Accountability, Ashmountability

Hello Campers,



I'm not sure if I'm needing better time management, more time, or maybe a kick in the pants, but I'm having an awful time getting much of anything done. I get things started, and move everything around, but then I realize I have 5 other things to think about or do. So, perhaps my problem is focus. Luckily, there are lots of job application deadlines coming up, so I think I should be getting in gear soon (she says hopefully). There are a few things that I really need to work on:

• Writing sample/mss/chapter for dissertation--Gee, I do have an Anne Lamont first draft ("shitty"), but it needs major revision, and I feel a little suspicious I should revisit my coding scheme, too.


• Complete more job applications. I can't believe how many jobs have complex online submission systems that ask for details of all jobs--and there are lots of jobs in my past. That sucks a ton of time up, I'm finding.


• Writing Samples for my Learning Community. I'm part of a group re-visioning junior-level comp classes, and I'm completing the assignments (they all involve technology, and I seem to be the only wired person in the group).


• Dissertation abstract and teaching philosophy. Again, I do have drafts, but I'm not thrilled yet.

Now, thanks to Abby and Billie, I feel like I can feel productive, too, or at least feel shame. I will complete the writing sample by Monday, Oct. 15, and Activity 1 for my LC by tomorrow, the 12th, and Activity 2 by the 16th. And I'll finally put those abstracts and stuff away soon!

As a head check, could those of you going on the job market this year give me an idea of how many jobs you plan to apply for? I'm the only person at this stage at my institution, and my program's pretty new, so I'm not sure what a reasonable range is. But please, please, don't say 100+. :-)

Have a great weekend, and week. I'll keep you all updated on the progress.

Accountability

Oh, right, accountability? Good call Billie. As for me, it's the same old goal I've had for the last two weeks (months?). By October 15th I need a solid draft of my article/writing sample. Right now I have 7.5-8 pages. I'm pretty swamped this week, which is not good timing. I'm observing all of my mentees' classes this week and meeting with all of them about it. My university is putting on a conference this Friday and Saturday and I have two doctor's appointments on Friday. Yikes. So I need to use my time better than I did today. Had a good friend in a funk today, so I spent about two hours with him. I'm not willing to sacrifice those sorts of things, and don't need to, IF I can get my butt in gear when I actually have the time to work.

So, goals:
1. Better time management this week (and trying not to laugh about that goal)
2. Finish a draft of my article/writing sample by October 15th
3. Send draft to trusted readers on the 15th.
4. Send out job applications that are all ready to go and sitting in sealed envelopes on my desk.

That oughta do it.

Goals for the Week Ahead (10/8 through 10/12)

Ok, I've not been the most accountable on this blog-- which was, I will remind myself-- the entire purpose of the thing. . . . so today I will post my dissertation writing goals for the week.

• I will have a very rough draft of the 2nd case study done on Wednesday (typed version, as it's mostly handwritten right now).
  
  
• Then by Friday, I will have made some additional sentence-level editing and revising changes, and I'll have a brand new copy for the weekend.

Now that sounds like a lot of work, but maybe it's not so much. My first case study is almost complete, and I need to fashion the subsequent studies after the first one . . . . so I am-- in a way-- filling in a template of sorts (kind of). Part of the problem I am having with this case study is that the subject of the study is so radically different from the subject of the first study-- and this is a good thing, but it's a difficult thing to separate myself (as a researcher) from that first study and move on. So my third goal:

• Separate myself from that first case study subject and latch on to the subject of study #2.

How about you all? What are you goals for the next week?

Set-Up

I constantly reorganize my office. I have a full file of school file supplies.
I've got a good system of to do lists, staplers, memo boards and shelving.
I usually remember where things are now.

A decade has past since I worked as a secretary, I now have the skills to scare away the secretary I was. I can handle books and paper.

So, all the writing starts, and stops, and start overs...
I'm already feeling like a children's book about a windy day at the post office.
I like to do a fair amount of writing long hand.
I like to free write off of something already started.
I like to be/have to be mobile with my work.

I have too many notebooks and my laptop recently crashed.

One good thing that has been happening is that between now and June I've committed to three different conferences with three different papers about three different section of my dissertation. I now have a wonderful mini schedule for my writing progress, and I have an orange folder with 8 sections for these three conferences, my proposal, my writing starts.
Choosing orange shows good insight into how to keep my attention on my project.

I need hindsight on the habits I can develop for handling all the bits of paper and writing. Laptop habits? Desktop filing and saving habits? How can I keep it simple before I start collaging important sentences and sections to the wall beside me?

Checking In (finally)

Hello, everyone. I'm such a bad, bad blogger and bootcamper. [hangs head in shame] I haven't posted anything in quite a while, but I have been reading posts, and I've been peeking in on your blogs. You all rock so hard!

Over the past few months, I've just focused as much as I could on the dissertation and really, very little else. Over the span of three months, I worked on the thing EVERY DAY. In some ways, that's a good thing, but in others . . . well, not so much. It exhausted me. And I'm not sure I got as far as I thought I did originally. I drafted a lot of material, but not a lot of it made sense, and it needs a lot of work to get into a quality that's acceptable. But I guess that's just my process.

Now that school's back in session, I'm coming up to a more manageable schedule . . . not marathon writing sessions, but sessions that are shorter and clearly more productive, an hour here, a half hour there . . . that sort of thing.

I read the post about job search costs and just about fell over. Crap. I really thought that I might do a limited search this year (full blown next year), but I'm really not sure I could afford to do it twice. Egads. Thanks for posting that, Meagan.

How are you all doing? Where are you in "the process"?

Sobering

Wow, Meagan, that's a sobering article. I knew I shouldn't look, but I had to.

The job market has hijacked my dissertation (as I think I've mentioned) and my writing sample still needs quite a bit of work. I've been a little side tracked by some non-academic stuff: primarily a ruptured disc in my lower back. I found out last week that I'm going to need back surgery -- I'm mildly freaked about the surgery itself, but also freaked about the recovery time: 4-6 weeks. As ALL of you know, I can't take 4-6 weeks off. Can you imagine? I mean, if I could take a 6 week vacation where the world basically stopped so that deadlines weren't creeping up, I'd be all for it. If I ever find a way to make that happen, y'all will be the first to know. Until then, I'm hoping that after a week recovery time I'll be able to get back to work, but I need to get that writing sample done before the surgery.

Granted, I've been saying that for a few weeks now. Gotta get my butt in gear here people. Butt in gear.

Job search costs

A sobering account of what it costs to spend a year on the market, in exacting detail.

Via Academic Cog.

update

i've been such a horrible boot-camper. here, though, are a few updates:

during the last week of July, after 7 freakin drafts of my prospectus, my committee finally approved my diss r-s project.
as a result, in August i received formal notification of my upgraded status to Candidacy (ABD, baby!).
then today i FINALLY received word of my IRB approval from my sponsoring institution (Temple).

even though i didn't have official approval, there was some "data" collecting that i was able to do. however, as of tomorrow, the study will officially begin with vigor. and for those of you who have probably forgotten what i'm even up to, it's an ethnography of the literacy practices of student-athletes. in other words, for the next 8.5 months i'm gonna be a fieldnote-takin fool! pretty sweet, huh.

on the side i've also been working on a draft of an essay for an edited collection. as of late this work may be described most aptly as: half-assed. though i hope this isn't the case, it could be that this lil side-project dissolves into nothingness...especially if the due date creeps up on me...

Hello out there.

Hi all. I'm just checking in. Haven't heard from too many folk lately and was wondering what all y'all were up to. As Meagan noted (and many more probably know), the job list is O-U-T out. I'm on the market this year, so I'm spending too much time on cover letters and c.v.s and not enough time on my dissertation. So be it. The dissertation will get done on time and this is a bit more pressing.

I applied to three jobs today (just the send us your letter and c.v. sort of application) and will probably apply to a few more tomorrow. But I need to get a few more things in order before I send my applications out to the send-us-everything sort of schools. It's exciting and terrifying at the same time.

I'm preparing myself for the possibility of not getting a job this time around -- it certainly happens -- and I'm mostly okay with it. I know what I would do next year to improve my chances, so it would be fine. Not ideal for me, but fine. But, here's hoping that doesn't happen.

Luck to all of you on the market this year!

A big decision

I've talked before about my efforts to get stuff together for the job market. (If you're not a comp/rhet person, then you may not know that the grand list of job openings was published on Friday.) After looking at that list, and taking a hard look at my progress on the diss and my other activities, I've decided not to go on the market this year.

I've been keeping my options open since this summer, getting the application materials together just in case I saw jobs that I felt I absolutely must apply for. But in reality, I need to get more work done on my dissertation before I can talk definitively about what I do in the project and what I have found.

Now that I've decided to take another year, I'm excited about what I can do in that time. Instead of cobbling together a makeshift dissertation in the next 7 months or so, I can take more time and do this well-- and submit an item or two for publication while I'm at it.

In the meantime, I am still writing. I will also be applying for fellowships. Rest assured that I am not resting on my laurels-- indeed, I am not even sure where my laurels are. But I'm planning on the RNF at CCCC in New Orleans-- maybe I'll find them there.


Cross posted at Intent/Effect.