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December 22, 2006
more merry solstice
My dad sent me this pic of the cake he and mom made for their solstice celebration yesterday.
I love my earth-celebrating, crunchy granola family!
Posted by mryonker at 10:31 AM | Comments (2)
December 21, 2006
merry solstice
I'm turning grades in this afternoon. Tonight I'll clean the house and pack. Tomorrow we leave for our annual winter migration.
I find great reassurance in what will be the growing daylight hours after today.
Posted by mryonker at 08:55 AM | Comments (3)
December 18, 2006
the epitome of anxiety dreams
A friend commented yesterday that my currently blemish-covered face indicates that I'm extraordinarily stressed out.
I replied, "No, no, I'm not stressed really about anything right now. Everything is going well."
And then I have this David Lynch-style dream. It begins with B and the kids driving me to school in an old Suburban pulling a car trailer. He cannot find a place to park, so he ends up dropping me off. I start my day in a swimming lesson, but find that I have no towel at the end so I'm dripping wet as I rush to my next class where I have a final test to take. I realize as I open my folder that I'm missing the requisite 20 copies of my car registration. I rush out of the classroom, in a bathing suit still, dripping wet still, to find B and the truck so I can get the registration and make copies of it before the exam begins. But B is nowhere to be found, so I rush back to my building and begin asking random people if I can borrow their car registration. No one will oblige me. There are huge platesful of holiday cookies and goodies everywhere, and at one point I'm holding and eating from a bucket of Chex on the Pan*. As I'm soliciting car registrations, people dip their hands in my bucket to sample and are disappointed with my holiday snack's lack of flair. Specific people from my department sneer at the puddle I'm trailing; specific other people shake their heads in disgust at my stupid holiday goody ("She brought PLAIN CEREAL?").
So I decide to give up completely, and I begin to wander around campus to find B and the kids and the Suburban. I can't find them anywhere, and so I wander off campus to search and I get LOST. And my suit is not drying out--still dripping wet.
*Chex on the Pan: Corn Chex (often the generic) quickly heated in a little butter and spinkled with garlic powder and celery salt. AKA poor man's Chex Mix.
Posted by mryonker at 08:58 AM | Comments (1)
December 17, 2006
one more last chance
Last year's last chance rundown, penned by Deb, can be read here.
The Last Chance Run is an 8ish-mile trail run in Highland Forest. Last year, Deb and I managed to get lost but still have a somewhat cold, fun for the most part, run.
This year was a marked improvement to last year in some respects, and a complete disaster in others.
Improvements:
1. No snow. Last year we ran in calf-deep unpacked powder, so we did more shuffling and wading than running. Also, the snow caked onto the bottoms of our shoes and yak trax, making our feet weigh 20 lbs each and the shuffle more difficult. This year the trails were clear of snow which made for much easier navigation.
2. 40 degrees. Last year it was cold as shit, and windy if I recall. This year the air was crisp and calm and perfect. It snowed while we ran, but that simply added to the beauty.
3. They held the pancake breakfast afterwards in the lodge with the huge windows and gorgeous view and raging fire in the fireplace. Last year the breakfast was in a smaller cabin building that was quaint and rustic, but I don't think there was a fireplace and it was awfully dark inside.
Disasters:
1. The warm temps and recently melted snow created great deep swamps of mud. Most times we could navigate around the huge ponds, but we each had a few missteps that resulted in soaked feet. When we got back we found we had slung mud nearly to our thighs. The mud also made for slippery going, especially on the downhills.
2. Lack of snow also meant that we had to negotiate the rough terrain in a way we didn't have to last year. The layer of snow had essentially evened out the roots and rocks and etc, so while we bitched and complained about the snow last year, we actually missed it this year because we kept almost-turning our ankles. I found that I had to zone in on the three or four feet ahead of me and constantly plan my next foot placement. I joked that it must be like playing DDR without the constant painful near-ankle-turning.
3. At mile 6, I realized that I might have to draw on my great knowledge and experience with survival sans conventional plumbing. This after Deb and I had JUST had an excited discussion about how our lower intestines seem to have become accustomed to our more lengthy runs. I pressed on, trying to ignore what became increasingly unbearable cramps. Luckily I was able to avoid digging a hole. But just barely.
In all, a decent run. The lines for pancakes and sausage were slow at times, but we learned the trick is to hang out at your table at the end and the volunteers bring around what's left as they're working to clean up.
After standing in the kitchen last night for a few hours making a failed saag (it's what happens when you misread the recipe and put 2 TBs of salt instead of 2 TPs), my ankles FELT as though I had sprained them both horribly, and I had to ice them and sit on the couch and watch TV for the rest of the night. Today my ankles don't ache like they did last night, but they feel fragile and weak.
Posted by mryonker at 10:16 AM | Comments (0)
December 15, 2006
new look for the new year
After a morning of wrestling with movable type, I got a decent, new look out of those darned templates. But believe me, MT can deliver a substantial pile driver to an unsuspecting adversary (me). Clearly, I don't mess with stuff enough to remember what goes where, and for about an hour things were getting pretty scary. I thought the old acadeee was gone for good. But then I remembered--tag team! I had to hack into another blog on the WRT server to steal a clean Main Index because I essentially had ruined mine and COULD NOT FIX IT.
I've had a hairy week. Lots of avoidance on the grading and running fronts. My time has been spent with a program called Graphviz working to narrow the study corpus for my dissertation. There are some things I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how to do (i.e. control the length/distance of the edges--changing the attributes doesn't appear to work?? Or I'm just not using the correct parameters??), but for the most part working with the program, and explaining what I'm doing with it to those of you who have been kind enough to look over my shoulder as I futz, has made me think about connectivity and the shapes of graphs in new helpful ways.
Also, there's been some snarls in tying up the courses I teach for that small private college. I've got students (these are adults--not frosh) not showing up to turn in final portfolios? *sigh*
I am in a decent mood at the moment, because the money sitch around here looks like we won't have to cancel Christmas, afterall. Somehow all my frugality in the past month has paid off, and we won't have to choose between heating oil and presents. They will be inexpensive presents, mind, but there will be some wrapping happening at least.
Posted by mryonker at 12:46 PM | Comments (2)
December 12, 2006
what's on my plate
I've posted before how I eat obsessively. I eat particular foods over, and over, and over until I'm sick of them and never want to eat them again.
This is a tactic I learned from a book I read when I was in high school. I don't recall the title and the author, but it dealt with managing eating habits, specifically for those of us who cannot. This book was really really great in that it taught me a lot of stuff I can't remember...I loved it so much at the time that I promptly lent it to someone and never saw it again.
At any rate, the one thing I do remember is that the writer argued the best way to squelch an obsession (with a particular food item) was to simply feed it. That, once you've eaten a gallon of raw chocolate chip cookie dough (and this was her specific example), you probably won't want to look at another spoonful of it for a long, long, while.
This tactic has worked well for me. The obsession I'm feeding right now is with Apple Oven Pancakes.
Melt 2 Tbs butter in a pie plate
Sprinkle a thin coat of brown sugar evenly onto the butter
Arrange one peeled, thinly-sliced apple onto the sugar
Pour over the top of the apples a quick pancake batter (2 eggs, 1/2 C flour, 1/2 C milk, 1/4 tsp salt)
Bake @ 400 for 30 mins
Loosen sides and flip onto big plate immediately
The end product is somewhere between an elephant ear and an eggy pancake with apples and the perfect amount of sweet.
I would post pics, except I've already eaten half of it, and it ain't pretty no mo'.
Posted by mryonker at 02:31 PM | Comments (4)
December 10, 2006
my students would protest: word economy!
I cannot reduce things to one word! Ever! via Doracasina, who couldn't keep it to one word, either. :)
1. Yourself: worrying(, working)
2. Your spouse: studying(, working, studying)
3. Your hair: long (but newly trimmed [by tyra!])
4. Your mother: spinner(, shepherd)
5. Your father: paying half for us to fly to Iowa this summer
6. Your favorite item: running shoes
7. Your dream last night: sexy
8. Your favorite drink: whatever I had at Chris's tonight
9. Your dream car: Honda Fit
10. The room you are in: office
11. Your ex: drummer
12. Your fear: nothing, really.
13. What you want to be in 10 years: running Boston
14. Who you hung out with last night: spiked egg nog
15. What you're not: well-dressed
16. Muffins: pumpkin :)
17: One of your wish list items: NEW iPOD!
(here's where I truly give up on the word economy)
18: Time: not enough to keep my house clean!
19. The last thing you did: watched while B and gr ripped out cabinets
20. What you're wearing: sleepy pants
21. Your favorite weather: 60 and sunny
22. Your favorite book: poetry
23. The last thing you ate: peanut butter + kiss cookie
24. Your life: busy!
25. Your mood: tired
26. Your best friend(s): cook! bake! baby-sit my kids!
27. What you're thinking about right now: kitchens (a new one for me)
28. Your car: big-ass camry (i love it!)
29. What you're doing at the moment: "getting ready for bed" ha.
30. Your summer: IOWA. :)
31. Your relationship status: loverly
32. What's on TV: CARS (over, and over, and over, and over...)
33. The weather: it was sunny and almost 45 earlier (TG for global warming)
34. The last time you laughed: few hours ago...best pizza and cabinets I've had in a long time.
Posted by mryonker at 11:15 PM | Comments (0)
for my students
A funny extended metaphor + advice about studying on the show with zefrank.
Get some sleep.
Posted by mryonker at 11:41 AM | Comments (0)
December 07, 2006
kindred spirit
Via Mommy, PhD., I introduce the newest academic mom blogger: AcadeMama.
And no, there's no relation. :)
Posted by mryonker at 12:52 PM | Comments (0)
December 01, 2006
when you are paged by the bitch...
Bitch PhD posted discussion a few days back about moms with three kids doing a PhD.
*ahem*
Here's my advice. :) DO WHAT YOU WANT TO DO. Bitch essentially says, and I summmarize poorly here, that it might be best for the woman thinking of going into a PhD program with an 8, 4, and 1 year old to wait until her kids are damn near grown.
I am of the mind that if you want to get a PhD, do it. I won't lie: the shit is HARD. And my life is especially crazy: I'm trying to dissertate, teaching what I will call full time (5-5 load), AND putting my husband through his undergrad work. I don't do much else. I have quit, at the smart prompting of my advisors, all the community service I did for the first 4 years of my PhD work (that included being a Girl Scout leader and doing board of directors work for a local preschool). I quit all the free lance writing I so love(d) to do (mostly maintaining and designing web stuff for local small businesses). I've nearly quit all my hobbies, including things like writing poetry (which I sorely miss) and knitting. My family eats a lot of processed food because I don't have time or money to make decent dinners; my kids eat school lunch (that we get at reduced price).
But I *love* what I'm doing. Teaching is tough work but I can't imagine me doing anything else, and I mean that. It is worth it to me--all the sacrifices that I'm making right now.
And I take special issue with the way Bitch finishes her post, where she says that those of us who work through the advanced degree with many kids--and multiple draws on our attention--are not taken seriously by our professors or peers. I might be fortunate, but this has not been my experience; I am not treated as though this degree is simply something I'm doing for the sake of doing (indeed--if this were the case, I wouldn't put myself and my family through the stress!). Instead, I feel quite the opposite. Again, I'm fortunate that 2 of my main advisors were women with children during at least a portion of their graduate work. This doesn't make them expect less from me, but they understand the specific kind of support that I need: deadlines, external structure, and mandatory scheduled time away from teaching and home to write. And they know that I'm here *because I want to be*, because I want to be able to use my work here to carve out a teaching/research space for myself in the field. Not because I want to hang a diploma on my wall (shit, I don't even KNOW where my first two diplomas ARE).
The other reason I take issue with Bitch's warning about how moms are treated within academia is that if we moms continue to ACT AS THOUGH we are marginalized, if we expect such treatment, I daresay we will get it. If you expect to be not taken seriously, you run the risk of falling into that predetermined role by acting like someone who doesn't deserve to be.
I know this sounds a bit new-age-ish, kind of like "create your reality by pretending it exists already." But for me it has been true, because there have been moments in my work here where I didn't respect my own work because I had produced it at 4 in the morning on 3 hours of sleep--only once the devil baby went to sleep. It wasn't until I started to RESPECT my work that I was able to give it primacy among my priorities so that I wasn't working at 4 in the morning any more, I was scheduling myself to write during the day when the devil was with a saint, my sitter.
Clearly, a lot of what Bitch says is spot on: you're much better positioned to do PhD work when you have a solid support system in place. I've said this countless times before: an on-your-side partner who supports your decision is essential. Make sure your partner knows exactly what s/he's getting into. Friends and family who will allow themselves to be simultaneously ignored and drawn upon for help are also necessary.
Most importantly, though, is this: if you want to get a PhD, and you can get into a program with people you want to study with, and you're getting something in the way of funding (TA, fellowship even better!), I say go for it. It's not easy, but nothing worth doing ever is, right?
And take up running. It helps with stress, lets you eat a bunch of junk while you're writing, and you get a break from writing and the kids every-so-often.
Posted by mryonker at 08:49 PM | Comments (4)