dispatches from comps, part 5: comps mini-journal.

My comps questions have dropped! I have 2 weeks to complete three 10-12 page essays across three fields of history- Latin America, 19th and 20th century US, and post-war politics and federalism. Big Brother has suggested that I keep a mini-journal of my comps experience, and what better place for it than my neglected blog? Comps liveblogging, how very digital humanities of me! Or to be passe, how very vintage LiveJournal of me! I will try to post every day until May 6, at which point I will collapse into a heap, or maybe even disappear like the Mystics in The Dark Crystal. (spaced out-podling-sucked of vital essence is more likely)

I like to think that this will give me perspective on the whole ordeal. This is not the most harrowing two weeks of my academic career, or even a major right of passage in my struggle to become a professional historian, but rather, just some funny story I'm telling the internet about my daily life- like #30daysofbiking, only important! #14daysofwriting! Let's do this!  

the ghosts of graduations past: a lesson in comparative graduations.

My cousin is graduating from high school today and I am overcome with sentimentality.  Was it eight years ago that I sat in my white gown hopefully eating contraband M&M’s with my best friends in the Tacoma Dome?  Was it just four years ago that I again trod the floor of the Tacoma Dome, this time in black, and with a greater sense of terror about where my life was going?  Or a year ago even that I was hooded in the Huntsman Center, finally graduating with a life plan? 

I thought it would be fun to dig through my paper archives and share with you some blurbs from the exceptionally fair weathered days of graduations past:

“It’s crazy though, because the next five years will probably determine my whole life.  No pressure or anything! …. Lots of cool options, when it comes to careers and what to study in college.  The whole world is in front of me! Weeeeee! I can do anything I want with my life! Ha! I can do whatever I want.  If I wanted I could go find some dweeby singles ward guy and get married.  I could go to college and become a teacher, a translator, a counselor- anything! … I can do anything I want!  The world is my pancake and I’m ready for breakfast!!!!!”

-June 10, 2002

This is obviously the first time I had thought about my future.  I’m glad that, after a few close calls,  I didn’t follow through with the “dweeby singles ward guy” option.  

“It seemed like the day would never come soon enough, and without really giving a care as to what happens after, well, it came.  Suddenly it would seem—barring [sic] all classes are passed- that I am to be an adult, an educated person, some sort or worker.  I can’t say that I’m particularly prepared for the finality of my educational pursuits but alas, the unpreparedness is my reality…

I cannot say that the post-graduate lifestyle will be without its struggles.  The need for full-time employment is imminent.  Greater independence must be obtained, as must a more fuel-efficient car.  The blessings of love and family will bring their own set of stressors; still, well, the potential of life inspires too much hope to feel overwhelmed.  Sure, Monday will come and I may feel some despair but that does not change the infinite possibilities for my future.”

-May 21, 2006

If a student wrote this, I would spend a lot of time debating about whether I'd give her an A- for being reasonably articulate or a B+ for being inflated and obnoxious, containing tense confusion and misusing words.  She would probably get the A- as like, four times elsewhere in the entry she talks about how graduation made her really want to go to graduate school.

Bonus points because my life plan was to become “some sort of worker."

“I am nearly 25 and I feel like I haven’t done anything yet.  I know I have to let go of that, take a deep breath, (<-- grad school made me put that comma there, so not me) & somehow I must believe that I can do what I said I would do…. I suppose that’s it.  I have no deep thoughts about life right now, just a lot of peace about my choices.”

      -May 16, 2009

 I think by the time I got my MA, I had finally floated down to earth and found some real goals.  Clearly after graduating so many times, its momentousness is lost on me.  I now struggle to buy people sincere graduation cards because I’m like, “Really?  I’ve graduated like a gazillion times. Do it a couple more times and then we'll talk.”

And so, class of 2010, I present you with the same wry card I presented myself with last year:

card available through Sycamore Street Press on Etsy.  Check it out- they run a mean letterpress. 

Photo links to the card as this is their sales photo. 

easy living.

It's the most wonderful time of the year!  Everyone in my little world here- including myself- and many friends far away-- is in the midst of that last big thrust of effort before the end of the semester.  For me this includes not only unhealthy binges on reading, writing, and coffee, but also hiding books I don't have time to read, letting mountains of dirty clothes pile up to Everest-like heights, and of course, online shopping.  It is a time of extremes and immoderation.  Which is why it's nice when the universe sends me messages like this:

(via the amazing Friends of Type)

and this:

(brought to me fortuitously by putting my iTunes library on shuffle because you know I'm my father's daughter and I am all over The Eagles in my iTunes)

(I don't know about you, but their 70s mops bring me endless amounts of joy) (boys, take note!)

Best wishes to all y'all wrapping up the semester! 

Take a deep breath! The end is near... so get back to work!!!

unexpected day in the life.

Give me a day that starts out with me falling asleep around 4am.


I'll tell you that it's not going to be a good day.  There's that midday social obligation.  There's articles to read.  There's all those bike miles to add up.  There's that class I'm not interested in, talking about that book that I didn't get much out of with that group of people who bore me with that nutty professor.  That's going to happen.


Ugh.


I'm going to wake up a little grumpy.


And things are going to add up.


That toast is delicious.  And that music?  It's music to my ears.


Those people outside the liquor store?- yes, I'm there at 11:30am- the ones who always heckle me for cash when I pretend I'm not listening?-- dollar bills all around, not really thinking about it.  It's windy, get some coffee.


Let's get on that bike, the one I fight with, the one that carries me through Center City as that van honks at me but I miss all the potholes.  Bake some cookies, my favorite thing to do.  Baking with the girls who are like my Relief Society, making our own group just like the Relief Society would've told us to.  But give us mimosas- the idea they scoffed at, drinking at noon- give us mimosas and chocolate chips and snickerdoodles.  A few hours of much needed sisterhood and that bread!  Something you could only find in Philly, that bread!


Breeze through those articles, the ones we won't talk about, and on to dinner.  Leftover spaghetti noodles somehow transform themselves into some proto-yakisoba, pan-fried noodles, onions, garlic, pea sprouts, soy sauce.  And we have that conversation, texting back and forth about that UPS guy who likes you.  I look forward to that, you know.  Coffee, yes, at 6pm, class tonight, what a bore! But I'm glad we talk- a different we- when we meet in the kitchen. I'm glad when you offer me some of that soup and when you tell me you liked the latkes I made, the ones you ate without asking.  Going to that talk tomorrow, getting an advisor tomorrow, class tomorrow.


Let's not think about tomorrow.


Let's talk about going to OAH in April, tenement style, with everyone.  Or you- the other you- call me and squeeze in that five minute conversation while you walk home and I race out the door.  Headlight, blinkee light, helmet, lock.  Green lights and minimal traffic, easy parking and not even late!


Allow me to bust out every strategy in the book to get through that class.  The instant challenge to a viewpoint that you tell me later will make me that professor, the one people are afraid to take and who challenges them to learn!  The notes to the person sitting next to me that inspire discreet smiles and solidarity.  The discussion's dragging, please, let me ask that question- the one about how this book would look if we wrote it from a different methodological perspective.  Let it be 9 o'clock when the professor starts answering that question, when he lays out how the book would be called "Spain on the Brain: Anglo Anxieties in Hispanic World, 1500-1800," and tells us the who thesis and sums up the class just perfectly in spite of repeating the phrase "Spain on the Brain" five, eight times.  Who cares if the monologue lasted 35 minutes?  It's the second time I've made this happen, that question, this monologue.  I've already forgotten I don't care about colonialism.  What a time we had with those guys! The ones who drive us crazy, the ones who tell us they enjoyed our comments and that they like our folding bike. The ones who exist only as types and never come out with us afterwards.


Beer, glorious beer, finally!  Let there be the favorite usual waitress who we always overtip at our favorite usual bar, the ones where people's eyes twinkle as the pitcher gets emptier and the light reflects off the yellow glass lamps and the dingy wood paneling.  Oh, that laugh that reminds me of my cousin, and please, tell me again that twenty-five isn't that old.


Oh you guys! You don't have to wait.  Headlight, blinkee light, helmet, lock.  I'll try that smaller intersection, just right, an easy left turn.  Why have I never taken that route before? 


Give me third gear all the way down the Parkway, wind on my face, no cars, dim lights glowing against the Art Museum.  I'm on the folding bike, it's not as blissfully cruise-y as the other bike, but wait, it is.  Sublime propulsion along the usual unnoticeable route.  Don't let the cat in, he comes in anyways, but he's home, I'm home, he's happy, I'm happy.  I'm headed up the stairs, happy because I'm leading this life that I never planned to lead, happy that I enjoyed this day that I didn't expect to enjoy.

confronting the hard parts.

I like what I do. It's a privilege to tell the stories of others. I've enjoyed meeting the people I study. I love going to conferences, I love going to class, I love the feeling the feeling of opening up a box and not knowing what I'm going to find. The challenges of interpreting the past engage me deeply. I have made a lot of sacrifices because being a historian is so satisfying and rewarding that I want to do it for my whole life, and I want desperately to learn how to do it well.

I love to study New Right conservatives. I admire their passion and temerity. Their rhetoric and writing captivates me. Making sense of a time in which my parents came of age and the moment I was born into has great appeal for me. I have come along way since I started studying these people, and I really, genuinely appreciate what they have to say and how they challenge my worldview.

I say all this because today I had to confront the aspect of my topic I hate the most. It's impossible to write about the New Right without talking about abortion.  For many social conservatives, it's the reason they mobilized, the one thing in the world that they would give anything to change.

I hate reading about it. I hate talking about it. I would do anything to avoid it all together.

The descriptions in pro-life literature, while well-intentioned, are often grizzly and grotesque. They depict excessive and unusual procedures, and overemphasize poorly handled situations.  I concede that it is purposeful and deliberate language. But I think that by and large pro-life accounts are as decadent as the behaviors they are intended to critique.

It has little to do with the fact that I'm pro-choice. I believe that women should have  access to safe medical procedures should they elect to do so. I stand with Linda Gordon in acknowledging that women have made this choice throughout history regardless of its legality, and with Barack Obama who feels that unwanted pregnancies should be prevented through affordable birth control and comprehensive sex education. Like Ruth Bader Ginsburg, I believe that it is not a question of either / or. But my politics seldom enter the picture. I am guided by professional ethics and exercise a level of restraint that others have called judicious and even admirable. What I write is not about me. I am not trying to change anybody's mind, nor am I open to my mind being changed.

I just don't like reading about blood and tissue. Needles, suction, disposal, no thank you. I think it's a terrible way to spend the day. It makes me miserable. I don't find it enjoyable to try to understand what's going on in the text; I find it so abhorrent that I struggle to get motivated when I have to address the issue. It's impossible to focus on, requiring breaks, endless coffee, snacks, checking of blogs, email, twitter, and anything that might offer relief from the task.  If someone called and said, "Hey, would you like to come clean my toilet?" I would probably opt for that.  My work ends with descent into exhaustion and then unsatisfying naps. I wind up feeling drained and find it near impossible to shake off the dirty feeling I get from reading this rubbish. To use a turn of phrase from my Mormon days, it offends my spirit.

I love what I do. I love what I study. I wouldn't change my path even if I could. 

But what do we do with the parts of our jobs- our vocations- that we hate? 

on safety.

All this reading of cultural history- a big thing in my program here- lately has really attuned me (more than usual) to language and the meanings of well, everything.* After reading about the tragic disappearance and murder of PhD Student Annie Le, which hit pretty close to home, I couldn't help but consider how often the issue of safety has been coming up lately. What is safety? How so we define what is "safe" and "unsafe"? What does it take to feel safe? When is safety an illusion, and really, why do we care about safety? What are we so afraid of? What do we do when the drive for safety interferes with our ability to live well? How do we judge that?

There's obviously no real answer to this, and even discussing it leaves me wide open to criticism and a sense of discomfort arises (is it safe to talk about safety? on my own blog??). I'd thought about putting it on a spectrum and attacking it that way, but the more I chew on this the more I realize that safety is too complex for that (oh cultural history perspective, you are ruining me!). So here's the three instances that have caused me to consider safety lately. I'll present the evidence, maybe make some conclusions, and then you can tell me where you stand if you like because I am really curious about what we conceive safety to be.

1. Bike Helmets

I don't own a bike helmet. It didn't make it into my car when I left Utah because I had worn it all of 5 times while I lived there; it didn't fit right, it looked dumb, and in my opinion, one doesn't need a helmet when riding on sidewalks on campus (which at Utah was an accepted practice, not a lawbreaking activity like it is here in Philly) unless it's icey. The reasoning I usually gave for not wearing a helmet were:

a. I ride a very heavy steel bike rather slowly.

b. I don't like biking to appear unsafe (!) because like others, I generally don't think it is. I follow the rules of the sidewalk / road, after all.

c. Unattractive, sweaty head, messed up hair, etc. etc.

However, now that I am:

a. on the road a lot more

b. riding a smaller, lighter bike, faster

I've been questioning whether this change of circumstances makes me less safe and mandates a helmet. I don't feel less safe. I choose what bike to ride based on where I'm riding at what time of the day to ensure that I am slow, sturdy, and visible when I'm in the dark or in high traffic areas. On one side is the friend how says, "You never know when you could get hit," and on the other side is the friend who, having been hit several times while not wearing a helmet says, "Whatever."

See how fraught safety is? You could be doing everything you can to prevent injury (whether or not that includes wearing a helmet) and still get injured.

2. Walking around.

I live in a pretty social neighborhood. People are always chatting me up, on the bike, walking, at the bus stop, whatever- this place is to me, unavoidably interactive. I love it. On the other hand, women's safety has been compromised in this city in recent history (see here and here). I work hard to be aware of my surroundings and don't talk to everyone who talks to me, and steer clear of scary places or opt to ride my bike if I have to travel through. A recent article in the NYT threw down all the arguments for and against letting kids walk to school, and I think catches this argument pretty well- statistics, social pressure, desire for independence- there's a lot at stake and a lot that factors into how we perceive what is safe.

Ok. This is starting to feel tedious, I think I am belaboring the point and getting a little tired and incoherent.

3. Annie Le.

Security records show that this girl went into a building- a "secure" campus building, no less- and she never came out. What more is there to say about that? Given the nature of the small communities that work in places like that... yah, there is really nothing that can be said.

It seems to be that feeling unsafe is a recognition of when our agency can be unexpectedly trumped by that of others or circumstances to in large or small ways change our destinies (or outcomes, if we are feeling less dramatic). It seems an issue of control- how much control do we need to have to feel like we can function? At what point do we have to let go and let faith kick in so we can live? I feel like so much of the time whether I feel safe or not is contingent on the "vibe"- if I get a bad vibe, feel some dark energy, or whatever, I am out of there, I am calling the cops, I am doing whatever it takes to make the circumstances feel right. But after you've done all you can do, there's still nothing you can do, ya know? How do you reconcile that? In in the end, is safety just a construct or is it really important?

not paying for this biz so i'll post it instead.

 

degree in a box.

Every syllabus, assignment (save the one left to turn in), draft, rejection letter, release form, ounce of suffering and individual sin (the latter two chronicled in the journal inside) that it took to get a Masters degree, all in one tidy box. Call me vain and self-important, but someday when I donate my papers to a library they are going to really appreciate all this organization.

What makes me vain and self-important is half wishing there would be a fight for my papers, like when Stanford got all pissed that Wallace Stegner left his papers to Utah. I know, I know, dream big...

this one goes out to all the grad students.

Wrapping up the semester sucks. Wishing everyone blissful and easy writing.

i decided.

I had to make the best decision for my future, not just the short term. I think a life with a PhD from Temple University-- School B-- is a life I can look forward to and the life I most want. I am still a little shocked that I made the decision-- actually turning down the U, actually sending off the forms-- but I think I would be remiss to surrender such a great opportunity, both for learning and personal growth. I think Philly will offer me a new and different perspective on the world-- something you can never get enough of as a historian trying to understand what it means to be human. I'm nervous and I know I'm taking a huge risk-- I have never taken such a leap of faith in my life-- but I know that there is really no better path for me to take it this point.

Holy cow!!! There aren't words to express how crazy this feels and how wildly excited I am.
Watch out Philadelphia! The Granny Bike's going East Coast!

trial by blog.

I have a conundrum that I would like to put forth to my readers, mostly because I don't really feel like calling everyone to get their perspective. I have two options.


School A: Offered me a funding package including full tuition benefit and a stipend.

I go to School A already. I have good relationships with the faculty, find the location to be very livable, beautiful and comfortable and I have many wonderful friends here. I've gotten good public history experience here and would continue to have such opportunities. Granted it's a really tough year for the job market-- nobody that I know who's applied for jobs with a PhD from my school has gotten hired. For the uninitiated, everyone in our field is operating on the assumption that the job market will continue to be rough.


School B: Waitlisted me for a similar funding package and won't notify waitlisted people until after they accept the admissions offer. Basically, they are asking me to make a blind decision.

School B is located in a huge metropolis on the other side of the country-- living there would definitely be an adventure and would offer more of a singles "scene" (not to mention great cultural and sporting events, the resources of several other universities in town and it is only a few hours away from some of the best libraries in the country)-- and I could take my car there. It has a very strong group of 20th century US historians and offers excellent public history training. School B is more prestigious than School A, and they have a very good rate of job placement (everyone who's worked with the person I would like to work with now has a university teaching job).

So which one would you choose? Short term stability with a risk of not getting a job at the end, or short term risk with a reasonable guarantee for employment at the end? What questions would you ask and what factors would you take into account? Flights between both places and home cost basically the same, for example. Both schools have the same school color, though School B has a cooler mascot. I'm tossing up a poll in the sidebar, but do leave a comment with your rationale.

tribute to my undergrad week, part 3.

tribute to my undergrad week, part 2.

tribute to my undergrad week, part 1.

One of the nice things about getting a new superpowered computer has been that I can now have all of my stuff on it. Before I had deleted a lot of music and moved a lot of pictures over to an external hard drive, so having everything together again has exposed me to a lot of stuff that I'd forgotten about-- like Disc II of the Marie Antoinette soundtrack and a lot of pictures I took when I first got my digital camera during my junior year of college.

I was aware at the time that I went to school on a beautiful campus, and I think the pictures I took reflect that awareness, but now that I look at those pictures I am blown away. I love the U and feel a much stronger emotional tie to it, but for pure pretty points, my undergrad wins hands down. To celebrate my reunion with all these old pictures, and a general run of nostalgia / terror that I'm feeling about leaving Salt Lake (at the very least, for the summer), I thought I'd go back to the past and share my undergrad pictures with you every day this week.

Context: (I'm a historian, deal with it!) I took most of these pictures while living on campus, where I shared a room in a party dorm with the nicest Lutheran girl ever who is now a wine reporter in eastern Washington. During my undergrad I played in the band for a year (tuba power), was LDSSA president for two years, wound up in a Relief Society presidency, and loved German history until it proved the gateway for religious history which got me into Mormon history which got me into American history (just in case you ever wondered how that happened). The junior year sustained one of those breakups that you think is tragic but come to understand as a gift from god, and was an important time of discovery as I began to dip my toe into the waters of adulthood. Being a transfer student and an uptight Mormon, I was reluctant to grow up. This was the period when I went to Europe three times in 1 year and includes the time when facebook came to our campus (back in the students only days... sigh). Overshare!

Anyways, to start you off:One of the first pictures I took when my camera came. Dedidcated to Big Brother, who called me a slob yesterday. ;) Oh, right, the beautiful campus:

it's not easy being a grad student.

Welcome to February, or as I like to call it, a month of finals week. Times are hard and rather than turn to diety (he said he's been swamped by calls this week and he could not shake his cold) or liquor (who wants to associate booze with misery?) for comfort, I have found solice in online shopping. It's amazing what you realize you need when confronted with a paper that won't write itself, a computer that works most but not all of the time, and an entire armada of rapidly multiplying file folders that have somehow managed to take over the entire room.

But really, online shopping is great for times like this. When your whole life is spent in front of a Word document that will not quit and your phone never rings, it's nice to have something to look forward to. Getting an Ugly Doll in the mail made my day.

He smiles at me as I track the rest of my packages.

so you can put it in your pocket if you need to.

This is still funny to me. Sadly, what happens around 4:03 is what I've been doing to my thesis for the past three days... five days... I don't know...

pitifully true to life.

so depressingly true to life.

oh snap.

Dang. Today was one of those interview experiences that really transformed what it means to me to be an oral historian. I spent two hours with her in a drafty library basement and came away with an interview released only to me, rather than the library for public use, and the release was further edited to limit the interview's use to the topic for which I contacted her. That's fine, I go with what works for the narrator.

But it's funny, in the midst of all that I have to do, two hours is a lot of time to come away with only ten minutes of actual usable material. What do I make of that, a second instance in which few of my questions were answered? I concluded that really the whole of the two hours, regardless of content, was so much more than just doing oral history research-- it was sharing in this profound, intangible human experience that I don't even think I can start to describe. I love that my research puts me in touch with people that I would never otherwise meet.

Today I think I finally realized how sublime it is to just listen, and how much people appreciate the small gesture of someone listening to them with an open mind. I can't even tell you what it is like to be in a completely quiet room just listening to someone interpret their life. I came away from the interview with a higher respect for the opportunity I have. I don't know that the end result of preserving people's contributions to history is number one for me anymore; I think there is something to be said for giving people the opportunity for telling their stories and embracing the value of those stories to that person. I think the process is more important than the product. I think history is less about understanding the world and more about understanding each other. I think regardless of what happens with my applications and my life long term, I can really appreciate the education I'm getting in the moment and what it does for how I think about what it means to be human and to be alive.

fired up and ready to go.

I interrupt this regularly scheduled finals week programming of bitching and moaning to tell you that there is really nothing I enjoy more in the work that I'm doing than preparing for an oral history interview. I'm sure I've talked about this before, but as it has been four months since I last sat down with a stranger to ask them probing questions about their life, I am getting stoked! Making all of the little comprehensive neurotic lists of directions and things not to forget... and then the questions! Just making the list of questions embodies so much possibility! And then you get to go back and listen to them, and find that even the most soul crushing of interviews provides some neat bits and creates a record where there wasn't one before. And what's awesome is that tomorrow is the first of two interviews this week. My cup runneth over. And there should be some interviews in the future because today I registered for the 2009 state Eagle Forum conference. That's right, TWELVE STRAIGHT HOURS OF CONSERVATISM! That'll make a blog post you'll never forget.

And you know what? I am starting to have a damn good time writing my thesis too. As I start to realize that I am getting very close to my chair's very firm 30 page limit and as I rediscover really cool stuff in my notecards from St. Louis-- remember St. Louis??-- I am getting kind of stoked. It took me twenty-odd pages that I have to go back and revisereviserevise, but I am finally feeling some flow! I am writing a history that has never been written before! This is pretty bad ass.

You know what else is bad ass? The video I'm posting. We all need these kinds of kumbaya lovey feelings this time of the semester, and I feel so fortunate that people that people have been sending them my way that I want to put more of those feelings into the universe. And of course, I love Whitney Houston. Also-- I dedicate this one to all the Arrested Development fans out there.