Funding

I Laugh

I laugh because crying hurts....

The Gods are Smiling

I won't go into my unresolved issues with faculty members, or even how I shoved my foot in my mouth with her and almost lost my funding. I am just too happy right now.

First, the gods have completed the freeway interchange that is right on campus and they personally put an exit and entrance ramp in the perfect spot for me to get around. If there was little traffic on the freeway, it would only take me 10 minutes to get to campus.

Second, in my undergraduate years my friends and I frequented the Dairy Queen on campus. Sadly it was replaced by a George Webbs. Now, while I don't mind a Webbs, it just isn't the same. But yesterday, the gods were smiling and Webbs is now a Qdoba. For those of you who don't know me, or at least not that well, I could eat Qdoba at least four to five days a week. Mmmmm...............Qdoba.

Thirdly, and most importantly, I have started classes for this semester. In my research course we had a gentleman from the county historical society come and talk to us about what type of collections they have. When I asked him about my particular school that I want to research, he informed me that a woman stopped by over the summer and dropped a whole series of records off for them. To put the icing on the cake, they also have a very active alumni group in the area that was holding the collection of pieces. Jackpot!!!!! I felt bad for the poor kids in the class who got more vague responses than I.

I did find it funny when he talked about a the Milwaukee Chicks who were a member of the AAGPBL. I never knew that Milwaukee had a team in this fabled league, if only for a year, and would love to look more into women's access to sports in the city of Milwaukee pre-Title IX. I guess that will have to wait until after I am done with my first project.

Protecting Human Subject Research Participants

Protecting Human Subject Research Participants That's right, I am certified! Aren't you as excited as I am. Wait, I only deal with dead people. What am I doing again?

Knowledge is Relative

I have found it odd the reaction I get when I tell people what I do. When I was a high school teacher, I received looks of sympathy from people or comments about my fortitude. Now when I tell them that I am a doctoral student or I teach college, it is a different response altogether. For the former, I get questions about how hard medical school is or what my dissertation is about/degree is in. The first one just makes me giggle, the second one I never want to answer because I know they don't care, they are just being polite. As for the response about me teaching college, it is funny. People make comments about how smart I must be, or how young I am to be teaching at the college level.

The perceptions of what a high school teacher and what a college instructor look like and how smart they are astound me. I have the same degrees that I did when I was a high school teacher, just one more year of college difference. I am only one year older than I was when a high school teacher.

Responses about how smart I am are so funny, because anyone who has gone on past their bachelor's degree knows how graduate school beats the smart out of you. Now I have had the pleasure of being in programs that are very nurturing and collegial, rather than cut-throat. I have had the privilege of working with faculty one on one, and even being allowed to call them by their first names! The process of graduate school is to narrow your focus, and expose you to more and more information about this area of specialty. You are constantly quetioning your sanity and discussing everything to the nth degree. On top of it, your final piece of work that is the culmination of your years of study has to be defended in front of a panel of people. What other profession requires this? A medcial doctor gets a license after passing a test; if you get your law degree in the state of Wisconsin and choose to practice here, you don't even have to take the bar! Me, I have to take qualifying exams, and orally defend them, then write a long research book/paper and orally defend that as well. Now, mind you I have already done this process once for my master's degree. Does this seem smart to you? I think this proves that I am nowhere near smart.

I Get It and Other Stuff

Well the summer is winding down and I feel so stressed just trying to get my schedule figured out that I just can't seem to stop thinking about it. I have a load of 6 credits, I have 20 hours to work at one position on campus and 10 for another. I dropped down to 6 credits because I accepted an adjuct position at a small school nearby. I thought I had my schedule figured out pretty well, and then got thrown for a curve. Let's just say that curve has not been pleasant and we'll leave it at that. The main problem is that I need to perform all of these functions between 8-5, not all of which are located within the confines of campus. To make matters worse, all of the people that I work for or with are so great in allowing me the flexibility to do what I need to, save one. I don't know why this surpeises me, but I guess I got so used to being treated like an adult, even, dare I say colleague, that being treated like a student has just taken me down a few notches. I am sure this can all be worked out, and by the end of September I won't know why I was so stressed, but I just hate feeling this way.
My other issue that has come to my attention over the last few months has always gotten my goat, but now it has bothered me to a point where I cannot remain quiet. I turned 30 this year, whoopdedo. Age has never bothered me, and I was never really one of those people that would make goals based on ages. I usually made goals and adjusted them based on the curve balls that life threw at me. Lately when around people my age, all I here about is babies and the comments "just wait until it happens to you." I get it, I've watched and cared for my niece and nephew to know this. But these people seem to think that I have no idea what kids are like. On top of that, they give the look of pity when I tell them I don't have any of my own. This is not an accident, this is a conscious choice to put off children until I done with my coursework. This does not mean that I do not work, or that my degrees mean less because I didn't add children to the mix. I get it, kids are rough. I say wear a helmet, good shoes, and get a life outside of your family.
Sorry that this is more personal than anything, but this is part of the doctoral process, dealing with schedules and non-academics.

Slacking and Office Supplies

So while I am still making any kind of excuse to avoid anything that resembles school work, I have a peculiar obsession with office supplies that is well known to almost all who know me. Summer used to be a fun time of year where all of the pressures of school were removed and the urge to buy supplies was usually well repressed. Unfortunately the retailers have now decided that July is the perfect time to put school supplies on sale. Not just on sale, but the special isles full of fresh pens screaming my name and virgin notebooks calling for my chicken scratch to be scrawled all over their pristine pages.


It began about three weeks ago, while walking through Target, I noticed that most of the garden/patio supplies/decorations where beginning to not be restocked (whoa that's a lot of backslashes). The next trip to Target resulted in the discovery of these cardboard bins full of markers and pencils. While these make me smile, I could resist the temptation to walk those isles. That and I was there to purchase Mario Kart for our Wii (this is another reason that I have slack off). I then went on vacation with my whole family, so I was removed from this temptation, until today. I made an innocent stop at Walgreen's. I was paying my bills and ran out of envelopes and white out tape. I knew that Office Max would be way too much temptation when I just needed to get two things. I have more than enough pens and paper to get me through this semester, and I also am good on binders for this coming fall. I thought that I would play it safe and go to Walgreen's where the temptation is minimal for office supplies.


Wrong! Now mind you, I have been gone for almost a week, and do not know what sales are going on. I get to Walgreen's and everything is buy two get one free or better. I decided to peruse the isle looking for my white out tape. It was not in this isle, but there were binders of every size and color and priced at buy one get one free. I could not resist the empty binders. I go through two or three per semester, usually one per class. This fall I have two classes that I am taking, two that I am teaching, and I still do not know who I am going to be assigned to as a graduate assistant, so that could be more classes. I felt compelled to purchase at least two, even though I know that I have a few empty ones laying about the condo.


I grabbed two and continued on my search for the aforementioned items that I had come for: enevelopes and white out tape. From there I passed a display full of composition notebooks that were buy one get two free. Now I debated longer over the colors of the three that I would buy longer than I did over if I should buy them. I couldn't resist their solid uncracked bindings. I then made a bee line to the envelopes and quickly moved on to grab the white out tape as well.


I know to some this is silly, but to me this is like Christmas. Brand new school supplies are like crack, an addiciton. I told my husband what I bought, and he just laughed and said: "that's it?" He can be such an enabler when it comes to things like this. I need to stay out of the stores, at least until I have to buy books for this semester.