Monthly Archives: June 2012

Mourning an Old Friend

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The day I turned sixteen, my dad took me to get my learner’s permit.

The first instruction he gave me about driving was “it’s just like flying an airplane, except when you pull back on the steering wheel, the car does not go up.”

A few weeks later, that coveted card arrived in the mail.  I treasured and cherished it, for it was my freedom, my solace, the thing that said I could go places and do things.

When I turned 18, the permit turned into a full-fledged license.

About this time, I turned into the official Designated Driver.  Not because me and my friends went bar-hopping in New York City (and, really, if we did (and I’m not saying we

New York City… center of the Universe

did), we totally would have taken the subway home), but because I was the only one with a license and access to a vehicle.  We would road trip up to see friends in Massachusetts or Connecticut, and my golden card would permit me to be the responsible one who got us there and back again.  I was the pilot.

When I turned 21, New York State sent me a birthday card with another version of my license.  It looked the same as the old one, except this one lacked the giant red letters beneath my picture designating me “UNDER 21”.

At this point, those trips to New England often involved beer of some kind.  And it was a point of pride with me, when we all whipped out our IDs, that mine was from New York.  It showed everyone and anyone who asked who I was and where I came from, and it made me firm in my sense of self.  “I’m a New Yorker!  This official card says so!”

I’ve been a gypsy for many years.  Since graduating my undergrad in 2008, I’ve lived in six different living scenarios in three different states.  Over the course of that year, I moved six times.  Since I lacked a permanent address to call my own, my parents’ place was the most stable domicile at which to reach me, and as far as my ID was concerned it was where I still resided.  No point switching your license when you have nowhere to tell it that you live.  So my identity was intact, I was still a card-carrying New Yorker, and when I was lacking the fortitude to truly find myself on any given day, I could look in my wallet and there I was.

I signed the lease on my current apartment on June 1, 2011 with some knowledge that I probably wouldn’t be going anywhere fast, barring horrible catastrophe or cataclysmic life-altering event.  When I renewed my lease this year, I realized that perhaps it was maybe time to admit that I’m not going anywhere for a while.

Tomorrow, the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles claims my New Yorker card.

“It’s just a card”, says you.  “That card has nothing to do with who you really are!”  The logical side of my brain says that you would be correct.  But for whatever reason, I’m really having a hard time letting go of that stupid card.  Somehow, turning it in feels like being less of a New Yorker.  It also feels like I’m adopting Massachusetts as home and, don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with Boston.  I rather like it here.

But it sure as hell ain’t New York.

I’ve been dealing with a bout of homesickness lately; a deep longing for bagels, real Chinese food, street fairs, and Tasti-D-Lite that simply can’t be sated on the streets of Harvard.

Another thing that this drastic step means is that I’m well and truly stuck.  Changing my license over means that, at least for now, I’ve hung up my wandering boots.  This wasn’t the first indication; it’s much more difficult to move when you have furniture and your stuff no longer fits in the back of your car.  Despite that, this feels like a definitive clunk as my life settles into a firm footprint until I find the momentum to push it over the ledge again so it can roll around in the great shoebox of the universe.

If I stay in this apartment for a day over two years, it will be the longest that I’ve lived anywhere since I moved out of my folks’ place.  That’s huge and panic inducing to a wandering soul like mine.  It feels settling… grown-up… and, somehow, wrong.

So excuse my moping and the copious amount of ice cream that will be consumed tomorrow over the grave of a proud piece of plastic that, for so long, has meant so much to this little bardy gypsy girl.

Dearly Beloved, we have gathered here to say our goodbyes…

The Blahs

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Whether it’s the lazy, hazy days of summer that have hit us here in Boston, a general sense of overall fatigue from the semester that I haven’t given myself a chance to recover from, or the moon being in the seventh house and Jupiter aligning with Mars, I’ve found myself deep within a case of the “blahs”.

You know the blahs.  That thing that happens that makes you want to do nothing more than sit on the couch and be a lump.  That thing that whispers lazily in your ear telling you “just one more episode, you didn’t actually want to go to the gym today”.  That thing that puts a fire-blanket over productivity and makes it nearly impossible to keep up with your “gotta do it now!”s (forget your “should do it soon”s).

For people with conventional jobs, while annoying, the blahs aren’t exactly life threatening.  You’ve still gotta get up, go into the office, do your basic functions, and come home.  You’re still accountable for your responsibilities to a boss, supervisor, team, company.  There’s going to be someone asking questions if your productivity takes a nose-dive for the bottom of the bar graph.

Unfortunately for me, summertime in academia is a very very difficult time during which to get the blahs.

Not only is there no one besides myself to whom I’m accountable, but I don’t even have any hard deadlines to work towards.  I’m awash in a sea of amorphous, ambiguous, and very large tasks which all require attention and diligence, but also provide the illusion that succumbing to the blahs could be alright.

 

My to-do list is no shorter than it has ever been, I’m just working on things that are long-term goals.  I’m trying to maintain better gym habits.  I’m putting a lot of effort into personal projects that fell by the wayside during crunch-time.  I’m trying not to give myself heart attacks while accomplishing my summer tasks, and I’m also trying to get in some of that rest that’s so crucial to being prepared for the fall.

But the blahs are not sated by ambiguous improvement, nor can they be fought with small accomplishment.

To help myself beat back the blahs, I’ve tried to create visual guides and land-marks for the things I’m doing.  I’ve created physical flash cards for my German vocabulary so that I can actually see how many words I know now that I didn’t know yesterday, a week, a month ago.  I’ve started stacking my used-draft-papers again to (hopefully) find some convenient fire in which to burn them when I’ve submitted the paper I’m polishing.  I’ve created a cheat-book of song chords for my ukulele so I can A) localize the songs I know and B) see how much I’ve learned since I took it into my head that I should learn to play a ukulele at a friend’s wedding a month ago.  There’s not much I can do about the gym other than pat myself on the back and have a nice shower when I return home, but endorphins and a few hours of temperature control (my place has many virtues, central AC isn’t one of them) are reward enough, no?

 

I, like this sheep, feel droopy about the ears

In my experience, productivity expands and contracts in direct correlation to the amount of time at one’s disposal.  Have A MILLION BILLION THINGS TO DO RIGHT NOW!? No problem, you will get them ALL done.  Have a lot of time on your hands and just a few projects with a bunch of space in which to accomplish assorted random other tasks?  Meh.  You’ll get done what you need to get done, but no more.

So as I struggle through my case of the blahs, I have every expectation that I will accomplish what I absolutely need to accomplish… but likely not so much as I had wished to accomplish.  With any luck I’ll be seeing some sunshine at the end of this gloomy tunnel and be able to kick my summer into overdrive as soon as I find some inspiration to do so.

It is (it is) a Glorious Thing to be a Pirate King

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Last night, I had the pleasure and good fortune of attending The Hypocrites’ production of Pirates of Penzance as part of the Emerging American Theatre Festival.

The Hypocrites is a Chicago-based company who, as far as I can tell from a cursory glance of their website and a read-through of their manifesto, specializes in quirky but honest theatre which attempts to glean some aspect of the human experience without taking itself too seriously.

And I can certainly say that last night’s performance delivered just that.  Gilbert and Sullivan is HARD.  The harmonies are ridiculous, nobody is singing the same part as anyone else, and each song has more words in it than Stephen Sondheim after a few martinis.

The other problem with G&S shows is that they are so darn funny.  They are witty, ridiculous, and utterly irreverent.  They’re also old and British.  The danger of an American

no pretension here. Most of the cast was in their underwear….

company getting their hands on one of these productions is the instinct to take it to the land of stodgy, Earl-Gray sipping*, Queen and Country kind of theatre.  Quite the opposite.  Gilbert and Sullivan is basically Monty Python with music and should be treated as such.  Otherwise, the jokes aren’t going to read to a modern audience, and you run the risk of not only boring an American audience (half of which has likely never seen Opera before), but also turning the entire audience off to the Opera experience.

Well, there was nothing stodgy about this performance.  The entire usually two-and-a-half to three hour ordeal was cut down to a slim 90 minutes with one sixty second intermission (no, really, it was sixty seconds).  The direct result of this was A) the energy was CONSTANTLY through the roof – there was simply no time for it to droop, and B) Once the story started rolling, it just kept on going downhill like a snowball from the top of Mt. Olympus.  This kept the audience on their toes and right there in the action.

And the audience was literally in the action.  The show was performed at the Oberon (the venue which also hosts The Donkey Show which, by the by, is TOTALLY worth seeing) and, in true Oberon style, was completely immersive.  The audience was invited to sit on the floor, on the stage, inside the props (large kiddie pools on top of tables).  We were thrown beach balls as we walked in and encouraged to keep them afloat.  Actors would indicate via pointing where they were going next and, if there was an audience member in their way, that audience member had best move before she was (literally) run over by this tour de force.

Oh, and to make things a little more challenging for the actors, they were also the orchestra.  They flitted about the stage playing their own accompaniment on a series of instruments attached to their bodies in various ways from guitars, to clarinet, banjo, ukulele, drums, concertina, accordion, violin, and (I kid you not) musical saw.

So, just in case you weren’t impressed with the singing or acting ability of these insanely talented individuals (and in that case, you might want to get your talent sensors checked), you could hold yourself content that they at least are capable of grand acts of musical conquest.

The play was funny, it had heart, and an insane amount of talent went into producing it.  Despite the fact that I was drenching in a thin film of my own sweat by the time I reached the theatre (ugh, Boston, why did it have to be SUMMER now?), I still had an amazing time and would highly recommend you check it out.

Pirates of Penzance is playing through the weekend at the Oberon.  For ticket information, head on over here.

*Not that I have anything against earl-gray sipping… it happens to be my favorite morning blend.  I rather think that it should be reserved as the wheaties of academia than any inspiration for a show…

Definitely As you Like it

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Sunday night, I caught the closing performance of Rhode Island Shakespeare Theatre’s As You Like It in Roger William’s Memorial Park out in Providence.  I think I’ve waxed poetic enough about Artistic Director/head honcho Bob Colonna’s Shakespeare chaps, so I don’t really need to drive the point home.  Suffice to say that the production was definitely another feather in Colonna’s cap and I was particularly tickled to see it, as As You is one of my personal favorites.

Colonna plays fast and loose with the text, but his panache in doing so leaves even a text

Ryan Hanley as a weasely Oliver and Patrick Cullen as a fiery Orlando

purist like me satisfied.  The benefit to this method of engagement is that Colonna’s shows always offer up something new.  I know that when I see TRIST perform, I’m always going to be challenged in my understanding of the text and delivered a show that adds something real, tangible, and different to the performance history of any given play.

In this case, Colonna eliminated Adam entirely (a move which, admittedly, when he first told me about it gave me some serious doubts).  Substantiating the exposition that Adam adds with some cameos by other court characters, it actually wound up working pretty well.

The thing about As You is that it’s a play about the woods.  As such, the sooner we can be dispensed with the unavoidable business in the court, the sooner the real play can start.  My favorite companion attended with me and mentioned that he felt Rosalind was much stronger in the second act than the first (Colonna stuck his intermission between III iii and III iv just after Rosalind trots off with Orlando and Celia having promised to cure Orlando of his love by pretending to be Rosalind).  Well, that’s because Rosalind doesn’t really get to do anything in the court.

Rosalind’s most salient attribute is her ability as a puppetmaster.  She gets what she wants by adeptly manipulating those around her.  She is, however, confined in this ability until the forest frees her from her petticoats and she is able to take on man’s attire.

Unfortunately, Shakespeare’s first act, filled to the brim with pageantry and courtly

extravagance, tends to just drag in modern performance.  It’s full of important exposition and a great fight scene, but it doesn’t have much by way of entertainment value for the real crux of the show.  Two thirds of the characters we see at court are never seen again, and two thirds of the characters whom we spend the rest of the play with are nowhere to be found at court.  For that, this first act has to be there; without it we have no idea where we are coming from (and, for that matter, going back to at the play’s end), but really the best policy for dealing with it is to cut where you can and run through it at a break-neck pace.

Well, that’s what Colonna did.  By dispatching Adam, he managed to shave some good time off of the top load of the show and get us quicker to where we really needed to be.

Another portion of this play that doesn’t read in contemporary performance without a WHOLE LOT of careful finagling is IV ii; the deer scene.  Yes, yes, important in scholarship.  Yes, yes, forest of Arden Shakespeare’s childhood maybe he poached deer as a kid and this is some Freudian jaunt into biographical studies.  Yes, yes, Jaques’ connection to the forest blah blah.  For that, I’ve never seen a production that really pulled this scene off and made it seem anything other than an odd sidebar to what’s already a long, broad, rambling show.  Colonna side-stepped the issue entirely by cutting the scene and replacing it with a clever bit for Amiens/Jaques involving Amiens’ song and Jaques being a pompous jerk.  Colonna’s bit, while not something that I would have thought permissible with any show that I was specifically working on, read beautifully and elegantly covered the hole left by the missing scene.  Bravo, revisionism! (…don’t tell my M4M director that I said that….)

Lydea Irwin as a tired Celia carried by the rambunctious Mark Carter as Touchstone and Kristina Drager as Rosalind

The other thing that I truly have to applaud Colonna for is maintaining a sense of connection with the audience.  TRIST has a history with the fourth wall; a very sordid past in which the relationship has been broken enough times to warrant its own daytime drama.  The bottom line is this: I love outdoor Shakespeare.  I truly do.  I love theatre in urban spaces.  But if you’re going to perform outside, you need to be prepared for all sorts of interruptions; from pedestrians, to the sounds of passing trains.  And these interruptions are universal; the actors will hear them, the audience will hear them, and there’s little to nothing that can be done about them.

So instead of pretending that that motorcycle isn’t drowning out your text and just trying to schlog through anyway, why not acknowledge the motorcycle, pause for a moment, then move on?  You’re going to lose your audience’s attention anyway (that can be assured by the astoundingly loud vrooms that that little engine puts off as it stops at the stop-light that’s two hundred yards away from your playing space).  Why struggle to preserve the integrity of a fourth wall whose integrity is already compromised?

Colonna gets that and the small moments of improvisations spurred by outside forces (a harried Jaques had a brief moment of mimed drag racing, and Orlando and Ganymede a half-muttered conversation about trains) brought the audience closer to the text rather than alienating us from it.  Rather than rejecting the world around it, this show embraced the outside forces at play, welcoming them into its world and utilizing them to become closer to the audience who was also experiencing them.

I wish I could give you ticket info, but as the show closed Sunday that’s all she wrote.  Colonna and the gang will be back in the fall with a production of Richard III that is sure to please (at least, that’s what he promises me, and he has so-far never let me down).

It’s the End of the World as we Know it (…I feel fine…)

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Yesterday, much to the chagrin of my friends and family who weren’t in the loop (though I’m not sure precisely why they weren’t because I DID post a warning before this actually occurred), I hijacked my personal facebook feed to participate in the sixth annual “Blog like It’s the End of the World”.

This event was started in 2007 by “My Elves are Different” and takes place every year on June 13th.  The idea is that bloggers, tweeters, facebookers, and overall denizens of the internet come together to create a faux-event (namely the onset of the global zombie holocaust) via their signal-boosting power.  All day, folks are encouraged to use their digital presence to create this event and stories surrounding it.

And when you think of things that way, it becomes perhaps one of the most awesome things to occur on the internet.  For so many people, the internet is a way to connect with an outside world which is very much part of their lives, but for whatever reason they can’t attend to it daily (be it distance, invalidity, or agoraphobia).  For example: my mother, who lives in New York, keeps up with my antics via my blog and facebook feed because I update those much more frequently than I call her (oh, come on, like YOU call your mother every day).  In essence, anything I put on those feeds becomes reality for people who, like my mother, don’t see or speak with me on a daily basis.

And collaboration lends legitimacy.  Since it wasn’t just me in on the adventure and my posts were supported by those around me, suddenly it turned into something.  Just one person blogging like it’s the end of the world is an extremist piece of fiction.  Many people talking about the zombie holocaust like it’s actually happening turns into some semblance of reality.  It’s a communal fantasy which, when engaged with communally, becomes real.

So here is the story of our grand zombie adventure which occurred yesterday, as told by the facebook feed of myself, my roommate Stephanie (if you haven’t checked it out already, you should totally go look at her piece of internet fiction astroarcane…), and a few friends we picked up along the way.  A note: I wound up at the theatre last night so you’ll notice that my posts die out towards the end of the evening.  Ah, the cost of real-life living during the digital zombie apocalypse.  Many thanks to those who played along with me.  Hopefully you’ll enjoy reading these as much as we enjoyed writing them!

Danielle: (9:30 AM) Getting ready to roll out this morning, but it’s unusually quiet on the streets. Weird. By this hour I generally hear the kids from the school making all kinds of noise…

Danielle: (10 AM) The rain has let up, and maybe that’s what kept people from the streets. At Least I see some bodies now, but mostly folks shambling like they’re hung over or something. Odd on a Wednesday.

Danielle: (10:30 AM) Weirdest thing; on the way to the gym some guy tried to bite me! The homeless are getting really pushy these days…

Danielle: (11:30 AM) They had the TVs on at the gym and there was a lot of static coming through. Some stations were even down. Lots of news on though, and it seems like all the roads leading out of major cities are completely gridlocked. What IS going on today?

Stephanie: (11:34 AM) On my way home. This is ridiculous. Dani, let’s hit the road- I’ll pick up a flat of water en route?

Danielle: (noon) Alright, getting really nervous. Packing some things and going to pick up Stephanie at work. We’ll head north to [Friend with Guns and wilderness knowledge], he’ll have guns and stuff.

[Friend in NY]; in reply: I’ll meet you guys on the coast of Maine with [girlfriend] and The Intrepid as our floating sea fortress.

[Friend with guns and wilderness knowledge]; in reply: I’m already locked and loaded. Raided the Hannaford for canned goods and the harbor for a boat.

Danielle: (12:30 PM) I can hear some of those weirdos pounding on the garage door as I pack up the car. REALLY glad we had it replaced this year, sounds like they’re super strong.

Stephanie; in reply: Our landlord is a lifesaver, amirite? Did you have any trouble chasing [household pet] into the carrier?

Danielle; in reply: are you kidding me? Cats were the first thing to go. They’ve already been eaten by the horde.

Danielle: (1 PM) Stephanie retrieved successfully, though the cricket bat came in handy. Roads clear for now, but I’m anticipating a backup on the highway. Good thing I’m in an SUV.

Stephanie: (1:15 PM) Yeah, I’m really glad we’re in an SUV. Pile-up everywhere, and I think I just saw someone on fire. Yes. SomeONE. Danielle and I are still fine, thanks.

 [Local friend]; in reply: If there are any stragglers left, I’m going to try to grab [husband] and head up to the [family] Compound in VT. Shaw’s is a Meat Market right now (heh), so I may have to try to grab more supplies on the way. [Gay best friend], [Gay best friend’s law school fiancé] are you guys alright?

[Gay best friend’s law school fiancé]; in reply: Umm… I’m under a rock in bar exam prep-land…. what’s going on?

[Local friend]; in reply: stay under your rock if you can, until this craziness passes. Are you actually underground? That would be best. If you see shambling corpses, or someone tries to bite you, grab the heaviest Law Tome you can find and beat them with it. Then run. Quickly.

 [Gay best friend’s law school fiancé]; in reply: Ok. Constitutional Law is at the ready… If anything comes at me, they’re getting around 8 pounds of Federalism and the Fourteenth Amendment to the face.

[Gay best friend]; in reply: I’m good. Currently holed up with [other local friend]…I was wondering why the T was so empty. That would explain the random screams I heard in the way over.

Stephanie: (3PM) Danielle and I have made it into New Hampshire. Had to smash a barricade and plow over about ten shamblers. And some NH @@#*&(*^@ yokel took a potshot at our car with a SHOTGUN. [Friend with guns and wilderness knowledge], [Friend in NY], we’re almost to you… hope you’re still alive.

Danielle: (3PM) …man, good thing I’m a crazy New Yorker. Definitely had to pull some Dukes of Hazard tricks out of my hat to get us out of some major issues on the highway. Don’t worry, though, Stephanie and I are nearly to the rendez vous point…. we did, however, pass many abandoned vehicles, and loads of carnage on the way. Pondering a stop at the first shop we see that’s likely to have firearms.

Stephanie: (3:15 PM) If this day gets any worse… friggin roadsitters blew out our tire! Keeping watch with axe in hand while Danielle pops on the donut… I don’t see any shamblers right now, but you never know… wish us luck, people.

Stephanie: (3:20 PM) It spit at me! Giant frog thing spit at me!!!! Auuuggghhh!!!! Tell me this

Myself and Stephanie being cool and not looking at the explosion… because cool gals don’t look at explosions….

isn’t infectious… Danielle finished swapping the tire and we’re out of here, but covered in giant zombie frog spit. Great.  I did chop off one of its legs though. Last spotted it hopping in circles. HAH.

[NY Friend with Guns]; in reply: travel safe but be careful as it seems Concord NH is being overrun. Also Cabelas is in Scarborough, ME. Tons of guns, ammo, food, camping supplies.

Stephanie; in reply: we aren’t going through Concord thank god. Scarborough though isn’t too far out of our way. [Friend with guns and wilderness knowledge], [Friend in NY], you still waiting for us?

[Connecticut Friend]; in reply: Forget that, stop at the Kittery Trading Post – though a lot of people will probably be heading there.

[Housemate]; in reply: Be there soon! Keep your brains safe!

Stephanie; in reply: Oh hell no [housemate]! We’re already in Maine!

[Housemate]; in reply: Aw man, that’s so far away! It’s ok, I’ll just walk all night; I’ve been walking for a few hours ago and I don’t feel very tired, just hungry.

Danielle: (4PM) Okay we have decide to brave one last supply stop found a little mom and pop place that looks real quiet. Steph Is gonna stay behind the wheel and cover me/prepare to gun it in the event that things get not so quiet. Super glad I upped my cardio over the past few months!

Stephanie; in reply: nervous nervous nervous. Everything quiet out here…

[NY friend with guns]; in reply: Hope Danielle is still safe….

Stephanie; in reply: Roomie, why aren’t you out here yet?! Another car just pulled up…

Danielle; in reply: HOLY CHRIST ON A CRACKER WTF IS THAT!? ROOMIE, SKIDDING IN! GUN IT! GUN IT!

Stephanie; in reply: brb high speed car chase can’t update status… …okay, that was not the best way to “install” a sunroof into Danielle’s car. But we’re alive. we’ll be at the rendezvous in 30 and we have ammo.

[local friend]; in reply: ‎…there are crows perched everywhere on the rooftops. Just silent, and staring. Not sure if they are alive or dead, and don’t really want to go outside to find out. I have no firearms, just hairspray and a lighter….

Danielle: (4:15 PM): Alright, out unscathed and even scored some canned goods. Was a close call though. Apparently they have learned to drive. Let’s hope they haven’t figured out swimming yet.

Danielle; in reply: Well… By “unscathed” I mean “unbitten”. Gashed my leg pretty good on my over-the-hood slide as I got back in the car. Lots of blood, but it looks clean.

[NY friend with guns]; in reply: Not good

 Stephanie; in reply: We still have med supplies, she’s managed to get it pretty cleaned up.

Danielle; in reply: looks like a good clean cut. Big, but not deep. I’m relaxing with my leg up as Stephanie takes the wheel for the rest of the drive to the rendez vous

[NY friend with guns] in reply: Good luck ladies

Danielle; in reply: Hope you’re safe, [NY friend with guns]!

[NY friend with guns]; in reply: I should be fine…One of my customers just stopped by and hes a pilot so we are going to make for the airport

Stephanie: (4:30 PM): Ugh, another roadblock. Trying to offroad it gently, Danielle has her leg up and wrapped and I don’t want to jostle. We should be meeting up with [Friend with guns and wilderness knowledge] in about 15, and then we’ll be out to sea… can’t wait to be out of this.

Danielle; in reply: it’s alright, roomie. I assume that [Friend with guns and wilderness knowledge] knows someone who has the basic medical capacity to stitch me up. If not, it can’t be much different than sewing a hem, right?

Stephanie; in reply: I’m actually current on my first aid / cpr certs!

Danielle; in reply: no current, but know some things myself. This is a little beyond first responder stuff though. But hey, we’ll have fire and I brought a sewing kit. Maybe [doctor friend] will meet us there. Did we think to invite her?

Stephanie; in reply: well, that would have been SMART…

 [NY friend with guns]: (4:30 PM) Going to try to get to the airport and fly up to meet Danielle and Stephanie. This island is so overrun its crazy.

Stephanie; in reply: Careful in the skies. We spotted some fliers earlier.

[NY friend with guns]; in reply: Yeah, he flies an old WWII fighter and he thinks theres so ammo at the army base near by. Ill keep an eye out for swimmers…Zombie fish would not be good.

Danielle; in reply: We’ll wave a red flag emblazoned with a black stag. That’s how you’ll find us.

Stephanie: (4:45 PM) That was close.  Danielle and I are loading up our supplies onto [Friend with guns and wilderness knowledge]’s boat. I can’t wait to be safely out to sea away from these THINGS. Hope someone has a can opener…

[Connecticut Friend]; in reply: You can open any food can with a soup spoon. You’ll be fine. PS – giant frog things likely swim. Just a head’s up.

Stephanie; in reply: Are you and the fam OK?

[Connecticut Friend]; in reply: We’ve got food for a week and water for three weeks (if we don’t flush or shower), I’ve barricaded all doors and first floor windows, and I’ve stocked weapons. Infirmary is downstairs. I have access to the kitchen (with a generator if the power goes), the chemistry closet (as long as the internet stays up), and the maintenance barn (for more weapons if needed). I may take a run out for firearms, but we’re good for now.

Danielle; in reply: let us know if you need backup. We can organize a rendez vous point provided I survive this jungle surgery….

Stephanie; in reply: Yeah, but it can’t be Bridgeport – Long Island Sound is crawling with frog-things, I just heard.

[Connecticut Friend]; in reply: We should be good, but feel free to head this way. Rural area, large campus, lots of food and water sources. Also, I have a copy of The Colony on DVD…..

Danielle: (5PM): that was close. Managed to make the rendez vous point and caught [Friend with guns and wilderness knowledge] and [his girlfriend] via boat. Stephanie had a heroic gun-fight with some damn smart shamblers while we loaded the supplies. We’re going to swing down South to pick up [NY friend], [his girlfriend], and [NY friend with guns]. Wish us luck!

[Friend with guns and wilderness knowledge]; in reply: I hope your leg wound isn’t a bite. I will toss your overboard for the greater good

Stephanie; in reply: I can back her up that it was a scrape from the hood of the car, I saw it happen. And I think she’d want it that way,

Danielle; in reply: Yes, if I start to change, shoot me in the head. But really, it’s too clean to be a bite.

 [Gay best fried]; in reply: If you can buzz by the harbor in Boston, can I jump on. Just made my way to downtown Boston, been clobbering things…but my arm is getting tired…Faneuil Hall is a mess, I almost slipped an fell in blood. Good thing I wore my boots.

Stephanie; in reply: are the ferries still running? If you can get out to one of the Harbor Islands, that’ll be a safer pickup than the Harbor proper. Not to say we won’t do it for you…

[Gay best friend]; in reply: I’ve located a kayak, and am en route to one of the said islands. Thankfully the waterfront is quieter here, most of the shamblers have moved inward toward the city proper. That and the smell of fish is covering my scent, I think.

Danielle: (5PM) Now that we’re safe on the boat, going to attend to that leg wound of mine. Fire is nature’s sterilizer, right? You know, I didn’t wake up this morning thinking that I’d be living an action flick by dinner, but I guess there’s no time like the present to get over your fear of needles and stitch yourself up.

Stephanie; in reply: I got you, roomie. We got this.

[Connecticut friend]; in reply: Don’t cauterize! Use alcohol!

Danielle; in reply: oh, I meant for the needle. Here we go…

[NY bartender friend]: (5PM) Still waiting for [NY friend with guns] to swing by and pick me up. Those bastards have been clawing at my door for hours now! Only bringing the essentials. Guns, ammo, hair gel and a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue. If I find out he went for those two floozies Stephanie and Danielle first, i’ll kill him.

 Stephanie; in reply: Nice priorities, bro.

[NY friend with guns]; in reply: Ladies, should I pick him up?

Stephanie; in reply: Only if it’s not too out of your way. I do like Johnnie Blue.

[NY friend with guns]; in reply: OK on my way now, [NY bartender friend].

Stephanie; in reply: could really use a PLANE shooting BULLETS at these ZOMBIES DRESSED LIKE PIRATES anytime now… actually hold that I think we just cleared the last of them

 [NY bartender friend]; in reply: Don’t bother [NY friend with guns]. I’m waiting for my cruise to arrive….I guess you could wait with me.

Stephanie: (5:30 PM) This is almost relaxing. Haven’t spotted any zombies in nearly half an hour. Danielle is dozing a little – she deserves it, didn’t scream at all when we stitched her up. All is quiet, [Friend with guns and wilderness knowledge] at the helm of the boat…

Stephanie: (7 PM) Weird… just spotted 3-5 boats coming up on us fast. Not sure if friendly or not… better wake up Danielle and see what [Friend with guns and wilderness knowledge] thinks. It might be [NY friend] and [his girlfriend], so I don’t want to overreact…

 Stephanie; in reply: definitely not friends. brb, high speed boat chase scene

[NY bartender friend]; in reply: Well shit, if you already have a boat, swing around down to the island. I’ll meet you at Captree. I don’t know how much longer I can wait on [NY friend with guns].

Stephanie; in reply: Captree should be doable – that’s on the south side of the Island right? Avoid the Sound – crawling with the giant frog zombie things. They spit! Brb hail of bullets…

[NY bartender friend]; in reply: Yes. Follow Fire Island and turn in between Robert Moses and Gilgo State Park. I’ll be upstairs in the Captree Cove restaurant. I’ll let you know if anything changes

Stephanie; in reply: will do after picking up [Gay best friend] – a few hours – argh crap brb

[Connecticut friend]; in reply: If you put in around New London, you can make it up here – just a few hours of driving. You can probably pick up a vehicle from the casino valet parking…. We just had an influx of guns and supplies from a local colleague. We’re going to start barricading the dining hall – it’s got a generator, and can fit roughly 200 people upstairs.

[NY bartender friend]; in reply: Sure thing [Connecticut friend], right after she swings by to get me. Noooooo problem.

[Connecticut friend]; in reply: Hey, just trying to help – frankly, you’re more mouths to feed….

Stephanie: (8PM) Holy cripes… I think [Friend with guns and wilderness knowledge], Danielle, and I just finished off the last of these zombies (dressed like pirates, of all things). Boat still good for gas; time to swing by the Harbor Islands and pick up [Gay best friend], Then on to [NY bartender friend]…

Stephanie: (8:30 PM) Have acquired [Gay best friend] and are on way to [NY bartender friend]. All quiet for now. Keep feeling like this only means it’ll get worse once the sun sets…

Stephanie: (9:30 PM) Fuel starting to get low. Trading some rounds for gas; this boat man is really wary. Think he’d be starting something if we weren’t so well armed… Almost to [NY bartender friend] and [NY friend with Guns].

Stephanie: (11 PM) Pulling up on where [NY bartender friend] is holed up. It’s dark. I think I see zomfrogs hopping… Ugh. Time for plan B for blow em away?

[NY Bartender friend]; in reply: No frogs near the docks. Make sure they don’t hitch a ride in with you or else we are in trouble. Just took out a walker that looked like the Gordens fisherman.

[Gay Best Friend]; in reply: If we go back to back we should be OK. Just don’t let any goo in your mouth.

[“Good Idea” friend]; in reply: did you get any fuel , diesel , tapioca ,and fertilizer … if so find a couple of jars or empty the blue out , put a cup of diesel in , cup of tapioca pelts , stir fill rest to about with rocks to about two thirds, strip out a cloth , fill rest with fert. turn upside down fast a couple of times hold side ways light and toss at the bastards… losing light going in forty jars made … plenty of ammo nice pc of hickory … right beside the beds. getem gang wish i could be there . have you figured a way to get the batteries charged out here .

Danielle: (midnight) Okay folks, after a successful Frog-o-cide courtesy of [“Good Idea” friend]’s special cocktail, I’m happy to report that we are all Safe afloat the good ship Pinafore. Hopefully this will all have blown over by tomorrow.

News from the Front…

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A few brief updates to make one large update…

First: I wrote a guest blog for gradshare.com, you should go check it out!  While you’re there, poke around gradshare a little bit.  It’s a great project; basically a wiki for graduate students by the graduate community where folks can ask questions/post advice either anonymously or semi-anonymously.  That ability makes it a wonderful forum for those awkward questions that we are so bad at asking each other (you know, the ones that uttering could kill your career if someone overheard them).  I’m a firm believer in transparency within the academy and truly hope that projects like this can help move towards a profession no longer run behind closed doors.

We’re all in this together.  Really, we’re future colleagues.  We’re going to be peer reviewing each others’ work.  We’re going to be compiling volumes of each others’ papers for publication.  We’re going to be listening to/speaking with each other on conference panels.  Why shouldn’t we talk about the uncomfortable bits of the profession?  Why shouldn’t we support each other in this incredibly stressful career we’ve chosen to enter?

Through the years, I truly hope to see more forums like gradshare.

Second: I just finished reading this book (Surviving your Stupid, Stupid Decision to Go to Grad School by Adam Ruben PhD).

A confession; there were parts of the book which struck me as laugh-out-loud funny.  I definitely sat in the coffee shop chortling my way through the middle of the volume while desperately trying not to laugh too horribly loudly.

However, that being said, the rest of the gook left me with a very bad taste in my mouth.  Dr. Ruben has a PhD in molecular biology and, as his outlet through his PhD, he performed stand-up comedy.  Much like this blog is my way to express my discontent, discernment, and discombobulating, it seems that Dr. Ruben worked through his via his act which then produced this book.

I will be the first to admit that I write a lot of negative things on here.  However, for every realistically negative and hyperbolic hypercompensative remark I make, I’d like to think that I also say something positive.  I truly believe that I blog the highs and lows of academia, no matter how high and how low those get.

Well… Dr. Ruben got the lows part, but he failed to mention the highs.  Reading this book was like bashing the skull of the academy into the ground repeatedly while screaming “TAKE THAT, JERK!” at the top of one’s lungs when academia was already having a particularly bad day anyway.  I’m not saying that Dr. Ruben’s observations aren’t based in truth, but he takes that truth to such an alarmist extreme that it often moves past the realm of “funny” or “sad” and into “bullying”.  If the academy was a person, I’d call Dr. Ruben’s book slander and be tempted to sue him for libel of character.

In the words of the immortal Edmund Kean (well, attestation of the quote is debatable, but someone else has done the legwork on that): “Dying is easy, Comedy is hard”.

I worked the New York stand-up circuit for a while.  Trust me, I know how difficult it is to be funny.  But humor isn’t always just taking something to its ridiculous and negative extreme (though, granted, sometimes it is).  After reading Dr. Ruben’s book, I wasn’t left wondering about my own life choices.  Instead, I was left wondering about his.  If he truly had such a hideous, horrible, no-good, very-bad time in graduate school, then why did he do it?

Sure, plenty of people get into the PhD having no idea what they’re in for (I would argue that this is anyone and everyone who goes for a PhD, I certainly fell into this category), but nobody says that you have to continue if you’re truly that miserable.  Depending on your field, the rate of attrition is approximately 20% – 30% (higher for mathematics and physical sciences, lower in the humanities).  Plenty of people enter into doctorate living, decide it’s not for them, and leave.

The most important thing for a graduate student to remember while doing her PhD is that THIS IS YOUR LIFE.  It’s not a piece of your life, it’s not something you can just do then do something else afterward, you are training for the rest of your life.  While you are doing so, you are incurring a great deal of debt, stress, and personal strife.  Why would you sacrifice so much for something if you weren’t absolutely in love with it?

Now, I will grant you, I have my bad days.  I, in fact, have my awful days.  But never, since I started, have I ever once thought that I would be better off doing something else.  The

problems I have, while large problems and really tough to deal with, are problems that I would rather have than any other problems in the world.

So, if you must, read Dr. Ruben’s book… but do so with the understanding that a) he’s not a stellar writer, b) he’s not a stellar comedian, and c) if his life were truly that miserable, he should have done something about it other than complain.

…though his commentary on dealing with undergraduate students is dead-on.

Migrating

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Over the weekend, good friends and readers, myself and my partner in crime will be migrating DaniProse.com to its very own server.  You shouldn’t notice much change on user-side (at least for a bit…. I do plan to add some shiny new features as soon as I have access to my back end (… insert rude joke here)). 

 For now, please enjoy the following list of random quotes which have appeared in my life during the past few days:

 Partner: We still need to migrate DaniProse….
Me: Oh, yea!  To my very own Server!  And I shall be Queen of the Server!  And all shall love me and despair!
Partner: Well… it’s a shared server…
Me: Do I still get to be Queen of it?
Partner: Of course!  AND the Princess!
Me: AND ALL SHALL LOVE ME AND DESPAIR!

QP: What are you doing today?
Me: Learning German…
QP: Again?
Me: It takes a lot of time!
QP: ICH LIEBE DICH!
Me: ….. ich liebe dich weiter!

Director: Okay, we need to cut approximately 4,500 words from this script.
Me: *cracks knuckles, grabs red pen, eats a piece of chocolate*
Director: You go, girl. 

…it should be noted that when I came into work the next day, there was a small array of beautiful hand-crafted chocolate on a plate by my chair.  I looked at my director, “Is this a bribe?”
Director: If it gets you to cut more, I’ll provide chocolate. 

….later in that session when we hit a bit long speech… 

Director: (looks at me) Have some more chocolate! 

Have a fantastic weekend, and I’ll catch you on the new server!

Into the Abyss

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So I have previously mentioned that part of my process come panic time involves a giant whiteboard.

This is a survival mechanism which I developed in my Master’s.  Often, a graduate student lives in three to four different worlds an each world is represented by a separate syllabus.  Each has its own deadlines, requirements, readings, library pile, points of interest on the internet, points of contact at the department, rules, regulations, and practices.  Often, meshing these worlds together is the cause of a great deal of stress come finals time (see my momentary freak-out about over scheduling myself towards the end of last semester).  Also, because a course can contain many little assignments in addition to a large one, often things can get lost in the shuffle.

To combat this, I developed the whiteboard technique.  Whenever I’m feeling overwhelmed by deadlines, I make a chart.  I list what the assignment is (and, if it requires further specificity which due to the nature of grad-school courses it often does not, who it is for), where to send it (if you’re talking about abstracts and publication submissions, often those e-mails can get lost in the shuffle as well), and when it is due.  Then I leave myself a place to check off when the assignment has been completed.  On the side, I create a list of ongoing projects with no due-dates, just things that I need to remember to do.

Getting it all down in black and white (and often also orange, purple, and green when I’m feeling whimsical) helps to assure me that a) I didn’t miss anything, b) I won’t miss anything, and c) I really and truly do have a handle on my life.

At the end of the semester, when all is said and done, I leave the whiteboard there for a while with all of its check boxes intact.  It gives me a sense of accomplishment to see that I’ve met all my deadlines and, at the end of a semester, one needs all the sense of accomplishment one can find.

But the other day, I took the leap.

I erased the whiteboard.

It’s pretty freeing to be able to sit at my desk and have a giant blank slate hanging over me.  Of course, my summer projects are taking up a lot more of my time than I had anticipated (I dramaturge eight to ten hours a week, German class four hours a week, study approx. ten hours a week, have been trying to catch up on my sleep, my e-mails, my reading, my knitting, my life, and my gym schedule, I haven’t really had time to touch my papers that I wanted to brush off over the summer yet but it will come).  These ongoing projects, though, the kind with no deadline, they’re not exactly whiteboard material.  It’s like looking into a great white expanse of nothing.  My time is my own again.  I’m not working under pressure, I’m not working under any imposed or hard end-stop, I’m just working as much as I can as fast as I can.

…so I guess on the other hand not having white-board deadlines also means that I’m probably working more in between all the other things I do, but at this point I’ll just relish the change of pace.