this is my house roll out the red carpet

maura @ 8:33 pm

On the last day of the year it’s hard to think of anything other than the past year. I tend to make most of my resolutions on and around the beginning of the new academic year in the fall, because that’s when my work calendar resets. But sometimes I feel like I want to take advantage of the normal new year, too.

Really there can be only one resolution for me this year, and that’s balance. It’s been clear over the past weekish that I haven’t been at work that my shoulder and neck issues are at least in part work-related. Even with the standing desk I probably don’t consider my posture enough when I’m computing, and I haven’t done much keyboard work over the break, which is one big difference from non-vacation times. That’s not to say that computer work is the only culprit as there are definitely other ways I hold my body that cause flare-ups, though I’m usually able to avoid them. Stress likely plays into things as well, though it’s tricky to say how much. Certainly I have sources of stress that are not work-related — stress reduction overall is a good goal.

I’m lucky enough to have a job that I love and to work on projects that I find both interesting and worthwhile. But it’s hard to push back against the academic norms of working or thinking about work all the time, and of measuring our own production in comparison to others, despite differences in life situations, ambitions, age, health, and sleep requirements. So part of my balance goal is to stop worrying about everyone else and find a pace that’s sustainable for me. This almost certainly means that I’ll need to turn down some opportunities that sound interesting and worthwhile, because time is not an unlimited commodity. But I hope that what I gain instead is better focus on the projects I do work on, as well as the shoulder and neck stuff under control.

So, striving for balance in 2014. Happy New Year!

keep feeling like a baby chicken

maura @ 9:26 pm

So before you’re all “OMG two posts in one day” I should probably mention that I wrote that last post last night, though wasn’t able to post it until this morning because we didn’t have internet at the neighbors’ apartment where we were staying. This year we’re having a mostly home-based holiday season — though we did travel to exchange gifts with some of my family before xmas, it was a quick trip of only 42 hours duration. Now we have family visiting and took advantage of our neighbors’ generosity to use their place as an extra sleeping space while they’re out of town. It’s nice to travel at xmas though it’s nice to be home, too, with a tree and the kitties.

I recently read two novels in a row about twins, each told from the perspective of one of the twins, which when added to the season has me thinking much more about family than usual. The books were great. First was Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell, about twin girls in Nebraska who write Harry Potter-esque fan fiction and the events of their first year away at college. It was a fun read: the characters were both super likable and since I spend lots of my research and scholarly time thinking about the academic culture of college students it was also interesting from an ethnographic perspective. (Is there a term for ethnographic fiction? Is all fiction ethnographic?)

I was particularly entranced by one scene in which the main character is accused of plagiarism by her English prof when she submits a fic for a creative writing assignment. I scanned those few pages from the book and plan to ask my students to read the excerpt when I next teach our library’s research and documentation course. Which is nerdily exciting — we talk a lot about plagiarism and remix culture and intellectual property, and I’ll be interested to see what the students make of the reading. Plus it’s only 4 pages which is absolutely fair use, so I can post the PDF of the scan on our course website.

Next (and completely accidentally re: the twin theme) I read Sisterland by Curtis Sittenfeld. I’ve never read any of her books before — the cover of Prep, her first novel, completely turned me off and she fell off my radar after that. But reading Jenna’s review of Sisterland piqued my interest, and since it was available as an ebook and I didn’t have any other ebooks checked out it seemed like a good call (I like to have an ebook on my phone if possible, just in case I ever get stuck someplace with nothing to read). And it was! Like Jenna, I found the main characters unsympathetic, but the story was well-paced and interesting.

These twins are adult women who are both somewhat psychic, though one has suppressed her ability. The narrative of the book is framed by an event that happens early on, when the more-psychic sister predicts that an earthquake will strike St. Louis, where the book takes place. The bulk of the book (which is told by the less-psychic sister) recounts the story of what happens with the sisters and their lives and families between the time of the prediction and the date on which the earthquake is predicted to happen. There’s lots of flashbacks to the twins’ childhood and early adult years, and lots of discussion of their ESP and the circumstances under which they’ve used it. What I liked best is that even though the psychic powers lend the book a vaguely magical tone, most of the issues with which the characters grapple are pretty much just normal, everyday problems.

In both books the twin sisters are identical yet surprisingly different, with a relationship at least as complex as that between non-twin siblings. And I guess that’s what made me start thinking about my family. I love my family, though I’m often quite baffled when I think of us. While my nuclear family members — my parents and my younger sister and brother — are (of course!) related and have much in common, we are also each very different. And we all continue to change as we age, which along with partnering and childrearing adds other wrinkles (ha!). My parents are long divorced and we all mostly live far apart, and I wish we saw everyone more often. But I sometimes find myself torn: I don’t want to leave New York to live in one of the places they live, but living here makes it difficult for folks to visit us because NYC apts aren’t great for hosting sleepover visitors. And I wonder: are we all so different because we live in different places? Or do we live in different places because we are all so different?

waiting for years to go by

maura @ 9:15 am

Hi blag. It’s been a long time, hasn’t it? Already the end of December, nearly the new year. I’ve written post after post in my head for over a month now, unable to find slash make the time to get the words out. November was busy (including with lots of scholarly kinds of writing, though not quite as much as I’d hoped), and Thanksgiving was late which lent the whole kid’s birthday + xmas prep a bit more urgency this year, given the time constraints.

Of course the thing about not writing is that with every day you don’t write it’s easier to not write the next day. Or the day after. &tc. And that’s how the not writing becomes a routine, much more comfortable and cozy than even the best writing routine. Because inaction is always easier. This is hardly the worst dry spell I’ve ever had, but it feels yucky nonetheless because I know it’s not for lack of material or even, strictly speaking, lack of time. Yeah, I’m busy, but there’s always time for a bit of writing every day, even if only 30 minutes.

This time around it’s most definitely the blahs that have been slowing me down. Nothing huge, really, but lots of little things adding up. We still haven’t had any bites on our book proposal.* I took on a service commitment at work that’s taken up considerably more time than I’d anticipated. A couple of our household appliances went belly up and it’s taken more cognitive effort than I anticipated to incorporate the new ones into my usual chores routines. Lots of my favorite items of clothing have finally worn out, and clothes shopping is one of my least favorite things ever.

*Lest I seem too mopey about this I should note that when we were at a conference last month we spent a long time hashing out a new book strategy, and we’re definitely on a more productive path now. So a new round of proposals should be ready to go out soon, yay!

And there have been some maybe not so little things too. A colleague in another department died; while he wasn’t a young man, it was still very sudden and sad. A dear friend’s parent died too, not suddenly at all but no less sad. I also learned that a colleague in a different department who I respect very much is leaving the college for another position, a big loss for the students and the college.

In addition to the mental reasons there’ve also been some physical reasons for the blahs. Over the fall I started having persistent neck and shoulder tingling and pain, I think related to something I pulled or strained last winter while shoveling snow. Dr visits + testing revealed that I have 2 herniated discs in my neck, hooray. *Not* hooray at all, really annoying, actually. So I’m going to physical therapy and trying to be careful not to slouch or look down much. Which is a pain in the ass, frankly, because it’s difficult to write (or read!) without looking down.

So, back on the wagon with me, though perhaps climbing on a bit more slowly than before. Aging, sigh.