I think the worst part is over, though it hasn't been an entirely easy--or productive--day. The Dobell I read ("The Nature of Poetry"--not his actual poems) was pretty fascination, especially in terms of Kant. The Mill is going more slowly, and the coffeeshop was a bit too crowded for comfort. Have been struggling to find a place to calm down at school, ran into a friend who was able to save me a bit, and The Poet called me a couple of times just to check in.
Hopefully this means I'll be able to go out tonight after all and not worry anyone else.
I have to remind myself that this is all basically like hitting the reset button. It might have been easier this time if I hadn't been so convinced, oh, about a week and a half ago that my life was fine. Good, even. I said to The Poet on the phone this morning, I don't know what happened, I just kept repeating that--I don't know why I got so scared or why the things that were okay last Wednesday weren't okay yesterday. I have partial explanations but they don't add up.
4.25.2008
I was okay for a bit, but then I blinked
The week after the conference was great. And then, the slide again. Today has been a full-on nervous breakdown, the reactivation of every possible abandonment issue, the occasional and necessary collapse that happens when, like me, you find yourself cobbling together the scraps of relationships to try to approximate something like what you used to believe you could get from one person--isn't that the way these things are supposed to go? And it's why you can't go sit in the park anymore all the daddies and nannies and couples and the old Pakistani man who walks up to you and starts asking you personal questions because you obviously deserve it, being there by yourself, and they always say that I shouldn't put up with the things I put up with, but most of the time I am on guard against asking too much of people--the Ex and the Professor (who may be returning to ex-best friend status and he will no doubt blame me for it) always have a way of making me feel like I'm asking too much and I'm hoping to get a job at this law firm for a couple of days a week this summer not because I entirely have to (the money will be nice, but my parents would have tided me over) but because I am scared of being in this apartment every day this summer and I also think I need to be in Wisconsin on my birthday because it's a Saturday and The Poet spends weekends in New Jersey because he has to and I don't want to run the risk of planning something that sucks or of being alone because I'm too beaten down to plan anything so hopefully I'll just leave town so it won't be an issue and goddamm it what was I thinking even for a minute that I could care so much about someone who can't see me on the weekends and that's where it all began because I realized I cared and then instead of making things less miserable its making things worse and I'm not going to have any friends to introduce to my mom next week and I'll just be hanging around by myself at my brother's wedding because apparently I ask too much and never, never enough and I need to stop this because I have a lot of reading to do and then grading tomorrow and I have to keep running, running, running...
(The Poet called me just now--I'd sent him an email that was basically just like, "I'm having a nervous breakdown, tell me something that will make me feel better"--and I'm feeling a bit calmer. At least he's steady, kind of unshockable in certain ways. But i'll still be ten days or so before I see him again.)
Anyway. Time to pull myself together once again--this is part of what it means to be the other woman, that you are always dressing better than you feel--time to throw myself out into the world, maybe stop by the coffeeshop, go to school to pick up my check, mainly just stay in the world away from myself, read Dobell, Mill, and Swinburne, maybe also some Shelley(s).
You know, I do realize I don't lack friends and that there are many people who would be perefectly happy to go out for a drink with me tonight or grab dinner. But I don't have the energy to find out who.
(The Poet called me just now--I'd sent him an email that was basically just like, "I'm having a nervous breakdown, tell me something that will make me feel better"--and I'm feeling a bit calmer. At least he's steady, kind of unshockable in certain ways. But i'll still be ten days or so before I see him again.)
Anyway. Time to pull myself together once again--this is part of what it means to be the other woman, that you are always dressing better than you feel--time to throw myself out into the world, maybe stop by the coffeeshop, go to school to pick up my check, mainly just stay in the world away from myself, read Dobell, Mill, and Swinburne, maybe also some Shelley(s).
You know, I do realize I don't lack friends and that there are many people who would be perefectly happy to go out for a drink with me tonight or grab dinner. But I don't have the energy to find out who.
4.16.2008
Quick update
* I may have my best friend back. Which is awesome.
* The conference was a huge success.
* I may also possibly be in love.
* I also love that hulu.com has the first season of Picket Fences online.
* Spring break is soon and then I'll post.
* The conference was a huge success.
* I may also possibly be in love.
* I also love that hulu.com has the first season of Picket Fences online.
* Spring break is soon and then I'll post.
4.03.2008
Minor (or not) notes
* There are days when I actually kind of like teaching composition. Maybe it's just teaching in general. But for some reason, there is a satisfaction in doing some of these things.
* My students remain awesome. Sadly, they made the teaching schedule for the fall without anyone actually asking us what our preferences were, so I don't think I get to have any of them in the next part of the course. Also, the thought of teaching a third straight semester of this section is kind of meh. Still haven't heard from Other College if they're going to hire me or not.
* Petty blog-related drama aside, I am significantly happier than I was a year ago.
* My students remain awesome. Sadly, they made the teaching schedule for the fall without anyone actually asking us what our preferences were, so I don't think I get to have any of them in the next part of the course. Also, the thought of teaching a third straight semester of this section is kind of meh. Still haven't heard from Other College if they're going to hire me or not.
* Petty blog-related drama aside, I am significantly happier than I was a year ago.
4.02.2008
Finally, an accomplishment. And other miscellaneous notes
So I finally managed to push all the way through a draft of my conference paper, and not a moment too soon. It may not be that bad. It's certainly much more of a self-consciously oral text than any of my previous papers. This may mean that I am growing as a scholar in terms of confident self-presentation; on the other hand, I have to consider the possibility that I feel like I have something to hide in this paper. But I'm actually pretty confident in my thinking about this passage, even if I still do occasionally have these moments when I feel like [famous scholar who will be in the audience for this paper in less than ten days] has had every thought I could possibly ever have on Tennyson. But, given my experience as an audience member at this conference a couple of years ago, I am pretty sure that performance and being able to answer questions without looking like a jerk will count for a lot. Also, it's the first paper on the first panel on the last day.
I have been especially aware of my writing process with this project, in part because I had the bright idea at the beginning of the semester that I should use myself as an example for my composition students. I think to a certain extent this worked really well with this group of students. (Last semester, it would have contributed to the disaster area mentality.) In certain cases, I think it allowed some of them to trust me as an instructor more--not so much that I know what I'm doing (though I obviously hope they think I know what I'm doing), but more that what I am having them do is not completely arbitrary, nor is it something that I am unwilling to go through myself. While I've been pretty specific about how what I'm working on is different from what they're working on (in terms of the oral presentation and, of course, the stakes), it's helpful I think to be seen writing essentially an eight-page research paper when they are also writing five-to-eight-page research papers. It's also, incidentally, given me the opportunity to talk to them a little bit about what academics do. I kind of wish I'd had a better sense of that when I was an undergraduate, and these students by and large are even less versed in the institutional stuff than I am. My students are genuinely surprised that this kind of writing (let alone getting up and talking about it in front of a bunch of strangers with power over my future employment) is part of what I--and many of their other professors--do.
The extent to which this worked less well is only that, because of the way my work on this paper developed--which is to say, a lot of notes and a month to a "first draft" that has nonetheless been rewritten roughly eight hundred times--has rather limited me in what I have been able to share on a material level. I had this dream that I was going to scan copies of my own edits and post them to Blackboard, but that doesn't totally work with the way I wrote the paper. I also have completely dispensed with internal citations (which I don't tend to do even when I'm writing conference papers) and feel like this sets a bad example without wanting to go back and track down the line numbers of sections I know by heart just at this very minute.
From a non-pedagogical perspective, I do think I'm getting slightly better at churning these things out, even if it doesn't look like it. I'm improving in my abilities to work on many things at once. This is, for example, the first conference paper that I've written basically from scratch while teaching. And without smoking. I know that's not the biggest achievement ever, but it's something. (The second one may be bigger than the first.)
Of course, in order to achieve this final push, I drank a bunch of tea. Though I made a pot that was half PG Tips, half caffeine free blueberry, I'm still feeling a bit awake. Possibly not awake enough to read Coleridge, though. This would be less of a problem if I didn't absolutely have to do laundry tomorrow morning. Would also like to take care of the prep before I start rocking out 19th century style tomorrow, since my observation is Thursday.
I also somehow managed to run out of toilet paper without noticing. Thank god for takeout napkins. I should address that before The Poet comes over on Thursday night.
Finally, A White Bear, who always blogs more excellently than I, has a particularly excellent post about blending one's online and real life identities. This is a perpetual concern of mine (and, yes, this is part of the "other woman" identity that isn't sexual), and while I think I experience my identities differently, I like the way she's thinking. This reminds me, of course, that there's an email I need to answer, but I kind of don't feel like it at the moment. I am becoming quite thankful that The Poet has fewer issues than almost any other man in my life, period.
I have been especially aware of my writing process with this project, in part because I had the bright idea at the beginning of the semester that I should use myself as an example for my composition students. I think to a certain extent this worked really well with this group of students. (Last semester, it would have contributed to the disaster area mentality.) In certain cases, I think it allowed some of them to trust me as an instructor more--not so much that I know what I'm doing (though I obviously hope they think I know what I'm doing), but more that what I am having them do is not completely arbitrary, nor is it something that I am unwilling to go through myself. While I've been pretty specific about how what I'm working on is different from what they're working on (in terms of the oral presentation and, of course, the stakes), it's helpful I think to be seen writing essentially an eight-page research paper when they are also writing five-to-eight-page research papers. It's also, incidentally, given me the opportunity to talk to them a little bit about what academics do. I kind of wish I'd had a better sense of that when I was an undergraduate, and these students by and large are even less versed in the institutional stuff than I am. My students are genuinely surprised that this kind of writing (let alone getting up and talking about it in front of a bunch of strangers with power over my future employment) is part of what I--and many of their other professors--do.
The extent to which this worked less well is only that, because of the way my work on this paper developed--which is to say, a lot of notes and a month to a "first draft" that has nonetheless been rewritten roughly eight hundred times--has rather limited me in what I have been able to share on a material level. I had this dream that I was going to scan copies of my own edits and post them to Blackboard, but that doesn't totally work with the way I wrote the paper. I also have completely dispensed with internal citations (which I don't tend to do even when I'm writing conference papers) and feel like this sets a bad example without wanting to go back and track down the line numbers of sections I know by heart just at this very minute.
From a non-pedagogical perspective, I do think I'm getting slightly better at churning these things out, even if it doesn't look like it. I'm improving in my abilities to work on many things at once. This is, for example, the first conference paper that I've written basically from scratch while teaching. And without smoking. I know that's not the biggest achievement ever, but it's something. (The second one may be bigger than the first.)
Of course, in order to achieve this final push, I drank a bunch of tea. Though I made a pot that was half PG Tips, half caffeine free blueberry, I'm still feeling a bit awake. Possibly not awake enough to read Coleridge, though. This would be less of a problem if I didn't absolutely have to do laundry tomorrow morning. Would also like to take care of the prep before I start rocking out 19th century style tomorrow, since my observation is Thursday.
I also somehow managed to run out of toilet paper without noticing. Thank god for takeout napkins. I should address that before The Poet comes over on Thursday night.
Finally, A White Bear, who always blogs more excellently than I, has a particularly excellent post about blending one's online and real life identities. This is a perpetual concern of mine (and, yes, this is part of the "other woman" identity that isn't sexual), and while I think I experience my identities differently, I like the way she's thinking. This reminds me, of course, that there's an email I need to answer, but I kind of don't feel like it at the moment. I am becoming quite thankful that The Poet has fewer issues than almost any other man in my life, period.
4.01.2008
In which I begin to think I should pay more attention to my dreams
My paranoia was not unfounded, but suffice it to say I redacted the wrong information.
The irony is, of course, that the more time one spends interacting with me in real life, the easier it is for them to find this blog and--the less likely it is that they *should* actually be reading it.
It's not as bad as it could be, but it's going to make for renewed field-related awkwardness in the near future, just when I was looking forward to seeing an end to that.
In other news: five more teaching days until Spring Break.
The irony is, of course, that the more time one spends interacting with me in real life, the easier it is for them to find this blog and--the less likely it is that they *should* actually be reading it.
It's not as bad as it could be, but it's going to make for renewed field-related awkwardness in the near future, just when I was looking forward to seeing an end to that.
In other news: five more teaching days until Spring Break.
An open letter to my unconscious
...an anxiety-producing dream about having to re-take the comps? Really? Good grief, 2005 called. It wants its fears back.
(The dream I was having from before was pretty interesting, but I don't know how I'd explain it. Now I have to get moving to West Village Coffeeshop.)
(The dream I was having from before was pretty interesting, but I don't know how I'd explain it. Now I have to get moving to West Village Coffeeshop.)
What Claudia Wore
My lovely friend M has turned me on to what might be the best blog ever.
I did actually get a decent amount of work done today on prep, Coleridge, the conference paper, and Gaskell. Also went to Target and finally bought some decent curtains. They improve the look of the place immensely. And I made a special trip to Teaching College to use the gym. This would be more virtuous if I wasn't trying to make up for eating a bunch of processed crap, as it is easy to do when working from home.
Hopefully, I will be able to keep up this pace through Thursday. I would definitely like to be able to send out versions of that damn paper to a few people by tomorrow night.
I redacted a few things around here in a fit of what is hopefully unfounded paranoia. I think I'm more than a little bit nervous because of the home invasion / sharing dreams I've been having lately.
Also, I think it would be fun to revive the word "coxcomb" as a synonym for "douchebag," which is a word I've never liked (even if there are occasionally times when it seems apropos). Perhaps I will simply start to make the switch on this blog, and my five readers can spread the meme.
I did actually get a decent amount of work done today on prep, Coleridge, the conference paper, and Gaskell. Also went to Target and finally bought some decent curtains. They improve the look of the place immensely. And I made a special trip to Teaching College to use the gym. This would be more virtuous if I wasn't trying to make up for eating a bunch of processed crap, as it is easy to do when working from home.
Hopefully, I will be able to keep up this pace through Thursday. I would definitely like to be able to send out versions of that damn paper to a few people by tomorrow night.
I redacted a few things around here in a fit of what is hopefully unfounded paranoia. I think I'm more than a little bit nervous because of the home invasion / sharing dreams I've been having lately.
Also, I think it would be fun to revive the word "coxcomb" as a synonym for "douchebag," which is a word I've never liked (even if there are occasionally times when it seems apropos). Perhaps I will simply start to make the switch on this blog, and my five readers can spread the meme.
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