Sniffles, papers, soup

Sniffles and the end-of-the-semester seem inevitably to go hand-in-hand.
I know, from conversations with other peoples, that I'm not the only person that falls ill during the last two weeks of the semester.

The system is designed in a way that the world starts to weigh heavily down in those last two weeks of the semester - between teaching, grading, writing papers, reading for classes, attending classes when you'd rather be writing those damned papers, we're doing fifty hours of work a day. Hells-bells, I'm not surprised that we're constantly fighting off flu-like symptoms at the end of every single semester.

My cure for today: Rasam / Chaaru. 

Food, Empty Pantries and The-End-of-The-Semester (Or, Making Dal without a pressure cooker)

I woke up this morning craving the Poor Baker's End of Semester Scones.
And, I had every intention of making them.

But, as with all of those weekend mornings when I wake up at 10.00 am and loiter in bed until 11.30 a.m., the immediacy of hunger beat my good intentions and stole their lunch money. I settled instead for ginger chai, bourbon biscuits and a warm bowl of cereal.

I find that the closer I get to the end of the semester, the more I want to cook* and the more elaborately I want to cook. For today's lunch, I'm craving some good ole' Telugu fare.
I'd like to make rice and sweet pappu pulusu. And for the side, I'd like me some brinjal curry**.
A quick survey of my pantry and fridge tells me that I have just enough to make all of these my two-week-old  purchase of brinjals has, uh, gone bad. Bummer.

On the plus side, I've discovered remnants of mango pickle and kandi podi. Ooh Yum!

And while I make these nommies for my lunch, I'm going to try grading on the side. Because this is the only way to grade without losing your mind.

Watch this space, my recipes will (magically) appear after the jump.

*Normally, as you've heard, I rather detest cooking an elaborate mean unless I'm having company. I find it quite boring to cook for myself. (There, wrangle yourself an invite.)
**Think stir-fry, not thai curry.

End-of-Semesterness

Aight. Long break there (for those of you that noticed).
I've been lurking, reading:
1. Stu on anonymity, accountability and the interwebs
2. The Chronicle of Higher Ed's piece on Graduate School Being Like Art School
3. Also the CHE's pieces on The Big Lie and the same author's piece on going to graduate school for the Humanities
And on a much, much more delightful note:
4. The new namesake's blog about genre, werevwolves, Orientalism etc.

In the face of change and uncertainty, #1 through 3 are things that are / have been on my mind.
Posts on at least some of these to follow.
Until then, stay safe, y'all.

Spring Break

No, Really. It is Spring break. I'm very excited. I get to spend the whole week not teaching and catching up with grading, reading for class, writing papers and building a website, instead. Whee.

Writing Projectx - Spring 2012

Aight, we're at that part of the semester where I'm outlining my writing projects.
Three short papers / proposals due this upcoming week. Two journal-length papers due by the end of March.
And student projects to grade in the meanwhile.

On a related note, the narrative structure of Jaane Tu is fantabulous! It does some interesting things with constructing gendered characters (although given that the prescriptive, predictable, normative ending is somewhat, um, disappointing.)

Beaten-to-death lament about work

Seriously. How are we at this again?
How again, despite my planning and best intentions, do I still have 15 papers to grade, two presentations to work on, two papers to finish and 200 pages of reading to do? How?*

Aight, I'm off for a bit now to try and breathe and in the process, to remember that there's a lot outside my control. And there's fat little I can do about it.

*All rhetorical. I know how. Or, see title of post.

Things I've missed in the last Six Months

Since moving into this new life in Cornfield Town, a lot has changed. And as much as I'm pro-change, there are things that I miss very dearly. And since we're at this list-making time of the year, here's a list of things (and people, and moments) that I miss very dearly:

16. Short-drive access to decent restaurants that can seat more than twenty people
15. The quaint town-square and its farmer's markets
14. Impromptu Lunches with Her at Petra Cafe
13. The Dickson Street Bookstore
12. Iron Horse Coffee Company
11. Kimpel's asbetos-filled halls (who knew?)
10. My own office space - yegods, old large wooden desk, I miss you.

9. Being able to breathe without the neighbours hearing me

8. Vaulted ceilings (and while I'm at it, in-house washer-dryer systems)

7. Living in a place where pets don't defecate on my doorstep

6. Long, pointless walks

5. Following Galactic Suburbia

4. Writing
3. Reading (yes, ironically)
2. Reading Science Fiction, specifically

And most of all, I miss

1. Having the time to do things for myself without guilt




Clearly, this semester here has been incredibly frustrating, and I'm not even counting the academic stuff yet.*

* Okay, clearly this is not a gratefulness post. And to compensate, I admit that this move has had a couple of saving graces. I've met a few wonderful people here - people that warm my heart. And I've found a awe-bloody-some yoga studio. 

Paper #3

A very imperfect 80% done. I have 2 pages more of writing to do and then, I'm calling it a wrap.
And more and more I'm wondering if grad school is for me, right now. 

End-of-Semester-Writing

I'm writing my full-length first paper for this semester. After much procrastination and many tears, I have three thousand words down. They are horribly imperfect words, but, hell - its 60% of the total word count.
I feel like one of my own freshmen working through a word count and through page limits. But, so it is. 

An Odd, Odd day

I'm having one of the oddest days that I have had in a long, long time.
(And not in a ooh-look-chocolate-people kind of way.)

Today has been full of dropping hot coffee, knocking over a glass of hot water, headaches, losing my wallet, and running out of gas, bad feedback on thesis work, and dealing with drunk students (okay, a drunk student, but several terribly prepared ones).

But oddly enough, it has also been a day of finding much affection and random acts of ordinary kindness: like free coffee (a friend was buying me coffee and when the barista heard of my wallet loss, he was kind enough to make me a free drink and threw in a pastry) and the timely rescue by another friend who lent me money to buy gas to get home (thanks, Miz Z.). Eventually, I also found my wallet (by far the most unexpected of today's weirdnesses). Anywho, I'm incredibly grateful for all of this.

Sure, I still have to deal with the unexpectedly bad feedback about my own work.
And with that whole issue of the passive-aggressive, v. entitled and mildly drunk freshman.
But, for the moment, I'm sending out a great whopping thanks for some very reasonably-sized mercies.

Bye, Bye Break. Hello Craziness.

And like that, a whole week flew by.
Although neither was nearly enough, I'm reasonably pleased with the work and chillaxing I got into the mix. (Where's my medal now?)

But here's Spring Semester Part Deux which, if I'm not super careful, will kick my ass.
So, wish me luck, folkses. I'll be around, more than you think.

Day 25: They're writing songs of love

So far, three of seven schools have sent out their admits, but not for me. (Clearly, I'm the next George Gershwin, people.)

I ran to a dear, dear prof to rant about this wait.
The adorable prof: "Well, wait until the end of March. And if there's still nothing...."
Me: "I can come running in, throw myself on your couch and bawl?"
The adorable prof: (Guffawning). Yes, you may. But it won't come to that.

All positivist things aside, all it takes is one admit. All I'm asking for is four. That's it.

Anywhoo, this apparently is the long, dark teatime of the soul, not to be confused with Teatime.

Day 2 - 'Tis the season

Here I was, wondering about what to write for today's post, when a tangled mess of grad school application stuff fell right into my lap. Sometime last semester, I decided that I had not had enough of grad school and  applied to a few doctoral programs.*

Now, the results are trickling in.
And I'm very buggered. I haven't heard back from my top choice. But, I have heard (from random sources) that they've sent out the last of their invites. Of course this is not direct news from the school itself. Online forums around which I lurk are abuzz with speculation about rejections and waitlisting. And reading those posts is certainly NOT helping.

If I haven't received a mail, does it mean I'm on a waitlist? Does it mean I'm out of the running? Should I be sending telepathic "Accept-me" signals to this program? Should I move on? All this guesswork is
a) driving me crazy
b) adding to the already overwhelming uncertainty in my life and
c) distracting me from more important things.**

Dear Top-Choice-School, Why not send out the rejections along with the acceptances? What is this sinister stringing along of people? What do you get out of it, really?

I'm reminded of a time (a while ago) when I was in a similar situation with a program which I (with all the naivete of youth) believed was my ticket to awesomeness and attractiveness. The standardized tests were  gruelling, the wait, long and the process as a whole, excruciating. That process, however, was much, much more transparent that this one. You made a cut-off, you knew you'd get shortlisted for the first round.
I'm voting more transparency in the admissions process, really.
Ooh, in retrospect, another upside was that I made a couple of fantastic friends along the way.

*Shrug*. Oh well, there is a lesson in everything, I suppose. Now all I have to do, is find a shovel and dig one out of this. Or just Zen this out.

*= more greys.
**like actual homework, thesis, class planning etc. 

Semester, Semester

On a significantly less dramatic note, I'm quite excited about this upcoming semester.

I get to dread admissions decisions (who can't claim that's fun, eh?), get to prepare for comprehensives, face the dreaded prospect of getting that thesis thing together, complete coursework, get to attend conferences, and, most awesomely, get to teach a literature and writing course. Wheedledidodah!

Mostly, in this moment, I'm cautiously excited about meeting les nouveaux étudiants and about hearing what they have to say about short stories, poems and plays. I confess, sometimes, these kids surprise me (and not by saying "I hate your class but can I get an A", although that has come to pass as well.)

Day # 9

Today, I'm aiming to finish writing one of my three research papers.

I have coffee, water, an office space with some of these taped to the wall, a Pratchett calendar on the side and a suitcase full of books.

I have to get to work in an hour and a half.

But in the meanwhile, up, up, and away!

Ten days of Christmas

Um, online I mean.
I have ten, make that nine, days to:
1) finish three research papers (atleast two of which have to be phenomenal, and yes I am aware of the absurdity of this statement.)
2) Work on applying to grad school (whee! more school)
3) Grade student papers

That's 216 hours - of which commuting takes up 10 hours, teaching, 6, work takes up an additional 8, sleeping another 60 and other random crap takes up atleast 20 hours.

Which leaves me with what? 112 hours to get my act together.

Aight, that is more that I thought I had.

I can do eet then, yeah?

And given my state of affairs right now, in an highly uncharacteristic move, I've decided to rally the support of my invisible online troops.
I'll set myself targets online and you, dear troops can cheer me on, eh?

Let's take this outside, then.

2 of three

Australo once warned me that in grad school one always picked two of three things: work, sleep, a life. And hells bells, isn't that true.

This past semester, I've chosen work and um, work.

Yes, y'all, I'm superhuman samurai minus syber-squad. Which of course, is not to say I haven't been enjoying my work. However, I'm at saturation point, I think.

Seriously.

Also, why didn't anyone warn me that applying to grad school while in school is an ultra-stressful process?

So while I go and saw off my toes now, please, pretty please go read: Orbiting Academe

New Reads, new Loves

Have I told you how much I love the students this semester?

They're human to me (yes, this is new), they're real people, with germs and colds, a life, irritations. It is fantastic. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for this to last.



On another note, I love her - she's a much more articulate, much cooler, much more fantastic me.

Now, I'm off (Ogg, Odd) to teach my yung'uns about writing research proposals.
More, soon.

Three a.m.

Lost. Homeworked out. Insanely stressed.

And falling.

I'm, what's the word now, appalled? stunned? ...un-impressed, perhaps, by the average freshman's attitude to professors, teachers and more importantly, to acquiring knowledge. On the whole, I get the impression that they're just. not. interested.

Okay, granted, it is an English Composition class.
But effort has been made all around to make sure that the class is not about "poetry". The aim of the class is to teach critical reading and writing skills. How can it be hard to see how the class would be useful across the curriculum?

I do realize that this is very traditional of me, but I've come to expect respect in a classroom situation. Now, now... not for me - not even if I'm older (and wiser, ha ha). I concede that I don't know enough - but respect for the work that these kids are (supposed to be) doing. Turns out that kind of attitude is obsolete. Oh joy!

I stay up nights planning out class work, syllabii, grading papers and most recently teaching myself to be less "formal" in my approach to the class. The very least I thought I could expect was attention. Apparently not. Scarce commodity around these parts.

Oh there is one thing that is available in abundance though - cockiness.
This week, I've had the dubious pleasure of hearing, "Yeah, I tend be very profound and look beyond the text" in response to "Good job on picking up on that point" ; "She's so ridiculous" to an exercise and "What do we have to do to write a summary", after two weeks of classes on the topic.

I even had one kid tell me that English was not his thing. In English. American kid. Very telling, isn't it?.

Okay, yeah, I wasn't a perfect under-grad. Far from it, really. I almost always turned work in at the last minute. I did have "opinions" (like all hot-blooded 18 year olds). I was such a piece of work! I'm sure I wasn't a pleasure to be around. But I don't remember saying anything like that to a teacher. Or saying "I don't want to" when called upon to participate in class.

The whole "So what if you're my teacher, I can be where you are" (extending even to "Oh so you have a Phd. in the subject you're teaching me. Big deal. I can do that too, if I want to.") doesn't fly with me. But turns out that for my sanity and my job I should follow my professors. I'm going to have to suck it up and desist from saying, "Yes, you idiot, you can, but you haven't and the way things are going, doesn't look like you're about to".

Ah bon! C'est (apparently) la vie!