I am never, ever dealing with this journal again.  And I advise others to do the same.  If you are in education, email me at protoscholar at gmail dot com and I’ll let you know which journal this is.

<crickets chirping>

A year later we heard that the journal had gone through a couple of “changes” and wanted to know if we wanted our paper back or were willing to wait*.  We said we’d wait.

<more crickets>

Friday we FINALLY got the paper back – revise and resubmit.

The number one comment by both reviewers?  The literature review was out of date.

^&(*^%$%$#^&^&()()%$&*)*&&^%#@&*(

Well, DUH!  Of course it’s out of date.  YOU PEOPLE SAT ON IT FOR YEARS!!!

*sigh*

So now, instead of working on my literature review, I’m working on the lit review for this paper instead.

It is always better to have published papers in the field, so I know that this is worth the effort in the long run, but if this takes too long I may never graduate.  Again.

* A while back I did a paper with someone in the law school and discovered that they basically shop their papers around to everywhere, all at once, and take “the best” [read: prestigious] offer.  I am so jealous of that system.

At the request of my chair, I am currently taking a course on Historical Research Methods and another on Historiography that he feels are necessary to  my credibility as an educational historian.  OK, I buy that.  I am taking the courses through an online program that is reasonably reputable, then will transfer the credits back to  my home school.  One will be done the middle of this month (final paper due september 19th), the other the middle of next month.  The latter has FAR more reading required.

I must admit, the courses are just killing me.  First of all, the research methods class has bounced back and forth between a really interesting book called Historians’ Fallacies : Toward a Logic of Historical Thought (which talks about methods more from the perspective of what historians do wrong, and is quite witty despite the fact that the rest of the class hates it) and a book called Major Problems in American Military History: Documents and Essays (Major Problems in American History Series) (that focuses on specific events and exemplifies different approaches/perspectives using some source materials and then historians essays on the topics). 

Problem number one is that I couldn’t care LESS about military history.  If I were reading it for fun, maybe, but then I would not have chosen these figures/events to study.

The other course is Historiography.  Problem number two is that historiography attracts the most dull writers I have ever seen.  Historiography basically looks at two things: the growth and changes in historical research methods over time, and how historians in different periods have approached the writing of history.

On the one hand, this should be really interesting; it’s almost a meta-history kind of thing.  However the writers of both our books make me crazy; there is so much required implicit knowledge of history built into how they write these things that you need a PhD in history to understand the context of the different writers.  Parts for which I know the history are fine.  Parts where I don’t end up murky, if I get through them at all.

While finishing these two courses I also have to finish 2 conference papers, a tentative teaching portfolio for a history of ed class, and a side data analysis project for a school district.  Right now, frankly, I mostly want to take a few months off. 

I’ve heard it suggested that the most “dangerous” time for a graduate student is between finishing classes and comps; technically that is more or less where I am, but it isn’t a feeling of being lost in that gap that is the issue.  Were I a more traditional graduate student the challenges would be minimal.

Because I’m not, I am losing any and all enthusiasm for continuing.  For finishing. 

I miss having hobbies.  I miss spending time with my friends.  And while its all well and good to talk about doing those things for a normal graduate student, its much harder when you have a full time career and the PhD has BECOME the one and only hobby.

Yes, I know I’m whining. 

On the one hand, I now better understand why there is such a push for all graduate students to follow the traditional “quit your job and live on a pittance” path.  The alternative, while possible, is incredibly difficult and painful.

On the other hand, I am now more the ever convinced that there is something fundamentally wrong with a system of graduate education so fixed and inflexible that it would prefer to burn people out who choose a less-traditional path then help them succeed.  The fact that I was in a position at ALL to go part time for 2 years in order to get to this stage is a miracle for an adult professional. 

I also am beginning to wonder at the concept of the dissertation as it is currently defined.  I mean, it is often positioned as your first BIG project of independent research; the final phase of your apprenticeship.  However before I even take my COMPS I will have 3 solo presentation, 3 joint presentations and 3 joint publications in reputable journals.  Does that really indicate that this is my first big project?  Or is it just some weird formalized rite-of-passage that is only partially necessary.  If I were to get a couple of my solo presentations published would that be enough?  And if not, WHY not?  After all, a faculty member spends their career publishing in those same places.  Would that not prove my competence?  Why write something that no one will ever read?  What, precisely, does the dissertation prove above and beyond what has already been proven?

Which is making it difficult for me to think about Chair’s shooting down of my latest idea.

I have been trying since May to come up with what he refers to as “starter dough”; an idea that I can use for my dissertation but also pursue after that; a research vein that can be mined for 4-6 articles; an idea on which to build a career.

I have been utterly failing at this goal.

He blames it in part on my unwillingness to completely ignore access to data in formulating my questions.  He thinks I should come up with the question first and then find or build a data set.

Every time I try that I find myself headed toward more qualitative questions and, therefore, away from my strengths.  Questions about what is going on don’t appear “deep” enough to be more than a paper or two, while questions about why it is happening turn rapidly qualitative. 

I just don’t think I think like an academic yet.  Still.

It was bound to happen eventually, and this was the first one I had submitted on my own in this area.  (The fact that the very first one I ever submitted on my own got accepted remains a mystery for me; I look back now and see what dreck it was….)

What bugs me most is that is pretty much all I got back.  No feedback or comments.  Which means I have nothing to use as I revise the proposal for another conference (due Feb 15).  Feedback would have been helpful.

How was today supposed to go?

• Up between 8 and 9
• Go for a bike ride (exercise)
• Shower
• At my desk and working by 11
• Lots of time to get things done…

How today is ACTUALLY going?

• Lay in bed with covers over head until12:30
• Shower
• Put on dark sunglasses to run to the drug store for diet coke to go with the excedrine and sudafed
• Come home and try to cook something to eat
• Find out the something we were cooking contains an ingredient we’re allergic to
• Cook something else
• Get to desk around 2:10
• Remain unable to concentrate due to lingering headache

Classes start this week.  So much for getting some stuff out of the way before that happens….

There are a great number of things making me cranky today.  Here’s a summary:

• Mitt Romney’s speech and the religious pandering of all the candidates.  (I love this summary, and hate what it means for the country.)
• The imminent mortgage bail-out for those who overextended themselves, but only the ones that timed it right (so that they haven’t already seen the rate jump and therefore had to stop making payments) and who someone somewhere thinks can make it at the low rate but not at the high rate.  So, I should have taken a risky loan and saved myself a few percentage points instead of buying a house within my means?  Good to know.  My friends who have already had their rate adjust and missed a payment?  Out of luck. 
• The fact that my hope of a 20 hour job has just fallen through, leaving me with either the 30 hour consulting job (still not officially offered) or applying for a full time institutional researcher position (where at least I would be on campus all the time, if busy, and have to give up my assistantship in favor of tuition remission through the college, which is taxable).
• I have been calling and emailing adviser since mid November.  First it was “You’ll hear from me after Dec. 1″.  On Sat Dec 1 7:45 am he emailed me to call him.  I was crunching to get things done and called him on Tuesday.  No response.  Called again.  No response.  Emailed.  Got a response.  “I’m finishing up some work on an evaluation project.  I’ll call before mid-week next week.”  Nice to know where I stand. 
• I am stumped on a stupid problem at work.  It makes no sense at all.  None.  And it’s pissing me off.
• It’s cloudy.  Again.  I deal with 115 degree days because it’s sunny here all the time.  Right now I’m feeling jipped.
• My mother called last night to tell me to check my email for something that she sent and I responded to days ago.

I realized last night that part of my procrastination problem is that I don’t feel like a scholar/academic.  I feel like I am taking classes as a hobby.  And if that’s the case, we are accumulating far too much student loan debt to keep the hobby affordable.

… must come to an end.  No, not this blog.  My cushy part-time contracting job in my old career that has been paying the bills while I was in school.

Prior to deciding to change careers I had a well=paying career in IT.  I’m very good at that work.  But it is boring, unchallenging, and the idea of going to a cube every day for the next 25 years to do basically the same thing makes my brain hurt.  I decided to go back to school, get a PhD and change direction, leaving that money behind.

Of course it’s hard to walk away from that kind of salary.  I managed to convince the people I was consulting for to keep me on half-time doing the same work for the past 2 years.  This has been perfect; I get paid a generous hourly rate for an amount of work that lets me get my school work done, they keep my skills and the knowledge of their systems that I had developed, and everyone has been pretty happy.

Then the company got bought out.  The new company prefers to staff with employees, not contractors.  And employee spots are only created in full time increments.

So now I have to choose.  They have offered me a full time position with a good salary for that field (plus benefits which I don’t get now), which is far more than I will ever make as an academic, or I’m done there at the end of the year. 

I don’t want that as a career.  That’s why I’m working so hard to get a PhD.  But I don’t know if we can AFFORD for me to walk away.  I have no doubt that I can find other sources of income, but they won’t be a nice biweekly paycheck.  And they almost certainly won’t be this much money, certainly not for the same number of hours. 

And yes, I know I’m whining.  People go through graduate school on 18k/year fellowships.  However they aren’t 40something with a mortgage, bills and an existing lifestyle.

I know precisely why I’m considering this.  It’s a lot of money and my husband and I are fairly risk-averse.  Those are the ONLY good reasons to even consider taking this stupid offer.  But they aren’t trivial reasons.  And it’s scary to do otherwise.

I think I’m going to start shopping around my CV and resume for other part time gigs in the meantime…..

I am sitting on the floor at the airport waiting for my boarding group to be called.  This has made me question the wisdom of this particular flight…

The good: I’ll be at my destination around 2pm, which is almost unheard of when heading east from arizona.  I can still hit a session and relax before tomorrow.

The bad:  The flight is full, which means it will be uncomfortable no matter how you cut it

The ugly: I had to get up at 4am to get to the airport on time.  The only way I usually want to see 4am is if I am still up from the night before….

I would really like to go back to bed now….

Before I start, I just want to say that I know exactly how lucky I am.  My adviser is a god compared to all the horror stories I hear.  He is generally responsive, supportive, treats me as a professional, helps me make contacts and made sure my name was on as an author for the papers I helped on, pumping up my CV. 

However, this week he is making me nuts.  I am trying (at his suggestion) to apply for a prestigious seminar fellowship.  It’s due November 1st.  It requires a 2 page research abstract about what will probably turn into my dissertation.  I wrote something and sent it to him for comment.  He talked to me about this and something else on Tuesday, but only for a total of about 5 minutes and then while he was distracted trying to get out the door.  He made 2 comments, one of which would change the research question completely, then had to go and hung up.

That isn’t actually helpful given the time frame.  I desperately need about 15-20 minutes of his time.  On the phone is fine.  I don’t care what time of the day or night.  Apparently that is going to have to wait for tomorrow (Friday) afternoon, meaning I will be rushing all this weekend to put this thing together so that I can give it to him for signature and departmental submission on Monday.  (The chair has to write a letter of recommendation to go with my application paperwork, so they need time as well.)

ARGH.

If the question I was asking was so bad, I wish he would have just said that instead of making what sounds like a reasonable suggestion that changes the whole thing.  If he only skimmed what I wrote and wasn’t clear on what the question was I wish he would have said that as well.  Either would have let me keep working in the meantime.  Instead I am stalled until I clarify with him what he was thinking so that i can figure out how to integrate it with what I have or if I need to just rewrite. 

When I drill it down what is irritating me isn’t the content of his comment so much as the fact that he essentially dropped a bomb on my project and then disappeared for 3 days.  I’m fine with “that’s a dumb question; what about this one”.  I’m NOT fine with “what about adding this aspect” when adding that aspect changes the entire concept to something that no longer resembles anything different from the existing literature….

Ah well, enough whining….back to work….