Making Grad School Worthwhile

I love to learn, especially by experincing. I love history and I got to be a part of it last night. I watched a black man win the presidency of the USA. As an academic, while I feel this is a victory I can't help but think we still have far to go.

I cried last night out of pride for my neighbours, but we still have far to go. An LGTB president? An Hispanic or A Native American president? As a scholar I feel a responsibility not to let people think the war on racism is won. We are one more step up that ladder, but there are still many more rungs until we reach the top.

In the meantime, live in the moment. We were just part of history. There is a lot more history to make and I plan to have an active role in the history yet to come.

It's all about the Frosh

http://www.globecampus.ca/blogs/freshman-life/

Sigh, another blog about undergrad, OK, its fairly good, btu would love to see more about grad students in the media. Hmmm, maybe I can get a job with the globe and mail!

Lessons From Running

I am running a race this weekend, and according to my training schedule I should have run 8.5 kilometres this sunday, well Oktoberfest killed that idea. I kept feeling as though if I couldn't schedule the time for an 8.5K run, I shouldn't run at all. Well that was stupid, I am still going to do the race regardless of whether or not I get in this run, so I might as well do something. So I went for 4 K today and it felt great, it wasn't as far as I wanted to go, but at least I went. And I will go 4k Friday morning, it isn't 8K but it is enough.

So the lesson for my thesis, I often feel like a day is a failure if I don't work for 12 hours or get an entire chapter written, but the truth is even 15 minutes or one page or a few hours is better than nothing.

So my lesson, don't be a moron and say "If I can't do a lot than I'm not going to do any", I think that might be what gets us in this trouble in the first place.

Glad I'm not this fish

I thought writing a thesis was not a great life and planning a wedding was worse....then I realised I could be this fish, things seem a little better now.

This picture may have to be my desktop for a while, I will avoid shutting off MS word because I will get scared every time I do.

Thesis status: Mostly dead

Some of you know or may have heard about that little life event I have coming up called a wedding.

While it will not be the death of me it has relegated my thesis to the realm of "Mostly dead"

Talking to other grad students I have learned that major life events seem to send a thesis into stasis. Take for example, pregnancy. While this only affects about one half of grad students it is still a common problem. A women who thinks she has three months left to go on her thesis, has already defended and is really just tweaking the bibliography decides to get pregnant.

All of a sudden a thesis that should take three months to finish, now looks like it will not be done until the little one in her tummy is starting grad school herself. Mommy classes, making a nursery, nervous calls from soon to be grandparents, doctors visits, all of which should somehow take maybe 4-5 hours a week begin to take 16 hours a day.

Or say you cross the threshold of getting an academic job, sure it is just a part time position, but for some reason you are exhausted after your three hours of class, your two office hours and ten hours of marking, you aren't going to want to finish that thesis. The light at the end of your tunnel slowly begins to fade as you enter the "I need to make money, therefore I will work, which will help me pay the tuition so I can take one more term to do my thesis" state of perpetual quasi-death.

Returning to my original example, say my wedding finishes I return from my honeymoon. It ain't over and no chocolate covered pill is going to revive this undead tome. After the wedding you have thank you cards to send, gifts to return, a new place to move into. All of a sudden your working spouse expects you to work during the day, 9-5 like him or her, so you can spend "quality time" together. Impromptu beer nights (aka academic brainstorming sessions) with your friends are replaced by dinner parties with other married couples who ask "how long until your thesis is done again?". Pshaw, they never mentioned that in the pre-nup. I do my best work at 4:00 am and I study over beer how was that not obvious before marriage.

Well, death is another part of living, I am sure things will even out again soon after all, I do study religion and even my thesis deserves and afterlife (or is that what a post-doc is for?)

*Disclaimer* Any mention of annoying spouses is purely conjecture and in no way reflects my real life spouse as he has never worked 9-5, he's lucky if he gets to work 8-11(pm) **

Types of Grad Students: The Over Achiever

The Over Achiever (OA) can be found at any one of a million weekly meetings. Apart from meetings with the supervisor daily, the OA is a member of every possible comittee. When not in one of these many meetings, they are in a perpetual state of on the run. Despite never seeming to sleep, eat or sit down and read, they seem to hand all their papers in two weeks early, and hae several publications under their belt.

Interacting with the OA is best done through one line e-mails or text messages. They are generally too busy to actually answer a phone or read more than one line of an e-mail. As well, they are probably doing a million other things while reading your text or e-mail.

Though the urge to kill the OA is strong, or to at least give them some valum, it is best to avoid these urges. Instead, latch on to them and ride their coat tails. Want to see an example of an over achiever and a mooch, Karl Rove and George W. Bush. Proof that you don't actually have to be the smart, hard working one to go far.
The OA will be eager to co-publish and hand you the not too important comittee projects that are easy to do but still look good on the CV.

All in all, the OA makes a good co-worker, not necessarily a good drinking buddy as their high powered life style can lead to excessive tendencies in other areas. Use them to motivate yourslef to work harder, but be sure to spend a lot of time with the slacker (To be discussed later) in order to make yourself feel more productive.

Dissertation Vacation

I just got back from a vacation...from my dissertation.

Yes, even grad students need vacations.

What did I do? I sat around and read...what a great break from my thesis where all I do is sit around and read.

Maybe I should think over this vacation thing more.

Why Studying Religion Can Suck - Episode One!

Scene...some pub in Australia

Random guy: Hey, good DJ tonight.

Me: Yeah, I like this place

RG: Hey, I love your accent, where are you from

Me: Canada, I just graduated from uni and am here as a graduation present

RG: Sweet, what did you study

Me: Oh Psychology and religious studies

RG: Long thoughtful pause
RG: Look of accomplishment
RG: No way... I've read the Da Vinci code too!

Me: Contemplate jumping in front of Australian bus, or pushing RG in front of said bus to prevent procreation.

Thesis without Caffeine?

I have a confession to make. I hate coffee, the only way I can drink it is in Cafe Mocha format with so much sugar I sacrifice a tooth for every extra hour of wakefulness.

Upon finding out my distaste for what other grad students call "Brown Gold" or "Liquid Energy." I am generally met with looks of skepticism and outright disbelief. Then when I tell them at the most I drink tea or diet cola (yes... I said cola, not satan...I mean coke) at the most, but generally try to get a full 8 hours of sleep, my veracity as a grad student is quickly called into question.

"Well you must be a part time student" Nope.

It's true, I have had approximately 1 and a half cups of coffee in my entire life. Once when I thought I would try it to see what the big deal was. And once when a well meaning uncle who doesn't speak English bought me a cup and I felt too guilty to throw it out. Even having pulled at least 30 all nighters throughout my life to finish various projects I never use the java.

Same with energy drinks... the best tasting ones taste like lemon flavoured urine (please don't ask how I can make this comparison), the worst ones, well I want to keep this blog at least mildly clean.

I really don't know how I do it, I had to stop drinking Mochas because of all the sugar so I can't even have that caveat anymore. I guess my research is just so interesting and stimulating that I am never tempted to fall asleep. Yeah right.

Anyway, what ever the reason, this may be my only chance to hold a title of note and value. Neil Armstrong: first Man on the moon, Hilary Clinton: first female presidential candidate, Me: First author of a thesis to not use caffeine and complete it in under ten years. That is a record anyone can be proud of!

Grad School T-shirt

http://www.phdcomics.com/store/mojostore.php?_=view&ProductID=10620

A perfect gift for me. That way I don't actually have to speak to undergrads who ask why I haven't left the library computers in two weeks. However, after the first week they stopped coming near me at all. I suppose at least one trip home to shower can't completely delay my research.

Page Limit

I can't decide if I want a page limit or not.On the one hand it is good to know what is expected of you, on the other hand the thought of filling 300 or 400 pages is daunting...to say the least.

I look at my own writing and think...gah, I don't want to read 400 pages of that. And how many trees will I kill with all my drafts and editing. I think I need to stop using electricity to even out some of the environmental karma I am going to rack up.

Business Cards

Unless you are a publishing God/ess (Read Jonathan z. Smith, any of my supervisor's or Douglas/Foucault back from the dead) don't hand out business cards.

Here is one of the unspoken codes, grad students may not be more professional than their peers. Sure your papers can be (and probably are) better, you can be smarter, more eloquent or anything. But our mutual poverty if meant to level the playing field. If your school sees you handing out business cards, they will assume they pay their grad students too much. Subsequent funding cuts will occur next year and will be conveniently blamed on the Conservative Government.

It's like wearing Prada shoes or an Armani suit not from goodwill or Ebay (you can tell because they are pre-scuffed or do not fit quite right). Unless you are a law student with a job or an MBA student, business cards will make people think you reach too high or think too much of yourself (which is something considering we hold conferences refferred to as "The Learneds"). People rarely want to contact grad students for anything other than to get us to do drudging slave-like labour. A business card makes you look too expensive, that you might expect pay for "valuable work experience."

If you must hand out business cards, do so reluctantly, saying your supervisor made you print them so you could use them to recruit for his or her research, since their name will be on the card too. Same with all things of value, joke how you found your nice shoes on Ebay for 5 dollars plus shipping, or how your Armani suit was actually your uncle's, a high powered lawyer who gave up the lifestyle to do organic farming and no longer has need for the suit.

A final note, do not use them to pick someone up at a bar. This only works at bars frequented by lawyers, doctors and business people, as such your card will be competing with those of people who actually have salaries and whose degrees are not followed by the caveat "candidate." However, the card may be used to pick up other grad students at conferences and local pubs, it must still be done with the complaining, but hopefully your demure charm and self deprecating humor about the card will play down your inherent nerdiness.

Bad Weather

Odd thing to be grateful for but the bad weather makes it easier for me to stay inside and type. I get a little upset every time I see the sun because I can't be outside enjoying it. The PhD does seem to turn your world upside down.

Write your dissertation in 15 minutes a day!

Just so everyone knows, right off the bat, I am not a fan of self help books. Any book that claims to be able to solve all your problems in five simple steps is good for one thing...tinder.

However, I have this book addresses one small(?) problem, writers block for your thesis, with some generally useful strategies

Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day: A Guide to Starting, Revising, and Finishing Your Doctoral Thesis 

Her most useful advice, and the title of the book, is to do a little bit every day. Even if it is only 15 minutes.  Of course if you only do 15 minutes a day, every day, your grandkids may convocate before you, but I like the principle.

Her second most useful advice, is to "Write first." We grad students have the tendency to make a million variations on the statement "I'll read one more book then I'll start writing" or "I'll run one more experiment" or I'll do one more interview", or "I'll check one more fact."  Joan Bolker is right, by this point in the game there is enough knowledge in our heads that we can start writing, at least for 15 minutes. Write when you first sit down...go do your other work later in the day. To me, this is the academic equivalent of eating our brussel sprouts first so they are out of the way.

Anyway, the book is an easy read (particularly after reading someone like Foucault, which is when I first read this book), and short (one or two good long trips to the bathroom and you could have the thing finished). I also like that these are more suggestions than rules, she isn't trying to be the Doctor Phil of writers block, just provide tools to help us figure out some healthy writing strategies. She also has some strategies on revising, but I can procrastinate on discussing those for a bit.

Here is the amazon link, give it a looksee   http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Your-Dissertation-Fifteen-Minutes/dp/080504891X

If nothing else it gives you one more book to add to your "I just have  to read one more book then I can start writing" list

The Blank Page

Wake up, roll out of bed, eat waffle, shower, start thesis.

Sounds easy right? Not so my friends.

This tome is the summation of my academic experience, it will define me as a scholar for the rest of my life....or until I get a job and decide I never want to step into a museum again because they needed a Buddhist philosopher or something.

I stare at the my MS word blank document waiting for inspiration to come. Oddly enough, flashes of lightening and peals of thunder don't seem to be coming, no light bulbs are lit over my head, except the blinking on on my ceiling I am too lazy to replace. I would think being a religion major would give me a little advantage in the "divine inspiration" department. Perhaps this is retribution for that Jesus joke last week.

Wait...ahh, there is inspiration. The sweet smell of make work projects (I recognize it from my time in cadets). I will create folders, one for each chapter...that way I can organize all the information I have been collecting over the years into the chapters I know I will have to write. This is why I can't write you see, I have all the information, it just isn't organized.

 A good three hours later I have neatly organized folders with titles such as "Power" "Identity" and "conclusions".  My thesis should only take a few months now that I'm organised.

Maybe tomorrow I will cut and paste my old bibliographies to make a reading list...that should kill at least two hours. After all, productivity is productivity....;)

Beginning a blog

So I just finished my comprehensive exams (quals for those in the US). And I am about to embark on the process of writing a dissertation.

Since I deal with stress by laughing at it, I thought I would record my thoughts as I swim through the academic rapids that is the thesis, and hopefully some other people out there who feel my pain can laugh along

It won't all be funny though, even now, I am starting to feel some of the pain, as questions I got asked during comps called into question the entire premise of my thesis.

So off I go, what do you say to start a (hopefully) two year journey?

Dissertation Ho'!  (Ok, so hopefully that one doesn't morph into a nickname).