Back to School for GrownUps

Today was the last class of my MA core course in Public Texts… tonight is the last meeting of the research group…and tomorrow will be also full of endings - Canadian lit and my ENGL1000 seminars.

And as much as I have been looking forward to getting to the end of it all, I am a bit sad too. 

I hate endings. 

Of course, none of them are really quite done yet… while we won’t be meeting anymore, I have essays to mark for my seminars - and then there will be their exams on the 24th of April. And I still have two position papers and an essay to do for Viral Contagion, a long paper for CanLit, and one for Public Texts, and a proposal re: my major research paper …. 

and then once THAT stuff is all done, I’ll still have the major research paper to actually write…. 

so even though it is an ending…. there’s still quite a ways to go before I’ll have done everything I need to do to get my Masters….. 

Definitely into the home stretch though! 

Yikes!

Been reading some of the posts in the grad cafe forums …. just can’t get over how many people have received nothing but rejections (or unfunded spots, which isn’t much better). 

That has got to hurt. 

Every single application represents a huge investment …. not only do we wannabe grad students pay for the privilege of applying - and for multiple copies of test scores +/ transcripts to be sent - each one also involves a great deal of time & energy. 

Statements of purpose, resumes/CVs, and especially rounding up letters or recommendation from profs all take time to write, edit, get…. 

All so much fun - but when it works it all feels worthwhile. When it doesn’t, though….  

This year has been particularly difficult. The economy has impacted on a great many programs, and there have been a lot of cuts to both the number of positions and to the funding offered….which means there are even more disappointed people.

*sad*

Well, as I mentioned on Flitting on Fiction , I was mucking around with my Blackberry last night, and downloaded the new beta software that fictionwise (who have recently been bought by Barnes & Noble ) now offers for it.

eReader eBooks now work on BlackBerry Handhelds, along with Apple iPhones plus other mobile devices using Palm, Windows Mobile Pocket PC and Smartphone and Symbian Operating Systems (as well as PCs and Mac). You can download free eReader software at Fictionwise .

So of course, even though it was bedtime by the time I got there, I had to download a couple of books and try it. 

One of the good things about doing a degree in English Lit is that a lot of the books we talk about are classics - and a lot of classic literature shows up in the Free Downloads section. I downloaded Emma, by Jane Austen, and Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott for starters - haven’t read Little Women in decades, but it was a favourite when I was a young ‘un. There are other, more current eBooks as well, in the free section. 

What there aren’t - and what will cause me to  not spend my blogging money on book titles for the Blackberry Curve, but rather continue letting it build up in my paypal until I figure out which digital reader to buy - are very many books by Canadian authors other than Robert J. Sawyer - and much as I enjoy his books, he has yet to turn up on any of my syllabi and I don’t expect that he will anytime soon. 

Since the Kindle is not yet available in Canada, I’m guessing that I’m likely to be disappointed there as well…. have to check out the Sony eReader selection and see what they’ve got for me - but since I happen to know that Penguin gave its employees eReaders, I’m hopeful that many they’ll have a better selection …. although still not, I would guess, the textbook sort of stuff that I would so love to have available on a handheld device. 

Sure wish eBrary had a purchase option …. there are SO many books I want to read sitting on my eBrary bookshelf, but they are not mobile enough to suit me - I want to be able to download what I want and read it offline.

Anyway, enough pouting…I think I was meaning to talk about reading on the Blackberry! It is not nearly as bad as I thought it might be…. the only issue I have with it is that when you scroll down, using the pearl, of course, you pop entirely to the next section of text…. it is not a gradual scrolling action at all. I find that a bit irritating, especially as a couple of times, I apparently scrolled too much so the sentence I left off on carried on into a new sentence that had nothing to do with anything….  it was only because it didn’t make sense that I knew there was a problem.

I would prefer, I think, to have the last line of the previous bit show at the top of the next just to maintain some continuity. I suspect, though, that it is something one gets used to eventually.

So …what are public texts?

Michael Warner, author of Publics and Counterpublics , describes 3 “senses” of the word “public”. 

First, we have the public: a kind of social totality, or “the people in general”. this sort of public is thought to include everyone within the field in question - whether that be nation, commonwealth, city, state or some other community. (65)

Second, Warner talks about a public: “a concrete audience, a crowd witnessing itself in visible space, as with a theatrical public.”  A public, in this sense of the word, is bounded by an event or shared space, and “knows itself by knowing where and when it is assembled in common visibility and common action” (66)

It is the third sort of Warner’s senses of publics that we English MA geeks are most concerned with, of course - “the kind of public that comes into being only in relation to texts and their circulation” (66). 

Warner  discusses at length the sort of publics - both the public and a public - that exist around texts. Some key features - and the 7 points he uses as headings for sections in writing about textual publics: 

1. A public is self-organized (and circular - texts create publics and publics create texts and in some cases there is no answer to which comes first) 
2. A public is a relation among strangers
3. The address of public speech is both personal and impersonal
   
4. A public is constituted through mere attention
5. A public is the social space created by the reflexive circulation of discourse
6. Public act historically according to the temporality of their circulation
7. A public is poetic world making  (i.e. there is a performative dimension to it)

Is a blog, then, a public text? Always, or only sometimes or some blogs? Does Wikipedia have publics? What about YouTube videos? 

Me, I think there are a whole lot of publics - and public texts - on the Internet, just as there are anywhere else that texts are produced, performed, discussed, interacted with….  and I am far more interested in how the Internet impacts on the creation of publics - and on how that is likely to impact on society, publics, texts…..  than I am in studying historical “public texts.”  But that’s just me - always looking to steer clear of ancientLit

So ….regular readers of this blog will know that I am currently completing a Master’s degree in English, Public Texts .

But what does that actually mean? 

According to the program website : 

In the Public Texts M.A. program at Trent University, we explore what it means to “go public” – to “publish” – and how that act resonates in the political, economic, and aesthetic spheres. Our students will develop new ways of looking at the production of texts, their circulation, and the relationship between texts and their publics, exploring issues which are emerging as central to literary research in the twenty-first century.

Well, yeah…we did that, I guess… but honestly,  I feel as though we’ve barely scratched the surface in many ways….and I’m frustrated - and a tad embarassed - to say that I am not sure that I could clearly articulate a definition of the phrase “public texts” at this point.

Or maybe that isn’t it…. I think that I know what I think public texts are.. just not so sure that my definition is not the same as the prof’s. And since I need to write an essay about emerging adults and public texts for this particular prof, I really DO wish I had a clearer sense of his definition.

Biggest thing on my to-do list this weekend is to type up a whole bunch of practice questions about pest control techniques for hubby.

I made him write the questions - partly because I didn’t have time and didn’t much care to read  his textbooks quite that closely, and partly because I figured that it might help him study and retain the material better. 

He is more than a little stressed about this whole examination thing! 

He is 57 years old and hasn’t been in school for a very long time, and, he insists, even when he WAS there, he didn’t do all THAT well. 

Now he has to write two multiple choice tests - and not only that, but the mark he has to get on each to pass is not 50% … or even 60%…but 75%!!! 

He is SO not looking forward to it. 

I made a testbank for him in MS Access… so he can practice with all the questions we’ve come up with …I did write some for him when he first got the books. Now I just have to get all of the new questions he’s written typed up for him, so that he can spend a couple of days practicing using that.

Hopefully it will help …. but he is going to stress about it till it’s over; that is clear. 

The thing is that everyone he knows who has taken it didn’t pass both tests on the first attempt…and if he doesn’t pass, nothing really bad happens…. he would just have to study some more and try it again - and could work in the meantime. 

But I think tis a point of pride…and I really, really hope he does pass it on his first attempt. 

I am so incredibly tired today that I am pretty near non-fuctional.

No good reason for it…. I went to bed at a decent time, woke up before my alarm went off and as far as I know had a decent night’s sleep.

But I sure do not feel at all rested.

Have had rather a lot of FDGB episodes this week though - (7 yesterday; 4 today …but who’s counting?)  - perhaps they are catching up to me

Went to class this morning, and then dropped my Ethical Research application off (glad that’s done!) …and then we came back to the motel, had lunch, and I have been trying to drop Entrecards and get some work done since. 

I have one more class to get through today - a one hour lecture, and then a couple of hours of seminar. Maybe only one, if all goes well…I suggested to my students that they all come at 7 and we are reading the play that we’re talking about this week as a group. I am really pleased with the response to my request that they negotiate what parts they want to read on our online forum - most have chosen a role, and most roles are filled, which is very cool. It should be fun! 

If only I can find some energy to manage to stay awake for it. 

Think I am going to go have a nap… I need sleep more than I need to drop my card right now, I think. 

Well… we got the word re: Today.com and Entrecard and while not at all surprised, I’m still bummed….

No solutions …so within the next two weeks, all Today.com blogs will have to remove their Entrecard widgets from their blogs. 

That really sucks….not so much because of the loss in terms of traffic, although that will hurt…but because I will miss the connections I’ve made with many Entrecard bloggers. I will likely continue to visit your sites…. I’ll keep my flitting.org widget…. but I know that many people won’t remember to stop by and visit my Today.com blogs if I’m not showing up in their dropboxes.

I have ads purchased on both of my today.com blogs - this one, and flitting on fiction …. so I shall leave them for a bit… but they will be gone by the end of March, so if you are a reader - as opposed to a dropper - you might want to add me to your bookmarks before then. 

Really am going to have to get busy and find some other ways to encourage traffic! I LIKE the $$ I make through blogging on Today.com … not about to give it up without at least trying to maintain my pay per post status. 

Doing the school thing as a nontraditional student is always challenging.

When I went to college for Computer Programming, I was single parenting and constantly broke. I did it anyway. 

When I started my undergrad in English, I was also taking care  of my mother-in-law, who had Alzheimer’s. It was a lot of work…and I did it anyway.

When ma became ill and we decided to keep her at home until the end - and then she died - I still managed to keep up with my school stuff and finish the semester on time. 

During my last year of undergrad, I managed to juggle teaching a full load, plus classes both in Barrie and in Sudbury (3+ hours  North of Barrie) ….. and the driving sucked and it was hard. Still, I made it.

In November of this year, I fainted at the wheel, wrecked my car, broke one wrist and sprained the other and lost my drivers’ license …… still, I managed to finish the semester with decent grades and on time.

And then there are all the other nontraditional students I know…. people juggling families, jobs, disabilities, learning challenges, illnesses….etc.  And they keep going and make it too. 

We are a strong bunch, we nontraditional students. 

I am strong and I can keep on doing this. 

Okay …so maybe today was a very bad day and I am sorely tempted to say to hell with it and …. 

…never mind. This too shall pass…. and I WILL keep going until I’m done. Damn it!

What a frustrating activity this is!

I have already finished the 17 page application for consideration of my research project by the Ethics board… that was truly fun too, given that the form is a pdf and while you can type in it, you can’t SAVE it, so you have to do it right in one sitting - and then retype any pages your supervisor modifies (only 1 in my case, but still). 

Now I am working on the 2 draft consent forms that need to go with it - it has to be submitted this week or there is no way that I’ll get approval back in time to actually DO the research I need doing. 

The consent forms are irksome. 

There is a lot that has to go into them, even if it really does not apply to my particular research project, which many of them really don’t. 

And the hardest part of all is that according to the guidelines, it has to be written in language that scores no higher than the 9th grade reading level. 

You try writing about university level research  and not coming off sounding either as incapable of DOING university level research or condescending!!!

It wouldn’t be so bad except that I know that someday I am going to have to give this form to people I want to interview - I would rather it not be something I am embarassed by.

My first draft was at 14.8 on the Flesch-Kincaid grade level score…. now it’s down to 11.4…. but still got to find a way to dumb it down simplify it 2 more grade levels worth.  ICK!

Tis the season….  I’ve been hanging out at the Grad Cafe quite a bit lately, and am struck by how many people are still waiting to hear back from the places they’ve applied.

I feel for them all…. the people who have no information at all yet, as well as those who have heard but the responses were less than what they’d hoped… i.e. out and out rejections, or acceptances without funding, or wait list status. Any of those would just suck soooooooo bad!

At least there’s a possibility that no news is good news… but even so, that’s a lot of stress for people to have to sit with for a very long time. 

I am so very glad that I know where I’m going …. I can’t imagine trying to keep up with all of my work, write major papers, jump through hoops (Ethics application - 17 pages + appendicies of hoops - ick!) while waiting.

I have not yet heard from York University , but I expected that …. they and U of T were both incredibly slow last year as well, plus York had their strike this winter as well, which I don’t imagine helped any.  Since I am not seriously considering York now that I know that I got into my first choice, it really doesn’t much matter to me…. but if it were the other way round, it sure would! And I would still like to know whether I got in or not, of course :) 

Anyway… here’s hoping that everyone who is still waiting …either for answers or to move off waitlists and into admissions gets happy news and SOON. 

…. just in case you ever decide to go on and do the grad school thing…

There are all kinds of things that can be helpful  to know when you are an undergraduate… not only in case you do decide to apply for graduate school - many of the same things can be helpful in terms of applying for scholarships as well. And you should be applying for scholarships, as well, by the way!

Anyway… focus, flit!

Some things to keep in mind during undergraduate studies

KEEP EVERYTHING YOU WRITE.

You just never know when one of those seemingly pointless papers you write during the course of 4 years of school will be just the thing to pull out, dust off, and use again. Part of the whole grad school gig is attending conferences. When you get a Call for Papers, it can be really helpful to have all of your previous papers on hand ….one of them might well fit.

Of course, if your proposal is accepted, you will probably want to rework the paper given what you’ve learned since… but they can make a great starting place for writing a proposal at least.

Best bet - when you receive your graded paper back, go back to it and correct the original file accordingly. Fix any typos, awkward sentences, etc. And then save it someplace safe with a good filename, and make periodic backups. You may never need it again - but if/when you do, you’ll be glad to have it.

DEVELOP RELATIONSHIPS WITH PROFESSORS

For both grad school and scholarship applications, letters or recommendations from professors are important….and the better your professors know you, the more likely they are to be willing, able to be positive recommenders.

Being a good student and doing well is a good start…but there is more to it than that, I think. Show up when they offer special essay times. Ask them for advice - not only about the work you’re doing in the class you’re taking with them, but about your academic career, about journals to keep up with, conferences to attend, etc. Stand out by taking an interest in their work.  Oh yeah…and if they wrote the textbook - buy it, and ask them to sign it too.

Something else you might want to consider here is that you are not necessarily limited to the profs at your university. Nothing to stop you from making contact with professors in areas you are interested in at others when you have the opportunity.

VOLUNTEER

Not for everything that’s going on ….. you have to have time for your life, and of course, for your schoolwork. But volunteering/showing up for wisely chosen activities can go a long way to building your connections and your applications.

With all I had to juggle during undergrad (I was taking care of my ma in law who had Alzheimers and couldn’t be left alone at all) I didn’t have time for ongoing committment type of stuff… but I did manage to turn up for things like the writers’ festival my prof arranged (and still do; I love it), and volunteered for a conference they held - which gave me exposure to the whole conference thing as well as earning me some brownie points.

What else? Any of you other experienced back to schoolers have advice/thoughts/ideas re: things you wish you’d known in undergrad? Or things that you did that worked well for you?

So…I am at home.

And very happy to be here too - in spite of the fact that I should be still in Peterborough so that I would be there for tomorrow morning’s TA meeting. 

We were planning to stay …. but I am sore and cranky and I just couldn’t stand the thought of hanging around the motel room all evening just to go to a one hour meeting tomorrow morning. 

I finish class at 2 on Thursdays. There is a tea that we could have gone to if I had been inclined to be at all sociable… and I suppose we would have gone out for dinner or whatever…  but I just wanted to come HOME. 

I really enjoy being a TA ….  although I DO much prefer it when my students actually SHOW UP (which far too many didn’t last night) … but the meetings ….blech.   If they had been on a day/time that I had other ~stuff~ it would not be so bad…. but they are scheduled for Fridays. So all year, I have either had to stay over Thursday nights, or drive back on Fridays.  An extra day (and $44 plus food) …or an extra 5+ hours on the road…. ick, ick, ick! 

Anyway…I found out that they hadn’t had a meeting last week, so I had not missed one…. so this week…. I’m being a bad grad student. 

So …. haven’t managed to accomplish much today …. even considering that it is Wednesday, which is a relatively busy class/teaching day…..

Motel lost its Internet completely during the few hours break I normally have, so couldn’t do any research then…. did get my powerpoint for tomorrow (re)done… but that was about it …

BUT  even so, I got to knock a significant chunk off of my workload for the rest of this semester - without doing any work at all….. that made me very happy! 

In CanLit this morning, I brought up the topic of the essay for the course…. just to confirm the date it was due and so forth… and during the course of the discussion, the required paper length dropped from 40+ pages to “20 - 25 pages”. 

Which drops my workload by about 1/4… instead of 110+ pages of essay to write over the next few weeks, I’m down to a piddly 80 or so …. still bunches, but now it feels doable. 

Got to like it when that happens! 

I can not believe how quickly this semester has flown by …. it is almost over! Still 3 big papers to write - and some other odds & ends to finish up ….

and of course, there will be marking from my TA seminars and my database courses…. but most of that will be done at home, in the comfort of my own house as opposed to here in the motel - which, although it has been cheap, and served us well for the most part - I won’t miss much. I would miss it a lot more if the Internet wasn’t so gosh darned annoying! have been here for an hour & a half and managed to drop a whopping 36 Entrecards so far Way too frustrating! 

I have 90 databases to mark, but no WAY I’m even going to attempt to download them here…. that would have me in fits, I have no doubt. 

Anyway, I have a novel to read yet tonight….AND a class to go to and we’re supposed to go out to the bar afterwards… should run through my speech (giving for 2nd practice run tonight) but my foot is asleep so haven’t gotten up to go out to the van and get it…. will do it on the way to class I guess. Or not. Have practiced it to the point that I’m bored with it now…. oh carp! Just realized that I haven’t yet checked to make sure that I did in fact get the file I needed onto my flash drive this morning… if not, I’ll need to be recreating my powerpoint yet before I go. 

I already know I forgot the other powerpoint I worked on and need for Thursday …will redo that … hoping I have this one though.  Cross your fingers!

Not for me…. for my database students…

I’m sitting here (on a table at the front of the room instead of on a chair, since there is no podium chair in this lab) dropping Entrecards and  growling at anyone that tries “just asking him ….”

Occasionally I get up and go walk around to make sure no one has msn or any other messaging programs open, or to tell someone (for what is already beginning to feel like the 1000th time) that the zip file has to be extracted before Access can see the files in it, and that no, I’m not going to tell them how to do what they need to do - defeats the whole purpose of a test. 

I love teaching…but bluddy hell, test days frustrate me ! Especially with this year’s crop….. they are, on the whole, pretty unmotivated, and more than a little demanding. It is a TEST for Pete’s sake….  

You are supposed to show up for tests on time and prepared. 

Don Tapscott, in his newest book grown up digital , talks about the many ways that young ‘uns demand difference approaches in education ….I actually typed out his tip sheet for that section, but it’s at home, of course… maybe I’ll post that later…. but anyway …. according to Tapscott, these guys are supposed to prefer hands on, open book, find it on the Internet, figure it out stuff as opposed to I’m the teacher and I will tell you what you need to know. 

These guys, apparently, have not read the book. 

Well, unless Entrecard changes something major in the next week or so, it seems likely that we today.com bloggers won’t be able to use it any more, since they are going to start carrying ads for things other than blogs on them, which goes against the Today.com terms & conditions. Depressing…. I like Entrecard , and I appreciate the traffic it generates and the community of great bloggers that I have enjoyed being a part of…    *sigh* 

LinkReferral was another option, but it is not working for me at all any more…. even when it did, I never brought more than 30 visitors a day and those were extremely unlikely to stick around or come back anyway … but the last couple of times I bothered to do the 30/5/1/1 thing (for those who don’t know, you are encouraged to visit 30 blogs, write 5 reviews, set 1 as a favourite and make 1 comment in the forum) I got 2/3 visits back …and this Friday, I made a point of doing the full set and got not ONE visitor from there. 

So it seems that blogexplosion is about the only option left at this point… fortunately, they are back in business, and working to clear the spammers out of the forums and to get the backlog of blogs and banner approvals caught up. I volunteered to help with the blog backup…  we’re finally into the 2009 blog submissions now, so we’re getting there! If you have a blog waiting for approval, it should come soon… and if you have one to submit, you might want to hop on that sooner rather than later to get your place in the queue. 

….and it bites!

Have not made the transition yet, of course…. that will happen, most likely, this fall. But I’m already hating the thought. 

We have 2 houses - the pictures are views from my deck ….. I love living on the water. Our other place has tenants living it; there’s a 3 bedroom, a bachelor, and the store below, which is currently vacant. The biggest problem with our houses, of course, is that they are in the wrong dang city…. I need a place in Peterborough.

Will be there for a minimum of 2 years - after that, can go elsewhere to work while I do my thesis, or so I understand … although it is still funded, so ….. hmmm…. that is something else I should probably check into 

We have talked, hubby & I, about the possibility of buying rather than renting….the market is SO depressed right now that it seems that that would be the way to go …. 

There are issues with that too though, of course…. we don’t really have enough of a down payment for starters… although given that we have a lot of equity, we probably could come up with one if we really wanted to…. 

But at this point, we are pretty much focused on trying to find someplace cheap, functional (has to work for me there on my own without my ‘chauffeur‘ ) and reasonable.

It irks me that rentals come with so damn many rules though…. I don’t shive a git about noise/parties - which was the one that the person who showed us the residence apartments yesterday stressed…. we don’t DO parties, and even on the rare occasions that we have (our wedding, and New Year’s) we are very boring partiers  :) 

But they pretty much all say NO pets, NO smoking & they want a minimum 1 year lease. I want my dog, I smoke (although clearly, I need to quit), and I don’t really like the idea of paying for 4 months/year when I don’t need it, although that doesn’t matter as much this year, since I’m committed for 2. 

Oh, and I am perturbed about the need for references as well…. preferably from past landlords… I don’t have any of those - at least not any that I still have info for years later…. will tenants do? 

This is one of my favourite sunset shots (I have hundreds

Victoria Harbour is not called the home of the beautiful sunsets for nothin’)

…. totally unintentional, but I love that the camera focused on the leaves at the front of the shot. 

Yesterday, we went to look at some of the residence apartments available for grad students at Trent . We’re not sure we want to go that route - mostly because of the dog - but the dog is going to be an issue no matter where we are, if we rent rather than buy a place…. so thought it was worth a look, at least.

The grad student apartments are all brand spanking new - they just opened in January of this year, and have all new carpets, appliances, etc….  they are far nicer than I expected, actually …. lots of windows, more room than I expected, and very functional layouts. While I much prefer my home - especially given the lake out front - the res apartments would do quite well for home away from home digs. 

Really can’t afford to dither too much though …. there are only 4 1-bedroom apartments available and 2 of them are already spoken for…..  so I don’t know whether to go ahead and apply for one already and have it done…. or take my chances and keep looking to see if I can find a place where the mutt wouldn’t be as big a problem. 

Pretty much every rental ad says no pets - although the reality is that landlords are not allowed to kick tenants out for bringing one in … but as a landlord myself, I really would hate to be underhanded about it like that….  it just wouldn’t feel right. I would much rather do everything above board. It’s not that Scrooge isn’t happy enough at Diane’s - he is always thrilled to go there…. but still….I miss my dog! 

Anyway …. have sent an email off asking if we can have a look at the actual lease agreement - that seems like a reasonable place to start….  and I do have a couple of other places to call. 

been busy today.

Classes, driving, meetings - all that fun stuff. And then I got home and did most of the arrangements & ~stuff~ I needed to do re: my summer courses.

Booked flights for my sister and I to go to Victoria (June 6 - 12) for the  Digital Humanities Summer Institute . I’m registered to take Text Encoding Fundamentals and their Application….. which is probably rather more basic than I need (I have computer programming and web development, so XML ain’t exactly likely to be a challenge…but oh well)

And then I went online and did the forms re: my expenses …. couldn’t do that form until I had the flights booked….

So…. that’s all done…. just need to book rooms, but not quite ready to do that yet - need to sort out  whether we’re sharing a townhouse with the others who are going or not….  and figure out which residence I want to stay in at Trent for the other 2 weeks (there are 4 options - but none of them are in the buildings with easy bus service which is rather unfortunate for me… not that I mind walking, exactly … but when you’re inclined to FDGB at the slightest provocation, it is rather scary ….I would hate to ‘come to’ in the middle of a parking lot somewhere)