly ready, but not good and ready, and I have to add four or five slides at the end to tell them "where the research is going", code for "most of this shit is really dull, tell us the super science fantasy part where we find out how you're going to invoke world peace by a single reaction". These four or five slides have to rock their world...in a chemist-y sort of way of course. Never underestimate nerd power.
Well there we have it. Five days left to plan and perfect, along with doing my regular first year teaching gig over at the other, larger school. There's call for snow and freezing rain Sunday night into Monday, but I doubt there'll be a snow day out of it, and I can't hope for that, so have to finish up the week's teaching stuff today and tomorrow. The plate is full, the heat is on, and all the other cliches you can come up with.
I leave you then with a quote from Hedy Lamarr, who said, "Any girl can be glamorous. All you have to do is stand still and look stupid."
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
The Panic Sets In
On Friday I found out that I will indeed be interviewed for the academic posting for which I applied, here in the small city where we live. I know what the department wants in a candidate, and I know that I'm not the only person on the planet that can do the job. I also know that there are certain aspects to hiring me that would make things easy for them: I've been doing this academic thing for a while, I know the ropes, I know how to do the specialty stuff that they need me to do. Do I know how to find $250K to buy a new diffractometer? I've been looking into the CFI website, and it looks as though they've changed some programs so I will be eligible to apply. This is good news, because I thought for sure that there wouldn't be anything that would work out for me in that area. There is a lot for me to do in the next week...and the interview is on March 1. Not a lot of time. I'm the first of four candidates to be interviewed, so does this mean they love me already and want to compare everyone else to me? or does this mean that by the end of March they'll have forgotten about me and all the things I promised them? And if I don't find out about the job until April, what will happen to the NSERC grant that I applied for this fall? All these questions, no answers. The problem with the NSERC grant is that it would be awarded to me via my previous institution, but I had to resign from that job in January, and I did that. I didn't have to resign, but I had to tell them whether I was returning, and since I can't lie, I told them I wasn't. So if my grant sits with them for more than a microsecond, they're going to have to tell NSERC that I resigned, and if that's the case then the money will disappear before I have a chance to say, "But I have another job!!".....if indeed, I do have another job.
It's a bit of a pickle, but it might only mean that I have to reapply in the fall, which I would do of course and which would be fine, it would just mean that I'd be without grant money for eight months. I assume that I'd get some startup funds from the U, so the grant wouldn't be a huge deal, but applying for money is always a pain in the ass. Of course, being at a larger school I'd be applying for money a whole lot more often than I ever did at the previous place.
There are moments, fleeting, when I don't want the job. I don't want the work, the expectations, the feeling that the research is just a waste of time and isn't going to change the world, the comraderie, any of it. Sometimes it would be just as nice to stay home and knit.
Like, I could finish this sucker:
which is my brother's Christmas sweater....well, it's the back of it. I could finish it anyway, because it's the perfect procrastination project. The pattern is easy (it's out of the Vogue Winter 06/07 issue, and I hate the neckline by the way but I'll alter that when I get to it) so I can watch tv (and crap tv it is, except for Battlestar Galactica, which I actually cannot knit to, because I have to read the subtitles and yes I'm pretty deaf but I'll talk about that a different day) while I work on it. I do have to look down at the thing once in a while, which is why the subtitles are a problem...but mostly it's mindless knitting. I'm using the Elann Peruvian Pure Alpaca for those who care about that kind of thing, and I'm using it double and this sweater? Is going to be the hottest thing going once it's done. When it's -40C with the wind, or even without it, Bro will only need a nylon shell over this garment. And for those who have astutely noticed that it is now February 21, well past the Christmas season, you need to know that this project is currently on its third and final iteration, that it took forever for me to settle on a pattern...I considered designing but that would take an extra year...so it wasn't actually started until January. And I knit really, really slowly, sort of. I'd knit faster if I didn't have so much other crap to do.
Like make a talk for a research seminar I have to give at this interview next week. Never mind the worry over grant money, I have no control over that anyway except to put in a couple of well-timed emails and keep my fingers crossed, let's instead worry about this whole research presentation thing. Let's worry that since we've been doing nothing except teaching first year chemistry for the last six months, that we sort of don't really have a good grip on what it is we do. Sure, I have a vague idea, but you know how you only have so much room in your head for information? Well, given that and given the fact that I really am full up with the information right now, and since research isn't exactly a priority seeing as how I can't actually do any of it while I'm teaching part time (not having a lab or anything) and looking after kids and having my day totally interrupted by my own inability to concentrate on anything.....the research has gone down to the back of the filing cabinet in a drawer marked "Beware of the Badger". (for those of you who don't know that reference, shame on you and go look it up). You can see how this is a problem. I have looked through previous power point presentations of my research talks, and apparently I'm pretty good at what I do; while reading I found that I was interested in what I'd had to say, after all. Somehow, a week from today, I have to renew my motivation for this work and make my potential colleagues believe that my particular brand of snake oil is better than anyone else's.
And the panic sets in, and it will probably stay with me until sometime late Thursday night and I am so, so sad that I can't come home after dinner on Thursday and have a great big drink, but I have to teach on Friday morning....but it's cocktails at 4:00p.m. Friday kids! Martinis all around! (Thursday night they are taking me out for dinner, and guaranteed there will be drinking, these are chemists after all, and we drink, but it won't be the kind of drinking where we all start slobbering and saying, "OH man, I loooooove you guys," and then the crying starts. That's what I'd like to do, and then not get up on Friday until about noon, when the hangover subsides and they call me and say, "We told the other candidates to go home, we're hiring you," because that kind of thing happens in academics all the time......if you believe that by the way, then you are too cynical for words. It never happens.)
It's a bit of a pickle, but it might only mean that I have to reapply in the fall, which I would do of course and which would be fine, it would just mean that I'd be without grant money for eight months. I assume that I'd get some startup funds from the U, so the grant wouldn't be a huge deal, but applying for money is always a pain in the ass. Of course, being at a larger school I'd be applying for money a whole lot more often than I ever did at the previous place.
There are moments, fleeting, when I don't want the job. I don't want the work, the expectations, the feeling that the research is just a waste of time and isn't going to change the world, the comraderie, any of it. Sometimes it would be just as nice to stay home and knit.
Like, I could finish this sucker:
which is my brother's Christmas sweater....well, it's the back of it. I could finish it anyway, because it's the perfect procrastination project. The pattern is easy (it's out of the Vogue Winter 06/07 issue, and I hate the neckline by the way but I'll alter that when I get to it) so I can watch tv (and crap tv it is, except for Battlestar Galactica, which I actually cannot knit to, because I have to read the subtitles and yes I'm pretty deaf but I'll talk about that a different day) while I work on it. I do have to look down at the thing once in a while, which is why the subtitles are a problem...but mostly it's mindless knitting. I'm using the Elann Peruvian Pure Alpaca for those who care about that kind of thing, and I'm using it double and this sweater? Is going to be the hottest thing going once it's done. When it's -40C with the wind, or even without it, Bro will only need a nylon shell over this garment. And for those who have astutely noticed that it is now February 21, well past the Christmas season, you need to know that this project is currently on its third and final iteration, that it took forever for me to settle on a pattern...I considered designing but that would take an extra year...so it wasn't actually started until January. And I knit really, really slowly, sort of. I'd knit faster if I didn't have so much other crap to do.
Like make a talk for a research seminar I have to give at this interview next week. Never mind the worry over grant money, I have no control over that anyway except to put in a couple of well-timed emails and keep my fingers crossed, let's instead worry about this whole research presentation thing. Let's worry that since we've been doing nothing except teaching first year chemistry for the last six months, that we sort of don't really have a good grip on what it is we do. Sure, I have a vague idea, but you know how you only have so much room in your head for information? Well, given that and given the fact that I really am full up with the information right now, and since research isn't exactly a priority seeing as how I can't actually do any of it while I'm teaching part time (not having a lab or anything) and looking after kids and having my day totally interrupted by my own inability to concentrate on anything.....the research has gone down to the back of the filing cabinet in a drawer marked "Beware of the Badger". (for those of you who don't know that reference, shame on you and go look it up). You can see how this is a problem. I have looked through previous power point presentations of my research talks, and apparently I'm pretty good at what I do; while reading I found that I was interested in what I'd had to say, after all. Somehow, a week from today, I have to renew my motivation for this work and make my potential colleagues believe that my particular brand of snake oil is better than anyone else's.
And the panic sets in, and it will probably stay with me until sometime late Thursday night and I am so, so sad that I can't come home after dinner on Thursday and have a great big drink, but I have to teach on Friday morning....but it's cocktails at 4:00p.m. Friday kids! Martinis all around! (Thursday night they are taking me out for dinner, and guaranteed there will be drinking, these are chemists after all, and we drink, but it won't be the kind of drinking where we all start slobbering and saying, "OH man, I loooooove you guys," and then the crying starts. That's what I'd like to do, and then not get up on Friday until about noon, when the hangover subsides and they call me and say, "We told the other candidates to go home, we're hiring you," because that kind of thing happens in academics all the time......if you believe that by the way, then you are too cynical for words. It never happens.)
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Many Little Things
I've not posted because I couldn't think coherently about one thing long enough to make it into something interesting.....so I have a bunch of things I've been thinking about, and I'll post some of them now and some of them tomorrow (I hope). Each paragraph is pretty much a completely separate idea, so don't worry, I'm not insane, I've just got a lot of disparate thoughts in my head right now.
One thing that I haven't been thinking about but which I saw today when hub and I were downtown, is that a knitting store in town is closing out, and they're having their selloff sale tomorrow, starting at 10:00a.m. The store has been in business for about 15 years or so, at least since the last time I lived in this city...and I used to patronize it. It's one of those places that sells a lot of acrylic though, and a lot of "old style" patterns etc. etc....sort of hasn't kept up with the times. It's too bad, but good for me for tomorrow, because I don't teach on Thursdays, just go to the kids' school to help out with the breakfast program. That will be (conveniently) finished by about 10:30a.m., so I can head downtown after that and see what they have at the little old store. What I need are needles. What I will probably get is....oh, do you think it might happen....? maybe a skein or two of yarn. Depends on what's there. Maybe some sock yarn, since I actually don't have much of that. I suppose then I'd have to knit socks. Hmph. could be worse.
Today was a snow day in the place we work, but not where we live, so our kids went to school and we got to stay home and putter, go downtown to the pub for lunch (I had one pint of local bitter, I wanted two), buy a futon for the basement so that when people come and stay with us we don't have to make a bed out of couch cushions on the livingroom floor...that kind of thing. Wednesdays are hell for me, three hours of straight talking, a half hour break for lunch where I close the door and not talk to anyone, and gulp down lunch, and then another hour of talking. Fab Former Student would say, "But you love to talk! You talk a lot! You talk all the time!" and that's true but not quite. I talk all the time when I feel like it....and often I'm not doing as much talking as I'm doing listening. Still, to do two lectures in a row and then an office hour, talk talk talk and help out needy students, and then 30 minutes before there's another hour of talk talk talk...it's very draining. We're now six weeks into the term and I'm getting used to it, but missing today? So sweet.
One thing I actually have been thinking about is betrayal, and the times that I have betrayed people. My all-time best betrayals have been committed against both BF1 and BF2; it has occurred to me that the deepest betrayals, if they're going to happen, happen to those closest to you. They happened a long time ago, under different circumstances, I could say I was a different person and all that and maybe I was. I should file this under, "Go Easy on Yourself" but there are certain things that are hard to forgive. They have certainly forgiven me (or else they're doing a good job of faking) but I still look back and think, "If only...." I don't have a formulated idea of what I want to say about all this, because it's difficult and not something I particularly want to think about. It has been weighing on me lately, however, and eventually I will come to a resolution.
Every morning I put a variety of lotions and potions upon my skin, trying to stave off the ravages of age but also because my skin is really very dry and the air is very dry and it's cold and we have forced air heat blah blah blah. So the other morning I've got one of the bottles, it's a pump thing and I pump a small amount of the stuff onto my finger, normally. This particular morning the exit hole for the creamy goo is slightly plugged, so instead of hitting the finger, it splurches past the finger and onto the window. It looks remarkably like spooge, and it's 5:50a.m. and I am hysterical. It doesn't help that rather than unplug the hole properly, I try to get more out of the bottle and that splooches onto the mirror. It's spooge city. I have not been able to get these images out of my head for days. I did clean off the window and mirror though.
I saw my dentist last week and he told me that I have a cracked tooth and I'll probably just have to suffer the pain until the tooth dies and he has to pull the thing out. Believe it or not, this was better news than I thought it would be; I don't have to have any needles or fillings redone, I don't have huge pockets around my gums where everything is deteriorating, my teeth are otherwise in good shape. He said we could try a crown but he doesn't know if that will work. We will see how much of the crown the insurance company will cover, because at $900 for something that might work? I'd just as soon let it go. This must sound defeatist, but I suffered for more than a year with another tooth that eventually had to be pulled, and if I'm talking to a guy who's absolutely giving me the straight goods, not trying to sell me the huge service, then I'll take his word for it. Besides, having been through it, I know what will happen and how it'll go down if the tooth does have to come out. I'll wait and see what the insurance people say though, because if they'll cover the whole crown, we might as well put it on there.
Just over a year ago I applied to the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at the Guelph-Humber College in Toronto. I didn't get in, but I wrote up my whole portfolio in about three weeks so it's sort of no wonder. I'm also not published in the creative writing genre, so again, no wonder I didn't get in. All the same, I still want to write. When I think back to the time when I had to submit that thing, I remember especially one day driving home from work in January and thinking, "I am insane. I actually feel as though I could be insane." When I write, I use a completely different part of my brain than when I'm doing day to day thinking or science work. I have to access some subconscious stuff, and I have to play around with thinking What If? and the like. At the same time as I was doing this, I was teaching three courses and some labs, doing some single parenting, chairing a couple of committees, and rekindling an old friendship fraught with baggage with BF2. The words can't do justice to the feelings and the agony I was going through at the time. I often think of that drive home in the car, that thought that I could be insane. It occurred to me that if you use more of your brain than you're meant to use, you go too far into yourself, you can't get out. Maybe that's insanity, I don't know, but I felt like I was on the brink of that. I have the portfolio pieces, I should expand them, one at a time. They all need severe editing but I know that they were all on the way to being good examples of writing. Thing is, when you apply for a program like that, you can't apply on potential alone. The people making the decisions don't want to read past the page to imagine how much better the writer could be, they need to see that the writer is good. Would I still want to get into the program? Not really. Doing the application was proof enough to me that I can write.
I have not yet heard from the university that could be my potential employer. I have been preparing myself for the worst, even though the ad more or less described me, and only me, to a "t". Many things can happen, it's possible that they're mired in red tape, that the administration doesn't want to consider an applicant at the associate professor level, that the department can't agree on a short list, that I'm not on the short list and other candidates have already been contacted for interviews. I'm ready to not be on the short list, I just need to know so that I can get moving on making a life for myself that is outside of academics. If this job doesn't come through in other words, I am good with walking away from "it all". Walking to what I don't know, but I guess I'll figure that part out later.
Oh, and it's Valentine's Day and I don't care.
I think that's it for now.
One thing that I haven't been thinking about but which I saw today when hub and I were downtown, is that a knitting store in town is closing out, and they're having their selloff sale tomorrow, starting at 10:00a.m. The store has been in business for about 15 years or so, at least since the last time I lived in this city...and I used to patronize it. It's one of those places that sells a lot of acrylic though, and a lot of "old style" patterns etc. etc....sort of hasn't kept up with the times. It's too bad, but good for me for tomorrow, because I don't teach on Thursdays, just go to the kids' school to help out with the breakfast program. That will be (conveniently) finished by about 10:30a.m., so I can head downtown after that and see what they have at the little old store. What I need are needles. What I will probably get is....oh, do you think it might happen....? maybe a skein or two of yarn. Depends on what's there. Maybe some sock yarn, since I actually don't have much of that. I suppose then I'd have to knit socks. Hmph. could be worse.
Today was a snow day in the place we work, but not where we live, so our kids went to school and we got to stay home and putter, go downtown to the pub for lunch (I had one pint of local bitter, I wanted two), buy a futon for the basement so that when people come and stay with us we don't have to make a bed out of couch cushions on the livingroom floor...that kind of thing. Wednesdays are hell for me, three hours of straight talking, a half hour break for lunch where I close the door and not talk to anyone, and gulp down lunch, and then another hour of talking. Fab Former Student would say, "But you love to talk! You talk a lot! You talk all the time!" and that's true but not quite. I talk all the time when I feel like it....and often I'm not doing as much talking as I'm doing listening. Still, to do two lectures in a row and then an office hour, talk talk talk and help out needy students, and then 30 minutes before there's another hour of talk talk talk...it's very draining. We're now six weeks into the term and I'm getting used to it, but missing today? So sweet.
One thing I actually have been thinking about is betrayal, and the times that I have betrayed people. My all-time best betrayals have been committed against both BF1 and BF2; it has occurred to me that the deepest betrayals, if they're going to happen, happen to those closest to you. They happened a long time ago, under different circumstances, I could say I was a different person and all that and maybe I was. I should file this under, "Go Easy on Yourself" but there are certain things that are hard to forgive. They have certainly forgiven me (or else they're doing a good job of faking) but I still look back and think, "If only...." I don't have a formulated idea of what I want to say about all this, because it's difficult and not something I particularly want to think about. It has been weighing on me lately, however, and eventually I will come to a resolution.
Every morning I put a variety of lotions and potions upon my skin, trying to stave off the ravages of age but also because my skin is really very dry and the air is very dry and it's cold and we have forced air heat blah blah blah. So the other morning I've got one of the bottles, it's a pump thing and I pump a small amount of the stuff onto my finger, normally. This particular morning the exit hole for the creamy goo is slightly plugged, so instead of hitting the finger, it splurches past the finger and onto the window. It looks remarkably like spooge, and it's 5:50a.m. and I am hysterical. It doesn't help that rather than unplug the hole properly, I try to get more out of the bottle and that splooches onto the mirror. It's spooge city. I have not been able to get these images out of my head for days. I did clean off the window and mirror though.
I saw my dentist last week and he told me that I have a cracked tooth and I'll probably just have to suffer the pain until the tooth dies and he has to pull the thing out. Believe it or not, this was better news than I thought it would be; I don't have to have any needles or fillings redone, I don't have huge pockets around my gums where everything is deteriorating, my teeth are otherwise in good shape. He said we could try a crown but he doesn't know if that will work. We will see how much of the crown the insurance company will cover, because at $900 for something that might work? I'd just as soon let it go. This must sound defeatist, but I suffered for more than a year with another tooth that eventually had to be pulled, and if I'm talking to a guy who's absolutely giving me the straight goods, not trying to sell me the huge service, then I'll take his word for it. Besides, having been through it, I know what will happen and how it'll go down if the tooth does have to come out. I'll wait and see what the insurance people say though, because if they'll cover the whole crown, we might as well put it on there.
Just over a year ago I applied to the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at the Guelph-Humber College in Toronto. I didn't get in, but I wrote up my whole portfolio in about three weeks so it's sort of no wonder. I'm also not published in the creative writing genre, so again, no wonder I didn't get in. All the same, I still want to write. When I think back to the time when I had to submit that thing, I remember especially one day driving home from work in January and thinking, "I am insane. I actually feel as though I could be insane." When I write, I use a completely different part of my brain than when I'm doing day to day thinking or science work. I have to access some subconscious stuff, and I have to play around with thinking What If? and the like. At the same time as I was doing this, I was teaching three courses and some labs, doing some single parenting, chairing a couple of committees, and rekindling an old friendship fraught with baggage with BF2. The words can't do justice to the feelings and the agony I was going through at the time. I often think of that drive home in the car, that thought that I could be insane. It occurred to me that if you use more of your brain than you're meant to use, you go too far into yourself, you can't get out. Maybe that's insanity, I don't know, but I felt like I was on the brink of that. I have the portfolio pieces, I should expand them, one at a time. They all need severe editing but I know that they were all on the way to being good examples of writing. Thing is, when you apply for a program like that, you can't apply on potential alone. The people making the decisions don't want to read past the page to imagine how much better the writer could be, they need to see that the writer is good. Would I still want to get into the program? Not really. Doing the application was proof enough to me that I can write.
I have not yet heard from the university that could be my potential employer. I have been preparing myself for the worst, even though the ad more or less described me, and only me, to a "t". Many things can happen, it's possible that they're mired in red tape, that the administration doesn't want to consider an applicant at the associate professor level, that the department can't agree on a short list, that I'm not on the short list and other candidates have already been contacted for interviews. I'm ready to not be on the short list, I just need to know so that I can get moving on making a life for myself that is outside of academics. If this job doesn't come through in other words, I am good with walking away from "it all". Walking to what I don't know, but I guess I'll figure that part out later.
Oh, and it's Valentine's Day and I don't care.
I think that's it for now.
Sunday, February 4, 2007
The Most Excellent Rosalind Franklin
She's not my hero because she was a crystallographer who probably solved the structure of DNA before Watson and Crick did, and she's not my hero because she was a woman scientist who put up with crap from lots of people, many of them men, because of who she was. She's my hero because in a letter to her dad (when she was at Cambridge as an undergraduate), she said something that I really believe in:
" I agree that faith is essential to success in life....In my view, all that is necessary for faith is the belief that by doing our best we shall come nearer to success and that success in our aims (the improvment of the lot of mankind, present and future) is worth attaining." (arguing against her father's faith in life after death.)
I don't know what happens after we die, and it doesn't particularly matter to me and yes I know, if I'm reciting the apostles' creed every Sunday and going on about believing in resurrection and life everlasting then I'm a hypocrite, and yeah yeah yeah....but what we do here, during our own lives, is the only chance we have right now. Living for some unknowable future won't cure the ills of the world; we only get this shot at it, it has to be the best we can do, all the time, without exception.
Does this go against "going easy on oneself"? Only to the extent that going easy turns into sloth. Going easy on yourself is also part of doing your best, it has to be. If you're not all there because you don't take the time to stop and smell the proverbial roses, then you're not doing your best, you can't be.
I've been reading Brenda Maddox's book on Rosalind Franklin over breakfast for the last few days, snippets at a time; a review of the book indicates that it's more balanced than a previous work, and certainly less ridiculous than James Watson's portrayal of "Rosy" in The Double Helix. Franklin lived and worked during a time when women, and definitely not single Jewish women, weren't particularly welcome in the science world, and not in the hallowed halls of the British education system. That she survived at all had to be due to her fine mentors, and the fact that she didn't just roll up in a ball after Watson and Crick had a look at her data via unscrupulous means indicates that she had far more class than either of those two, or Maurice Wilkins for that matter, who helped out with the data-stealing. (sorry for the run-on sentence.) She did some excellent work on virus structure, and a lot of this just from precession photographs, nothing like the kind of data we get today. Makes one feel a bit like a spoiled brat, complaining about data quality...
I wanted to mention her because she worked at a very exciting time, and she did amazing stuff. She died at the age of 37 from ovarian cancer, before the Nobel prize was awarded to Watson and Crick in 1962 and therefore she couldn't receive it, as the award is not given posthumously. I am hoping that next week I will hear about a job interview; if that's the case then I will use the opportunity to aim higher, do better, train more people.......make a difference.
" I agree that faith is essential to success in life....In my view, all that is necessary for faith is the belief that by doing our best we shall come nearer to success and that success in our aims (the improvment of the lot of mankind, present and future) is worth attaining." (arguing against her father's faith in life after death.)
I don't know what happens after we die, and it doesn't particularly matter to me and yes I know, if I'm reciting the apostles' creed every Sunday and going on about believing in resurrection and life everlasting then I'm a hypocrite, and yeah yeah yeah....but what we do here, during our own lives, is the only chance we have right now. Living for some unknowable future won't cure the ills of the world; we only get this shot at it, it has to be the best we can do, all the time, without exception.
Does this go against "going easy on oneself"? Only to the extent that going easy turns into sloth. Going easy on yourself is also part of doing your best, it has to be. If you're not all there because you don't take the time to stop and smell the proverbial roses, then you're not doing your best, you can't be.
I've been reading Brenda Maddox's book on Rosalind Franklin over breakfast for the last few days, snippets at a time; a review of the book indicates that it's more balanced than a previous work, and certainly less ridiculous than James Watson's portrayal of "Rosy" in The Double Helix. Franklin lived and worked during a time when women, and definitely not single Jewish women, weren't particularly welcome in the science world, and not in the hallowed halls of the British education system. That she survived at all had to be due to her fine mentors, and the fact that she didn't just roll up in a ball after Watson and Crick had a look at her data via unscrupulous means indicates that she had far more class than either of those two, or Maurice Wilkins for that matter, who helped out with the data-stealing. (sorry for the run-on sentence.) She did some excellent work on virus structure, and a lot of this just from precession photographs, nothing like the kind of data we get today. Makes one feel a bit like a spoiled brat, complaining about data quality...
I wanted to mention her because she worked at a very exciting time, and she did amazing stuff. She died at the age of 37 from ovarian cancer, before the Nobel prize was awarded to Watson and Crick in 1962 and therefore she couldn't receive it, as the award is not given posthumously. I am hoping that next week I will hear about a job interview; if that's the case then I will use the opportunity to aim higher, do better, train more people.......make a difference.
Friday, February 2, 2007
Go Easy on Yourself
On Wednesday nights I go to a yoga class, it's my second term with this particular group of people, and I finally actually like the style. It took me quite a while to figure out just what the devil we were aiming for, and after perusing this site, which is where the people who are my teachers trained, (and some of them have trained with Vanda Scaravelli) plus with a few well-placed comments from the teachers, I now "get the point" and quite like it. So a week ago Wednesday JL was teaching for Lisa, who had to be away, and she decided that we should do the wheel. For the record, I did it; you basically push down with your hands and feet and your back goes up. Getting out of it was a different matter, however, as we were near the end of class and I was tired, so I sort of fell out of it....you don't "float" out of it as easily as you float in I guess. It's an advanced sort of a pose, I find out later. Anyway, during the week I give it a go and of course can't for the life of me float up into anything, so I quit trying so hard and then it was easier and I managed to get in and get out of the thing without falling over. Big pat on the back, thank you very much.
This week when I went to class, Lisa and JL were talking about the wheel from the week before, and I said oh, I tried it and I could do it, if you don't fight then it's not too hard. (I used to teach tai chi and I always found that by instructing the students not to think so much, they would get the postures.) JL looked at me and said, "We did that after a lot of warmups. Go easy on yourself; you don't have to get it right away."
And I thought, "Well now that is something we don't hear or say very often: Go Easy on Yourself." How high are your expectations of your day-to-day existence? Do you think that you should be able to do everything on your list, or do some things fall by the wayside? If that happens do you let them go or do you insist that they must all be done before the end of the day? When do you stop? Do you beat yourself up over stupid, small things?
My expectations of myself are very high, and yes I think that I should be able to do everything, and if things fall off the list I let them stay there but it bothers me to no end. (so I guess I don't let them stay there.) When do I stop? Um, never? Do I beat myself up over small, stupid things? Oh you don't know the half of them....
What this comes down to is that going easy on oneself is not as straightforward as it sounds. We must have expectations, certainly, otherwise why would we bother to get out of bed? We must do the best possible job all the time, I really believe that. I also believe that incorporating some "going easy" is part of doing the best job....and I am learning to go easy. Learning to forgive myself for silly mistakes, and these seem equally difficult to forgive as the big mistakes, so quite frankly it really doesn't matter what I'm forgiving myself for because it's all difficult. There are some little things, they are nothings in the big scheme of things really, that when I think of them the only way to get the embarassment out of my head is to hum tunelessly: my personal version of covering my ears and yelling, "lalalalalalalala!!!" to make it disappear. This isn't exactly forgiving oneself, this is more like putting the bitter pill away under a pillow somewhere and hoping that it doesn't resurface. My grandmother used to hum when she was thinking about money....and she didn't like to think about money.
It's Friday, take the weekend, go easy on yourself. You don't have to do everything, you don't have to be everything, you don't have to meet anyone's expectations, sometimes not even your own. Too many of us are racing around, stressed out and useless. In the end you will be remembered for who you were, not what you did. Go easy. Forgive yourself.
This week when I went to class, Lisa and JL were talking about the wheel from the week before, and I said oh, I tried it and I could do it, if you don't fight then it's not too hard. (I used to teach tai chi and I always found that by instructing the students not to think so much, they would get the postures.) JL looked at me and said, "We did that after a lot of warmups. Go easy on yourself; you don't have to get it right away."
And I thought, "Well now that is something we don't hear or say very often: Go Easy on Yourself." How high are your expectations of your day-to-day existence? Do you think that you should be able to do everything on your list, or do some things fall by the wayside? If that happens do you let them go or do you insist that they must all be done before the end of the day? When do you stop? Do you beat yourself up over stupid, small things?
My expectations of myself are very high, and yes I think that I should be able to do everything, and if things fall off the list I let them stay there but it bothers me to no end. (so I guess I don't let them stay there.) When do I stop? Um, never? Do I beat myself up over small, stupid things? Oh you don't know the half of them....
What this comes down to is that going easy on oneself is not as straightforward as it sounds. We must have expectations, certainly, otherwise why would we bother to get out of bed? We must do the best possible job all the time, I really believe that. I also believe that incorporating some "going easy" is part of doing the best job....and I am learning to go easy. Learning to forgive myself for silly mistakes, and these seem equally difficult to forgive as the big mistakes, so quite frankly it really doesn't matter what I'm forgiving myself for because it's all difficult. There are some little things, they are nothings in the big scheme of things really, that when I think of them the only way to get the embarassment out of my head is to hum tunelessly: my personal version of covering my ears and yelling, "lalalalalalalala!!!" to make it disappear. This isn't exactly forgiving oneself, this is more like putting the bitter pill away under a pillow somewhere and hoping that it doesn't resurface. My grandmother used to hum when she was thinking about money....and she didn't like to think about money.
It's Friday, take the weekend, go easy on yourself. You don't have to do everything, you don't have to be everything, you don't have to meet anyone's expectations, sometimes not even your own. Too many of us are racing around, stressed out and useless. In the end you will be remembered for who you were, not what you did. Go easy. Forgive yourself.
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