Can you believe it's almost Christmas? Christmas here is a big, huge deal - they take it really seriously. It's like Thanksgiving and Christmas rolled into one mega-holiday, complete with turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce. (Hmm... where were you a few weeks ago!) Everything about it is very serious and fairly traditional. We even have what I have been told is a German-style Christmas market near my flat. If I ever felt marginalized for being Jewish in the States (read: not celebrating christmas) I would probably be very unhappy here, as 'not celebrating christmas' is not an option. GLASGOW LOVES CHRISTMAS AND YOU DO TOO. Everyone has Christmas parties for every sort of group possible - so far I have attended six parties, no joke - two different department ones (Glasgow Uni's and Strathclyde's) and two for the reading groups I attend (Socioling and Corpus Ling), and two friends' Christmases. It's definitely been a traditional (UK) Christmas, complete with mince pies, which to my surprise do not have meat in them ("mince" also means "ground beef" here) and lots of mulled wine. It has all been very exciting - I've never celebrated Christmas before, and certainly not like this.
But Almost-Christmas means I've been here for a little over three months. I am one-quarter finished with my master's degree, which is a bit daunting! I'm starting to work on a PhD project next... Almost Christmas also means I am coming home for a bit soon. Meanwhile, I apologize for not having written much in here lately other than to complain about being cold all the time -- I've been trying to get a lot of work done so i can take a few weeks off and relax while I'm in the states.
My first flight back leaves at 6:30 AM on Saturday. I think I am going to live-record my travels again (See september for the original ones), so you all have something to look forward to when I am fairly jetlagged. See you all soon!
Showing posts with label gratuitous rap references. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gratuitous rap references. Show all posts
16 December 2010
13 October 2010
people told me slow my roll, i'm screaming out "fuck that!"
One of the first things I was told when I arrived here was "slow down." I was also told not to worry about "breakneck American speed", whatever that was.
I am beginning to understand what is meant by "breakneck American speed".
Basically, if you know anybody in graduate school in the States, you know that they keep 15-20 hour days, are often wearing clothes from three days ago and look pretty ragged. Being a graduate student in the US is far from a glamorous thing - you'll often get looks of pity from other people when you tell them you're in graduate school! This is what I was expecting from graduate school in the UK - and was asking advice of people whom I had viewed as successful graduate students on surviving the journey. I had assumed that graduate school was a universal experience of intellectual masochism.
This is simply not how higher education works here. I was gearing up for 15-20 hour days of work only to find out that nobody would EVER do that! The postgrads I share an office with nearly fell out of their chairs when they heard that American grad students would work that much. In ONE DAY? they asked. They said that if I worked for six to eight hours a day "that would be a beautifully productive day" and that "I should go to the pub immediately". SIX TO EIGHT HOURS, you guys. (They do make a valid point, though - after a while, doesn't the quality of the work you produce go down? Well, yes...) Later I inquired about gaining access to the office over the weekend, and everyone stared at me. "Why would you come in over the weekend unless you had a giant deadline hanging over your head?" they asked. Because I have work to do? I don't know when they get anything done.
I try to show up at my office around 10 or 11 Monday through Friday and work until about 7 or 8 pm unless I have seminars to attend or meetings with people. When I go home I stop working. Not only is this unheard of in American-style grad school - or any American education system really, I am still being told I work too much! As it is, I am already pulling "ridiculous hours at the office"; I am almost always the first person to arrive. The other grad students think I am crazy for even attempting this.
It is arguably harder to slow down than it is to speed up. Given pressure, I think you can definitely learn how to do more work. (You might not like it, however.) But being told to do less work? I'm having such a hard time figuring out what i should DO with myself! I have a book that I have been working through slowly for one of my professors and could be working harder at, and I have other readings that I could be working on too. But no, I decided, I should take the weekend off. Or at least as much of it as I could bear. If you knew me in college, you know that I would do schoolwork every day except for Friday (I would sleep on Friday.)
So in an effort to slow down, on my first weekend after the semester started, I:
read a book for fun,
went to a farmer's market,
saw three bands play a gig,
went grocery shopping at two separate stores,
visited three art galleries,
scoped out a couple other art galleries,
looked into seeing some plays,
tried to hunt down some books I need for a class I joined,
walked to a new part of the city and back,
sent some emails,
typed up some drafts for future posts,
and read two articles and wrote a 500 word response
...all before 6pm on Sunday night. (Last weekend was quite similar.)
So much for slowing down! It's so strange to be told to relax. I've been working on it, though but I feel like I'm not not doing anything ever! As it is, I don't really have anything "due" at any specific date; I just sit and read and produce ideas. (I should point out that I don't really have classes that have things due - as an MRes student, I'm essentially a PhD student, but without the title.) I don't know what to do with all this free time. I suppose I should cultivate a hobby or seven.
I am beginning to understand what is meant by "breakneck American speed".
Basically, if you know anybody in graduate school in the States, you know that they keep 15-20 hour days, are often wearing clothes from three days ago and look pretty ragged. Being a graduate student in the US is far from a glamorous thing - you'll often get looks of pity from other people when you tell them you're in graduate school! This is what I was expecting from graduate school in the UK - and was asking advice of people whom I had viewed as successful graduate students on surviving the journey. I had assumed that graduate school was a universal experience of intellectual masochism.
This is simply not how higher education works here. I was gearing up for 15-20 hour days of work only to find out that nobody would EVER do that! The postgrads I share an office with nearly fell out of their chairs when they heard that American grad students would work that much. In ONE DAY? they asked. They said that if I worked for six to eight hours a day "that would be a beautifully productive day" and that "I should go to the pub immediately". SIX TO EIGHT HOURS, you guys. (They do make a valid point, though - after a while, doesn't the quality of the work you produce go down? Well, yes...) Later I inquired about gaining access to the office over the weekend, and everyone stared at me. "Why would you come in over the weekend unless you had a giant deadline hanging over your head?" they asked. Because I have work to do? I don't know when they get anything done.
I try to show up at my office around 10 or 11 Monday through Friday and work until about 7 or 8 pm unless I have seminars to attend or meetings with people. When I go home I stop working. Not only is this unheard of in American-style grad school - or any American education system really, I am still being told I work too much! As it is, I am already pulling "ridiculous hours at the office"; I am almost always the first person to arrive. The other grad students think I am crazy for even attempting this.
It is arguably harder to slow down than it is to speed up. Given pressure, I think you can definitely learn how to do more work. (You might not like it, however.) But being told to do less work? I'm having such a hard time figuring out what i should DO with myself! I have a book that I have been working through slowly for one of my professors and could be working harder at, and I have other readings that I could be working on too. But no, I decided, I should take the weekend off. Or at least as much of it as I could bear. If you knew me in college, you know that I would do schoolwork every day except for Friday (I would sleep on Friday.)
So in an effort to slow down, on my first weekend after the semester started, I:
read a book for fun,
went to a farmer's market,
saw three bands play a gig,
went grocery shopping at two separate stores,
visited three art galleries,
scoped out a couple other art galleries,
looked into seeing some plays,
tried to hunt down some books I need for a class I joined,
walked to a new part of the city and back,
sent some emails,
typed up some drafts for future posts,
and read two articles and wrote a 500 word response
...all before 6pm on Sunday night. (Last weekend was quite similar.)
So much for slowing down! It's so strange to be told to relax. I've been working on it, though but I feel like I'm not not doing anything ever! As it is, I don't really have anything "due" at any specific date; I just sit and read and produce ideas. (I should point out that I don't really have classes that have things due - as an MRes student, I'm essentially a PhD student, but without the title.) I don't know what to do with all this free time. I suppose I should cultivate a hobby or seven.
25 July 2010
Brain so good, coulda swore you went to college
I am starting a new research project with a professor at BU this week. I'm very excited, there's something wonderful about starting a new project. I don't know all of the details about my role as Unpaid Academic Slave Labor, but I do know that I will be spending a lot of time in two libraries. One of them is the BU library, which pretty much anyone can walk into.
The other one is Harvard's Widener Library.
Harvard has a lot of libraries. They all seem awfully specific. Some are more strict than others, but overall the general rule is that if you want to use one of their libraries, you just have to be somehow affiliated with Harvard and be able to prove it.
It just so happens that Widener has the strictest policy for visitors. It is "a research institution for the use of Harvard students, faculty, staff, and visiting researchers, and is not open for public visitation or tours by individuals not affiliated with the University."
If you are one of the following:
a) a Harvard Alumni
b) a faculty member at another institution
c) a doctoral student at Harvard
You are allowed in Widener. Your access is varied depending on your status (ie, alums can only use the Reading Room but not the stacks).
If you are d) EVERYONE ELSE you have to apply for visiting privileges. Even if you are a doctoral candidate at another school, you still have to apply. These visiting privileges are for six days total for a twelve month period. To obtain visiting privileges, you must present a letter to the Library Privileges Office from the reference librarian of their university or Boston metropolitan public library stating that the specific library materials needed are not available elsewhere.
Let's review for a second: I AM APPLYING TO GET ACCESS TO ONE OF THE MOST SUPER-STRICT OF LIBRARIES IN THE UNITED STATES.
The other one is Harvard's Widener Library.
Harvard has a lot of libraries. They all seem awfully specific. Some are more strict than others, but overall the general rule is that if you want to use one of their libraries, you just have to be somehow affiliated with Harvard and be able to prove it.
It just so happens that Widener has the strictest policy for visitors. It is "a research institution for the use of Harvard students, faculty, staff, and visiting researchers, and is not open for public visitation or tours by individuals not affiliated with the University."
If you are one of the following:
a) a Harvard Alumni
b) a faculty member at another institution
c) a doctoral student at Harvard
You are allowed in Widener. Your access is varied depending on your status (ie, alums can only use the Reading Room but not the stacks).
If you are d) EVERYONE ELSE you have to apply for visiting privileges. Even if you are a doctoral candidate at another school, you still have to apply. These visiting privileges are for six days total for a twelve month period. To obtain visiting privileges, you must present a letter to the Library Privileges Office from the reference librarian of their university or Boston metropolitan public library stating that the specific library materials needed are not available elsewhere.
Let's review for a second: I AM APPLYING TO GET ACCESS TO ONE OF THE MOST SUPER-STRICT OF LIBRARIES IN THE UNITED STATES.
13 July 2010
Cash Rules Everything Around Me
Once upon a time I had a job at a bagel place in my hometown. I worked for exactly four days. I was let go on my first full shift.
I had been hired to replace a girl who was going to school in Providence in the fall after working for Bagels for 3 years. By training me over the summer, I would be capable of doing everything she did. Disregarding the fact I was planning on leaving them high and dry come September - brb, going to scotland - this was reasonable. Kerri was still around - she was training me - but announced yesterday morning that she was having a hard time finding a job in Providence and she had decided to drive back every weekend to work her usual weekend shift.
As (Irrelevant) New Kerri, I was let go after my first week of work yesterday. I'm not amused. Because she's still there, they won't need me. But I'm not even really entirely terminated! I'm now permanently on-call, meaning (despite the fact that I never finished training - I can't use the cash register still) they can call me and be like "oh hey, want to work today? So-and-so called out." Fuck that!
At least my boss paid me in cash for my past few shifts, and told me that I can "totally use her as a reference". HA - yeah right.
But this presents some new problems, namely that
a) I don't have a job
b) I am not going to be able to get a job for only a little less than two months
c) It took me nearly a month and a half to get THIS job
So now it's back to the drawing board. I've been emailing English and linguistics professors at local colleges, offering my services as an unpaid research assistant (read: Academic Slave Labor). I have the resume for it, at least. I pleasantly discovered while writing a cover letter that from my majors and minor, I have backgrounds in literary theory, history of language - specifically that of English, word-formation, issues of syntax and grammar, as well as gender theory and queer theory. I am literate in Old English as well as some rudimentary French literacy. If that's not qualification enough to do academica, well, you can go fuck yourself.
I had been hired to replace a girl who was going to school in Providence in the fall after working for Bagels for 3 years. By training me over the summer, I would be capable of doing everything she did. Disregarding the fact I was planning on leaving them high and dry come September - brb, going to scotland - this was reasonable. Kerri was still around - she was training me - but announced yesterday morning that she was having a hard time finding a job in Providence and she had decided to drive back every weekend to work her usual weekend shift.
As (Irrelevant) New Kerri, I was let go after my first week of work yesterday. I'm not amused. Because she's still there, they won't need me. But I'm not even really entirely terminated! I'm now permanently on-call, meaning (despite the fact that I never finished training - I can't use the cash register still) they can call me and be like "oh hey, want to work today? So-and-so called out." Fuck that!
At least my boss paid me in cash for my past few shifts, and told me that I can "totally use her as a reference". HA - yeah right.
But this presents some new problems, namely that
a) I don't have a job
b) I am not going to be able to get a job for only a little less than two months
c) It took me nearly a month and a half to get THIS job
So now it's back to the drawing board. I've been emailing English and linguistics professors at local colleges, offering my services as an unpaid research assistant (read: Academic Slave Labor). I have the resume for it, at least. I pleasantly discovered while writing a cover letter that from my majors and minor, I have backgrounds in literary theory, history of language - specifically that of English, word-formation, issues of syntax and grammar, as well as gender theory and queer theory. I am literate in Old English as well as some rudimentary French literacy. If that's not qualification enough to do academica, well, you can go fuck yourself.
02 June 2010
there is life after college!
I wish I had some exciting unemployment stories for you, but for the most part I have been sitting around watching episodes of 30 Rock for hours on end, reading a lot, conducting important research on pop songs featuring Ludacris (he's the best part of every single one of them, and believe me, he's featured in a lot of songs) and watching Trending Twitter Topics for new words (did you know that this whole Boston water crisis is called the 'aqua apocalypse'?). Oh, and I've been chased around my house by the most terrifying ants of all time - these fuckers are about 1/3 of an inch long and do not die.
As you can tell, it has been an exciting week and a half of unemployment. But now, through some miracle, I have a job offer!
As I have said before, I have a tendency to have very interesting summers, though entirely by accident. This summer I have an offer to be employed by the Budweiser Corporation, a part of the Anheuser-Busch Companies, as a receptionist in Medford, MA. Yes! You read that correctly: BEER SUMMER.
And it would be fun.
But there is a problem: I got this job through Craigslist, without an interview. They want me to fill out a credit report to prove that I am who I claim to be. This screams SKETCHY! I'm hoping to actually go to Medford and meet these people before I agree to anything. I have 36 hours left on my offer; I hope they get back to me!
14 April 2010
I can't stop, that's why I'm hot
One of the side effects of thesis-writing is a sheer and utter disregard for things happening outside your little thesis cave... which is how i almost forgot about the commencement fair yesterday.
Incidentally, I had also forgotten that I'm graduating in a relatively short period of time. (Another side-effect of thesising is that you get so engrossed in your work you don't have time to worry about anything other than your thesis.) This is very convenient in that you don't have time to freak out about graduation or allow senoritis to kick in.
Though I am very sad I did not personally take this picture, I did stand next to this woman while waiting in line to get my cap and gown at the commencement fair. The Alumni Association really wanted us to go on a "Last Hurrah Lobster Bake". And by "wanted us to go" I really mean they had found middle-aged ladies to wear lobster hats and run around screaming excitedly about eating lobsters with your BEST FRIENDS FOREVER for the last time. Also it was $10. Obviously I am not attending.
And, despite my insistence that everyone should stop inviting me to everything ever, I consistently find myself alternating between linguisticking and Social Identity Awarenessing. I've decided I'm not attending anything unless I personally gain something from it. This vague "something" can be personal edification or food, saving me a food-journey. It turns out many social justice-oriented events also feature food, and my ideal event/linguisticking break involves both personal edification AND food, so if you are hoping to get me somewhere anytime soon, you should probably look into combining the two.
Which is how I found myself at the LGBTQ pancake breakfast this morning.. Despite my sheer dislike for Gay (adj.) + {Noun or Verb} to make a noun or verb phrase (Gay Marriage, Gay Lunch, Gay Parking My Car -- credit to Liz Feldman), I definitely attended Gay Breakfast today rather than sleeping. Free food > sleeping, and by waking up early/napping (far more realistically, this is what I've been doing) I have more time to work. Right?
For those of us keeping track at home, I have written eleven pages of my thesis from Saturday into Tuesday. This morning I've been editing my thesis as a whole, in preparation for Judgement Day With Shelly tomorrow, and I'm sort of amazed at what I've produced. In approximately three weeks I have not only restarted my thesis from word one, page one but synthesized four different theories into a working understanding of linguistic productivity, wrote a total of 17 pages out of my expected ~20 pages (one word and a period on page 17 totally counts) and have been loving every second of it. Despite my sometimes-vocal claims that this is exhausting and I can't wait for it to be over, I really do love this. Either I am delusional - probably from too much coffee, not enough sleep, or some combination of the two - or I have a very successful academic career ahead of me.
Incidentally, I had also forgotten that I'm graduating in a relatively short period of time. (Another side-effect of thesising is that you get so engrossed in your work you don't have time to worry about anything other than your thesis.) This is very convenient in that you don't have time to freak out about graduation or allow senoritis to kick in.
Though I am very sad I did not personally take this picture, I did stand next to this woman while waiting in line to get my cap and gown at the commencement fair. The Alumni Association really wanted us to go on a "Last Hurrah Lobster Bake". And by "wanted us to go" I really mean they had found middle-aged ladies to wear lobster hats and run around screaming excitedly about eating lobsters with your BEST FRIENDS FOREVER for the last time. Also it was $10. Obviously I am not attending.And, despite my insistence that everyone should stop inviting me to everything ever, I consistently find myself alternating between linguisticking and Social Identity Awarenessing. I've decided I'm not attending anything unless I personally gain something from it. This vague "something" can be personal edification or food, saving me a food-journey. It turns out many social justice-oriented events also feature food, and my ideal event/linguisticking break involves both personal edification AND food, so if you are hoping to get me somewhere anytime soon, you should probably look into combining the two.
Which is how I found myself at the LGBTQ pancake breakfast this morning.. Despite my sheer dislike for Gay (adj.) + {Noun or Verb} to make a noun or verb phrase (Gay Marriage, Gay Lunch, Gay Parking My Car -- credit to Liz Feldman), I definitely attended Gay Breakfast today rather than sleeping. Free food > sleeping, and by waking up early/napping (far more realistically, this is what I've been doing) I have more time to work. Right?
For those of us keeping track at home, I have written eleven pages of my thesis from Saturday into Tuesday. This morning I've been editing my thesis as a whole, in preparation for Judgement Day With Shelly tomorrow, and I'm sort of amazed at what I've produced. In approximately three weeks I have not only restarted my thesis from word one, page one but synthesized four different theories into a working understanding of linguistic productivity, wrote a total of 17 pages out of my expected ~20 pages (one word and a period on page 17 totally counts) and have been loving every second of it. Despite my sometimes-vocal claims that this is exhausting and I can't wait for it to be over, I really do love this. Either I am delusional - probably from too much coffee, not enough sleep, or some combination of the two - or I have a very successful academic career ahead of me.
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