May 08, 2008

the goat

We finally ran it. And now I'm moving away, and if I want to run it again, I'll have to drive for 5 hours.

*sigh*

Posted by mryonker at 08:32 AM | Comments (2)

May 06, 2008

#500

Hi everyone!!!

This is post #500 on ye olde blog academom.

I have written 500 times here.

Hole. Eee. Sheet.

And since you're here, I'm sending you away. Please consider buying my house. It's beautiful and perfect and I don't want to leave it, but I think moving the house to York, PA would be cost-prohibitive.

Posted by mryonker at 08:34 PM | Comments (5)

May 03, 2008

skip this unless you're writing a diss

As I've been working through this PhD, I've noticed a bit of a pattern: I like each phase a little better than the last. I thrived in course work, but suffered a little at the end of each semester when I had to spend a couple of weeks trying to make sense of 14 weeks of discussion and reading notes to build a paper.

Then came exams, and I decided that I liked exams better than course work. My rationale was this: the exam phase was all reading. That is, I could read, and read, and read as much I wanted to, and I was reading what I was interested in because my exam areas were *mine*. I made them, and I was invested in learning about them, and I reveled in the reading. Of course, at the end of it all (and it took me about a year-and-a-half from start to finish) I did have to write, but it was like ripping a band-aid off super-fast. The writing of the exams inhabited such a small time-portion of "the exam process" that it isn't what I remember about it. I remember, fondly, the reading.

Now it's the dissertation, the book-length researched argument. I've been writing on it for almost a year now (holy crap. I'm going to ignore that small detail). And I do love it. Because I feel like this is what I've been waiting to do since I got here: to revel in some thick writing-making.

To be sure, I didn't always know that I've been waiting to do this. In fact, I think I just realized it in the last few days, when I was given a small directive by my advisors: make a little more sense, please--the chapters are not fitting together yet.

And after some mildly-frantic heuristic-making and outline building, I realized what the problem was: I'd been hoping that all the stuff I'd written so far would fall logically, neatly onto the minds of my readers in such a way that the argument would delicately but obviously appear in their brains without me having to actually, uh, argue it.

I had no thesis. No over-arching claim or theme even, to show readers what I was getting at.

Part of me said, "Well, you were saving it for the end!! Here's four chapters of interesting material, here's chapter five that is the grand finale of 'How It All Fits!!'"

And the other smarter part of me said, "Hello? Is anybody in there?? You've been trying to get your OWN STUDENTS to EXPLICITLY ARTICULATE their own claims for weeks."

So: what have I learned?? Dissertating is about making an argument. And it's about NOT making an oblique, creatively meandering maybe-argument. It's about a little bit of structural repetivity, a little bit of data-making and data-analysis, a little bit of gathering and summarizing existing scholarship, and a whole lot of showing how it all fits together. It must fit together.

And then: whatever the fit is, or however the fit works, is the argument.

I imagine that partially why I've resisted articulating an explicit argument is that attendant to such writing is responsibility. If I'm going to make an argument, I have to stand by it. I have to be invested in it. I have to allow it to be important to me. I must connect myself to it. I must commit to it.

And as a student (and my profs and advisors will all concur), I'm not much for commitment. There's an authority move that happens when one commits to an argument that I'm only now becoming a little more comfortable with. I have to acknowledge that I am smart enough, entitled, even, to make an argument. And the humility of my student-hood, the presence of a bunch of really brilliant people that I work with and among, sometimes make my being "good-enough" a hard thing to admit.

What I realize now, just now, is that I have to make that allowance (even if it requires a little pretending) in order to get this project finished. I have to allow myself to be able to do it; I have to admit that I'm smart enough to do it.

I am, dammit. I am.

Posted by mryonker at 09:09 PM | Comments (4)

April 30, 2008

public service announcement

Apparently, god does love me. While the snow flies in Syr proper (and apparently in good ol' Earlville), as is being reported currently by various bloggers and twitterers in my sphere, it is BLUE SKIES and GENTLE BREEZES and a WARM PATCH OF SUN for this Parish-ite.

Ha! For once, I'm getting the good weather instead of the crap. For once.

Posted by mryonker at 03:33 PM | Comments (2)

April 25, 2008

easing back into the blog

I've avoided blogging for a few weeks, simply because all I was thinking about was being miserable and stressed out. No one wants to hear any of that.

However, when your mom tags you, you oblige. So I'm back on the blogging horse, for now.

Five things in each of the following categories:

10 years ago, I was:

1. 22
2. A junior at Norfolk State majoring in English.
3. Mother to a toddler.
4. Living in Virginia Beach.
5. Writing a lot of poetry.

Today’s to do list:

1. Mop kitchen floor.
2. Try not to eat all day.
3. Do tons of laundry.
4. Try not to eat all day.
5. Write 500 words on the diss.

Snacks I enjoy:

1. Corn chips with cream cheese mixed with salsa.
2. Corn chips with avocado.
3. Granola.
4. Doritos.
5. Trail mix.

If I was a billionaire, I would:

1. Pay off my student loan, and all my friends' student loans.
2. Put enough aside so I could write full time.
3. Give the rest away.
4. Give the rest away.
5. Give the rest away.

My bad habits:

1. I judge myself and others much too harshly.
2. I yell at my kids.
3. I don't always "clean as I go," which makes it hard to teach my children to do so (hence, much yelling about "Pick up after yourself!!")
4. I squirrel time away reading crap on the internet.
5. I sometimes drink coffee too soon before bed, and then suffer with insomnia.

Pet peeves:

1. Tailgaters.
2. People who drive too slow in the fast lane.
3. Know-it-alls.
4. Ignorance.
5. Hypocrites.

Places I’ve lived:

1. Lincoln, NE.
2. Waukegan, IL.
3. Ceiba, PR.
4. Chesapeake, VA.
5. Colorado Springs, CO.

Jobs I’ve had:

1. Lifeguard.
2. Volleyball Ref.
3. Writing tutor.
4. Writing teacher.
5. Writer.

Posted by mryonker at 02:29 PM | Comments (0)