[ edmondchang.com ]

JANUARY IS ALMOST DONE. Where has the time gone? I cannot believe that we’re already a month into the new year. My awareness of the the passage of time seems heightened these days. It’s because of the dissertation. Or more accurately because of the fact that I have not done enough work on the dissertation. Every day that goes by, every week that goes by, and every month that goes by is a reminder of how much time I have wasted, how much time I have let slip through my hands, and how much time I have been stuck in my process. It has been over a quarter since my meeting with my dissertation advisor. I have done some reading hear and there. I have done some free writing here and there. But when it comes to any kind of substantive, structured, even-near-well-articulated writing, I have little to show for the last three or four months. It’s disheartening, even as I understand that this is all part of the process.

I know that everything that I have been doing, even the down time, is all part of the preparation for the next chapter, the next steps, and finishing. It’s all up in my head. And it’s swishing around. And there are moments, mere glimpses, usually when I’m doing nothing in particular — like washing the dishes or riding the bus home — where I see an idea coming together. But it’s nascent. And I really have nothing to put down on paper, although I might try. So, I sense that work is being done one some subconscious, unconscious level. I hope from simplicity comes complexity. The writing will emerge like Athena from my brow. That is not to say, of course, that I am just going to wait around for it to happen. I keep fiddling, I keep scribbling, I keep reading, and I keep agonizing. (Alas, it’s much more of the latter than the former these days.)

It doesn’t help that the past few weeks have been unusually full and volatile. A lot has been happening — fortunately not to me directly — but to people around me, people close to me. Jane, my roomie and fellow dissertating grad, suffered two tragedies in a row (her best friend’s mother passed away and her beloved dog Thor died, both quite suddenly). It’s been an tough few weeks for Jane and for me. Then my friend Rebecca’s favorite riding horse, the one she learned to ride on as a child, died. Then my friend Jason’s father passed away. It’s been an incredible confluence of extremely high emotions for all involved.

Life has just been busy, full of the odds and ends that seem small and manageable on their own but when grossed together make troubling logjams in the flow if things. For example, I usually have Monday, Wednesday, and Friday off this quarter. I only have to be on campus on Tuesday and Thursday during the week. But I have had to go in on my off days to help cover Jane or Jason’s classes. Or I have a meeting for one group or another. Or I have to take care of some detail like returning a recalled library book or dropping off a letter of recommendation to a student. In of themselves, they don’t take up a lot of time. But combined with my daily duties of teaching and life, the hours just get whittled and whiled away.

To be honest, I have whittled and whiled time away doing nothing but procrastinating, too. Procrastination is the number one coping mechanism for PhDepression. Some of that procrastination takes the form of other kinds of work — like working on teaching stuff or cleaning up the apartment or trying to have a life — but some of that procrastination is simply time to turn the brain off (or try to anyway) and just be. I have watched a lot of television. It doesn’t help that Jane is also going through the same kinds of PhDepression pains. We simply park ourselves in front of the TV and just let the day go. Lately, the LOGO channel has been showing random episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It’s a decidely happy distraction. I am tempted to buy the whole series on DVD so we can watch it from beginning to end.

Some of the “fun” time has been really helpful and even therapeutic. I have managed to put together a Tellings gaming group. I have six players gathered from school and friends, a mixture of new and old, and it seems to be going well. My friend Josh, who played with me when I lived in San Francisco, and his friend Andrea are playing. My friend Curtis and new friend Michael from grad school are playing. My former student Rebecca, who has taken four classes with me including my tabletop RPG and LARP classes, is playing. And, lastly, Greg, my partner, is playing. We have been playing for a couple of months now, and I am happy. In fact, Curtis has mentioned to me that I seem happier and more outgoing. I knew that gaming was an important outlet for me for my creativity, imagination, and extroversion. It’s sad that it’s taken me nearly five years to get a group going here. But better late than never.

Overall, the same formula has been holding true: life = pretty good / dissertation = death. Hopefully, the next month will be better in both regards. More soon.

RETURNED. It’s been over three long months since I have written anything here: I have been away. More mentally, emotionally, and intellectually than physically or geographically. It seems like a gulf of time between now and then, between the start of fall and the end of spring. I cannot believe that I left my site, my blog for so long. I think this is probably one of the longest hiatuses in the history of my site. I don’t know why it happened exactly. I know that it was partly due to the fact that I wanted to try migrating the site over to an actual blog platform like WordPress. (I didn’t like any of the templates. And I don’t really have the time or the energy to learn how to build a template.) But the majority of why I haven’t been writing is because I have been writing — anything — at all. Writing right now has been a bit of a curse. I feel like I’m more than just blocked. I’m all mixed up and paralyzed right now. My dissertation has come to a dead stall. And because I’m stuck there I’m stuck in all of my other creative, expressive endeavors. I suffer and so my blog suffers.Fortunately, some instinct for self-preservation and self-motivation and self-creation takes over after any extended period of “blah,” and I start nudging my way back into working, writing, growing, and changing. It’s still just a trickle. But some progress is better than nothing. It’s all about finding the rhythm, the routine agian. I hope that if I can get back on the horse with these personal projects, which are really low stakes, then I can find some confidence and energy for my academic and scholarly projects.

Here’s to a promising start: I decided that I will keep on keeping on with my site until I actually can find a blog platform that I am happy with. And in the spirit of starting fresh, I have updated the site’s color scheme. It’s bold, deep, sharp, and strangely in line with the mood of my current days. I like it. We’ll see how long it lasts. In the meantime, here’s a hasty recap of months missing:

MAY

I really can’t believe that it’s been so long since I last wrote. My last entries were back in May, back around my birthday. And then that was it. Radio silence. Suffice it to say a lot has happened since then. Again, some of the sudden hiatus can also be attributed to the fact that the end of last quarter was a really busy, really stressful time for me. I had a major deadline of turning in a draft of at least one of my dissertation chapters in order to meet the normative time deadline for funding. I am sure I went over this, but basically, I came into the program with four years of guaranteed funding. Normally, it is five but I came in with my master’s. And even though I have only been at UW four years, I am considered a “fifth year” because of my MA degree. Anyway, this past school year was my last year of funding. The upcoming year, as a “sixth year,” I would be put into a pool of those needing funding. Throw in the financial crisis, massive state budget cuts, and a dwindling appreciation for humanities programs and what you’ve got left is a lot of grad students scurrying and scrounging for money. So, to try to make things “fair,” the department installed normative time deadlines for completing certain degree milestones like taking exams, prospectus approval, and dissertation chapters. In order for me to be competative (something I hate needing to have to worry about), I needed to get a draft done at the very least.

JUNE

The quarter ended in the first week of June. I got my chapter draft in before the deadline. It’s a total mess and needs a lot of work. I literally cobbled together a bunch of different ideas, readings, pieces of past papers, and attempted to frame its wanton unruliness. I think there is some merit to what I wrote. I like some parts. I like some ideas. But it’s far from being a “done” chapter. I also wrapped up my high school novel class. I had some really good students, but overall, I think the class could have been a lot more engaging and interesting. Teaching literature at eight o’clock in the morning and trying to get kids to let go of their high school preconceptions and prejudices was difficult. I still had a good time. I still thought it was a good idea. And I got a lot out of the experience, which is success in my book.

The end of term also brought a cavalcade of university functions and obligations. I mean it wasn’t bad. Just busy and tiring. I was honored by the University for my Excellence in Teaching Award (here’s the official write-up). First, I attended a luncheon held by the school for teaching award recipients and members of the award committee. Then, I attended the actual university-wide recognition ceremony where I got a fancy framed certificate and a medal! If you want to see Provost Phyllis Wise give me my award, click here.

Finally, I was invited by the Department of English to speak at graduation. It was a great honor. At first I wasn’t going to do it, but my department chair thought I should. How can you say no to that? So, I got to dress up in regalia. I got to sit up on the stage with all of the professors. And I was the first guest speaker. I only had five minutes or so. So, I kept things really simple. The first part was sentimental: I told the students that they needed to make sure they continued to be curious about the world aroudn them. The second part was practical: I advised them that no matter what they wrote, no matter what job they had, they had to read everything out loud. Then I proceeded to tell my number one best student error story. I had a student once who wrote a paper about the disposal of nuclear waste in the US, whether it should be disposed of in a centralized facility or remain decentralized. There was a quote in their paper that was supposed to read: “Nuclear waste spread across the US is like dirty socks strewn about a bachelor’s apartment.” Unfortunately, what they actually typed was: “Nuclear waste spread across the US is like dirty cocks strewn about a bachelor’s apartment” (my emphasis). This got a lot of uncomfortable laughs. But I immediately followed up with: “I wrote in the margins, ‘OH, MY GOD!’” And that got them laughing. All in all, it was a success. People kept coming up to me afterward saying how much they enjoyed my speech. (There was report of one complaint from a parent who did not find the story appropriate for public.) It was one of the hardest things I’ve done — and I’m usually comfortable speaking in front of audiences — mainly because it was in front of like a thousand people and I didn’t want to fuck up people’s graduation experiences.

JULY

The bulk of July was spent prepping for and teaching ENGL 108 for Summer LEAP, a live-learn transition program for incoming freshmen athletes. I’ve been with the program for several years. This was my second year teaching, co-teaching with my friend and roommate, Jane. And like previous years, it is really fun, really tiring, and really challenging. I always have a blast; I always feel like I’m learning how to be a better teacher. And I really like working with this particular population of students. The four weeks were intense and intensive. We taught every day. We usually had grading every night. And on Fridays, we would take the students on field trips into the city. It’s pretty much all I did for the entire month.

AUGUST

Much of August was spent recovering from July. Much of August was spent trying to get back into dissertation mode. And much of August was spent just wallowing, stressing out, trying to not let the “PhDepression” wipe me out completely.

To be fair, my life and my world are generally pretty good: I have had a very full and productive (in different ways) summer, I am in a great relationship with Greg, my social life is generally cool (I think in part because I really don’t worry about it as much as I used to), I got to visit with my sister a little when she came up for a visit, I am still doing my best to exercise and eat well, I am still playing World of Warcraft, and I adopted a cat.

Pigeon is technically my friend Jamie’s cat. Jamie needed to find a new home for Pigeon. So, Jane and I decided that we’d foster her (indefinitely). She’s a very sweet, very playful, very vocal, and sometimes very needy little furball. But she’s added some life and energy to the apartment. And she’s offers companionship and comfort to both of us.

So, the general state of things is fine. But, alas, as with most things when it comes to graduate school, the dissertation has really got me down. Like I said, though, I’ll figure it out. I mean I want to quit every single day. I keep thinking that there’s got to be better things to do, easier things to do. I am half-tempted to just find a fun job and live out my life. But I know that I really do want to finish the degree, close this chapter, and hopefully make it as a professor. I am hoping that the school year will give me some structure back to my hours, days, and weeks. It’s really nice to have all of this “free” time, but I tend to just feel anxious, feel guilty that I’m not producing, or just feel disappointed and depressed. So, with the new school year, I’ll have things to work around, things to distract me, things to cheer me up. I hope.

That’s it in a nutshell. More soon. I promise.

MAY 5. I cannot be believe it’s already May. Half the year is almost over, and I feel like I just started getting into things. Or maybe I just feel like I’m always getting things started and never really getting anything done. Or maybe I just have too many things that need getting started and need getting done. Perhaps that’s really what is going on. And I can’t believe that my birthday has come around again. So quickly.Someone tell me how to put the brakes on this thing. Life. Work. Things. I have been preoccupied, overcommitted, and precociously procrastinating. And it’s stressing me out. A lot. So much so that being stressed out is stressing me out. A vicious cycle of a flavor and texture common only to grad school.

It’s not that things are “bad” per se. Actually, I thing most of the general day to day is fine and dandy. But the big things are big and scary and demand a great deal of psychic energy and stamina. Dissertation. Worried about not having a job next year. Getting older. Feeling stuck. The stress and worry about the big things have a magnifying and harmonic affect on the stress and worry about the little things, which taken on their own or in small, managable numbers are easy peasy. Teaching. Grading. Extracurricular projects. Friends. Relationship. Working out. Not eating like a jackass.

I just need a little time, a little grace, and a little divine intervention. Just to grease the gears a little and get things moving.

More later.

AS ALWAYS, there’s too much to talk about and nothing to talk about all at the same time. Life has been, well, life. Trundling along, babbling along, sometimes with me in the lead and sometimes dragging me behind it. Much of the past few weeks has been devoted getting the new quarter underway. The transition from winter quarter to spring quarter is always tough. There’s not enough down time, recovery time. We have a week — otherwise called spring break — between quarters. And as I have moaned and groaned about before, the quarter system is at times grueling. After two quarter facing a third quarter seems cruel and unusual punishment. But, such is life.

Spring break was spent mainly working on my two classes this quarter: ENGL 242 A: Reading Fiction: “Not Your Average High School Novel Class: Re-Reading as Critical Practice” and CHID 496 D: Focus Group: “Heroes & Monsters: Understanding Live-Action Role-Playing Games”.

I also spent a few days putting together an application for a Huckabay Teaching Fellowship. I proposed developing an “Introduction to Video Game Studies” course with a public humanities component. It would be nice to be able to put together a revision of my ENGL 207 A: Introduction to Cultural Studies class and then teach it next spring. Basically, if I get the fellowship, I will spend the upcoming winter quarter working on the class and the attached student symposium. Then, I hope to get enough funding from English or Comparative History of Ideas to actually run the class in the spring quarter.

School started at the end of March. I have a full class again. The course has a pretty interesting take on reading literature, I think. But it’s one of those classes that either will be really amazing or really painful depending on whether the students get on board. As I said to them on the first day, “If you feel like I will be murdering your childhood, don’t take this class.” We’re reading a lot of things that students have had either in high school or other classes or have some common sense knowledge about already. And given that these “classics” have a lot of traditional baggage attached to them, students might feel like the class is out to destroy what they know, what they think, and what they believe. Part of the requirements of the class is to read SparkNotes.com, to get a sense of the thematic, descriptive, literary “analysis” they are accustomed to, and to realize that talking about plot, character, theme, symbol, motif, and personal interpretation is insufficient and uncritical.

It’s only been a few weeks and I am already tired (but I think I was tired to begin with). I teach my literature class four days a week at 8:30 AM. Even though I am done at 9:30 AM and get to go home most days, I feel like the hour that I am “on” I use up all of my energy. I also have a “problem” student this quarter — a student who likes to be oppositional for the sake of being opposition, who likes to disagree with me and argue that there is a “proper” and “singular” way to read a text, and who tries to commandeer the discussion. It was distressing at first because I don’t want to shut anyone down. But I have taken to being a bit more directive and setting clearer boundaries, which seems to be working pretty well.

My focus group is interesting and I haven’t quite figured out what it’s going to be like. We only meet once a week and there was a lot of turnover the first week. The class is about live-action role-playing games and we will be playing Archaea. Most of the students have some experience with RPGs in general. Some of them have never played an RPG before, much less a LARP. We are starting with three films about the subject: Mazes and Monsters (1982), Monster Camp (2007), and Darkon (2006). I am excited, but there’s a lot of prep work to do: print rulebooks, making equipment, making costumes, and getting everyone ready to actually play. We will be playing on campus during our class’s meeting time. Hopefully, this will lead to getting an actual group up and going outside of school.

Otherwise, my own work is pretty much still stalled. My Facebook profile often reads “Ed has PhDepression.” I am trying to do little things to work up to bigger things. But I think the problem is that I’m just tired, burnt out, a little disheartened and dismayed by the prospects for my immediate future (after graduation), and overwhelmed by the enormity of what I have to produce (much less define in terms of who I am as a scholar). Granted, this paralysis and frustration and gnashing of teeth is not specific to me per se. It is very much what almost every grad student I know goes through. I am also under pressure to complete at least a chapter by the end of the term, which is like eight weeks away, to have top consideration for funding next year. It’s just a big ball of stress and worry, which generally makes me not want to work on it.

More later.

HOLY CRAP! I really mean holy crap! I was just minding my own business, flipping through emails, trying to keep my inbox pruned, trying to recover from the night before of too many Irish car bombs for St. Patty’s Day. When I get to this email buried under announcements, student queries, a grade challenge, and spam:

I am actually astounded. Stunned. Shocked. Speechless. The first thing I did was instant message Greg with the words, “HOLY CRAP!”

I was nominated last year for the same award but didn’t get it. A friend of mine, Rachael, got it in my department. So, this year, I was nominated again. Upon nomination, I have to collect five letters of support from professors and students, a letter from my chair, my CV, a list of all of the classes I have taught at UW, all of my course evaluations, and a short packet of teaching materials. When I asked my chair for his letter, he was actually conservative about my chances for winning — not that he didn’t think I deserved to win — but that it was unlikely that they would give the award to the same department two years in a row. Alas, as my high school creative writing teacher discovered when she doubted me, my chair was wrong. Boy am I happy that he was wrong.

The awards were announced in University Week and on the UW Teaching Academy website (though there’s a typo, which I emailed them about, in my departmental affiliation: it seems I teach in “Englih”). A fancier article is supposed to appear with pictures later on. It also seems there will be a blurb in the upcoming issue of English Matters, my department’s newsletter.

I am beyond thrilled. And I am thankful for all of the good teachers I’ve had in the past — from Mrs. White, my kindergarten teacher, to Mrs. Etze, my sixth grade teacher, to Mr. Schuma, my high school architectural drawing teacher, to Mrs. Abeshouse, my high school creative writing teacher, to Theresa DiPaolo, my college academic advisor, to Michael Olmert, my college mentor, to Kandice Chuh, my graduate academic advisor at the University of Maryland, to my Ph.D. committee at UW Tom Foster, Kate Cummings, and Eva Cherniavsky. And everyone in between. I have always modeled myself after the best teachers I have had and continue to strive to be the kind of teacher I would want in my life. I am thankful for all of the wonderful teaching, mentoring, advising, and administrative opportunities I have had at the University of Maryland and here at the University of Washington. I am also thankful for all of the students I have gotten to know, gotten to teach, and gotten to learn from and practice with. Special thanks to my letters of support writers, to my friends who support all of my endeavors, and to my family.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY VERY TALENTED FRIEND, KEVIN. Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you!In other news, video games class got written up in the UW Daily student newspaper. The story is by a former student of mine and features classes about video game studies at the school and the Critical Gaming Project @ UW.

STILL TIRED. I think I say that a lot. And I think it’s my general state and the general state of most graduate students. It’s not that I don’t get enough sleep (though sometimes that’s the case), but rather it’s just that I constantly feel worn down. In other words, it’s called stress. It is a diffuse, lingering, shifting kind of stress, which weighs me down like a heavy blanket. I do have a lot to do and I do have various responsibilities that keep me busy, but it’s not like I have seminar papers due in two weeks or bill collectors breathing down my neck or impending, unresolved relationship drama to confront. For the most part, my life is good. My deadlines are farther off, fuzzy on the horizion. My bills are getting paid though I am worried about funding for next year. (In fact, I just got a credit report done and I am in great, great shape.) And my relationship with Greg has settled, is comfortable, and is a nice, warm, happy spot in my life, though you never really know what will happen or where things will go in a week, in a month, in six months, in a year.The biggest stressor is school.

On a micro level, teaching has been particularly challenging this quarter. I have some really good students who are bright, engaged, good writers, great participators in class discussion, and who seem like they like me and the class. However, I have a majority of students who I think feel a bit baited-and-switched because my class on video games wasn’t what they wanted or turned out to be what they expected (even though I was very clear about the goals and focus of the course from day one). They have faced rigor and difficulty and the demand for critical thinking with less grace and effort and enthusiasm than I had hoped. And I think rather than turning to me for help, than taking up the challenge, than getting something out of the class, they are simply shutting down. My first set of major papers four weeks ago were under par (but it makes sense since it’s the first time they have written for me). Alas, because they are required to do two out of three papers during the quarter, most chose not to do the first turn-in. The second set of papers were near abysmal. In fact, I got them this past Monday, started grading them, found them to be distressingly poor, and graded the whole stack (which took me nearly twelve hours) so I could return them to the class the very next day. I mean I got a paper that was only two pages (the requirement was 4-6), not researched (they had to have five academic sources), and ended in the middle of a paragraph. Really?! That’s what you’re going to turn in? I wanted to make sure I talked to them about it before it was too late. It has been a long time since I have had to use the voice of authority, to thrash a class with a scolding; I cowed them to the point that they couldn’t look me in the eyes till I was finished. However, the roll of the dice did not pay off and I think many have chosen the path of least resistance and simply given up. The students who are fine are fine. The students who ask for help will be fine. But the students who don’t do anything, give in to either apathy or inertia or fear, are going to be in serious trouble. Even though I know I cannot help everyone nor should I expect every student to respond and engage, it depresses me and pisses me off and stresses me out.

On a macro level, I am worried about the next year or two. I am unsure about the next year or two. And I am ambivalent about the next year or two. The national financial crises (we have to make sure we understand that this is plural not some singular problem or catastrophe that can be solved in one fell swoop or stimulus plan) has of course produced budget crises at the University of Washington, which has produced budget crises in my home department. (Of course, the humanities get hit the hardest or have to suffer the most in these final calculations.) What does this mean? What does this mean for me? There’s a whole list of things. Here are some salient things drawn from the last departmental meeting with grad students and the departmental chair (I took minutes at this meeting):

–we have little info, but any info will be made available as soon as possible; a lot is not yet known or decided; “uncertainty” is the word of the minute, hour, and day; much of this again depends on the State budget (Washington is deciding its next biennium state budget this year)

–preliminary permanent TA allocation for next year; 80% of total from last year; even at 80%, the money reaches far enough to fun all TAs through the 5th year (that we have)

–beyond the 5th year, things are still uncertain; much of this depends on the State budget (as decided by Olympia), which might be late this year

–course assignments will be trickier this year; this will sort out slowly

–the College is thinking about going to create a temporary TA budget; still unknown but some of that money would likely go to English

–Graduate Studies Committee / Faculty endorsed no more than 2 TA positions available for recruitment, for brand new people (down from the usual 10-12 offers); the money that we do have will go to students already in the program

–new TAs / 6th Year funding is still uncertain; “magnified” this year; question about insurance (if we’re not appointed, can we get insurance coverage); uncertain whether or not 6th year offers will be quarter-to-quarter or year-long appointments; historically 6th year funding is quarter to quarter

–the director of the Expository Writing Program says normally we would have 30-34 new TAs (recruits, fellowship grads, grads who have not yet TAed), but this year it looks like it will be about 15; which means that 2nd years will probably continue to teach ENGL 131 (the core comp class) rather than moving on to other kinds of classes

–the director of gradute studies says that the department is really committed to the people here; she discusses work critera (barring a windfall) approved by the faculty: in order to be considered for 6th year funding, you must have defended the dissertation prospectus AND your director of your dissertation must have approved 1 chapter of the dissertation (these decisions won’t be made until the very end of the spring quarter, so write!); heads up on the satisfactory progress benchmarks, you need to meet those benchmarks; 4th years really need to complete the exams (waivers are no longer going to mean much anymore); 2nd years need to complete the MA; this is a way to support as many people as possible with a clear criterion

–dissertation fellowships are not directly affected, pay out from the endowment; the endowment has gone down but it is cushioned; pay out for next year will not be cut as much as the departmental money; PhCs should pay attention to the things sent out from the graduate office via the PhC listserv for funding opportunities

–the chair projects that with the upcoming year, there will be a lot of students coming in and someone will need to teach them; granted money will probably come back into the system but it is uncertain where

The biggest problems are: first, not knowing much until the State decides its budget, which puts people like grad students in a bind because they have to plan for the summer or next year but have to wait to see if they get funding or not; and second, having to suddenly meet benchmarks in some cut-and-dry way, which means some grad students caught in limbo are going to suffer.

My guaranteed funding is up this school year. Next year will be my “sixth year” though it is my fifth year being here (I’m post Master’s), so I am in the category of “not knowing.” I hate it, actually. It was the intention of the department to extend guaranteed funding to sixth years. But the financial meltdown has obliterated that dream. I think I will be fine, but I hate not knowing I will be fine, particularly in matters of money. I really didn’t want to take out another year of loans. I really just want to finish my degree, teach another year, and get out on the market. I am going to apply for upcoming fellowships and such. I’d rather be teaching, though. But all funding opportunities are contingent on your place in the process, your satisfactory progress towards the degree. In other words, how much have you done and how much have you written?

I got through my dissertation prospectus defense and am now supposedly writing. I have started reading and researching (though barely), but I have not actually put pen to paper, hands to keyboard. I don’t even have a working file saved on my computer called “ed’s dissertation.doc” yet. The general dissertation funk is strong in me. It’s not unusual, quite normal actually. Most people simply get stuck, freaked out, depressed, paralyzed, or overwhelmed. I think I’m a little taste of each at the smorgasbord of grad student anxiety and insecurity. In part, I think I’m looking forward and seeing a pretty bleak future. I really wanted to finish this calendar year and try to go on the market this fall. But my committee is against it (unless I actually finish my dissertation). To think that I would be in grad school another two years is depressing to me. And then I have the woefully glutted and woefully sere job market to contend with and figure out. Too many PhDs, not enough positions. Why write my dissertation if it’s going to get me no where? Why start now if I know I have two years to go? Why bother if I can’t get funding to do my work much less to live and eat and sleep under a roof?

That’s where I am at. That’s where I’ll be for a while, I think. That’s what I have to work through.

Like I said, things are generally fine in the now. But down the road looks dodgy.

More soon.

I AM TIRED. Not beat down, bedraggled, soul-sucking tired like I was a month ago when I was in a mortal struggle with pneumonia. But I am still not quite recharged and recovered. I generally feel okay but I tire out pretty quickly. Even just a few hours at school is enough to make me want to put on my PJs and crawl into bed. I guess that’s to be expected after being sick for so long.I am mostly better now, though I think I’ve been saying “mostly” for a week or so now. Every time I talk to someone, medical professional or otherwise, the time for full recovery from pneumonia keeps getting longer and longer. I have given up on trying to guess when I’ll be “done” being “mostly” and finally get to be “all” better. I had a little bit of a worry last week. At the start of last week, I had a low grade fever, my sinuses were all pressure-y, and my cough worsened. I emailed my physician and she recommended that I just go in to the health center to get checked up, to get someone to listen to my lungs. We ended up doing all of my follow-up tests last Tuesday. My x-rays came back negative for pneumonia and everything else seemed good. I just had a cold and a little bit of a bronchial thing.

My cold is mostly gone. I got put on a steroid inhaler and my bronchial thing is mostly gone. I feel pretty good considering. It will be nice when I can just go about my day to day without having to catch my breath or cough up a lung.

Basically, I’m just trying to rest and take it easy. Of course, whenever I need to do that, my life is always suddenly busy with teaching stuff, meetings, places to be, due dates, group demands, and so on.

The biggest deadline was my prospectus defense. Basically, after I turned in the revision to my prospectus, the twelve-odd-some paged document that ostensibly articulates my dissertation project and outlines proposed chapters, I needed to meet with my committee to talk about it and have them sign off on it. Well, my “defense” (more like a meeting thankfully) was last Thursday. Alas, I couldn’t manage to get the meeting to fall on a holiday, but it was sandwiched between Chinese New Year and Groundhog Day.

The meeting went fine. It began with two of my professors, Kate and Eva. They started by saying that they are passing the prospectus and that they felt I was ready to move into the dissertation. So, at least, I didn’t have to worry about passing or not passing. And then they proceeded to ask me really difficult and scary questions. I expected as much out of my committee, who have reputations for challenge and rigor. I did my best to answer their questions, which focused mainly on elaborating parts of my project, on explaining why I chose the texts that I chose to focus on, on how I conceived of certain parts of my argument. That’s all. The difficulty of course is that I haven’t written the dissertation yet, so much of what I don’t know I don’t know because I haven’t crossed those bridges yet. My chair Tom arrived halfway through the meeting and added his questions, suggestions, and wisdom. Part of the meeting was about my project and what I wanted to do. Part of the meeting was thinking about how to go about actually writing a 200-some page document. And part of the meeting was about planning for graduation, for going on the market, for professionalizing, and strategizing about how to make sure my project was marketable.

It was tough. On some levels it was harder than my oral exams. But I got through it. Or I should say that I coughed my way through it. And now I am officially dissertating.

More soon.

FIRST OF ALL, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY FRIEND JEFF!  I hope he is well and has a great day. Second of all, Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day! And third of all, Happy Inauguration Eve!  (I’m sure the poetics of the inauguration of Barack Obama falling so close to MLK Day will not be lost, even though such logics bespeak of certain racialized — if not racist — hopes and desires and guilt.  But, let me be positive and “yes we can”-y for now.)

In other important, national news, it’s been about a week since I finished my course of antibiotics.  Moxifloxicin.  What a great name. I think I should name my next cat Moxiflox or Moxifloxi.  I definitely feel better.  I no longer feel like I’ve been dragged through the sewers.  Fever is gone.  Aches are gone.  General well-being is up.  Energy is returning.  But, I am still resting and recovering and healing. I still have a little bit of a cough, which thanks to an inhaler is lessening each day.  And I still can’t really exert myself too much.  I get tired fast and out of breath fast still.

I went back to work last week.  I taught Monday through Thursday.  It’s been really good to go back to my routine and back into the classroom.  I was feeling bad for having to cancel the first week of classes.  And I was worried that we wouldn’t be able to get caught up. But things are moving along swimmingly. I think we’re back on track.  Though, I must admit that I have never taught this class before, and I am learning as much as my students are about how to structure things, about the readings and the game texts, and about what it means to study, do, use, analyze, and understand “cultural studies.”  I’ve framed my class with the idea that we’ll look at certain cultural studies terms, ideas, interventions, and keywords as we dive into “virtual world” and “video game” texts. In other words, the games we play and the texts we explore become the occasions for thinking about cultural studies perspectives and methodologies. But the class is set up so that we’re thinking about the texts first, then linking them up to the cultural studies second.  It’s inductive, but I think productive.

The first part of last week, I just went in to school (early since I go in with Jane, who teaches at 8:30 AM, and I teach at 9:30 AM), taught, and then went home. Walking across campus was more tiring than I expected.  On Thursday of last week, I decided to see if I could do a full day.  I went in, taught, had office hours, had lunch, hung out, had collegial hours in the afternoon, then went to pub. By the end of the day, I was exhausted.  There is something qualitatively different about sitting at home and resting (or “doing nothing”) and sitting in my office or on campus resting and “doing nothing.”  I think it’s because at school I am always “on” and talking to students, talking to people, watching my behavior, doing work, thinking about work, being extroverted, and such.

Thursday was also an emotional day because Greg got laid off from work.  I was on chat around lunch time, and he told me that he had just lost his job. He called me shortly thereafter to tell me what happened.  Basically, his company was downsizing.  In his workgroup, he and one another senior person got laid off.  It’s all about saving money, right?  Why pay a senior employee’s salary when you can pay someone much less to do the same job? I think it was a shock to him (though he had a feeling the week before about it).  It was definitely a shock to me. I thought he was safe given that he worked on key projects and applications for his company. I could tell he was shaken. He’s in good shape, though. He’s got a generous severance package, and his company is bending over backwards to make the “transition” a good one. Of course, this doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck to get dumped. Greg met up with me at the pub.  We talked. He talked. He commiserated. He vented. I think it was good for him to get out.  And I think this can be a good opportunity for him if he’s creative, proactive, graceful, and patient.  He needs to not take it personally, though.  He’ll be okay.  He’ll be more than okay. Besides, he’s got good friends, good contacts, lots of experience, family, and me.

The rest of the weekend was pretty much spent just hanging out, decompressing, and doing more of the “resting” thing. Friday night, one of Greg’s (former) coworkers had a little gathering at her fancy house on the coast of western Magnolia.  It was way out there. The party was “German sausage” themed.  Basically, they served different sausages, sauerkraut, pretzels, and German beer and sweets.  I brought the fixings for my almost world famous “ginger cape cods,” which I should name “Tina Louises” or “Ginger Grants.”  The party was okay. I was really tired.  And I really didn’t know anyone there.  Plus it was mostly “grown up” types, I guess, consisting of couples and professional world people and such. Even though most of these people are in my age group, I don’t feel like I am in their circles and leagues. I’m fine with that, actually, but it makes for awkward conversations. I had a nice time and am glad that I can hang out with Greg and his friends. But afterward it was nice to go home, be quiet, and sleep.

Greg got World of Warcraft as a holiday present from his mom.  So, he’s been slowly learning how to play the game.  We spent the weekend playing together.  He made a Draenei warrior named Missoula.  I made a Draenei shaman named Ocoro.  In just a few days, we’ve hit level 12.  He’s still getting used to everything.  There’s a lot to take in in WoW and a lot to learn how to do.  But it’s been fun, diverting, and distracting.  I think I get a little bossy, though, because much of the game is second nature to me.  It’s been a really long time since I’ve met a completely new player to WoW.  But Greg’s bright and just by playing around he’ll get it in no time.  Interestingly, I bet a number of my students taking my class will also be WoW newbies, and I’ll have to try to find ways to ease them into the game. I think, though, that part of the challenge of learning a game is part of the fun (or can be part of the fun, I should say).

Saturday was spent mostly hanging out and playing WoW.  Then we went to see Slumdog Millionaire, which was good but a little rougher than I expected. I also expect the current hype surrounding the movie might do well to be filtered through a little bit of Edward Said.  Moreover, the “feel good movie”- and “triumph of the human spirit”-ness of the film does little to stray from conventional narratives about rugged individualism, the “American Dream” or better yet the “Capitalist Dream,” and idealized romantic love.  That said, I think there are things about the film that are brilliant.  I particularly like the actors of the first third of the film; the kids are amazing.  The images of the city are staggering and dense.  And I love the music, particularly M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes” remix and A. R. Rahman’s “Jai Ho” used in the closing credits. I would have liked a little more commentary on issues like class, race, religion, and such. But I very much liked it and recommend it.

Sunday was spent hanging out some more. Greg and I did head up to Alderwood to check out the Circuit City ”going out of business” sale — which alas was not really a sale and the quality of the store seriously bespoke of why the company was bell up. I did pick up a few things, but for the most part the sale prices couldn’t beat Amazon’s regular prices or Best Buy’s prices or even Target’s everyday prices. After Circuit “Shitty,” we hit up our favorite gay-for-pay store, Target.  We went there mostly for household sundries, but I did manage to pick up a couple of really good deals on an orange hoodie, a shirt, and a vest (though I think I’m going to have to take the vest back because everyone says it makes me look like I’m trying to be a gangster).  The rest of Sunday was spent WoWing.

Now, it’s Monday.  A day off.  And I’m trying to get caught up with some little projects here and there.  That’s about it.  Hopefully, it’ll be a good week and a good rest of the month.  Chinese New Year is next Monday.  I hope for a better new year than the one I just had.  More soon.

THIS IS A JOKE EMAIL THAT ONE OF THE WOMEN IN THE MAIN ENGLISH OFFICE SENT TO ME.  I think she was trying to cheer me up (during my convalescence). I also think that it’s one of those “things” where people try to connect with me about my mohawk, to prove to me that they’re “cool” with it.  It’s silly, but it made me smile:

DAD AT THE MALL

I took my dad to the mall the other day to buy some new shoes (he is 92). We decided to grab a bite at the food court. I noticed he was watching a teenager sitting next to him. The teenager had spiked hair in all different colors: green, red, orange, and blue. My dad kept staring at him. The teenager would look and find him staring every time. When the teenager had had enough, he sarcastically asked, ‘What’s the matter old man, never done anything wild in your life?’ Knowing my Dad, I quickly swallowed my food so that I would not choke on his response, knowing he would have a good one, and in classic style he did not bat an eye in his response. ‘Got drunk once, and had sex with a peacock.  I was just wondering if you were my son.’ Wishing you a Happy New Year and an abundance of laughter this year.

It’s cute. Happy new year, indeed. Abundance of laughter, indeed.