Nontraditional Students R Us

Ashley Smith Inquest

2011-05-20T11:28:00.002-04:00

So - in addition to studying for my July comprehensive exam, I am keeping more than a little busy these days attending the Ashley Smith Inquest. It is, not surprisingly, being held in Toronto, which is, unfortunately, a good 2 hours away - by car - even more by bus.

I either take the van, or hubby drives me, as far as Barrie in the morning... then a 1.5 hour ride on the GO train, followed by - assuming I FIND the damn subway - a short hop up the Yonge St. line, and a short walk. So ... $30 + gas, and basically 3 hours each way travel time. Fun!

I have a research fellowship that will reimburse me for a fair bit of my travel and food costs - but the time is a huge issue, of course... but it has to be done.

I won't be able to attend every day - but I figure that attending as much as I can right now makes sense. Not only am I learning about what happened to Ashley Smith - but I am also learning about the Inquest process, and making connections with other attendees. So - hopefully - when I have to start missing days, I will be able to keep up with what I'm missing.

And - when I'm ready to actually get going on my dissertation proposal - I will have the contacts I need.

Clearly, it is worth the inconvenience - but oy! what a cost in emotional terms.

I am so freaking frustrated... and angry....and saddened... by the whole thing.

I am saddened that - no matter what is learned through the Inquest process - it is too late for Ashley and for her family.

I am saddened because at so many points unlong the way, Ashley could have - should have - been saved.

I am angry that any young, troubled person would be put through the things that Ashley was. In Canada!! It makes me anything but proud to be Canadian - not only that such behaviour happens - but that there is not a much bigger outcry.

Canadians, it seems, care far more about abused animals than people. How is that possible?

I am frustrated, too, that the Inquest process seems - at least to this point - so incredibly focussed on keeping things OUT of the public eye rather than on getting to the bottom of what happened.

It was a battle to get the coronor to expand the scope of the Inquest to cover the entire course of Ashley's stay in CSC custody - and even though that was - supposedly - successful, the reality is that to date, the coroner has shown no inclination to actually follow through and do so. Yesterday, the lawyers for the family, Elizabeth Fry Society, and the Advocate for Children and Youth were back in court asking that additional evidence be entered; the Divisional Court found that the coroner erred in her decision that videos relating to Ashley's treatment during transfers between prisons, and her time at facilities other than Grand Valley Institute for Women (where she died) were not relevant.

I am frustrated, too, at the course of the questioning so far. Each witness is questioned first of all by the coroner's lawyer - who is, it seems, intent on ignoring any of the real issues.

For example, so far we have seen several hours of video of Ashley's interactions with correctional officers - during which she continually is seen tying strips of cloth around her neck. His questions are focussed on their management of this behaviour - why did they go in, or not go in; remove it, or not remove it.

Hello...!? How about a few more questions about where the strips of cloth are coming from?

It was 'established' - supposedly - that the cloth did not come from GVI .... Ms. Sandeson, an acting manager at GVI suggested that she had 'hooped' the materials while in other facilities. "Maybe" while she was at the St. Thomas psychiatric facility....

'Hooping' refers to storing things in bodily cavities - in this case, the vagina...and "people don't understand" just how much stuff one can hide up there...

Give me a ******* BREAK. Clearly, there are limits to how much cloth can be stored within bodily cavities. Eventually - if supervision was somewhat vigilant - she should have run out of cloth.

She was not using narrow strings, but rather strips of cloth, in many cases about an inch wide - and in at least one of the videos that we saw this week, several feet long.

It seems obvious to me that she was being provided with plenty of opportunities to add to her supply of ligatures on an ongoing basis.

They have not yet mentioned glass from a broken television, which she also supposedly hooped in there - presumably we'll get to that - but for God's sake - how stupid do these people think we are?

The whole ligature process is a sick game played between Ashley and the officers - but it is, in my opinion, a game that both sides 'enjoy' and make possible. Christie Blatchford of the Globe and Mail described it as a "macabre dance" in her 19 May article, a very appropriate description.

Even without a body cavity search, which according to Ms. Sandeson, could not be conducted without a medical doctor, and which would require Ashley's consent (clearly not happening), this 'game' should not have been able to - allowed to - continue.

To focus on management of the incidents rather than on PREVENTION is ludicrous. Just ludicrous.

Even more ludicrous is the focus on reducing the number of use of force incidents (to avoid triggering external surveillance) ... this, it seems, is the direction given to correction officers...and resulted in them - however reluctantly - allowing Ashley to repeatedly harm, and eventually kill, herself.

I am looking forward to the cross-examination - especially by the lawyers for the three parties with standing I mentioned already - as they seem to be our only hope for ensuring that the jury - and Canadians - learn what really happened to Ashley Smith - and what has happened and continues to happen to other men and women in Canadian prisons.

Ouch! York TA in the news

2011-03-19T10:48:00.002-04:00

Today on facebook, one of my connections posted a link to an article in the Toronto Star: York TA apologizes after criticizing students on Facebook.

My first response, on reading the article, was to groan over the spelling and grammar of the comment, which was quoted in the article. Yikes! If you're going to complain about other peoples' writing abilities.... well...

Easy pickings, that.

But really, I feel really badly for this poor T.A. Who among us doesn't vent someplace? Online, even?

It's all well & good to say that facebook (or blogs....) are public and can come back to bite you in the ass - we know that ... but seriously.... do you not post stuff occassionally that maybe you would wish you hadn't if it popped up in the local newspaper? I know I have!

Her comments were obviously not professional - but they weren't meant for her students, or for the newspaper, either, and it seems more than a little unfortunate that they ended up there.

I'm assuming that she did not have her profile wide open if she was posting that sort of thing - did one of her connections do a bit of copying & pasting? Not nice, if so.

I wonder who told the press about it? Also not nice - and I'm not very impressed that the press ran with it either.

Yes, it was dumb. But it was the sort of dumb mistake that lots and lots of people make - and to name one that got caught and likely ruin any chance of her ever overcoming that error ...any chance of an academic career, at the very least - that just seems altogether too harsh to me.

Required Viewing

2011-02-07T13:38:00.004-05:00

Seriously - you should watch this video! I tried to embed it here but couldn't make it work; sorry... but really... you should go and watch it and there is a petition you should sign... and there is more information, also.

Until today, I had no clue that there were still people - about 100 tribes! - living their lives free of colonialism/empire/us - or that many of these groups are at risk because of deforestation and illegal logging, among other things.

These are not, the Survival website clarifies, "lost" tribes - people know they are there (when it suits them!) - Survival International uses the term uncontacted, meaning that they are "Peoples who have no peaceful contact with anyone in the mainstream or dominant society." They might, at some point, have had contact - but retreated from the violence which colonialism brought. Some may once have been part of larger tribal groups, and split off and moved away, fleeing contact.... lots more information available in this FAQ.

Some commenters here seem to think that dominant society SHOULD impose its will on these people... (or that it is a hoax)... it should come as no surprise to anyone that knows me that I am not one of those people.... everyone should, if y'ask me... leave them the hell alone!!! If they want contact at some point, let them initiate it.

And in the meantime, the areas we know they occupy should also be left the hell alone.

Just. Leave. Them. Alone.

Please!

Some days....

2011-02-04T16:42:00.002-05:00

the thought of just saying to hell with the whole school thing is oh so appealing.

Fortunately, it (usually) doesn't last long.

Snow Day

2011-02-02T11:46:00.003-05:00

Figures it would be a Wednesday! I don't have classes on Wednesday ... but I do need to go to Peterborough so that I will be there for my seminars tomorrow.

Fortunately, in spite of all the hype and carrying on on the news and the weather network, it really is not that bad. Might take us a bit longer than our usually 2.5 hours... and it is a royal pain that we will no doubt have to shovel at the other end as well... but it definitely could be worse.

SENT!

2011-01-16T23:53:00.003-05:00

They suck .... I have little doubt....BUT THEY ARE GONE.

Finished (using the term loosely) my practice comp exam today and sent them off.

Huge relief.

God - with this much pressure over a PRACTICE test, how the hell am I EVER going to survive the real thing?!

Let the games begin

2011-01-05T09:26:00.002-05:00

Received my first 3 questions for my comprehensive essay yesterday - these are "just" a practice run... and I have a bit more than a week to do them - but given that I have all sorts of other things going on in my life (tenants that don't pay rent, don't give notice, etc. for starters ... and that IS just for starters!) ....AND that I have not managed to yet READ all 55 books on my list never mind find a way to retain what I'm reading...

it's more than enough challenge.

Have I mentioned I love Inspiration software? I know I have .... but anyway ... I got the questions yesterday, late afternoon... and my first response on reading them was OMG I haven't read enough...I can't...I don't know....ACK!!! You know that initial total panic when you're first confronted with exam questions, right? Yeah, that....

After a brief (well, HE might not describe it as brief) whine to hubby "I TOLD her I wasn't ready - why is she pushing me so hard - blah blah blah...." though, I decided to open up Inspiration and plunked the first question into it. And then I started to play.

No brilliant flashes of inspiration, really ... but once I had broken each question down into bubbles and mucked about a bit with structures.... I was able to start plugging some of the authors in where they fit best ... not worrying about who said what when yet ... just stuff like well, Patricia Monture-Angus will fit here... where I need to talk about feminist writers and colonialism; Sangster goes here with class ... oh, and Smith can fit there too...and so on and so on....

I did the same with each of the three questions... didn't get as far with the one re: my criminalization & law section as I did with the others... but did as much as I could without resorting to burying myself in my notes and books and so on ... the plan was to not get bogged down and stressed out - just to PLAY... and then go to bed and hope that things would be more doable this morning.

And indeed, they are...I woke up thinking about ways to categorize different schools of thought about criminalization... AND how to bring in a lot of the theory/older stuff that is on my list even though the question refers to "current debates" (by speaking to how current "schools of thought" are drawing on Foucault et al ....

so ... I'm not ready to sit down and WRITE all 3 essays yet .... but I am a heck of a lot further than I am likely to have been without my very pretty blue and purple and yellow bubbles.... and now that I am finished my first coffee of the day and the puppies have quit harassing me and gone outside to play, I do believe it is time I get back to them ... the bubbles, I mean :)

Women and the Canadian Welfare State: Challenges and Change

2010-12-22T16:41:00.004-05:00

Evans, Patricia M. And Gerda R. Wekerle, Eds. Women and the Canadian
Welfare State: Challenges and Change. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1997. Ebrary.
[C]

*sigh* This book just depresses me. I read it. I retained a lot of it it was- much easier than many of them because THIS one I lived through and even, to some extent, was paying attention. I was, for example, a beneficiary of Ontario's Pay Equity Legislation, which, after several years of wrangling and being told that there were no male comparators that they could AFFORD to compare us to, finally resulted in a very nice pay raise.

The book is a collection of essays that for the most part deals with the period between 1985 - 1995 and the hollowing out of the Canadian welfare state - and especially, the potential (at that point) for significant harm to women, and especially, to the progress that feminist organizations had made during the 60s & 70s.

I found it depressing because, for the most part, the authors were exactly right. Throughout the whole book, the one recurring message is that we have to pay attention. We have to take action. Or else....

and here we are... in or-else hell.... pretty much all of the things they warned of have indeed come to pass.... only more-so.....

Neoliberalism - or, as Dr. Marjorie Griffin Cohen terms it in her essay, vampire capitalism, has indeed prevailed, and the women's movement - although still around in various (under/un-funded factions) - faces serious challenges.... not the least of which is that a lot of people - young women, especially, think that the battle is over; we've come as far as we need to; it's all good now....

except that IT. IS. NOT.

We were, for a bit, drawing closer in terms of pay equity ... but now we're moving in the absolute wrong direction again. All of those people that used to be cared for in nursing homes, hospitals (for much longer than they are now), and institutions did not suddenly become independent... and guess who is providing the majority of at home or in the community care?

Institutions were not great solutions for a lot of people - and it is great that we're no longer warehousing people the way we were (with the exception of the many, many, many mentally ill people who we are now "caring for" -~gag~ - in our prisons) .... but such closures mean that a whole lot more people are caring for people and not getting paid for it ...and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to tell us that the majority of the people doing that unpaid caring work are women.

One of the essays that I found the most disturbing was "The Shift to Market: Gender and Housing Disadvantage" by Wekerle. Her discussion about housing and the impact of cuts warned of the potential harm specifically to women .... while I was reading it, the thought occured to me that here is one are we are making some ~progress~ toward equality.... in 2004, the National Working Group on Women and Housing reported that young women account for 41% of youth staying in shelters, and the percentage increases as they age. There are lots of other statistics in that fact sheet too, if you need further evidence that issues of women's equality are losing ground and that there is still work to do.

The scariest part of fact sheets like that, though, is not the actual statistics, although those are disturbing enough - it is that, as Dr. Meg Luxton observed when she spoke to my women's studies class, a few years from now we won't have reliable statistics about many of the things they tell us. By ending the mandatory long form census, Harper & Co. are ensuring that we just won't have StatisticsCanada data to draw on.

Anyway, once again I feel as though I have barely scratched the surface of potential discussion points in this book... but time to move on and tackle the next.

Still have 3/4 that I have read but not yet blogged about... perhaps tomorrow...

For now, I'm moving on to bell hooks.... or maybe....FOOD first, then bell hooks. The chocolate I ate for lunch (on top of the pot of coffee I had for breakfast) just isn't cutting it! I need protein.

2 Down...

2010-12-19T10:26:00.011-05:00

Razack, Sherene H. Looking White People in the Eye: Gender, Race, and Culture in Courtrooms and Classrooms. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1998. Ebrary. [C]

Well, actually more than 2 - but have not yet written them all up yet ... just finished writing about Sherene Razack's Looking White People in the Eye though, so it feels done while the others don't (yet!).

Writing about the books here is different than the sort of writing I do about them for my notes and annotated bibliography...which is why it is a good exercise, I think... it encourages me to think about them another way - and to think about how I might present them if I were to be teaching them, i.e. to students (or blog visitors) who are not as immersed in the whole Women's Studies thing as I am right now. So anyway ... Looking White People in the Eye...

I think the most important thing that I got from this particular reading is questions to consider as I read other work, watch TV or read the paper, pay attention to the dynamics in my classes (huh! I have no more classes as a student now.... it's all teaching for the time being! Cool, eh?). They include:

What stories are told and how are they heard?
How does gender interlock with race and disability to produce specific experiences of violence and what language can I use to describe those interlocking realities?
How has colonization changed, and continues to change, me? (Razack uses "white people" but since I only speak for myself, I changed the question accordingly)

I really liked that she uses the term "stories" .... sometimes, the work that I am doing now seems so far from removed that the work that I did during my undergraduate work and even in my Masters - but it really is not. It is all about stories, and Razack reminded me of that, and her work encouraged me to think about how the things I worked on and learned before starting my Phd might still be of use.

Anyway....each of the essays in the book explores the way that the eyes of men and women of dominant groups see subordinate women in these complex, interlocking ways. Razack differentiates interlocking from intersectionality by the degree of interdependence; interlocking systems need one another, and by tracing the complex ways in which they help to secure one another, she writes, we learn how women are produced into positions that exist symbiotically but hierarchically (13). Razack argues that power relations deeply shape encounters, and that through attending to them, we can begin to unravel how subjectivity is constituted, how systems of domination are produced, and how better to disrupt and challenge them.

The most useful chapter (aside from the introduction and conclusion, anyway) for me was one in which Razack discusses developmental disability. She advocates for attitudes not of pity but of respect, and highlights ways in which gains fought for and achieved by feminist women may, in courts, work against women with disabilities. It is here, as she notes, that she is clearly in the dominant and privileged position so - for those of us who enjoy white privilege as a matter of course - this is the chapter that most closely models a discussion from our typical position.

I feel that I should clarify enjoying white privilege. This is not, at least from my standpoint - and remember that I have already said that I speak only for myself - a matter of lording my position over anyone else's. It is, rather, an acknowledgement that in our society, I do, by sheer virtue of being a white Canadian, benefit. I am, actually, exceedingly privileged - by not only race, but also in terms of class (I can take time out from working to go to university, and although there are certainly many more class privileged than I, that definitely places me in a privileged position relative to many others). And while I have, at some times in my life, experienced short term disability, here again, I am privileged - and certainly there can be little argument that I have a much easier life than someone who is poor, ill or disabled, and not-white. That does not mean that I am better than this hypothetical person, of course - in many ways, to my way of thinking, it means that my accomplishments mean rather less than theirs do.

So the only real area in which I am regularly in the subordinate position is because I am female - and in Canada, while there continue to be very real disadvantages to being a woman (we are a very long way from any sort of equality yet; patriarchy is alive and well albeit rather more subtle than it has been in the past - but that is a discussion for another day, as I'm trying to write a blog post, not a novel!) - that alone does not render me SO subordinate as to permit me to, as Razack suggests some feminists do, ignore the many ways in which my privilege puts others in the subordinate position.

Of course, in a neoliberal society, we are all equal and none of us are supposed to pay any attention to any of this but hey... there, too, is a rant for another time.

There are so many tangents I am tempted to go off in from here - but the unfortunate reality is that The Goffman Reader is due back at the library by tomorrow and I have not yet begun to read it.... so I shall stop here and get started.

1 down...far too many to go

2010-12-10T21:03:00.003-05:00

Brodie, Janine. Politics on the Margins: Restructuring and the Canadian
Women's Movement. Halifax: Fernwood, 1995.

Yikes! I spent way too long to get through just one book today. It is very small, too... much shorter than most of the books on my reading list. There is a lot packed into it, though. I often, when I'm reading for school, try to sum up each paragraph in a few words/phrases ... and quite often, that is doable. With Brodie, not so much. She packs so much into each paragraph that when I start taking notes and trying to summarize it, I quite often have to really work to resist the temptation to just write the whole darn thing out. She does not waste words.

The other two books that I have read in this section (Movements and Methods) have both included more history about women's movements in Canada. I am collecting quite a lot of dates in my timeline spreadsheet, and acronymns as well. I have also started a third page in the workbook for people - I figure it wouldn't hurt to generate a list of some of they key players in the women's movements as I go; there are a few women whose names are already becoming familiar because they're mentioned in every book.

Anyway, Politics on the Margins is not so much about history, although it does include a chapter that provides an overview of first and second wave Canadian feminist movements. It spends a lot more time examining neoliberalism, and challenging the notion of inevitability that neoliberal politicians favour - the suggestion that we HAVE to do things this way to compete in a global economy and to survive; there are no other options. Bull-pucky! Not Brodie's term, of course ... but it captures the sentiment quite well, I think.

Neoliberal governments are all about capitalism and globalization; increasing exports, decreasing social programs, reducing state power in favour of business - people with money, basically. Neoliberal ideology is good only, I think, for the very rich; for the rest of us (and for the environment as well), it has extremely negative repercussions - and these are especially harmful for women. Brodie details erosion of the gains made during the second wave of the women's movement in Canada - declining paid work opportunities, increasing gaps between men's and women's wages, and all of the losses associated with the dismantling of the social welfare system. In addition to the women who were receiving social supports that are no longer available, many of the jobs that have been lost through no longer providing those supports were held by women as well. AND of course, guess who picks up the majority of the (now unpaid) supportive work that still needs to be done?

Neoliberalism ideology insists that we are all equal; men, women; people of colour, people with disabilities - everyone except, possibly, for the very young (although, of course, only while they are very young). Everyone has equal opportunities - and pretty much anything that happens to you is your own fault. We are all, each of us, responsible for our own choices.

So buddy over there chooses to be homeless, and she chooses to be sick, and that guy chose poverty, and ..... weren't you listening? Everyone is equal.

We do not have to support people who are sick or poor or disabled or unemployed or discriminated against on the grounds of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and so on because they are not discriminated against! We are all equal, we all choose to be where we are, and we all have to deal with the consequences of our choices (which is why our current government thinks we need lots & lots more prisons, but that's another issue altogether).

Anyway, in this book, Brodie challenges the assertions by government and the media that there are no other choices but neoliberalism, and encourages women’s organizations to work together to resist marginalization and to develop broad-based alliances across gender, race and class. A feminist politics of restructuring, she suggests, must begin at the level of contesting neoliberal orthodoxy, and must challenge impositional claims as impositional and interrogate and explicate restructuring discourse. She also encourages insistence that new trading agreements respect conventions on human rights which countries such as Canada have ratified; this strategy provides a basis for coalitions both internally and internationally without assuming a unity of interests.

The book was written in 1995 when some women's organizations still had some funding - my sense is that the erosion has continued and that there is even less o' that now... after all, we are all equal now; there is no need.

If only t'were so!

I think that 30/40 years from now - or maybe even sooner - assuming we haven't totally demolished the planet by then - people will be talking about neoliberalism the way we now discuss colonialism: it was bad, look at all the damage we've done; how are we going to fix it?

Will we ever get it right?

Negotiation

2010-12-10T11:00:00.002-05:00

Ah, this is going to be a fun, fun holiday season; I can tell.

I have 55 books to master before the end of January. Close readings, lots & lots of notes, mind-maps, timelines, papers, etc.... There are not 55 DAYS between now and then. So. I need to read. A lot. Every. single. day. Except maybe for Christmas - IF I manage a few days of more than one book.

Hubby just asked what I was working on. Told him I was reading for comps... he said, no, I mean stuff with deadlines... I want to figure out when we're doing lunch, going shopping, going to the doctor, etc etc etc.

WE are not doing all of those things - at least not every time he gets an urge. HE can do what he wants.

But me, I am BUSY.

Studying for comps is indeed something with deadlines, dammit!!!!

I will make time for the shopping and socializing that is required ... But I HAVE to read. And study. And focus.

It's going to be a fun couple of months; I can tell.

Studying for comps...

2010-12-06T18:45:00.002-05:00

So... finished off book report today, and not doing the primary source assignment ... I need to focus on studying for my comprehensive exams. At this point, I am scheduled to write them in February ... I need to do a close reading of 55 books before then and be able to (intelligently!) pull together what I read - and, to some extent, keep track of who said what when. That will be the tricky part - but I think I'm sorting out a system for it.

For each book/article that I'm reading, I'm doing a one page overview - source info, keywords, thesis, arguments and how it fits with my work/that section. In a lot of cases, I'm also doing a similar page for each chapter or section. Once I have read each section and am ready, I am to write a 8 - 10 page paper.

Plus, as I go, I am keeping track of key events/dates in an Excel spreadsheet (so that I can sort it later) and I'm mapping key themes in my Inspiration software. Best $50 I ever spent, that. I don't use the software the same way as I did when I was in undergrad, but I do still use it regularly.

I hardly ever actually produce anything final in it any more - I used to use it to generate outlines and so on when I was writing (much) shorter papers - but these days I mostly just play with ideas. I quite often end up with multiple versions of the same ~stuff~ .... and it sometimes feels like I should quit starting over with them and just FINISH one ... but it is the process that matters for me right now, not the product... so will just keep playing.

ANYWAY...I have a plan... now I just have to get through it all. Quick like bunny!

Flying by....

2010-11-30T21:06:00.003-05:00

Another semester is almost at an end... 2 more weeks and then I will - REALLY! - be done with course work.

Really, I could have been done already, but my comp supervisor was teaching a course related to the topic of my first comp exam, so she suggested I audit it. And THEN she pushed me to also do all of the assignments, which I really didn't need to since I'm only auditing, but I have done none-the-less. I have finished all of the weekly readings and papers now (I scooted ahead to get them out of the way) and am almost done the book review she wants.

Did not mind doing that one too much, since I'm using 2 of the books from my comps list, so it certainly won't hurt me any. There is one other assignment as well, though, that I am not at all enthusiastic about. IF it was a course I was actually taking and getting a mark for, it might be worth a 3hour (1 way) drive to an archive for a relevant primary source. But since I am not.... yeah... no!

It has taken FOREVER to get my comps list sorted - now that it FINALLY is (cue the happy-dancing penguins) I am eager to get at that and get at least one full section out of the way before the holidays. 20 books, 1 essay ..... I can do this. 2 sections before Christmas would be even better, but that might be pushing it....

But a primary source assignment that really is not that relevant and not worth anything...? Nope, I don't think so.

Do I REALLY need a Phd?

2010-10-27T23:10:00.000-04:00

Some days I really wonder why I keep doing this to myself!

Moving forward... hopefully in the right direction

2010-10-18T11:56:00.002-04:00

so... I now have 60 resources in my database - well, more than 60, actually, but as per the example list I have from someone else, am counting 4 chapters/articles as 1. I have included many of the authors my committee members recommended - now have to figure out how to categorize them.

And then I will - retroactively - try to write the brief descriptions of how/why they were chosen.

Because so and so said so is not an acceptable reason, no matter how truthful. Too bad!

Bluddy hell!

2010-10-11T22:22:00.002-04:00

already SO far behind where I wanted to be for my comprehensive exams by this point :(

like as in really REALLY far behind.

When I started the process, I put together a list of all sorts of women's studies articles that I thought would be good to read.

But then I met with the person my co-ordinator said to ask to supervise me. Did what she said. ... which was to narrow the focus. Big time. I really like her, and find her feedback very useful.

BUT I was a bit concerned that she wanted me to get to working on my annotated bibliography before we sent the tentative list to the other 2 people on my committee.

SO. I met with her again, and we agreed that I would send the list.

Sent it out on Friday. Both of my committee members responded today - it is TOO narrow. Back to the drawing board.

Shoot me now.

Getting Sorted

2010-09-08T13:59:00.004-04:00

So...I thought I had everything all sorted - my classes, teaching assignment and especially my schedule. It was - at one point - particularly beautiful. Tuesdays - class from 9 - noon, lecture 1 - 3, seminars 5-7. Period. All on Tuesdays!

I liked that. A lot.

But then I discovered that the course that I'm auditing is now on Wednesdays. No biggie - so I would have to stay over one more night at our Peterborough house. But still, doable; nice and compact. AND the course is only one semester, so NEXT semester would only be Tuesdays. That worked for me.

Went to my TA meeting and left enthusiastic about the changes that have been made since last year; was really looking forward to... ack!

I received an email, just as I was leaving that meeting. Due to registration numbers, my TA assignment has been changed. The new course - Women's Studies - is great; I'm looking forward to that. BUT the schedule! My nice compact schedule! WAH!!!!

I looked online to find the times/days for the WS lecture and seminars....ACK! ACK! ACK! The lecture is on Thursdays, and the seminar times are spread between Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays.

Mondays would REALLY suck. And fortunately, I was not asked to do those. I whined, first thing. LOL

Right now, I am assigned two seminar times on Fridays...which is not ideal - it puts me in Peterborough over 3 days each week, rather than the one or two I prefer... but it is DEFINITELY better than Mondays would be!

There's still a possibility of a switch to Thursday seminar times; the prof is going to try to work that out for me... but if not, Fridays will have to do.

Sure a very long way from my nice Tuesday schedule though :(

And this week, we're having a meeting on Monday. Blech!

And so it begins...again

2010-09-06T20:33:00.002-04:00

A new school year, that is.

Now that I am finished my coursework for my Phd, my primary focus will be on preparing for my comprehensive exams.

Had a few problems that have delayed my progress; had hoped to be further along by now... but still on track, I think, to do my first exams (a written and an oral) before Christmas.

Then the second by the end of April, and hopefully, be ready to defend my thesis proposal by this time next year.

At least that is the plan. ~stuff~ happens - constantly - but so far, in spite of all that, I've managed to get things done. Even when I broke both wrists at the end of my first semester of my MA, I managed to get everything done.

So - a little bit of trauma, non-stop nightmares & relationship challenges... meh... just have to keep on plugging.

4 Weeks! Bad Blogger!!

2010-08-06T10:46:00.003-04:00

Just saw a link to my own site on Stephanie the Rocket Scientist's sidebar and it said I hadn't updated in 4 weeks! 4 weeks!!! Where does the time go?!

I haven't accomplished anywhere near enough work for it to have been 4 weeks since my last update! I have done some - working toward my first comprehensive exam - got my statements written and approved by my advisor, and put together the preliminary bibliography. Now I'm onto annotating it - slower going than I'd like, but it's difficult to sum up an entire work in a paragraph without actually reading the whole thing, right? Will get 'er done - before the 23rd of August.

And then I'll send it to my advisor and she'll send it back with edits and so on and so on ... hopefully will have it all finalized and done by the time the new semester starts.

Other than that, I've caught several really nice bass, played way too much Zoo World on Facebook and dealt with .... ~stuff~

KidStuff, tenantStuff, computerStuff, relationshipStuff, moneyStuff, healthStuff.... just stuff. Lots and lots of stuff. And stress.

Funny ... I have much LESS actual work than usual on my plate right now... and yet I am constantly aware of a feeling of anxiety/panic. Am I less anxious when I'm actually working, going to school, etc. etc....? I suspect not. I think that the difference is that when I am busy I don't have time to pay attention or notice how I feel. I do believe I need to get busy again!

Yay me!

2010-07-06T21:31:00.002-04:00

I FINALLY have an advisor for my first comprehensive exam!

Honestly, I was beginning to get a complex. Not only were people not exactly enthusiastic about the prospect of working with me, there was a major lag in even getting a response! Really frustrating to have to wait WEEKS just to be rejected. But anyway ... that's over with, I have an advisor and one committee member (still need one more but hoping that will sort itself out now that the rest has).

So ... now I can get down to work again. First task is to write very short statements re: what I am going to focus on in the two main sections of this reading list. Only 6 sentences - but harder than it looks!

Then a preliminary bibliography of approximately 50 books/articles on that fit in those 2 topics - and then an annotated bibliography.

And THEN I will start reading and writing my way through those 50 books/articles and master all the material and then - sometime before Christmas - I will write the exam. The written exam, I'm not too worried about - the oral that follows a week later will give me fits!!! ... but will worry about that later... first things first!

And then I'll start all over again with a new committee and new topic. Hoping to get both exams done by April or May of next year... perhaps a bit optimistic, but hopefully once I've been through the process once the second won't take as long to sort out.

I can always hope!!!

Convocation

2010-06-09T16:33:00.003-04:00

I completed all of the requirements for my Master's degree back in August of 2009 - they sent my degree in the mail shortly afterwards. And I have been entirely focused on my first year of Phd studies since then. So it seemed almost silly to bother to attend convocation last week.

But I had heard good things about Trent's convocation ceremony .... and anyway, hubby and the rest of my family all think I should go.... so I did.

It was definitely worth doing, even so long after the fact.

I really do like Trent's convocation. Graduands gown and gather on one side of the river - and the ceremony is held on the other. The procession, accompanied by a piper, takes you past several buildings in which one can see the (gowned) reflections of the group, which is an experience in itself. The ceremony itself, like all convocations I've ever attended, was, of course, too darn long - in this case made even longer by the hot sun and lack of sunscreen (they provided it for visitors but not for us; guess we are supposed to be smart enough to anticipate the need!).

Having the piece of paper hanging on my wall did not really make me feel as though I had accomplished something just by getting my MA - but walking across that bridge did. Now I'm looking forward even more to the next one! I want one of the red and gold robes and a funny hat too :)

Shooting for 2013 ceremony; seems a very long time away - but also not long enough!

Last Class

2010-05-16T15:07:00.003-04:00

Officially finished all of my classes now.

Still have to rewrite (some of) my proposal over the next 2 weeks, but am looking forward to
that.

Also have to write another conference paper for next weekend.

BUT I'm done my classes!

After YEARS of working & taking classes - year 'round, mostly - it does not seem quite possible!

Powerpoint proposal

2010-05-12T13:07:00.002-04:00

So, today I am trying to develop a powerpoint presentation for this weekend, when I am supposed to sum up my 30 page dissertation proposal in 15 minutes or so.

Turns out it is a very good exercize - it is helping me to REALLY figure out what it is I need to say, and to look at the whole thing differently.

It is also very frustrating & difficult, as it is REALLY hard to figure out what it is I need to say and what can be left out.

Ashley Smith

2010-05-04T16:08:00.000-04:00

Ashley Smith committed suicide in a Canadian prison while 7 corrections officers - and a camera - watched. For more than 30 minutes.

How could this happen?

I wanted to know - and so, after the story became public, I began to read everything I could get my hands on about it.

There are plenty of reports, if you're interested:

Toronto Star coverage (see links to related stories)
Out of Control (Fifth Estate)
The Ashley Smith Report; Bernard Richard, NB Ombudsman & Child & Youth Advocate
A Preventible Death; Howard Sapers, Corrections Investigator of Canada
A Rush to Judgement; UCCO Report

One of the key themes that runs through all of the reports is that of surveillance. Ashley Smith hated to be strip searched (go figure - they thought maybe a 15 yo girl would welcome it?) ...and she wasn't terribly fond of being under constant surveillance either - she used to block the window of her (segregation) cell, and the camera lens, with anything she could.

These two behaviours caused no end of trouble. When she refused to comply with the surveillance measures that corrections officers deemed reasonable, power struggle frequently ensued - and she was often placed in restraints, pepper-sprayed and Tasered as a result (There are videos in the Fifth Estate episode; very disturbing. If we published videos of someone treating a dog the way Smith was treated the entire country would be in a an uproar.)

And to add insult to injury, when Ashley fought against these things, she quite often received additional charges - both institutional (which don't add time) and criminal (which do) - and THAT, my friends, is how a 15 yo child sentenced with just under 30 days of incarceration (for throwing crab apples at a mailman) ends up dying almost 4 years later, still in prison.

In Canada!!! Things like this are not supposed to happen in MY Canada!!! Seriously!

There is a lot more to the story..... and pretty much every part of it goes back to issues related to surveillance one way or another.

So - that is what I am going to explore over the next three years.

I expect that soon I won't be able to discuss anything to do with it publicly any more - ethics boards are like that - and I may well have to delete this post as well at some point, too.

But for now.... now you know.

Out With The Old; In With the New

2010-05-03T21:50:00.000-04:00

So ... my dissertation.

My original plan was to focus on the use of fiction in therapeutic recreation programs for children & youth with emotional & behavioural challenges. I am still working on that project - but on my own, rather than as my dissertation topic. Doing it AS a dissertation - particularly within a Canadian Studies PhD - was meaning that I had to modify what I wanted to do to make it fit. What I WANT to do is to write a textbook for Child & Youth Workers ... not an academic dissertation.

So, when a new topic that fits better into the Canadian Studies area - and that still uses my specific batch of skills (Child & Youth Work, Computer Programming & English - public texts) - caught my attention, I began to think about changing.

I did a 30 page research paper based on the new topic and felt that - even though it is a good paper, and I did well on it - I had barely scratched the surface. There are still so many questions I want to address. It took a while before I was ready to commit to the change - in part because I really really like the advisor I was going to be working with on the first one, and will have to find a new advisor for the second. But I got there.

So now, I will be spending the next 3 years working on issues of surveillance in Canadian prisons - especially, for the most part, on facilities for women, although I am planning, at this point, to do a chapter about issues of surveillance and male prisoners, as well.

I became interested as a result of the case of Ashley Smith - and that is where I am starting. Stay tuned....

She's Back

2010-05-02T12:51:00.001-04:00

Ok...so when did I last update this blog?

I suppose I shall have to go and look... okay, so March 10. That is not SO long ago. But I have, over the last several months, done an abysmal job of keeping up. Here's hoping that now that I am done with my coursework (insert happy dancing here!!!) I shall do a better job.

Haven't heard yet whether I actually PASSED all of my coursework... so that happy dancing might well be premature - but let's assume that I have :) Would really suck to fail a course for the very first time EVER in my last ever semester of school, wouldn't it?! ACK!

Anyway... moving on.

Finishing coursework does not mean that I am finished with school. This year I will be doing my comps: reading 2 sets of 50(ish) books that I select with a committee of 3 advisors and then writing a 4 hour exam about them. Once I pass those - and a French test, I will be ABD and have another couple of years to write my dissertation.

I would LIKE to think that I can get my dissertation done more quickly than that - but the reality is that I am likely to have a whole lot of challenges and delays in getting information, and getting through Ethical Review boards and so on - so it is not likely.

I changed my dissertation topic, did I tell you? No, I see that I didn't. That will be a good topic for my next blog post then, won't it?

Y'all come back now, y'hear?

The Late Professor(s)

2010-03-10T16:09:00.000-05:00

Cranky today - several reasons (inconsiderate tenants, papers due tomorrow, and boring readings I need to get through in the next hour being not the least of them) ... but one of them is yet another experience of one of my pet peeves about ~academe~

I absolutely detest it when profs can't be bothered showing up on time for class.

I have had several profs that made a habit of being late. No explanation, no apology - just walk in anywhere from 10 to 30!! minutes late and start the lecture.

Such behaviour irked me when it was at my undergraduate uni, where class sizes were typically <30 students - but now, when we're talking, at least in the first year course I TA for, >100!!! students, it is just that much more offensive.

It is rude. And disrespectful. And ignorant. And, oh yeah ... just plain RUDE, too. Yes, I know I said that twice. Once was not enough.

Today's offender also irked me by putting notes up on the overhead ostensibly so that we could see what he was talking about - but removing them again so quickly that there is no way in hell I could find the heading(s) I needed quickly enough to ~get~ what I was trying to make notes of. Full pages of text, far too small a font to be useful - drop on overhead, point, lift sheet and take it away. Why bother?!

It frustrated me, you may have gathered!

Flitting through

2010-02-28T17:25:00.000-05:00

Well, I flew by here just to add a link to Jennifer's blog to my blogroll...but since I am here.... might as well post an update, eh?

Almost done! Not the whole Phd, obviously - but almost to the end of the first year ...which means almost finished all of my required coursework.

There are SO many courses that I still want to take - and I probably will audit some - but when I get to the end of this semester, no more required ones.

And I'm passing even - and believe me, I had doubts!

And today I managed to fire off not 1, not 2, but 3 papers I needed to get sent off. Well, 1 paper, 2 proposals.... same difference. Next up is a proposal re: the paper I'm going to write in my Can Lit --> Film course...and I have to write a 30(ish) page proposal for my thesis ... and one more short paper for my core course, and... well, still lots to get through...but I'm managing to get things done (and pass, did I mention I am passing?) and I am (mostly) having fun.

Sitting in my van

2010-01-12T11:06:00.000-05:00

Well, this is fun...am sitting in my van doing not much of anything...read a few chapters, but still have almost an hour to kill. Suppose I could go inside and find a more comfortable place to sit and read, but I prefer to smoke. Yeah, I know, my bad.

Didn't have much of a break over the holidays - too many papers to write and articles to read - but sure did enjoy what time I did have ....and it was very nice to take some family time in between the papers.

Quite a bit busier this semester, but I think that might actually turn out to be a good thing - I'm more disciplined when I have things to do and deadlines and all that fun stuff. Which is not necessarily a good thing, since for the next 3 years after this year, a big part of the deal is that I need to be able to manage my own time, and get things done without so many deadlines. In May, I start working towards my first of two comprehensive exams - then it's ~just~ my thesis, once those are done.

Need to get a whole lot better at my work withOUT deadlines.

I have, however, continued to do very well at setting - and keeping - my writing goals. I write for an hour each morning ...have not missed a day since Jan. 2 ...and am finding it very, very useful.

I am writing the old-fashioned way, with pen and paper, but largely focused on schoolwork..the paper(s) I'm working on, the articles I'm reading, where I'm going, what I need to do, and so on.

It is a very helpful process...am hopeful that it will greatly improve the overall quality of my work this semester.

How to Write a Lot

2009-12-17T10:53:00.000-05:00

Well, as I said, I attended a workshop about How to Write a Lot yesterday - I almost begrudged the time because I have A LOT of essay-writing on my plate at the moment - but I think that it was a very good 90 minute investment.

The point of the whole thing was basically to set a time - and set goals, limit distractions, and turn off the internal critic - for an hour a day. They also advised sharing your progress with someone - which is something I do anyway ...Steph has been listening to my whining about my progress - or lack thereof - for ages. Sharing on my blog as well seems like it might serve two purposes though - I miss blogging, so it will get me back to doing that regularly - and it may well help me to meet my goal (one hour 5 days/week). So here I am.

I was a good girl today - and a few minutes out to write a blog about it seems like a good reward to me :)

I have been struggling to get started on this damn paper that is due on SUNDAY!!!! I have reams and reams of research. I had to do rather more research than usual for this one, mostly because it is not just the content that I needed to generate ....I'm using an entirely new-to-me research methodology for it as well. So I had to read tons about that research methodolgy, and bunches of papers as examples ...AND all of the other stuff for the actual paper. The other stuff is all there - but it's the process of using this new research methodology - and especially writing it - that had me totally bogged down, stressed out, etc.

So anyway, I had committed to writing for one solid hour every morning ...and it was obvious that this paper, since it is due SUNDAY - was my first priority. Since I was trying a new approach, i decided to move to a new PLACE where I have not yet established bad habits - and to leave my mousie upstairs on my desk when I brought my laptop down to the dining room table. I made a pot of coffee (I often don't bother, because the coffee is downstairs and my desk is upstairs and I am lazy) and sat down to WRITE.

The significance of the lack of mousie is important - I can't do Farmville properly without it - so I have not yet bothered to check my farm (or my cafe, or....). I just wrote. And FINALLY got some real pages WRITTEN. I have enjoyed my hour - got 3 good pages done, drank most of my pot of coffee - and I deserve a sticker.

Unfortunately, at this point, with the paper due so soon, a single focused hour is not really enough - so I shall now return to work.... after the next 3 pages perhaps I will take a time out to check my farm as my reward. But for now, this seems to be working for me, and my pot of coffee is not yet empty, so...

hi ho, hi ho, it's back to work I go.

So close....

2009-12-17T00:20:00.000-05:00

The semester is almost over - tomorrow I have to go to a holiday tea in the afternoon, and photocopy a stack of readings I need to get done (and write a paper about) over the holidays.

Friday, I will proctor an exam, then go to yet another holiday tea, then go to an exam-marking get together - all of the TAs for the course I do are getting together to get all of our marking done...and then celebrate that they are done!

And then we'll head home... and I WOULD be all done and ready to spend some time doing the Christmas thing... if only I didn't still have a 25 page paper to write yet!

I have done SO much research for it. I have SO many notes and things to work it...but am truly struggling with the damn thing. The original due date is Sunday - she's told us we can take longer, but honestly, I do not want to - I want it off my plate so that I can take some time out to do the Christmas/socialization/relaxing thing... and besides, I have the readings paper to do for Jan 2, and then another 30 page paper due Jan 29 - so really DO need to quit dithering over this one and get 'er done.

I went to a workshop called "How to Write a Lot" today - there is a book by the same name that I need to order - anyway, the key point of the workshop was to set aside an hour to write every day - well, 5 days a week ...and DO IT. Supposed to set (Specific Measurable Attainable Realistic Trackable) goals for each session and track your progress... the whole hour a day thing sounds like so little - can't possibly get everything I need to get written done in that time, I think ...but am going to try it - and buy the book, as well... we'll see how it goes. First, though, I really, really need to get this citizenship paper done and handed in!

Blogging

2009-11-02T09:20:00.000-05:00

Wow, I'm a terrible blogger any more.

And it is not really that I don't have time - I could make time for it. At least the blogging part; not likely to ever get back to spending much time dropping or promoting - but I could write 'em.

Haven't been - especially this one - mostly because I don't figure anyone wants to listen to me whine.

I am not having fun with this school thing right now. I will be very, very glad when I get through April - well, assuming I DO get through it; at this point I am not confident.

IF I manage to survive this first year, the rest should be doable. Just have to make it through, that's all. Minor details.

yay me

2009-10-20T04:20:00.000-04:00

didn't think I was ever going to get it done - but it's 4:20 a.m. and my paper is DONE (but for printing) and I get to go to bed now.

Deciding to change my thesis statement at the ~last~ minute probably wasn't such a great idea - but I'm much happier with the paper now .... I think - too tired to know for sure!

Whatever - can't change it any more tonight; it's bedtime.

And I'm giving a seminar in the morning. yikes!

Serendipity

2009-10-01T21:11:00.000-04:00

Sometimes things just work out so well!

Yesterday, I was on my way to lead my seminars - we're talking about social issues and politics in Canada - last week was poverty, this week the main theme was health care.

There was a table outside one of the lecture halls I passed - lots of flyers, etc - for a number of different ~issues~ ... and piles and piles of buttons. They had 2/3 different buttons for race-related causes, several re: environmental issues, and then others re: tuition fees and poverty.

I grabbed bunches of each. When my students' came in I asked them to choose a button from the mess of 'em on the table. Had them get into groups with others who had the same button and discuss their issue, and potential solutions.

Each group reported back to the whole group and from there it was an easy segue into everything else .... led beautifully into the content of the assigned readings and the lecture.

I was, you may have guessed, very pleased with how it went.

Almost time

2009-09-23T17:32:00.000-04:00

I'm sitting outside at school - got here way early so that I could find the room, have dinner, and smoke before my seminars start. Done all that now though - and it's almost time to go in.

MY seminars. I have 2 groups; the first at 6 has 11 people registered for it, my 7 pm group is smaller. Producing Canada - tonight we are doing mostly introductory stuff (index cards and lots of coloured markers; yay!) and talking about how to make our seminar times effective.

And then, if there is time, we will talk about homelessness and poverty.

This is the second week of classes - last week we didn't have seminars though, so I haven't met my students yet; am looking forward to it.

My own classes are off to a good start - SO relieved to have my first paper submitted for our core course - although still hating it. I get especially stressed out when we have to send them to everyone in the course, not just the prof; presumably will get over that eventually.

The other class I'm taking is REALLY interesting, and even though it too is a lot of reading, I think it is going to be time well spent. It's on issues of citizenship in Canada.

So - basically everything I'm doing these days is learning about Canada. Who knew there was so much that I didn't know!

Orientation Week

2009-09-12T22:14:00.000-04:00

So ... first week of school was actually quite a bit more interesting than I expected.

Last year, when I started my MA, I alternated between frustrated because I was not getting information I needed and bored out of my mind during most of the orientation sessions. I honestly expected this year to be even more tiresome, since I've got the year behind me.

But it wasn't. Oh, there were a few bits of the program orientation that I really didn't need and didn't get much from - but on the whole, I felt that my time was well spent and that the PTB were conscious of the range of people they were dealing with - not addressing everyone at the lowest level. I REALLY appreciated that..... especially when it came to the TA training session I went to. Last year I did several days worth of sessions - and all of them presumed we knew nothing. This year the one I went to assumed that we did in fact have a clue and something to offer - and it was very worthwhile.

Off to a very good start, I think.

Back to School clothes

2009-09-05T23:15:00.000-04:00

Normally, it wouldn't much matter that I have nothing new to wear to start back to school next week.

But this time round I've lost 6o+ lbs since classes ended in April - and most of my clothes just don't fit well at all.

I do have some smaller size pants - but most of my tops are WAY big and baggy and at this point, just look downright sloppy. I did try to go back to school shopping yesterday, but I guess I'm spoiled now. I gave up shopping at Walartm some time ago ... started buying better quality clothes that last rather than the disposable sort that Walmart sells.

Since I'm still losing, I didn't want to spend money on clothes that would only fit for a short time, so I tried Walmart but OMG the colours and styles this year are HORRID. Couldn't find anything I wanted.... so ... it's off to school in whatever I manage to pull from my very limited stock here. Should have packed better - have been sick this week, plus working my arse off - and the clothes I packed just a few days ago are quickly becoming of the "droopy drawers" variety now.... oh well... having an open house with lots of goodies tomorrow (assuming I get to the grocery store first thing) .... maybe that will fix it.

Still a couple of weeks to go

2009-08-25T12:56:00.000-04:00

I don't start back to school until the week of September 8 this year. Normally I would be chomping at the bit to get going - but this year, I'm SO glad for the delay - there is still a whole bunch of stuff we need to get done at the new house - and I still have one assignment outstanding - so I can use the extra time.

Stephanie's blog on Ask Me Anything got me thinking about attendance - and specifically about how very different my attitude toward it is now that I'm doing the university thing as opposed to the community college thing.

When I was in college - especially the second time when I took computer programmer analyst - I really was not so concerned about attendance. I went the first week -but after that, I only went to those classes where I felt I was getting something out of them.

If I could do the work from the textbook or whatever - and do it well, then I just didn't bother to go.

If the prof was interesting and provided a lot of extras that weren't in the text - or if I needed help with something - I would be there for sure. But otherwise.... meh...

If the prof was an anal jerk that demanded attendance I might go regularly - but OH did I ever resent that.

And if the prof was just a jerk but didn't demand attendance, I would show up for the tests and that would be about it.

One particular prof comes to mind. He did not have an attendance policy included in the syllabus - and he was THE SINGLE BIGGEST JERK of a prof I have ever had.

He liked to make people look & feel stOOpid - and was just oh so full of himself.

During the second class, he asked a question that was loaded - no matter how one answered it, it was clear that he was going to say "no, I meant..." .... and there was no way a straight forward answer was going to be right.

No one would answer it at all - until he called and me and I responded "Well, if you mean this, then.... but if you mean that, then...." He became visibly irked, a few people tittered in the back and he YELLED at the entire class to SHUT UP!! as if we were 5 years old.

I left and didn't bother to go back - except on test days when I would show up, hand in whatever assignment was due, write the test, and leave again.

That also irked him - big time - and by the second test, he was writing questions in such a way that if you had not been to class, you would get an automatic zero - even if you knew the correct answers which I did.

In our class discussion, which of the following did we decide.... automatic zero for anyone (meaning me) who did not come to class. Did I mention he was a jerk?

Anyway - I managed to aggravate him no end.

On the day of the second test, when I showed up, he said

"What are you doing here? I thought you had dropped the class."

I replied that no, I was going to complete the course.

"Then why don't you come to class?"

He didn't much like my answer: "Because you are an arrogant son of a bitch and I don't like you."

Shouldn't ask the question if you don't want to hear the answer.

I sure do wish that I could have been there when he marked my final business plan. He burned me repeatedly on the tests, giving me zeros for questions that I had absolutely right. And I have no doubt whatsoever that he was fully prepared to burn me on my business plan as well.

BUT I write well..... and part of the instructions for the project were to show your plan to 2 people and have them write a letter of support for the plan.

I chose to ask his boss for one of those letters.

I ended up with an 84% on the course - in spite of those damn zeros. Bet it killed him to give it to me too. I often wish that he hadn't left the college at the end of that semester - it would amuse me to run into him at faculty functions now that I teach there.

Anyway, while my attendance during college was not great (unless I happened to like the course and the prof) - I have done everything in my power not to EVER miss any of my classes now that I'm in university.

I have had to miss a few - when I my mother in law was ill and then died - and again when I had my car accident - but I hate to miss any of them as a rule.

It's different now. I'm not just learning to master specific tasks - I'm learning new ways of thinking, of approaching texts, of interacting and especially, of teaching.

My time in classes is well-spent. And I don't begrudge it at all. Of course, some profs are still significantly better than others at engaging my interest and teaching me what I want to know - but now that I am on the path to becoming a university prof myself, even the worst of them have lots to teach me - mostly about what not to do when it is my turn!

And so it begins again ....

2009-08-16T18:32:00.000-04:00

The search for reasonably priced textbooks, that is!

Something that I have heard about for the first time this year is textbook swapping sites like TextSwap or Textlister, which allows you to buy, sell, or trade used textbooks.

Me, I've been pretty lucky overall - my undergrad was in English, so I was able to find most of the books my sister couldn't get for me used, or at least easily through Amazon.ca. I also have been known to use Project Gutenberg for older stuff.

Since I've been in grad school, we've been given a lot of photocopies - in many cases, we only need one chapter out of particular book, if that - the photocopying gets expensive, but it sure is preferable to having to buy books and then only needing them for one stinking chapter!

Anyway - what about you? Anyone used any of these sites? Would you?

Gearing up for another year

2009-08-11T01:38:00.000-04:00

So -pretty much done my major paper -will send that off tomorrow. And that means that I will have met all the requirements of my MA program.

Been working on my RA position stuff as well... hoping to fire that off tomorrow too- although there will be a never ending stream of that stuff over the next few years.

But mostly my time & energy lately has gone into the whole house buying thing - we've got it pretty much all sorted now, although we heard today that the sellers' lawyer wants to delay our closing date - am not impressed with that, but oh well - not like I don't have plenty of other things to do to keep me busy in the meantime.

Got the syllabus for my core course this week - and am really, really looking forward to diving into the new program.

Funny how, a year ago, a 23 page syllabus - most of which is our reading list - would have stressed me out... this year, with the MA thing - and summer school - under my belt, I looked at it and was mostly just eager to dive in and get started.

A week ago I was beyond anxious about this whole Phd thing - now I'm eager to jump in ...and looking forward to the opportunity to learn so much more about all the bits & peices that have gone into the construction of Canada.

I can do this.

And I get to have all the fun of setting up two new offices with bookshelves galore - and ordering new books to fill 'em even. They really should have some kind of points/reward program on Amazon - that would work for me!

How 'bout you? Are you starting new programs/courses this fall? Are you gearing up yet?

Yay me!

2009-08-03T22:15:00.000-04:00

I have been working my tail off - in between bouts of major drama about our attempt to buy a house in Peterborough, renovations, and numerous times outs for socialization because people WILL keep having birthdays and parties and dropping by without calling first - to get my 50 page major research paper done.

It is still not QUITE done - still need to pull together my Works Cited ...and it's a bit short ... but it was done enough to fire off to my advisor for editing and that's the main thing, at this point.

Was very, very happy to hit send on that email.

Now to get to work on my research assistant jobs, and start on my 20 page editing project. Fun times! But it sure does feel good to actually accomplish something.

Sometimes it just doesn't WORK

2009-07-16T21:07:00.000-04:00

... or I just don't work.

Am very, very, very frustrated right now.

I HAVE work to do.

But hubby is not quite busy enough and HE keeps finding things that we should do. I SO need a few days of peace & quiet to get my stuff done.

Pushing myself

2009-07-06T22:31:00.000-04:00

I still have SO much to get done this month that I have come up with daily goals - 10 pages/day for my major research paper means I SHOULD be able to finish the first draft by Saturday (allowing for one day to go to Peterborough to find a place to live). Which is REALLY pushing it - and it will still need work/editing/the works cited page and all that fun stuff... but the main thing at this point is to get 'er DONE. Then I can futz all I want... until I run out of time.

The Mavis Gallant piece that I need to write also needs to get done this week ... hoping the photocopies I have ordered will come tomorrow but even if they don't, I plan to tackle a first draft tomorrow.

AND I need to do some work on the archives project this week, and start my digital project and ...and...and...

yeah... I have bitten off too much again... but I'll get it done. One way or another.

I've started making time for journalling... it helps. Somewhat counterintuitive to make time for it - it FEELS like I don't HAVE time for such things... but when I do my journalling I'm a lot more focused when I do sit down to work... so it's worth it. I think.

Anyway ..don't know how much time I'll have for blogging over the next bit...but we'll see!

Zotero & SEASR Analytics

2009-07-03T18:30:00.000-04:00

Have you tried Zotero?

I hadn't. Am not quite sure how I managed to get through all of my undergraduate studies AND a full year of graduate school without ever hearing about it ...but somehow I did. But while I was at the DHSI - Digital Humanities Summer Institute - in Victoria, B.C. last month, I had the opportunity to work with it.

Zotero is a plug in for Firefox that helps you to collect, manage and cite research sources right in your browser. It stays out of the way - all you see is the word zotero in the bottom right corner. When you are on a page (html or pdf) you want to save, you click on it, the zotero window opens, providing you with all sorts of options, including the ability to add notes to the file.

You can create your own collections, add files that are already on your computer to them, and, if you go just a bit further and also download the SEASR Analytics add-on, you can also do other nifty things with your files, including Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test, Tag Cloud Viewer, Date Entities to Simile Timeline, HITS Summarizer, and Author Centrality Analysis.

While none of the SEASR Analytics tools replace actually reading the many articles one reads through the course of studying/researching, they do provide different ways of working with the material, which, for me, at least, helps with retention. I expect that I will appreciate them even more once I get started on the whole phd thing.

Looking for a place to live

2009-07-01T20:38:00.000-04:00

Well, we tried looking at student housing last week when Ross picked me up in Peterborough... there is one company that seems to have a lot of it - but judging by what we saw when we stopped in at a couple, they really don't care much about the condition of their apartments.

They don't actually advertise or SHOW their apartments - just put signs outside, and when you call, they tell you to just go by - the doors are all left open. They don't even put anything on the door - so you're supposed to just wander around and peek in windows, figure out which ones are empty and just walk in - more than a little uncomfortable, I found.

At one place we stopped at, the banister was hanging by a thread, and the hallway smelled FOUL. We didn't go up - but it turned Ross off completely. There WAS one of their properties that I could live in - I rather liked it ...but he's now decided that student housing - and anything run by that company - is not for us.

So now I am looking for a somewhat better class of housing... found one property management company that has several buildings that would work for us.... hopefully that will work out. Sent an email and will call them tomorrow.

Me, I kind of like the idea of an apartment in a house - they tend to have rather more personality - but what the heck.... it's not just me. We'll sort it out.

Time for Penguins

2009-06-29T16:57:00.000-04:00

The biggest challenge to my successful completion of a Phd is on its way to being resolved....

Not having a drivers licence was HUGE - a major challenge, hardship, obstacle, whatever you want to call it.

I am very fortunate that Ross was willing to take on the role of chauffeur - and that he would continue doing it for as long as needed - but it really is way too much to ask and I hate HATE HATED it!

Saw the doctor today and she was really pleased with my weight loss (50lbs in less than 3 months) and withthe results of all of the tests I've had since the accident and she checked the MTO guidelines and she is writing the letter so that I can have my license back. The letter was going out today - will still take 4 - 6 weeks to get processed - but by the time I start school again in September I should be driving!

Awww....

2009-06-25T20:29:00.000-04:00

I have been having a not very good week.

This is the second week of the summer school course I'm taking - I get to go home tomorrow!!!! and although I really enjoyed last week, this week, not so much.

Been really cranky, and having a LOT of very negative thoughts about whether I am really up for 2+ more years of Trent. I likes my house. I like Georgian ...I COULD just finish my MA and apply to go back and teach at the college level and....

well, yeah... be bored out of my skull within a few years and all ...but...

ANYWAY... today the secretary was in and not busy and I happened to think of my student evaluations .... almost didn't even ask for them because I was in SUCH a pissy mood... but I did it anyway and guess what????

They like me... they really like me LOL

Lots of really positive feedback from my students - comments about the variety of activities I offered and the effort I put into "helping us to better understand the literature" and they appreciated my use of technology and how quickly I responded to emails and so on.

s'almost enough to make me think I should keep going.

Writing a proposal

2009-06-22T20:45:00.000-04:00

There are 2 options for the course I am taking - one is to take on a short(ish) editing project; the other to do a research paper.

I WANT to do the editing project - but my co-ordinator/boss wants me to do a specific research paper.

Both have benefits - but one seems, at least right now, to me, to be a whole lot more work than t'other.

What to do what to do?

Database for Notetaking

2009-06-16T21:12:00.001-04:00

So ...I finally did it: made myself a database for taking notes while I wade through the stacks and stacks of readings.

I meant to do it when I started my MA but just never got around to finishing one.... but this summer I decided to do it again, and this time I not only started it, I finished it ....well, to the point of usability anyway ...I continue to tweak it as I go and I'm sure that that will continue for awhile yet.

I am using it for my readings for the course I'm taking - there are a lot of readings!

It works for me in part because I am not known for organization - when I take notes on paper, I invariably lose them - until right after I need them at which point they mysteriously reappear. Since I always have a computer of some sort with me (and to date, knocking on wood, have yet to misplace one, although cords are a different story) - I can manage this far better.

Plus, of course, it has the advantage of being fully searchable, sortable, etc. I can pull up all notes that relate to a certain article or topic or author or.... whatever.

My hope is that by the time it comes round to having to study for my comprehensive exams in the second year of my doctorate, I will have an excellent resource from which to work. Comps are the one aspect of my Phd studies that scare the crap out of me - I am not so great at recalling what I want when I want it.

Typing my notes into the database - and also coming up with a summary of each article/work - should, I hope, improve my ability to do that sort of thing. I'm already finding that I am doing much better at retaining who said what information, which is probably because I have first of all, had to type the authors' names in, then select them, then see them on the screen at the top of every note I write or term I add to my glossary.

AND once I have a good database of typed out ~stuff~ I shall have even more fun fodder for playing with some of the textual analysis tools that I learned about in Victoria last week. It's all good.

Well, all, that is, except for the mosquitos that are driving me nuts! I'm sitting in the backyard of the house that I'm staying at. It will soon be time to give it up and head inside for a shower and then bed. But going to get back to my reading & database for a bit longer .... I've finished my readings for tomorrow now and am halfway through Thursday, which is good, as tomorrow night we're having a BBQ and I will not want to read. I'll have a couple of hours in between class and the BBQ in which to finish whatever I don't get done... but would be nice to get it all done tonight.

Home from Victoria

2009-06-13T18:34:00.000-04:00

I'm home - after a thoroughly enjoyable week at DHSI in Victoria - but only for the weekend.

On Monday I'm off to Peterborough, where I'm doing course in editing (theory & practice).

As much as I'm looking forward to the course, I REALLY could use a week or so in between! 3 weeks in a row is an awful lot of time to be away.

Victoria

2009-06-08T19:15:00.000-04:00

First day is winding down now...I'm in a lecture - paying attention, honest! But...

U of Victoria is gorgeous, and the residences here, at least the cluster housing units that we are in are much, MUCH nicer than the res I stayed in at Carleton (in Ottawa) a couple of weeks ago. We have 4 bedrooms, 2 washrooms (both with showers, not just the one like Carleton had for 8!!!! students). We also have a kitchen and living room ...and pretty much everything here at uVic comes complete with pets - i.e. bunnies.

There are many many wild bunnies here - they (and their poop) are all over the lawns. As cute and novel as they are, they clearly are a pain to those that have to deal with them - such as the university's neighbours.

Anyway .... I should get back to paying attention (yeah, speaker just got onto topic of interest to me)

Leaving in the morning

2009-06-06T00:06:00.000-04:00

Well... it's here - May just flew by and I didn't get anywhere near as much done as I'd hoped.

Hubby's new pest control business definitely took priority. Have got enough of the marketing and database set up done that he can manage for himself for the next three weeks while I focus on summer school and my paper though. I hope!

It's my turn.

I had the option to NOT take the summer school stuff for credit... but today I negotiated a project that I am actually excited about - and that, I think, will be well worth doing. So ....

yeah, I know, Stephanie LOL ...but I'll pull it all off. I always do, right?

Summer School

2009-06-03T21:22:00.000-04:00

Only 3 more sleeps and then I'm off to start three weeks of summer school courses.

The first week is on digital humanities in Victoria BC, and then I have 2 weeks about editing Canadian modernist poets' work.... am really looking forward to all of it ...but the readings for that latter 2 weeks seems a ~bit~ overwhelming at this point.... 320 pages for the theory week, followed by 626 pages for the practice week that follows. I still have SO much work to do on my major research paper, although it is coming along.

It seems like my hopes of spending July & August doing MY stuff were a ~tad~ on the optimistic side... not likely to have much time to work on the MRP during the 3 weeks of summer school; that much is obvious.

Oh well... all I can do is try.

Bits & Pieces

2009-06-01T18:54:00.000-04:00

Somehow today just seems to have been eaten up with them ....bits & pieces of things that needed to be done... but none that really make any difference in the BIG jobs that are on my to do list.

Got an email this morning about a progress report that I didn't know needed to be done .... so ended up spending some time finally getting my fax machine set up properly so that it could be faxed to me, since I wasn't inclined to drive 2.5 hours each way just to sign my name (although it might have been a good idea, since I have 3 overdue library books that need to go back there asap!).

And then, since I was emailing back and forth with my advisor, it seemed like a good day to get the proposal for my paper finished off and sent in ...so finally got that done as well.

Ross & I went shopping and to get the mail (for all the good it did; the letter we are waiting for still didn't show up)... and I did do some work on both my presentation for next week and my MRP ...but it's a cold, wet, dreary day and it just feels like its been long and mostly unproductive.

I SO need to get motivated. And FOCUSED. Especially focused.

Ack! Some days this nontraditional gig is for the birds....

2009-05-28T00:09:00.000-04:00

and I do NOT mean for the flitty little hummingbird sort!

What a day! I'm supposed to be smart enough for graduate school....but ....

First of all, at about 4 pm I was sitting in the very back of a very full room (a session about Palestine) when my phone rang. Oops! Forgot to turn it off.

My bad.

Hung up on sis - but listened to her voice mail and ACK!! it was TODAY she was coming to get me not TOMORROW as I somehow got twisted in my itty bitty flitty head.

So fine.... hadn't packed or checked out - obviously...but at the next available opportunity snuck out of the room, called sis and headed back to the residence to throw everything in bags and check out and all that fun stuff.

No big deal....except that all week, I have been putting off dealing with the file re: my interview thingie on Friday ... lots of time to deal with that.

Except that the meeting is THURSDAY not Friday...and the file that I was sure I rushed to attach to the email I sent to make SURE I had all the files I need....?

Well, it didn't attach to the email...and it aint on my flash drive either.

So here I be.... got sis' printer set up and ready to go.

Got letterhead.

But do I have the approved consent form and questions to ask in the interview?

Nope, nope, nope!

I suck.

Tried calling hubby...I'm sure he'll be THRILLED to have to find the file, attach it to an email and send it to me- - - NOT

good thing I learned him how to get into his new email program...too bad I didn't set it up on the right computer.... the one that HAS the file I need (please God!!) .... or do the 'how to attach a file" thing..... but anyway, he'd obviously gone to bed.... will have to call him in the morning and pray that he's awake enough to hear the phone.

Bluddy hell!

A Very Busy Week

2009-05-27T01:22:00.000-04:00

Am in the winding down phase of Congress 2009 now... have attended sessions of the 2 associations that I was most interested in. There are some others here and I might, if I get motivated, check out some other sessions and see what is happening in them....

Or I might just hang out in the Career Corner workshops today...really have not decided yet.

Tomorrow I'll be heading to Brampton, and Friday, meeting with some people re: my research project - hmmm...still haven't done anything about a digital recorder...that would be good to have. It is raining though, and I don't, at this point, feel terribly motivated to go wandering into the city again. The only Staples I remember seeing was near the Home Depot hubby & I stopped at on our way into Ottawa - but I have no idea where that is in relation to where I am now. I'm sure my sister won't mind stopping at a Staples somewhere... or dropping me near one on Friday...will have time to deal with it during the day while she's working and I'm just killing time before my meeting.

Am very glad I thought to bring my umbrella. It is not only functional, but also beautiful .....dark green with hummingbirds and flowers. It was a gift from my mother, and it makes me smile every time it rains as I welcome the opportunity to use it.

Hmm...guess I am not going to a 9 am session :)

I'd best get off my butt and head over to the university centre or I'll end up missing things there too.

Staying in Residence

2009-05-23T22:48:00.000-04:00

Well, here I am in residence at Carleton University in Ottawa.

I can not IMAGINE actually living in one of these units for a whole school year... the room I'm in is meant for two people -- I've got it to myself though, thank goodness. Two very uncomfortable beds, 2 desks, 1 closet with 2 standing open shelves in it - room for maybe at MOST 10 hangers between the shelves.

There are 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms off of a main sitting room ...no kitchen facilities at all.

No privacy and OMG it's loud. The lock on the main door to the suite is loud, and every time it is opened or closed it demands attention. The toilets' flush is short lived but VERY loud ...and you can hear pretty much everything that is said in every room anywhere near yours - both within the suite and through the walls from others.

I cannot IMAGINE having 8 people in this one unit - maybe some of the other rooms are actual singles? Haven't met any of my suite-mates yet, or seen any of the other rooms...but yikes!

Another plus to being a nontraditional student - we rarely find ourselves living in residence!

She Runs with Scissors: Gasp! Koff! Gasp! Koff!

2009-05-22T08:38:00.000-04:00

The She of "She Runs with Scissors: Gasp! Koff! Gasp! Koff!" is La Bellota, a nontraditional student no more because she overcame all of the obstacles and challenges she faced as she worked, took care of her wee ones and went to school to become a nurse.

And she did it - she graduated and is now working as a nurse in Texas. Not surprisingly, never content to coast, La Bellota has now set herself a new challenge - to run a half marathon for The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's Team in Training, and to raise $2700 for the cause. You can read her article about her first training session at "She Runs with Scissors: Gasp! Koff! Gasp! Koff!" on Gather.com. And you should read it - not only because she could use some help from anyone so inclined, but also because she is a very funny and highly entertaining writer and you won't be disappointed.

Nontraditional Students Do Lunch

2009-05-20T22:23:00.000-04:00

Am really looking forward to tomorrow in spite of all the CARP that went on here today - two of my nontraditional student friends from my undergrad university are coming here for lunch.

I bought pork souvlaki for the BBQ - made my own taziki sauce, even ...and I have stuff for a Greek salad, and strawberries and melon for dessert - all stuff I'm allowed to eat on my diet, of course.

It's not about the food, though ... it's about the opportunity to socialize with people that ~get~ it... the whole nontrad student thing. We're all English students, all old(er) and all married.

I SO missed having people like me at school last year.... and with my inability to drive, I haven't been able to get to Barrie to just hang out with people for MONTHS now...

Last time we planned lunch up here, it ended up being cancelled... sure hope this time is a go.

The End of Slacker-Time

2009-05-17T07:42:00.000-04:00

Heard back from both the ethics committee and my advisor yesterday... approvals all 'round. So I guess that means it is time to stop slacking and get back to work.

One 50 page research paper, coming right up. Ha!

Still need to set up some appointments with people to do some of the research... but in the meantime, am going to get working on it, anyway. Sure will be nice to get it all done and out of the way.

Answer to Mike's Question about online courses

2009-05-15T09:25:00.000-04:00

Mike writes:

I am looking for an online course for web design and development. I have tried the traditional colleges (and prefer them), however, I find them not user friendly to the student who is not full-time, residing on the campus, etc. I find it difficult to get the classes I want or need because the 'full-time' students get the slots and then the part-time students can get in if there is an opening. If there are not enough full time students enrolled, then they cancel the class. Any suggestions? Thanks

May 15, 2009 5:20 AM

That is a very frustrating thing about doing part time studies... I know that as a prof I detested it when courses I was slated to teach would be cancelled at the last minute... it has happened to me more than once. And sometimes, I would be thrown into teaching some other course entirely, only to find out that half the people in the new course didn't actually want to take it - they had wanted to take the other course I was supposed to be teaching. Quite often happened with the course in HTML & xHTML web development I used to teach, actually.

I think that the main thing to decide is whether it is the actual credit you need, or if it is just the information. If it is the course, seems like all you can do is keep trying - and keep hounding whoever the person is that makes the decision about which courses run (nicely, of course). It might also help to talk to the Program Co-ordinator that oversees the department the course is offered in.... at least in my own college setting, that would be the approach I would take (and have advised students to take).

Or, of course, you could also look at online courses through recognized colleges or universities. The University of Phoenix offers several courses in Internet Technology and Web Development, for example. eLearners has a list of 37 online courses in web development that might be a good place to start.

If you are looking for the information but don't actually need the credit there are tons of resources out there. Free-Ed.Net offers Fundamentals of HTML Scripting, Fundamentals of Javascript, or (sort of) Web Page Authoring, for starters.

There are also millions of free online tutorials, including those offered by W3Schools Full Web Building Tutorials.

Another option, depending on your learning style, is just to buy one of the textbooks that the course you would have taken if it had run required and work through that, doing all of the assignments and using the online tutorials and free resources to expand your horizons as desired.

When I was teaching these sorts of courses, I used the New Perspectives Series:

Even though the course was on campus and not intended to be distance learning, several of my students did it as an online course and did very well.

Even if you DO need the actual credit(s), working through any of the free opportunities can only help, right? By the time you get to actually take the course, you'll be a pro.

Online courses

2009-05-14T10:32:00.000-04:00

philly5113 asked: I might try an internet course, they cost less. Any thoughts on this?

I've taken online courses from two universities.

Taking them through my own undergrad university was easiest - their courses automatically counted towards my degree without any hoop-jumping at all, which was nice. They also came with deadlines and due dates - so it was significantly easier for me to manage my time and get things done over the course of the semester rather than working in fits and starts and then having a big rush to finish at the end of the six months time allowance I was given from the other university.

Taking courses through a different university, Athabasca U, involved a whole lot of hoop-jumping to make sure that credits would apply towards my degree. I had to get a Letter of Permission, which turned into a process that lasted WAY too long. That was in no way Athabasca's fault, though - it was the people I was dealing with at my end that were a pain in the posterior.

Athabasca U gives you up to six months to complete everything required for each course - no due dates, and no one cares if you actually get it done or not. So completing those required quite a bit more self discipline - and in one case, when I had a car accident during the week my final exam was booked, an extension (more hoop-jumping).

The one thing that ALL of the Internet based courses I have taken have shared is that although I was assigned a prof/tutor, there was next to no interaction with them. When I emailed with a specific question, the turnaround time was BRUTAL .... in far too many cases, it was in excess of two weeks. The turnaround time for marking was also far slower than I find tolerable - I absolutely and positively DETEST it when I don't have assignment #1 back until after #2 or #3 are back. It may be though, that I just wasn't lucky - surely not all online profs are that slow? I hope?!

When I teach online courses (Ha!) I will be very sure to email each student early in the course, and follow up with a how's it going partway through. And, of course, I will answer their emails and get their work back to them within a reasonable period of time.

I suspect that courses that have an interactive online component would suit me better.

I don't regret having taken any of the courses I did - nor the money I spent - but there are a lot of things that could have been done much, much better.

Have you taken (or taught) any online courses? How did they work for you? Philly and I would love to know.

Decisions, decisions

2009-05-13T08:26:00.000-04:00

At this point I have most of July and August off. I'm going to a conference for a few days later this month, then doing my 3 weeks of courses in digital editing in June - and then, (aside from the small matter of a 50 page paper about publishing fiction for emerging adults in Canada), I'm done until I start my doctorate in the fall.

Was talking to a friend from my undergraduate university this week though, and one of the courses she is taking is one that I would be very interested in doing. It is a history of Canadian women course - so would be directly relevant to the Canadian studies program I'm going into.

It wouldn't count towards anything - which means, I suppose, that I wouldn't have to stress over the mark (yeah, like that is ever going to happen!) .... hmmm...I wonder if I might just be able to audit the course? That would be cheaper - could get the content - and the social time with my friend and other students, which I have sorely missed over the last year - without the stress.

The other challenge, of course, is the getting to Barrie every Tuesday thing - hubby is way too busy through the summer to be expected to drive an extra 160km/day to drop me there and pick me up again ... but if I could find a ride, it could work. Might have to look into that - see if I can find someone that's going there around the right times that wouldn't mind giving me a ride.

Nontraditional graduate student socializing

2009-05-09T15:15:00.000-04:00

One of the realities of graduate school - whether one is a nontraditional student or not - is that there are a lot of opportunities for socializing.

Part of the challenge I face, especially with living so far away from school, is figuring out which events I should get off my butt and go to and which ones I can miss. Me, I am not so very social ...so I usually don't want to go ...even moreso now that I am on a diet and can't eat most of the free food anyway. The only reason I do end up going, most times, is because hubby insists I make the effort.

So yesterday, we went to the graduate students reception.... it was nice enough; free food, and several other students from my program so there were people to talk to... but we could have easily gotten away without attending; just not that many profs, and no one that I recognized from the program I'm going into, either.

But whatever... I showed up, we had a good time, and we came home. Am seriously irked that I forgot to take my library books back though ...and also forgot a pile of exams I meant to take to be stored in the English department office. Had them in my hand, but that must have been before hubby nagged me to go find less baggy pants to put on.

Well that was fun...NOT

2009-05-07T11:07:00.000-04:00

Been fixing my screw up this morning. I calculated the second semester grades for my English students the same way I was told to do the first semester.

No one told me that I was supposed to do them differently this time 'round - I guess I was supposed to know, but I didn't..... so the final grades I submitted are all wrong. Yay me!

If I had done my undergrad there, I would likely have known ...but since I didn't....

Anyway, they are fixed now... and for most (all?) students, it will result in a higher mark, so I don't imagine there will be much complaining... but still.... frustrating as hell!

Maybe this nontraditional student is enjoying time off too much

2009-05-06T17:55:00.000-04:00

One of the features of my nontraditional student experience - until now - is that I have gone at full speed. Always in overdrive - not just doing the school as student thing, but also writing, teaching, and whatever else I happened to have on my plate.

Once I started my university courses, I went full time - if they didn't have what I needed offered during the summer, I signed up for online courses through Athabasca U. Hell, I did Athabasca courses anyway - on top of my full time plus full time workload.

Now, I'm off. I take the mutt for a walk almost every day ... today I dug my garden bed. I've read hardly anything, haven't been working on my major paper (am waiting for approval from the ethics board, and feedback from my advisor). I watch stOOpid judge shows. I even do housework, much to hubby's surprise.

And soon, we will get the boat in the water and I'll go fishing.

I think I am going to enjoy this summer.

Advantages of being a nontraditional student

2009-05-03T11:38:00.000-04:00

I said in yesterday's post, Being a nontraditional student sucks? that I would post some of what I see as advantages of being a nontraditional student. So - here is a list:

As a nontraditional student, we tend to have a lot more life experience on which to draw. We have usually read more, had more experience dealing with businesses and with people, and have work experience that can go a long way to helping us to be able to apply what we are learning to what we already know. Assimulation is always easier than accomodation - and so we nontraditional students get to learn the easier way a lot more.
Nontraditional students are generally more disciplined (we have to be!) and professors like us because of it.
Nontraditional students are also usually closer in age to the professors, which can make for better relationships with them - especially important when it comes to reference letters and recommendations for scholarships.
Being able to better understand how our professors think makes it far easier to pick up on important clues about what they are looking for in essays and exams.
Nontraditional students understand the importance of the investment we are making in our education, and are more likely to take it seriously - again, a tendency that in my experience is often highly valued in an academic environment.
Nontraditional students are better at juggling than other students are - so we are typically less inclined to go into total meltdown at the midterm and end of every semester... not that we don't - but we usually manage to get through those stressful periods better than some.
Nontraditional students have connections that can help to support us while we are in school and also help us to get jobs when we are done.

Like my tag line says ....Nontraditional, mature, returning students ....no matter what you call us, we are a determined and resourceful bunch.

Ontario Government Reneges on Textbook Grant

2009-05-03T10:48:00.000-04:00

A year after the Ontario Government announced that it was going to support all college and university students with a $150 textbook grant, they have reneged on their commitment and now announced that instead of raising the amount as they had promised, they will be slashing it.

Students who receive OSAP (Ontario Student Assistance Program) funding will be the only ones that will get the textbook grant - and the amount will remain at $150 rather than the $225 that was promised.

A similar grant for students who go to a school more than 80km from their home (which I never heard about or I would certainly have applied) is also now being restricted to only OSAP eligible students.

What this decision does - aside from demonstrating that the Ontario government does not follow through on their commitments - is to further remove support from those people who because they work and made good financial decisions, or were born to or married people who did - do not qualify for student funding.

If you have retirement savings or property, the Ontario government will not support your education - not even with loans that you have to pay back - and not even with a grant that in many programs covers only the cost of at most one or two of your textbooks.

So much for the Ontario government's supposed commitment to education.

Source: The Toronto Star, 2-May-09; Louise Brown

Being a nontraditional student sucks?

2009-05-02T22:38:00.000-04:00

That made me kind of sad - the fact that one of the search terms that showed up in my google analytics today was that being a nontraditional student sucks.

That has not been my experience at all - I think that being a nontraditional student can certainly be challenging - we nontrads tend to have a lot more juggling to do to make it all work. But we also have advantages that can make our experiences as nontraditional students pay off.

When I accomplish something as a nontraditional student, I take pride in the fact that I pulled it off in spite of all of the challenges I face. It means more, I think, to succeed when it's hard.

My degrees show that I can not just write papers and pass exams ... but also that I can juggle, organize, balance, and overcome.

Especially overcome. Being a nontraditional student can be really difficult. I've done it as a broke, burned out single mom; as a caregiver for someone with Alzheimers who needed a great deal of care and attention and who died here, in my living room, in the middle of a semester in which I was carrying a full load as a student and a full teaching load; and now, dealing with some pretty inconvenient health problems of my own.

When I walk across the stage and pick up my degrees, that means something. Of course, it means something for every student that makes it that far - but for me, it is a particular source of pride.

I'm not feeling so hot tonight so I'm off to bed - tomorrow I will write about what I see as advantages of being a nontraditional student.

But in the meantime, let me just say that I don't think that being a nontraditional student has to suck - and if you are someone that ended up here by searching "being a nontraditional student sucks" I hope you'll drop a comment - or send me an email - and maybe together we can find some solutions to make it work better for you. I would love to help ... that is exactly why I started this blog.

Getting Organized - PDFs, Books, Chapters, Photocopies

2009-05-01T21:56:00.000-04:00

Well, my bookshelf reorganization is well under way ... at least the academic side of my office, which is what I am most concerned about.

Next up, I need to sort out a system for paper. Over the course of my MA program, I ended up with hundreds - or more likely, thousands - of pieces of paper. A lot of our readings were chapters out of books, or other academic articles that we were required to photocopy.

So I have stacks of articles - to do with a whole variety of topics - public texts, fiction, viral contagion, emerging adults, etc. etc.

I am trying to decide how best to organize them. Most citations are by author - so it would make some sense to file them by author - but many also have multiple authors and besides, I am not that good at remembering authors' names ....so likely would never be able to find what I want when I want it.

By subject has potential - but then what does one do with articles that could fit into one or more categories?

I could, I suppose, start my own database to keep track of everything... have been planning to do something along those lines to use to make notes of my readings next year .... I figure that would go a long way when it comes to having to study for my comprehensive exams in the second year... but even though I have the database ability, I am not so confident in my organizational abilities.

And the thought of typing all the info from before into it doesn't really appeal much anyway... hmmm ...sounds like a job for my kid.

Now that I have all of those articles printed though, it doesn't make sense to me to not DO something constructive with them. ...at least organized enough that if I should happen to need one of them again, I can find it and not have to print/photocopy it again.

ANYWAY - if any of you less flitty more organized types has an opinion on a good strategy to use - especially for the offline paper stuff... I would very much appreciate your input.

Nontraditional student waiting

2009-04-30T22:49:00.000-04:00

So - one of my essays is marked and will be available for pickup in the grad student office tomorrow. That irks me, rather, given that it was submitted electronically and the profs all know that I live 2.5 hours away - would have been nice to get it back electronically. At least the mark!

But oh well, I'm going to be there on Saturday anyway - so will find out the worst then. Will just have to try not to think about it too much between now and then!

Final marks were all due in today, so presumably all 3 of my essays are marked.. waiting on those, and also for my draft proposal to come back from my research advisor, and, of course, the ethics board response to my revised application.

I hate waiting!

Starting to Unwind

2009-04-29T22:48:00.000-04:00

Today, a friend called with a powerpoint problem and I had time not only to help her fix it - but also to walk over to her place (3 miles, YAY me!) and go set up her printer and sit on her back deck and just chat for ages...

and tomorrow we're going shopping.

I don't much care for shopping on the whole - but since my accident back in November, almost all of my shopping trips have been with hubby ...Mr. Do You Really Need That? I'm looking forward to going out without 'im for a change :)

I've been doing the school thing for soooo long without a real break - it's taken me some time to unwind...slow down....breathe....

I could get used to this.

Not TOO used to it though - still got 3 weeks of summer school and a conference to go to ...and a major research paper to write. And will start again full time in the fall of course.

But for now, I have some down time. And Scrooge, my mutt, and I are enjoying it.

It will soon be time to get the boat in the water - I wonder how many calories rowing burns off? Will have to find out!

Textbooks

2009-04-28T20:17:00.000-04:00

What do you do with your no-longer-needed textbooks?

Me, I tend to keep them ... although I did clear some out today while I was reorganizing bookshelves... just not any from my university studies - it was some old and now pretty much obsolete computer texts that I finally managed to part with. From back when I did my diploma in Computer Programming.

My English texts are mostly keepers - at least for now... although I do seem to have multiple copies of some, so I could presumably thin those out a bit, I suppose. If it wasn't so gosh-darned expensive to mail books to the US I'd have a contest, maybe!

At least in English, they don't become obsolete! When I think of how much I paid for some of those computer texts... yikes!

Idle Nontraditional Student

2009-04-27T16:30:00.000-04:00

Okay, well this nontraditional student hasn't exactly been idle today - but pretty close!

I sent off my mark sheets for my ENGL1000 students, and my revised application to the Ethical Research Board - I decided that the hoop jumping in order to be able to do an online survey was just not worth it - will use existing research and whatever else I can find. So revising was mostly a matter of cutting out everything to do with that part of it.

PITA though - they do not provide a FILLABLE form - so I had to retype everything I wanted to keep. I was very happy to find a site that does not mislead users the way others I have tried have - Nitro now offers a free online PDF --> Word conversion tool and it works - no 3 page maximum no message saying its done and we'll give it to you when you pay us - no hassles at all.

I used it to convert the PDF form to Word and was then able to retype it and send it (they wanted it sent electronically but didn't respond to my email asking them for a Word doc that I could do that with).

Anyway, am all done with that - got approval for the revisions from my advisor and sent it off.

Went for a walk today - my sister-in-law called just before I was about to leave so I invited her to meet me .... so Scrooge and her new puppy, Max, got to spend some time ...well, sort of together :) They had a bit of a fuss at first so Max wasn't TOO inclined to get to close. Sis-in-law walks a lot slower than I do...but since I walk 2/3rds of the way before I meet up with her, and then back of course, it's not that big a deal. I need to get a hat - it was way too hot for me out there... a hat won't fix the heat, but might help some, I figure.

On the way back, Scrooge & I stopped and visited my friend Sue for a bit, then I came home and have been doing very little of anything since.

Am reorganizing my books, though ... I have 2 walls of shelves in my office and over the course of the last year they have become totally jumbled with schoolbooks mixed in with everything else all over the place. I'm clearing it out - a little at a time. Right now it looks like an even bigger disaster zone than usual - but it will get better.

Okay ...so I am not GOOD at the idle thing. I concede the point.

They said it couldn't be done...

2009-04-26T03:39:00.000-04:00

.... well, actually, 'twas I that said it couldn't be done.

Repeatedly ... everyone else kept saying that of course I would pull it off - I always do. Once again, they were right, and I was wrong.

I managed to get my last 20+ page essay submitted today.

Yay me!

That makes 3 big one and 3 little ones all doing in a very short period of time. The one I finished today, I am quite happy with, even .. the other two need more work but I ran out of time...

Anyway ... they are done. My proposal for the program is sent off to my advisor for review; all of the rest have been submitted.

Tomorrow I will revise my ethics application and fire that off, and get the rest of my first years' exams marked and their final marks calculated and sent off.

And then all I will have left is to write my major research paper. 50 pages, but I have 6 weeks to do it in.

After pulling off almost 100 pages of essays and so on in the last 2 weeks, I think I can manage that - especially since all of the papers I have done relate to the major research paper, so a lot of the research for it is already done.

Yay me.

I might just make it through this MA thing after all :)

Flitting off

2009-04-24T08:24:00.000-04:00

So ...today is the day for my first year ENGL students' final exam. Hubby took the day off and we're driving down to be there when they finish so that I can grab my sections' exams - they all need to be marked and their final marks submitted by Monday.

I'm hoping to get most of that done in the car on the way home, actually... exams don't get handed back, so I don't need to do all the commenting and so on that I do when I mark essays (not that many of them seem to read the comments but I try).

Just remembered that I never did open the file that contained the exam! I guess I'll find out what was on it when I get them. The profs set the exam and although we get a copy, I don't like to have it potentially influence the final exam review I do with my guys, so I don't open it before that - meant to go and have a look after, but ....

Oh well. No big deal.

Still working on the last of my semester papers, about Robert J Sawyer's Wake and viral contagion in Canadian publishing. It's all coming together very well, but still time consuming. Hoping to have it handed in by noon tomorrow. The incomplete option has been offered and I was tempted but it would be SO nice to have everything done ....well everything aside from my major research paper, anyway. So ...will just have to stay up tonight until it's done, get up in the morning and proofread, and fire it off. Sounds like a plan, don't it?

Once that's done, will be back to blogging regularly.

Ethical Aggravation

2009-04-22T09:46:00.000-04:00

So I'm doing this research project for school and one of the ~fun~ bits is that I have to jump through hoops to get approval for it from an ethics board. Got a response to my application yesterday ... and one of the things that just made me grind my teeth is that according to them, no way no how I am allowed to discuss any aspect of my research on my blogs.

Not even though my research is only about reading habits, not anything potentially sensitive.

And not even if I build it into my consent form, which is what I wanted to do.

I am sorely tempted to just pitch the entire survey of emerging adult readers then - too many hoops to jump through for that aspect of it. Not only am I not allowed to talk about emerging adults and reading if I do the survey, I would also have to use the system they tell me and have that system save the 'signed' consents and so on for each user.

I guess I'll just limit myself to available resources and to hell with the hoop jumping.

I understand that they have to have guidelines but this is ludicrous. What is the point of learning if you're not allowed to share it? Ever?

Nontraditional Students & Crisis of Confidence

2009-04-20T14:20:00.000-04:00

Do you do it too?

I don't know if it's because I'm a nontraditional student or just because I am a total neurotic - but I hate, hate, HATE, handing in my essays any more.

I was up until 6:30 this morning finishing my CanLit one - at about 5:30 I started thinking

"OMG this is crap; I can't hand this in. I am going to fail! What if I fail? My last essay was crap too. Oh God, I'm going to fail!"

Got myself totally freaked out and even though I eventually did hit send on the damn email and go to bed for a few hours sleep, the pit of anxiety in my gut just will not go away.

I'm working, now, on my proposal re: my Major Research Paper. Everything I have done this year has been leading up to this paper. I have had the opportunity to talk to my advisor, other profs, get (and incorporate) feedback from them, fellow students, etc. I have read hundreds of academic articles. I have written essays related to smaller sections of the whole.

I know what I'm doing and how I am going to do it - and I can't seem to write a blessed thing.

Well, I can ... but then I just can't seem to keep my hand from hitting the Delete key.

Crap, crap, it's all crap!

I don't have time to be neurotic this week. I need to get this proposal sent off to my advisor so that she has time to review it before it has to be submitted to the department.

And then I still have another major paper (20+ pages) to write, and 20 essays to mark - although I think rather than torture myself with a block of 20, I'm going to start doing them a few at a time - would be nice to at least start seeing that number go down.

And maybe at least in comparison to those, my own work won't seem like such crap any more?

So.... what do you think? Is this a nontraditional student thing? Or am I just neurotic?

One Difference between Graduate School & Undergrad

2009-04-18T11:57:00.000-04:00

.... there is a whole lot more food! And much of it is free.

Gotta like that - although when you are on a <1000 calorie a day diet it can be a ~bit~ of a challenge.

I don't know if all universities provide free food to graduate students, but mine certainly does. During our Graduate Students' Orientation week there were all sorts of free meals - and then there were the Thursday teas at Traill, which featured cheese and fresh scones.

Some of our profs feed us too - and buy the first round when we go out after class :)

This week, one took us out for lunch, and another invited us all to a Gala event to mark the end of the Graduate Students' Symons Lecture Series (which I didn't get participate in all year as it conflicted with my TA responsibilities).

Definitely one of the perks of being a graduate student....although since I live 2.5 hours away from school, it can be difficult to take advantage of many of them. But we did make the effort this week.

Still haven't decided about the next big do which is on May 8 - a reception for all the graduate students. I probably wouldn't go, but I should have another scholarship check to pick up by then .... so for $5k AND free food, it might well be worth the trip :)

Blog Makeover

2009-04-17T10:44:00.000-04:00

So what do you think?

I am thrilled with my blog's new look!

My blog makeover was done by LadyJava of LadyJava's Creations, who was able to take my rather jumbled and untalented vision and make it work beautifully - and she did it in less than a day!

I don't expect she'll be able to provide same day service all of the time though - she's far too good to not be swamped with requests.

I can't wait to see what she comes up with for flit's Canadian fiction, which is my newest blog, intended to replace flitting on fiction @ today.com, since I am no longer welcome at today.com. (Apparently they don't like it when people - or hummingbirds - point out that they are engaged in a great deal of making false promises lately)

And then, just because I was so darn happy with her work, she'll be moving on to do another makeover for me, this one at Just Flitting.

Did you notice the flavicon (the little image that shows beside the page title in the tabs?)?! Is that not cool?

Blogspot and Blackberry

2009-04-15T22:17:00.000-04:00

Apparently my Blackberry and Blogger don't get along so well.

I was bored while we were driving to Peterborough for lunch today ....so I typed out a big long post about nothing much ...

and when I hit post, nothing happened. I lost the whole thing, somehow or other!

Oh well... it weren't nothing important... next time I try, I'll copy it first!

and I still love my Blackberry and am really enjoying blogging over here. It is a relief to be away from the problems at Today.com.

Got the first of my three big papers finished and sent off today .... hoping to manage another one by Friday at 4 so that I can print it and deliver it to the prof who will not accept it by email so I can't have until Monday (the due date) because it is not reasonable to expect hubby to drive 5 hours to deliver it.

Possibilities....

2009-04-12T22:50:00.000-04:00

So ...found out that my university email account has been being obnoxious and not forwarding my email consistently! BAD BAD email!!

It could have led to me missing a perfect job opportunity ... fortunately the co-ordinator of the program emailed me about it separately from the group email that didn't make it through and this one did.

Will hold off on saying too much about it until I see if it works out - BUT - it's a work at home kind of job for the most part AND it requires a geek which I happen to be AND it would look very nice on my CV... assuming that some day I get around to putting one of those together.

The other email I missed was one about changing dinner on Wed. in Peterborough to lunch .... that SO does NOT work for me... Ross already had to tell his boss that he was't available Monday & Tuesday because he has to drive me to & from school (last week - final exams - OMG the MARKING I am going to have to do in the next week or so is UNBELIEVABLE) .... and that he needed to be done by 4 on Wednesday. That was doable - lunch, with a 2.5 hour drive on either side of it, is NOT. He says he doesn't mind and has offered to talk to the boss... but geez, that is a lot to ask.

This nontraditional student gig is hard enough without the complications of living in the boonies and not being allowed to drive!

Interuptions R us

2009-04-09T16:53:00.000-04:00

Wow... it's Grand Central Station around my place today. Which is not good, as I have 2 major papers to get done - one for Tuesday and another for Wednesday.

Which wouldn't be SO bad, if I weren't doing the Easter dinner thing here on Sunday, and teaching all day Monday and again Tuesday morning. Don't quite know when I'm going to get it all done!

This is our first week of being home and hubby's been out talking to people and so on and they all know we're back so it seems like everyone is wanting something or other... have had people stop by to borrow stuff, another to drop something off, still waiting for one of Ross' nephews to stop by to pick some old computers up and so on and so on...

and of course, the phone just keeps ringing too.

But I'm making progress none-the-less... just have to keep on keeping on, I guess. And maybe give up sleeping for a few days!

A very long day and then some for this old nontraditional student

2009-04-07T23:05:00.000-04:00

An hour drive to school this morning - longer than usual thanks to snow, and an inordinate amount of very slow traffic that just would NOT get out of the way!

Teaching/giving a test review .... had told my class that I needed to be out of there early this week, but didn't make it - one young man took issue with some feedback I gave him - and with my unreasonable refusal to change all the rules just for him...and by the time we'd sorted that, it looked as though between the delay & the weather, we would be sure to be late getting to Peterborough for the formal presentation day - which would really have sucked, given that I was the provider of the laptop to go with the projector and needed to get there in time to get it up and running.

We made it though... but not with MUCH time to spare. Just enough time to get things sorted out (but NOT enough time to do that AND go to the little girls' room) before it was time to start.

Presentations went okay ... had a slight technical difficulty with mine, but soon fixed, and I'm okay with dealing with that sort of thing now. Noticed a typo in my speech - too late to fix it; was really consious that I'd stuffed up a particular word (thanks to said typo) but doubt anyone else caught it. No one mentioned it, anyway.

8 presentations, 2 breaks...did I mention it was a very long day?

Afterwards, we were all invited back to one of the prof's houses for a party. Wasn't enthusiastic about going (I am not much of a party sort of person) ... but it was fine; ended up staying longer than we'd intended.

Interesting conversation at one point during the party :) Several people talking about turning ACK!! 30 ...so old! Someone observed that turning 30 must be FAR worse than turning 50 ...no one has fun at 50 anymore so what does it matter? LOL Little does he know. Not that I'm there quite yet - but won't be long... and certainly will get there before I get my Phd :)

And then after the party, the 2.5 hour drive home.

As we walked out to the van, I was telling hubby about the no fun at 50 conversation and he laughed and observed that yeah, well, look whose packing it in and heading home at 8:30 p.m. Hmmm.... he might have a point!

Anyway - classes are all done for the semester... now if I can just get all my papers and so on done and handed in!

2 short papers and a proposal to finish tomorrow; then a 20+ pager for next Tuesday, another for Wednesday and 1 more for the week following. And THEN I can get my Major Research Paper done! Fun times... but I did the same amount of work at the end of last semester - and THAT with a broken left wrist and sprained right wrist. If I managed it then - and of course I did - I can certainly manage it now! And so I will.

Nontraditional Student Chooses Blog Over Homework

2009-04-06T22:05:00.000-04:00

Yup... bad, bad, nontraditional student!

Got three small papers to finish up this week, and a 20 pager due next Tuesday and what have I been doing all evening?

Mucking around with images and ~stuff~ in this template, and changing my Entrecard image and link to come this-a-way instead of going that-a-way. I'm sure I've lost my place at the top of the Education blogs on Entrecard during this whole kerfuffle with Today.com, upon which I shall not comment (right now, anyway) - but what goes down can just as easily go back up, n'est-ce pas?

Feel free to correct my French, by the way ... one of the scariest things about doing the Phd thing is that I have to master enough French to pass a test. It has been a VERY long time since I used my French! Might see if I can fit in an undergrad course or two.

Anyway ... it's snowing here on beautiful Georgian Bay... which might seriously mess up my week! I have the end of semester big presentation thing in Peterborough tomorrow - it's a 2.5 hour drive when it isn't snowing like the middle of winter! Hoping that it will settle down by morning! But the weather guy doesn't seem to want to co-operate!

But like I've observed before, there are always challenges to the nontraditional student thing.

Welcome to Nontraditional Students R Us

2009-04-06T21:29:00.000-04:00

Sorry there's not much here yet... but not to worry ... it'll be coming... and I'll settle on a template soon, too, honest :)