Sittin' On The Dock Of The Warf

In Charlottetown today, having just done a Bullying Awareness Week rally at a small school on the island. I have to tell you, I do NOT miss having to deal with industry types. Wow do these people love the sound of their own voices...

Pretty good rally, I guess. It was well-received even if the industry people didn't quite grok that excited for an island child is a lot more subdued than the caffinated-ADHD-child-on-ecstacy that is the norm in larger city centres. Still, it seems like a bit of a waste to spend almost a thousand clams to send me out here to do about 8 minutes of work.

Oh, and get this...

PR lady tells me that they can't drop me off back at the hotel becuase their schedule is too tight, so I need to bring all my bags with me and they'll drop me "somewhere" downtown. Okay, fine, I'm pretty easy to work with and low-maintenance. Besides, I have about 5 hours to kill before my flight home so I figure I'll walk around until my bag gets too heavy then find a local pub and eventually call a cab when I need to leave. What do they ACTUALLY do? They drop me back at the hotel (thanks, I could have checked out now instead of at 6am) so that they can all go out for lunch together. Yes, they all go out for lunch together knowing full-well that I have nothing to do for the next 5 hours. Thanks for your hospitality, incompetent douchewad. You really made me feel like a valued member of your little team.

To be honest, I would have declined. I had to listen to these people try to out-name-drop each other for almost an hour in the car on the way back. I don't think I could have done lunch. Besides, if one more of them took a dig at humble little PEI, I was going to shove codfish up their noses and cram their arses with blue potatoes.

So, what did I learn? Not much, honestly, allthough it was nice to speak in front of a school again, and to finesse my ability to talk anti-bullying research without any notes. It's not like the reporter from The Guardian was a difficult interviewer, but you know... it's just nice to do that kind of work again. I also got to rack up a BUNCH of billable hours, so that was nice too.

I've got a couple more hours still before takeoff and I'm full of microbrew... so I think I'll take one last wander, maybe get some COWS brand icecream... and then back home. Thank you, humble and charming isle, for reminding me to slow down. There is no need to rush. Well, unless you've got an arse full of blue potatoes.

Can Anyone Tell Me Where This Is From? (I'd Like to Reference Properly!)

A dear friend of mine sent me this. Ah...

One sunny day a rabbit came out of her hole in the ground to enjoy the fine weather. The day was so nice that she became careless and a fox sneaked up behind her and caught her. "I am going to eat you for lunch!", said the fox."Wait!", replied the rabbit, "You should at least wait a few days.""Oh yeah? Why should I wait?""Well, I am just finishing my thesis on 'The Superiority of Rabbits over Foxes and Wolves.'""Are you crazy? I should eat you right now! Everybody knows that a fox will always win over a rabbit.""Not really, not according to my research. If you like, you can come into my hole and read it for yourself. If you are not convinced, you can go ahead and have me for lunch.""You really are crazy!" But since the fox was curious and had nothing to lose, it went with the rabbit. The fox never came out.

A few days later the rabbit was again taking a break from writing and sure enough, a wolf came out of the bushes and was ready to set upon her."Wait!" yelled the rabbit, "you can't eat me right now.""And why might that be, my furry appetizer?""I am almost finished writing my thesis on 'The Superiority of Rabbits over Foxes and Wolves.'"The wolf laughed so hard that it almost lost its grip on the rabbit. "Maybe I shouldn't eat you. You really are sick...in the head. You might have something contagious.""Come and read it for yourself. You can eat me afterward if you disagree with my conclusions."So the wolf went down into the rabbit's hole...and never came out.

The rabbit finished her thesis and was out celebrating in the local lettuce patch. Another rabbit came along and asked, "What's up? You seem very happy.""Yup, I just finished my thesis.""Congratulations. What's it about?""'The Superiority of Rabbits over Foxes and Wolves.'""Are you sure? That doesn't sound right.""Oh yes. Come and read it for yourself."So together they went down into the rabbit's hole. As they entered, the friend saw the typical graduate student abode, albeit a rather messy one after writing a thesis. The computer with the controversial work was in one corner. To the right there was a pile of fox bones, to the left a pile of wolf bones. And in the middle was a large, well fed lion.

The moral of the story: The title of your thesis doesn't matter.The subject doesn't matter.The research doesn't matter.All that matters is who your advisor is.

I Went Galumphing Back

The largest tax on one in graduate school appears to be of one's time. I've been cultivating the habit of saying "no" this semester, and yet, I find myself back in some old yea-saying habits. My time is lacking. I don't have time to turn around. In fact, this morning I slept past my alarm and missed the first half of my class on adult psychodiagnostic issues... BECAUSE I was up until 1am working on a scholarship application (that I won't get) that is due today. I should have said no to the application. But I didn't. I went, reluctantly galumphing back to my old habits of applying for whatever I'm told to and taking on more work than will pay off.

Why am I such an idiot, you may ask?

Well, it's a bit like an addiction. Like a roulette game, the more numbers you play, the more likely you are, statistically speaking, to actually win anything. In the end, when you tally up your hours, it was hardly worth your time... but there you are with all the other slithy toves. I gyre and gimble in the wabe of hope that something will pay off with sustaining moohlah.

And mostly it is the sustinence funding that drives me. Opportunities to get a chunk of cash, for what at first appears to be "no work" is utterly tempting. Who are you to resist it, angh? But then, when you figure that each application takes about 35-40 hours including writing, editing, fact checking, lit reviews, and most of all tracking down your bloodly references who don't bother to submit anything until the last bloomin' second... and let's say you do 5 of these stupid things... Well, you start to realize that $15,000 from the provinicial government was what you earned at $75/hour. Now don't get me wrong, $75/hourX200hours is pretty awesome. But not if all of those 200 hours are worked in a single 3 week period. And you're also working your part time job of being a graduate student!

Am I whinging? If you've never stepped through the brillig doors of higher academia, you'll likely think so. The fact is that I do all that work without ANY guarantee of getting a dime. That's the roullette part.

There is also a tulgey wood of grad student subservience that I whiffle through to the best of my ability. Sometimes your supervisor, or one of the many glorified administrative assistants of your supervisor, will "ask" you do something that you get a kind of frumious feeling about. Something tells you that although this request was posed in the form of a question, that there is no room for saying "no." You have to do it, no matter how time consuming or bizzare the request. I mean, unless you have two family members who have recently suffered strokes and have cancer of varying degrees of severity AND are suddenly thown into taking over your parents' finances (bingo!) you canNOT say "no."

So why didn't I?

Ungh... why the fucking hell hell hellish hell didn't I say no? I owe backtaxes to Father Time and I still went galumphing back to my "Sure I'll Do That Thing Everyone Else Is Too Smart To Do." So I'm getting up at 5am on Friday to drive many many miles to a school rally for Bullying Awareness Week on Friday, THEN cancelling my nice, easy PAID shift at The Org on Sunday so that I can fly to our nation's most quaint island province for another rally on Monday morning.

For the love of DOG, what the hell is the matter with me?

I do have hypotheses other than I'm just an idiot.

1. I need to get away. Even if it is for work, things are just way too stressful and serious on the home front and physically getting away will give me some much-needed psychological distance from my problems.

2. I want some alone time and the best way to get it is in transit.

3. Doing public speaking events taps into an area of brain that has been starved for oxegen since my theatre MA.

4. It gives me something else to think about in a crisis mode other than cancer and money.

5. I'm punishing myself for not being something-enough. Smart enough to win internationally acclaimed scholarships. Thin enough to fit in with the "girls" in my program. On top of it enough to have prevented the financial downfall of my parents. Medical enough to manage their care and prevent them from getting life-threatening diseases.

Breaking free and saying "no" requires constant reevaluation and reaffirmation that you are doing the right thing by leaving your yes-man life behind. It means valuing your own measures of whether or not your life is successful more than other people's, even if those people are instrumental in your day-to-day life or upbringing. Like gambling, it is a monkey that is very difficult to get off of one's back.

C'mon red 75.

So I'll take my vorpal blade in hand... and hopefully something other than me will go snicker-snack.

In Reference To References

I forget to mention something. When the faculty asked to rework the scholarship application, I had to get my references to rewrite their letters. They both agreed and I gave them the changes and the timeline. I also got the head of the department to contact them to impress upon them the importance of this being done in a timely manner. You see, they have to upload the letters to a website, and only then can I go in and validate the application and make sure the page numbers are correct.

Did I mention all of this has to be done by 8am tomorrow? Oh, and that I'm basically managing a giant TON of family illness stress and looking after my husband and FIL as they await news of their mother/wife's possibly untimely mortality?

Yeah, I've been up a lot lately, worrying and trying not to worry so much, and I WANT TO GO TO BED. So hurry the fuck up, Dr. Reference#2! I'm waiting on you to do your letter so I can go crash and mentally prepare for what might be an incredibly difficult day tomorrow. You've had a week to freaking do this... why must I white-knuckle to the very end? I do not trust myself to wake up on time, nor the application website to function tomorrow morning, so make with the positive yak yak and let's go for fuck's sake, shall we?

"I'm Loosing My Perspicacity!!!"

As you all know, I am Lisa Simpson, and she uttered this line in one of my favourite episodes ever - when the teacher's went on strike and she became anxious, withdrawn, and depressed as a result.

Well, don't worry, there is no strike (not until next year, at least). But I do feel as though I am losing my keeness of mental perception and understanding, as well as my ability to dredge up more than a single synonym for any one word required on a scholarship application. The good news is that I have been contacted by my faculty of graduate studies because they want to forward on my application to a very prestigious (and financially grand) scholarship. I made it to the final round of this application process last year and was disappointed when I didn't win it. So I am extremely grateful to know that the department and the university support my application. They asked me to tweak some of my submission, however, and requested my references rewrite their letters to focus more on my specific leadership experiences and abilities.

Honestly, I can only think of so many ways to say that I led something or someone. I've used words like created, spearheaded, inspired, facilitated, liaised, managed, supported, presidential, chairperson, guided... I'm out of words. I really don't know how much more I can hammer home the leadership thing. I'm careful of not revealing my Clark-Kent online, otherwise I would tell you all in great detail what my leadership acheivements are... but those of you who know me know them anyway, and I can say this: They kick the ass of the two other people I know who have one this thing...

I WANT it.

Oh, but lordy, I know better than to get my hopes up. These things don't work by the normal rules of deserving. You don't "win" a scholarship any more than you "win" the lottery. Winning implies some sort of competition in which there are sane and reasonable rules that all parties invovled are aware of. No, with scholarships, your A averege gets you to the evaluation committe. After that, it just depends on whether someone evaluating your application happens to like your area of reserach, your supervisor, or the way your name looks in 12 pt arial font. The process takes 9 months, but it's just that random.

So wish me luck, I guess.

In other news... trying to finish your annual scholarship applications before the deadlines is difficult for anyone in full time studies. Doing it the same week your supervisor gives you a hard deadline for your thesis is upping the ante. Having all that going on at the same time you are dealing with your own ailing parents making the biggest financial mistake of their lives AND your MIL having a stroke is another thing all together.

Awesome MIL has been in the hospital for 6 days. She been sick with what I can only describe as a wasting disease all summer. She's a tiny lady to begin with and now almost 20 lbs lighter than she ever should be. She fell in the tub and hit her head and instead of waking up her husband who was sleeping in the bedroom, she called MY MOM! Yup, Mummer was dispatched to Awesome MIL's house and (in a rare moment of her catastrophizing being correct) suspected she had suffered stroke and took her to he hospital. Husband and I have been at MIL's, helping FIL keep his shit together all week. And hey, we are happy to do it. We LOVE and ADORE MandFIL. Seriously. LOVE them. But I have to admit, the timing is a little crazy. In the past 4 days I have done two scholarship applications and wrote my entire results and discussion sections. Which brings me to my next and final piece of news:

The thesis draft is finished. It has been sent off through cyberspace to Dr. Supervisor (who is sympathetic to the family stress but can't do anything about my timelines). They get one more edit, then it is off to second reader, outer-university committee member, then we defend and DONE. I only hope that I (and by I, I mean Dr. Supervisor) didn't miss the departmental deadlines for me to have my draft in to the university for me to graduate and actually keep my scholarship. I just found out that drafts have to be in by Oct. 29th or somesuch, and that each of my readers is allowed to take up to 4 weeks with it first. So yeah, that's not going to happen clearly. Tomorrow I will make a panicked phone call to the department to figure out what the dilly-o, but until then... family worry + thesis worry + hard unfamiliar bed = another sleepless night.

We're supposed to get a formal diagnosis for MIL tomorrow. If you believe in gawd, please pray. If you don't, well, maybe pray anyway... there is a lot of stuff going on right now for which I have enormous concern and very, very little power. Any good vibes are appreciated, acknowledged, recognized, valued, treasured, prized, aprehended and comprehended.