Academic Rockstars (or: Can you tell I'm procrastinating?)

Still at Alma Mater library, but nearly done for the day...

I'm sure every academic field has its own "rockstars." You know what I mean: everyone cites them, and if you tell people you're studying such-and-such a topic, they tell you to read these people. And if you're lucky enough to know an academic rockstar personally, it's like telling the High School Chess Club that you'll get the football captain and the prom queen to sit at their cafeteria table the next day.

In my field, there are certain scholars who always seem to have the right answer. If I'm looking for something, I go to these people's books first, and I'm likely to find what I need.

I was lucky like that today. God bless you, Ruth El Saffar and E.C. Riley.

Zero

When I was in college, I wrote a really stupid honors thesis called "The Peasant as Governor: Sancho Panza on the Isle of Barataria." It was really bad, but somehow I got an A on it, because there's probably some rule somewhere that says that you're not supposed to get bad grades on honors theses.

I'm at my Alma Mater today, working in the library. (I've delayed my flight for a few days.) I was in the Cervantes section (given how small our Spanish department is here, it's surprising that there's a Cervantes section), and I found my thesis. I forgot that the library holds copies of all theses. Curious, I turned to the front to see if anyone has checked it out.

So far, in the past six years, not one person has checked it out. I'd rather keep it that way, actually. :)

This reminded me that it's a good idea not to take oneself too seriously when writing one's dissertation. Over the summer, while working at Alma Mater University, I had lunch with some of the faculty - some I knew well, some I knew vaguely after having been at teaching seminars together. As I was getting up from the table, one of the profs - a sociology prof I only knew vaguely - told me, "Remember, it doesn't have to be good, it just has to be acceptable."

I think about this regularly to help me from freaking out too much. I believe it was Mary over at the Successful Academic who used to say that the dissertation is like a plumber's license: it's the piece of paper that gets you into the union.

I don't mean any of this to say that no one cares about anything we do in academia. But I do say it because a dissertation is quite daunting, and sometimes we need to focus on what's most important: getting it done.

Hesitant

As I've mentioned more than once on this blog, my youngest two siblings have special needs. This isn't just the fancy-schmancy politically correct terminology for a kid who can't read; this is big deal stuff. We're talking about autism, touches of cerebral palsy, bipolar disorder, borderline mental retardation. Things can get very difficult at home sometimes, especially now that they're teenagers and my brother is as tall as my father.

Why is it, then, that I am always hesitant to return to Oxford? Why is it that no matter how difficult things get at home, I feel like my time at home isn't long enough?

I've turned off the comments for this post because I'm not looking for answers or analysis. I just needed to get this posted.

We now return to your regularly scheduled programming

Apologies for the strange post that appeared in your feed readers earlier today. My little sister was playing with my computer and she seems to have discovered Flock's blogging feature.

Should auld acquantance be forgot

Happy New Year, folks. Sorry I haven't been posting much lately. Since I've been home it has been extremely hectic, plus I haven't really been in a posting mood.

Not long after I got home, I went to New York with my sister to see her wedding dress and to help her pick out a veil. She got her dress at Kleinfeld's, which you may recognize from the TLC show Say Yes to the Dress. That was very exciting, and it's always fun to do a little New York trip over the vacation (even though it was FREEZING).

Other than that, I haven't done much. A bit of shopping. A bit of reading. Watching my youngest sister, who is "in between schools" at the moment.

Christmas was very quiet. We went to church and to my grandfather's house on Christmas Eve, and my brother's girlfriend's family came over for dinner. On Christmas day we had my godfather (he just stopped by to visit) and my grandfather's cousin, who doesn't have any immediate family. On the Friday before, we went to the Christmas party at the assisted living community where my mom works. (My mom supervises an Alzheimer's unit there.) What I liked best about it is how much my youngest sister liked helping the residents. She is in the teenage "me me meeeeeeeeeee" phase, so it is nice to see her care about others. On Sunday we had my sister and her fiancé over, since they went to his family's house for Christmas.

This was the first time in a while when I feel like I really did well with the present-buying. For example, I got my youngest brother a Spiderman comic book (a "graphic novel," I guess), and he was totally obsessed with it - he didn't want to open anything else! And I got my sister and her fiancé the champagne flutes for their wedding (I got their names and the date - 06-07-08 - on them), and she loved them - she even cried, which surprised me. I got another present for my parents, but as it has not arrived yet and I suspect that they read this blog, I will not go into detail about it here. In any case, I think they will love it.

I don't usually make resolutions for New Year's, but I have two this year and I'm really serious about them. The first one is to lose weight for my sister's wedding. I don't have a particular goal (I don't obsess over clothing sizes), but I do care about the fact that I will be in pictures that she will have for the rest of her life. I don't have a specific plan in place yet, but I do have some ideas - no more vending machine or hall desserts, no Coke, and trying the vegetarian option a few times a week. I also plan to use our college gym regularly and/or finding a place to swim.

The other one is to be a better correspondent. I'm terrible about returning emails and phone calls, and I want to improve on that. I also want to catch up with friends with whom I've lost touch. Part of this stems from the fact that this year will be my 10-year reunion from high school, and I've been thinking a lot about what these people have been up to all these years.

On that note, I'm off to call Chrissie in California, who has been trying to call me for a few days and I've been terrible about getting back to her.

Happy 2008, folks! Let's make it a good one.
Kxxx