Tag Archives: work

Archives: The Real Deal

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So here’s the thing about archival work: while it is absolutely thrilling in concept, in practice it is more often dusty, sneezy, and tedious.

Let me paint a picture for you here.  Mind you, this is a hypothetical situation based upon a compilation of real-life experience I have had.  Take it as historical fiction.

You know that a certain performance, which you are extremely interested in, played at y London theatre on x day.  Let’s say, for the sake of ease, that this performance is a performance of Hamlet in which Hamlet was played by a woman whose name you have found but not her picture (yet).  The theatre is a medium-sized London house in the early twentieth century (before WWI).  You know that the archive has a stack of broadsides for this theatre which spans the date range encompassing the performance.

First of all, getting into the archive is a process.  Generally all you will be

it’s been a while since I’ve posted an artful picture of my desk. Seem appropriate here.

permitted to enter with is a pencil, a laptop, a notebook, and a camera.  They’ll have lockers outside where you will be expected to strip away and store any “unnecessary” materials.  This includes your coffee and water bottle for obvious reasons, but in so doing also means that you have perhaps a 2-hour working window before you need to take a break, get a drink of water, or run to the powder room.

So you call up the broadsides and they come in a giant box that looks like it hasn’t been opened in twenty years.  The broadsides are crumbling at the edges because they haven’t been stacked properly and, as a favor, the archivist asks if you could re-stack them as you go in order to better preserve them.  The stack is approximately four inches high.

So you page through one at a time (because you can’t page any faster than that if you’re re-stacking, or even if you’re not re-stacking since they’re arranged in precise chronological order and you don’t want to disturb that… also they’re fragile and will crumble if they aren’t dealt with properly).  While this is exhilarating at first (tee!  You’re a real researcher!), it gets tedious very quickly.  Inevitably what you’re looking for is at the middle of the stack.  As you approach the target date, you can feel your blood begin to pump a little faster.  Here it comes.  That thing you were looking for!

You hit the target date.  And there’s a broadside, but not the one you were expecting.  Alternately, the broadside is missing.  You squint, wondering if you missed something, and continue paging.

If you’re lucky, it’s only moved by a day or two.  If you’re having a particularly bad archive day, it may be filed in the wrong year.  The archivists are horrified by this oversight (and very polite about it and extremely helpful in assisting you to locate the missing broadside).

While you’re paging, you find something that’s tangentially related to your primary research topic.  Alternately, it’s related to some other project that you’re working on.  You find some way to make a note to yourself that you pray you’ll remember to look at later on because, really, where do you file random notes to yourself with any efficacy?

So you finally find the stack of broadsides advertising the run.  Now you need to document them in detail as precise as possible.  You set them up to take pictures with your camera (or, as I’ve recently started doing, your phone since its camera is actually better than the one that’s dedicated to being a camera).  But make sure you take at least two or three because heaven forbid your pictures come out blurry.

Unless you decide to tether the camera to your computer (or, again as I’ve recently started doing, use dropbox to wirelessly transfer the pics so you can take notes on them as you go).  You now need to figure out how to demark which of these extremely similar looking broadsides is noteworthy, why, and how this broadside is different from all other broadsides.

And you hope you’ve gotten it right because coming back to the archive is a difficult/impossible task (depending on its proximity to your home/office) so really you’ve just got this one shot to document it.  In the immortal words of Ru Paul “Good luck; and don’t F#&% it up!”

So yes, archive work is thrilling.  If I wrote here saying that I had less than an amazing time during archive days and that I was anything under exhilarated by the prospect of rare books and manuscripts, I would have to hang up my scholar cap right now and go join the circus.  But that being said, it’s one of those tradeoff things.  You suffer for your art; for that one moment of “ah hah!”; and the dinosaur bones are always buried under layers upon layers of dirt.

Looking Back to Look Forward

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Today was back to the grind.

Which meant that I, like the rest of the world, spent the first half of my day unburying my inbox and summarily removing my head from the sand.  While I did do e-mail triage when I was away (I really can’t help it; I absolutely hate seeing those little red notification numbers pop up on my iPhone and not doing anything about them), this still took up a significant chunk of my time.  Which was a shame because my to-do list today was mammoth and included a large number of tasks, most of which could go on for an indefinite period of time.

I haven’t, until recently, really tested the outer limits of my juggling skills.  I know that my time management skills are superb, and I know (relatively) how much I can take before things begin to slip through the cracks.  As such, I tend to take on projects (especially short-term or intermittent projects) until my plate is absolutely at its breaking point.  I recently did a count of how many jobs I am actually working right now.  To qualify, I

A neat bookstore we found during our New York Adventures last week.

A neat bookstore we found during our New York Adventures last week.

considered a “job” as an ongoing project that has to do with my professional resume (either as an artist or an academic; because at this point one feeds the other and so they are essentially the same thing… I’m a mecha-demic).  Since I’ve been taking on various fight directing projects and small acting gigs (to keep up with these or where you can see my work, bop on by to my extracurricular activities page which I regularly update), the number fluctuates somewhere between five and ten on any given week.

It’s gotten so bad that my boyfriend, when I mention “my boss” or “my job”, has taken to asking “which one?”.  When we go see a show, which we do on a regular basis, he has to ask me “where did these tickets come from again?”  Usually he remembers to ask this question before the show so as to temper his feedback accordingly (you don’t know awkward until you’ve experienced a car-ride home from a show which you slammed before asking your companion how she was actually involved in its production only to find out that her input was exactly what you just vehemently protested*).

Occasionally I think that perhaps I should scale back.  When I have these thoughts, I like to remind myself that despite working long days, late nights, odd hours, and weekends on occasion**, I actually enjoy 80% of the things that I do (and that lingering 20% consists of necessary by-products; i.e. paperwork, annoying administration stuff, etc.).  There aren’t many people who can say that their job is consistently rewarding, always interesting, and ever-changing.  So even though paying my bills every month is a constant struggle, I can’t help but feel inescapably lucky.

I’m lucky to have the opportunity to pursue the level of education that I have, and I’m lucky to do so at an institution which is geographically located in a place where I actually want to live.

I’m lucky to have friends and loved ones who support (even if they don’t fully comprehend) my endeavors and are willing to listen to me ramble about history when I’ve had a bit to drink.

I’m lucky to be an artist of enough varying types that people are willing to pay me to

If you go see my latest FD project at Apollinaire, you'll see this audience set dressing. You won't see the shadow puppet; that was a special addition from my darling other half.

If you go see my latest FD project at Apollinaire, you’ll see this audience set dressing. You won’t see the shadow puppet; that was a special addition from my darling other half.

execute my art, and give me the opportunity to showcase and stretch it on a regular basis.

I’m lucky to encounter so many talented and intelligent people in my travels: students, mentors, and colleagues.

I’m lucky to have the means to participate in all the extracurricular activities which keep my multitude of jobs going; conferences, workshops, seminars, performances, classes, lectures, etc…

This is by no means a comprehensive list, but it’s a great start.  As I look into 2014, I see some changes on the wind.  It’s nice to take stock of what I have, even as I know it’s going to become what I had.

One more week of break before classes start and I’m determined to make it count.

 

 

*please note that this hasn’t happened in quite some time; whether that says something about the growth of my skills or the quality of my current company is yet to be determined.

**…okay, fine, on a regular basis.

Snow Woes

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My brain is a little numb.  I’ve been working very hard for a very long time, and there really isn’t a break in sight.  Well… there kinda is, but not one that I’m getting any close to (in a matter of a month I can take a pseudo-break but I can’t call it a “real” break since the semester will have just started and, thusly, I’ll be teaching at that point).  For now, I’m buried in books and, no matter how much reading I do, the book fort never seems to get any smaller (probably due to the fact that I keep piling library books on top of it even as I read them out from the bottom of the stacks).

To make matters worse, over the weekend we got our first major snowstorm here in the

From last year and with an APPROPRIATE amount of snow. Harumph.

Northeast.  This at least gave me the ability to successfully test my hypothesis that I would rather do any other task in my household than shovel.  As I suited up to deal with the icy toboggan-trail that had become my driveway, I couldn’t help but wryly remark to myself that snow days really ain’t what they used to be.

The funny thing about snow in Boston is you’d think that, since it’s a city inhabited by New Englanders, nobody would have a problem with it.  They’d go about their business without much to-do and continue on their merry ways amidst the downfall.  But no.   Somehow, inevitably, the first snow of the year transforms the city into a conglomerate of royal jerks who have all miraculously forgotten how to drive.  Additionally, even though the roads are still slippy/slidey, Bostonians think that snow on the sidewalk makes it acceptable to walk in the road rather than tromp on their nice, safe, designated walkway.  I can’t even begin to tell you how many pedestrians I almost ran down on my way home from rehearsal last night.

As an added bonus, since my driveway is uphill both ways and the nice fluffy pillows of wonder that fell from the sky this weekend froze over with about an inch of caked-on skating-rink quality ice, my back seems to have called up its union and gone on strike in protest of hard manual labor.

And we’re expecting more snow tomorrow.

If anyone needs me, I’ll be in my cave.  Grumbling.

Reputation, Reputation, Reputation!

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Alright, so you’ve done some thinking about the cardinal rules of the internet.  You have an understanding of social networking platforms.  Now you need to figure out who you want to be online.

No, seriously, that’s really important.

The internet persona is the projected image of yourself that you put on the internet.  Through a combination of social media, blogging, and strategic web page contributions, you can curate an online presence which projects a very specific image of who you are.  This image can have as much (or little) to do with reality as you deem appropriate for your chosen objective.

These days, curating an online presence is an extension of creating a marketable resume.  Because trust me, one of the first thing your potential employer is going to do when your resume hits her desk is google your name.  So what is she going to find there?  Pictures of you making stupid life choices in your undergrad, or information to support the notion that you’re a responsible and respected professional in your chosen field?

This is the first image that pops up in google when you search my name (that's because it's my google+ profile pic); know how your networking effects your search results.

This is the first image that pops up in google when you search my name (that’s because it’s my google+ profile pic); know how your networking effects your search results.

Now.  This isn’t to say that you can’t have multiple online personas (you can); you will just need to be extremely careful at the personal information you share with each social networking platform (and keep clever track of your online dossiers).  Often times, even if your full name or e-mail isn’t available in a public profile, it can still be linked via meta-data to whatever network you are currently using.  So if you want to do the alter ego thing, you really need to be on top of who you are where and what your privacy settings look like at each port of call.

Personally, I think it’s just easier to keep my digital nose clean.  My job is the biggest extension of my personality anyway, and often the quirky personal details that I use to spiff up this blog, my twitter feed, and certainly my facebook lend credence to my framing argument: hire me because I’m passionate, knowledgeable, and (literally) live for this.

I do realize that I’m a special case.  I happen to love my chosen vocation and, even if I wasn’t getting paid to do it, I’d still be involved with it.  You can take the girl out of the theatre, but you can’t take the theatre out of the girl.  Additionally, theatre (and academia) are both life-devotions rather than professions.  I don’t have regular set hours, I am basically on-call all the time, and I never really “walk away” or leave my work “at work” because there’s actually no way to.  I will always be thinking about my research.  I will always be grinding on my next project.  My brain doesn’t compartmentalize very well.

Even if you function under more conventional rules of “work”, you should consider your web presence to be an extension of your professional self.  What qualities does your industry require to be the most successful in it?  What personal flair do you bring to a project?  What does your industry value in a worker?

This is not to say that your online persona should be a robot-you single-mindedly programmed to do nothing but work; far from it.  Your online persona should be personable; human.  Just a human built to do the job that you want to do.

Does your industry require tenacity?  Straightforwardness?  Verve?  What is it that makes people want to work with you in your industry?  What can you offer to a project that no one else can?  If you can figure out how to answer these questions, you can begin to craft a persona that exhibits these qualities.

Where would someone in your industry be expected to hang out?  Do in their free time?  Think about how your leisure activities reflect upon your human aspects (for instance: you will notice an inordinate number of tweets on my feed about going to the library, grading, and otherwise working on things…. That’s by design, folks).  What are the kinds of things that someone in your industry would be expected to notice from the places you go?  The

I am, for instance, the type who takes pictures of beautiful libraries (yes, this is a public library)

I am, for instance, the type who takes pictures of beautiful libraries (yes, this is a public library)

architecture?  The marketing potential?  Find a way to cleverly insert your observations into your tweets, facebook posts, instagram pics.

Social networking is a careful game of show and tell.  You assemble the pieces of a puzzle to resemble what you want to show people.  Sometimes, one piece out of place can get glossed over (perhaps one less-than-appropriate tweet).  Sometimes, the egregiousness of an already problematic infraction multiplies into proportions which swallow the rest of your public image (see: the recent Steven Taylor Twitter racism scandal http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/steven-taylor-could-charged-fa-6310354 ).  But this shouldn’t be a problem for you since you’re following rule one of the internet, right?  RIGHT?

Know Thy Platforms

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One size does not fit all with social networking.  While it’s true that anything put on the internet becomes public domain, you should always keep in mind the forum which you are using.  Different platforms lend themselves to different kinds of information sharing (and different degrees of privacy).  Here are the ones I use and here are some general tips about using them:

Platform: Twitter

Privacy options: nominal; Twitter is the most public (and the most viral) of social networking.  Since re-tweeting is so easy and micro-blogs published via twitter are so digestible, a single tweet can travel pretty far.  Additionally, without toggling the one privacy option (you can opt to “protect your tweets” and only show them to approved followers, not allow them to be retweeted, and bar them from being crawled by google), your feed is visible to everyone, whether they follow you or not.

Ephemerality:  Since twitter is so easy to update, information appears and disappears

Twitter also encourages me to take shots like this so I can tweet them at the University. Look at the campus being gorgeous and autumny!

Twitter also encourages me to take shots like this so I can tweet them at the University. Look at the campus being gorgeous and autumny!

quickly via this platform.  It’s extremely easy for a tweet to get buried in a busy feed (unless it’s been re-shared many times over in which case you’re relying upon virality to keep the information available rather than any platform-supported permanence).

 Contribution to your web presence: HUGE.  Since google crawls and re-crawls twitter, frequent tweeting can help to boost your SEO (google my name for example and see how high my twitter profile is on the hit-list; as well as how many items there are twitter influenced).

Things I generally use it for: witty one-liners, quick news updates, sharing pictures, publicizing blog posts, interesting links, networking at events (it’s a lot easier to connect with someone when you have an established twitter rapport than if you’re going in cold).

Things I never use it for: extremely personal items (my students actively follow me on twitter), reproducing unpublished work (my own or another’s; this is particularly important to remember when live-tweeting conference papers)

 Guiding analogy: Posting on twitter is like yelling something into a room crowded with all of your friends, family, coworkers, and potential future bosses: you never know what portion of it they will hear so you’d better keep it safe and interesting.

Platform: Facebook

Privacy options: Some.  You can adjust who sees which sections of your profile by way of creating lists and jiggering your privacy options.  For instance; only certain subsets of my friends lists can see pictures I am tagged in; I keep some status updates semi-public (available to the lists I specify).  This does require a time devotion because you need to go through and listify your five hundred something previous friends, but once you’ve set this up it require relatively little maintenance.

Ephemerality:  Medium.  Due to facebook’s constantly changing news list sort algorithm, only certain things will appear in certain feeds.  That being said, once they’re up those pictures last FOREVER.  I would highly recommend that you keep particularly your photographic facebook presence highly guarded, and highly professional.  If you have any silly shots of yourself that you want to post, make sure that you figure out who you really want to give access to before you post them.

Contribution to your web presence: some; it won’t readily pop up in a google search (especially if you have a lot of other things there), but it’s definitely a way to establish a digital network.

Things I generally use it for: Neat links, sharing pictures, status updates that are longer than 150 characters, crowd-sourcing casual queries (“hey guys, who studied at X actor training institution and what did you think?”), interacting with the latest news or buzzfeeds, contacting individuals without having to acquire their cell numbers and/or opening an e-mail client (really useful at conferences).

pictures like this should probably be locked down. You know; the ones that are silly but maybe not 100% professional... unless you're a fight director in which case it's your job to play with arms and armor (see? See what I did there?)

pictures like this should probably be locked down. You know; the ones that are silly but maybe not 100% professional… unless you’re a fight director in which case it’s your job to play with arms and armor (see? See what I did there?)

Things I never use it for: personal items that I am not comfortable sharing with a roomful of friends (and I am ALWAYS careful when I share personal items via the internet anyway because you just never know who will wind up seeing them), public messages which should be private (“Dear Housemate, let me passive aggressively post a status about something you did which bugs me so that all my (and your) friends can see it and judge you for it rather than talking to you directly like a reasonable human being”), news which I’m not ready to go viral (I have a short list of people that I tell big news items to before posting them on facebook).

 Guiding analogy: Posting on facebook is like whispering something in a sorority house; no matter how you modulate your voice or how many promises of privacy you wring from the recipient, the information is undoubtedly going to be given to everyone around you in a matter of days whether you want people to know it or not.

Platform: Instagram

Privacy options: Nominal.  You can have one of two profiles: very public (default), or private (which means that only approved followers can see and follow your posts).

 Ephemerality:  Reasonably permanent.  Instagram photos are crawled by google which

Instagram has also, unfortunately, made me the kind of person who takes pictures of my beer.

Instagram has also, unfortunately, made me the kind of person who takes pictures of my beer.

means that they are almost impossible to get rid of.  You can delete them purposefully, but once they’re out there they’re really out there.

 Contribution to your web presence: Nominal.  Even though my instagram account is linked to my full name, it barely registers on google searches (even google image searches).

Things I generally use it for: Pictures.  Duh.  Instagram is, honestly, rather new to me.  I mostly use it to get my artiste kicks out (and because I’ve recently become obsessed with the iPhone 5’s photography capabilities).

Things I never use it for: Pictures that are criminal/inappropriate, anything I would take issue with being projected on a wall behind me while I was giving a conference paper.  I don’t tend to post pictures of myself (simply because I see my instagram feed as an art project rather than a vanity project), but I wouldn’t have a particular objection to someone posting pictures of me so long as they were reasonably professional.

Guiding analogy: Posting on Instagram is like leaving your photo album on the table of a popular doctor’s office; you have no idea who is going to look, but you’d better not put anything in there that you regret.

Platform: Blogging

 Privacy options: Depends on your platform; if you use a pre-made blogging service (like livejournal), you can lock it down pretty easily.  However, if you’re using an independently operated blog, the general idea is for it to be a public forum.

Ephemerality:  Extremely permanent.  You always have the option to take down or hide posts which aren’t working for some reason, but really consider that whatever you put up there is going to be a lasting record until either you or your blog service choose to remove it.

Contribution to your web presence: Huge; especially if you’re a regular/frequent blogger.  Google crawls and re-crawls sites according to an algorithm that fluctuates based on many factors (among these are the instances of new content with each crawl).  Essentially, if google’s spider finds that your site is different on this crawl than on its last crawl, it will flag the next crawl to occur at a shorter interval then the last one.  In short: content makes SEO.  Update regularly, update frequently, and don’t update with identical information.

Things I generally use it for: If you are reading this, you don’t need glasses.

Things I never use it for: Extremely personal information (seeing a trend here?), actually generally personal information (I keep things here well within a crafter persona… more on that in the next post of this series), things that deviate from my theme (that theme being graduate school, Shakespeare, and theatre in general; sometimes divulging into what it’s like to be a woman in academia).

 Guiding analogy: Posting a blog is like keeping a diary in a public-access library: it’s there whenever for whomever to pick up and read, and it’s going to last until someone tears out or burns up a page.

I am purposefully leaving Pinterest off this list.  While I know that it’s technically social networking, to me pinterest has always seem like a time-kill or video game rather than anything else.  Also, I still don’t understand my pinterest privacy options, so I’d have a hard time explaining them to you.  Just stick to the general rules of the internet and you’ll be fine.

Stay tuned for the next post in this series: developing and cultivating an online persona.

Cheers!

List! List! O, List!

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So you know that burn-out that everyone told me would happen right after my written exams but never really happened so I just kept steam-rolling ahead to clear the projects off my desk which had back-piled while I was too busy worrying about comps?

Yea… it’s finally hit me.

Travel beer is fundamental; this was mine during my layover in DC last week

Travel beer is fundamental; this was mine during my layover in DC last week

After I got home from Blackfriar’s I had an initial rush and wave of inspiration, but that quickly faded with the realization of how very much work I have to do in the next few weeks and how very little time I have to do it in.

It got to the point where, when I received some updated information on my flight for this weekend (two conferences in three weeks, I realize every time, is never a good idea), I actually began to dread leaving my lair.  This is particularly odd for me since I love to travel, I’ve never been to Texas (this weekend’s conference is ASTR in Dallas), and I have always wanted to ride a mechanical bull.

“Plugging away” has become an artform in my life since I started the PhD.  “Making something out of nothing” (generally work out of less than zero energy) should really be listed as a special skill on my resume.

When I start to feel this way, one of the few things that I can depend on to keep me going is a copious number of lists.  Whenever I feel overwhelmed about the amount of work on my desk, I make a list: here’s what I have to do today.  Whenever I feel like I might not get to sleep because I’m worried about how much I have to do the next day, I make a list: here’s what I have to do tomorrow.  Recently, a new kind of list has entered my life: here’s what I have to do before I get on an airplane to go to the next conference (in the case of that list, I was even able to schedule when these tasks would get done and sketch out my week that way so that whenever I had that creeping “I’m forgetting something” feeling, I could just re-check my work schedule and make sure I had everything under control which, generally, I did).

Lists help me to prioritize my work.  Sometimes, I include “optional” tasks at the bottom of

moody shot of my desk last night; complete with tea!

moody shot of my desk last night; complete with tea!

my lists (“in case you finish all of this, also do this!”).  This keeps me from being overwhelmed, but also allows me to stretch to finish all of my tasks.  I am the kind of person who really can’t relax unless I am absolutely certain that everything which can be taken care of has been (even niggling e-mails will bother me unless they are sent).  My lists help assure me that yes, I can take a break right now without worrying that something is left undone.

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, but I am definitely not there yet.  One way or another, as George R.R. Martin would remind us, winter is coming.  And in this case that isn’t so horribly bad because winter means break time.  I just need to make sure all of my work gets done first.

An Observation

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Here’s a problem I write about pretty frequently which seems newly pertinent today: when you’re a good academic, you never stop working.

I can’t tell you the last time I spent a whole weekend without answering a work-related e-mail, cracking a work-related book, doing a library run, doing work-related writing, discussing my research, sitting at my desk, contemplating a draft, going to rehearsal, doing research, or just flat-out tagging an extra two days onto my work week.

In any other field, this would be called “workaholism”. The constant drive to continue doing whatever it is that earns you a paycheck without a regular break is widely regarded as an unhealthy work habit.

And yet, somehow, in academia it is encouraged.

Oh sure they tell you “take time off” or “walk away from your desk at the end of the day”, but really, do we? In the age of smart phones, is it even possible to leave your work at work? And what does that mean since the ivory tower is such a theoretical construct? It would be impossible for me to function if having healthy work habits meant that I could only work when on campus.

I’ve had to find ways to delineate the boundaries between my work and my life (for example, unless it’s the middle of summer and a scorcher day and thereby I need to seek refuge in air conditioning somewhere, I only work at my desk and will not bring reading to my couch or my bed no matter how tempting). But even I, with a keen eye on this issue, find that work creeps into every aspect of my life.

While out having an amazing time this weekend, I couldn’t avoid the fact that I was receiving e-mails related to my class, or my exams, or my upcoming conferences. I couldn’t stop blathering about the research I was doing and the new things I’ve realized about American actor training. My head so far into this game, it’s not really possible (I think) to leave this by the wayside.

It may just be that I’m at a particularly taxing point of the PhD process (well… I definitely am), but I can’t help but feel that this is an under-attended issue.

That being said, I have nominal suggestions for how to fix it. Thought patterns being what

....spectacular adventures like this one. I rode an elephant!

….spectacular adventures like this one. I rode an elephant!

they are, the best work is going to come from immersion. My plan this semester was to dive in head first and take a nice long break when I popped up on the other side (so… in December sometimes). Meanwhile, I’ve been content with having a few spectacular adventures during the in-between times.

And now… back to the grind.

Riding the Wave

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Lately I’ve been doing what I not-so-fondly refer to as “riding the wave”.

It begins like this: it’s Monday.  I have all my books lined up for the week in neat bite-size piles.  I can totally do this.  I’ve learned so much already and I’m a rockstar.  No, I’m friggen invincible.  I’m bloody supergirl.  I can conquer not only this book pile, but maybe one or two from tomorrow’s book pile and OH MAN THAT EXAM BETTER LOOK OUT!

Tuesday morning dawns and I’m still riding the Monday high, rearing to go, totally ready for whatever the day brings with it.

By Wednesday I have to slow down a bit.  My zen isn’t completely blown, but I begin to experience symptoms of eye strain/brain overload/stress and I decide to take it easy for the day so I can make it through my week.

By Thursday, I’m completely frazzled.  I have (sometimes) multiple panic attacks, I don’t want to see or talk to anyone, I’m pounding my head into my desk singing “I suuuuck I suck I suck I suck I suuuuuccckkkk” (see: 2:48).  I often give up reading halfway through the day in lieu of watching filmed theatre or documentaries.  I have a fitful night.  Sometimes I drown my sorrows in ice cream.  Sometimes I opt for a beer.

Friday, I drag myself out of bed and a miraculous thing happens: I talk myself into doing it again.  Somehow, through sheer force of will, I sit back down at my desk, portion out some more books, and crack them and get to work.  I take it easy for the first few hours, but eventually I get going and when I really get going I’m hard pressed to stop.  I remember why I love theatre.  I remember why I’m doing this.  I remember why I picked this life style.  By the end of the day, my spirits aren’t completely revived but I am resolved to spend the weekend relaxing and recharging and getting ready to do it again next week.

The important part isn’t that we love what we’re doing all the time.  We’re not going to love what we’re doing all the time.  There’s always going to be some part of the job that we loathe, detest, or otherwise makes us utterly stressed out.  The important part is that, when this does happen, we pull it together.  We pick ourselves up and get back on the proverbial horse.  We charge back into the fray, guns blazing, ready to show that research who’s boss.

I am officially T-minus twenty days to comps liftoff.

Here I go, back into the fight.

Autumn is Coming

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As August winds down and the summer comes to a close, I am nearing the completion of my study-time.  I’m also nearing the completion of my list of things to study.

Lately, when I talk to people about the study process, pretty much everyone has the same thing to say about it: “Well, it’s almost over.”  The smart people then revisit this statement, look at me with a wide-eyed sheepish gaze, and add “…which is both good and bad.”

It’s both good and bad that I’ve, at this point, combed through every chapter in Brockett except the one devoted to contemporary theatre (which I might not get to and, honestly, that’s probably okay given the amount of contemporary theatre I see and have lived through).  It’s both good and bad that I’ve been through every section of my reading list and ordered/read the books from each of them (I’ve just done the last round of book-looking for the “North America” section; I’ll be picking those up at the library tomorrow).  It’s both good and bad that I’ve even started to return some of the beginning-of-the-summer ILL acquisitions (ILL books tend to have a sooner due-date than those borrowed from my home institution, and they are unavailable for renewal so I don’t have much by way of choice here and with 135 books sitting on my floor and more to come I can probably use the cycle-out time; if I haven’t gotten to them by now chance are I won’t get to them anyway).

This is, by far, the largest book in the book fort. It is literally bigger than I am and 300 pages long. It nearly killed me.

This is, by far, the largest book in the book fort. It is literally bigger than I am and 300 pages long. It nearly killed me.

I’m feeling oddly serene these days (though exhausted).  Granted, it is the beginning of the week and I tend to be more at peace with the universe before Thursday morning.  However, there is a consistent feeling of calm; I’ve learned a lot this summer.  I know a lot of things.  I’ve forgotten a lot this summer, but I’ve scheduled review time into my study habits.  I continue to look at old exams and think “well, it’d be a struggle but I think could manage this”.  Perhaps it’s just that I’m getting used to the stress load (there’s only so long you can run around feeling like Atlas before your shoulders become stronger).  Whatever it is (and I don’t want to say this too loudly in case my body figures out that I’m onto it), I am grateful for the respite from the physical symptoms of stress.

I’m definitely experiencing the trifecta of exhaustion (physical, mental, and emotional).  I’m definitely still in the weeds.  But, for whatever reason, the end of summer isn’t (at least at this moment) causing blinding panic and paralyzing terror.

I’m looking forward to the start of the semester.  I’m looking forward to teaching my acting class.  I’m looking forward to taking the next step on the journey towards Doctorhood.  I’m looking forward to returning the book fort only to re-model it with shiny new books.  I’m looking forward to doing something new and different with my days.  I’m looking forward to boots, sweaters, scarves, and the return of my favorite seasonal jacket.  I’m looking forward to pumpkin flavored treats.

Autumn is coming.  You can try to run from it, or embrace it.  And I, personally, look great in fall colors.

I hope your semester-start prep is going well; keep plugging!  We’re nearly there!

The Warm-up

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This is a drive-by to let you know that I’m not dead.

I wish I could say many things; aphorisms about how hard I’ve been working this week, comforting thoughts about how I’m nearing the end, or really just something poignant about the process I’m going through right now.

Unfortunately, they would all be lies.

The process is only beginning.  I’m just dipping my toes into the ocean that is studying for comps.  I’ve been working hard, but it’s only a warm-up for the big leagues that are ever so steadily coming my way this summer.

For that, this warm-up period is important.  You can never, ever, throw yourself into the

This was the amusing thing that happened yesterday when my comps pile for the day caved in on itself.

This was the amusing thing that happened yesterday when my comps pile for the day caved in on itself.

deep end and expect to swim when you’re plumb exhausted.  I took a break, but quickly found that that break wasn’t enough.  A good friend reminded me that fatigue is cumulative and yes, I just achieved an enormous step in this whole “becoming a Doctor” process (even though the next mountain is about twice as high and infested with Yetis) it’s no wonder I’m so damned tired.  Giving into this sometimes is only going to help me in the long run and I can study during the intervals between naptime, so long as I keep naptime under control.  In other words:    warming my brain back up to the idea of working is an important step.

It’s not pleasant.  I would liken it to those first few days at the gym pushing yourself into a brand new workout regime: i’s sweaty, uncomfortable, and no matter how good you know it is for you, you never want to go do it.  You wake up exhausted and sore the next day with only the knowledge that, in order to achieve your goals, you must do it again.  And again.  And again.

So I’m hitting it.  I’m holding myself to deadlines, I’m withholding the appropriate bribery forms (often times I have to physically walk away from my desk to keep myself from messing around on the internet instead of reading Greek tragedy), I’m keeping a proper scheduling (SCHEDULING IS IMPORTANT!  Nothing creates burnout like too much work crammed into an undoable amount of time!), and I’m making sure I eat and exercise regularly.

For that, I’m tired.  I’m stressed.  And I don’t see it getting better anytime soon.

This summer is just going to be another exercise in staying in the red and finding the energy.  But you know what?  Sometimes, you just have to get it together and muscle through.

If you need me, I’ll be buried under this pile of books for the next few months.  Don’t mind the occasional bouts of cursing, snoring, or drooling.