losing the battle

07Jul09

I’ve taken a few weeks off from the archives to write up a very rough draft of one of my chapters. It’s the second week of this break and I still haven’t begun actual writing. Once again, the challenge of reading through these sources is so mammoth that I have determined my general argument and a rough structure of the chapter itself way before I’ve finished reading sources pertinent to that argument and structure. In some ways that’s good; I’ve found that my arguments are more sophisticated when they gradually come into view in light of the material I’m reading than when time’s run out and I have to put something down, contradictory evidence be damned. But it’s frustrating as well; the last thing I want to do right now is read more sources. I just want to dive into the part I like most about doing history: writing it. I’ve attempted to skip as much as I can, stuff where information is repeated or where the information is no longer pertinent to the argument. But there are some things that just can’t be skipped: reports that get to the very heart of my question.

I really need this to be the last week of reading sources; ideally I’d actually start writing by Thursday, but that’s not looking very likely. I’m pretty sure I can bang out a (very) rough draft in about a week’s time. But I just can’t justify spending much more than three weeks on this chapter. The end of my research time is fast approaching and while I do have almost two months left here, I also have a ton of research still to do. I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before but one of the difficult things to do in a long-term research trip is manage one’s time. I find it especially difficult because I’m not a morning person, I’m not particularly disciplined, and I’m prone to weeks-long spells of research inactivity. All those issues are tied to the chaos in my personal life and the solutions for any of those problems aren’t clear. For the moment, they’re just features of my life that I have to accept and work around.

The point is that now that I see an actual argument shaping up and now that the end point of my research trip is closer, I feel a strong urgency to get this damn thing written.

Today I started to tackle the biggest remaining file that I have to read. The file is so large that I broke the photographs of it into five separate pdfs; in total, there are about 500 photographs. Quite a few of the photographs aren’t particularly clear, despite my best efforts. (I took the pictures on the highest resolution my camera has and also took two pictures per page, top and bottom. Quite time consuming in the archives, I might add.) This file has a big report in it that I really shouldn’t skip; it’s one of the most detailed essays on  the events in question. But as I started, it just became clear that this was a mammoth task. Some of the handwriting’s difficult to decipher, the ink is faint, the two pictures per page make it very difficult to read. Add to that the typical floridness of the period, where a lot is written and little substance is conveyed but it’s not clear just how little is being said until you’ve read it all. The longer I’ve been working on it, the more I’ve skipped, always writing notes to myself that I’ll come back to this or that section when it comes time to revise. And finally I wrote, “I just cannot do this right now.”

The source has defeated me.

In the long run, I’m not worried about it. I’ll return to this document along with other stuff I’ve set aside when I’m in full-time writing mode. In a way I had not expected, it’s become clear to me why it’s so difficult to write and do research at the same time. I’d been adamant that I wasn’t going to be one of those graduate students who returned from the field with thousands upon thousands of unread photographs, photocopies, or pages of notes. Those students generally took a few (or several) years after archival research to finish their dissertations and, for many reasons, I knew I needed to be done with graduate school as quickly as I could write a good dissertation. And I’m very glad I didn’t wait until I returned to start writing. I’m pretty sure I’m doing better research because I started writing plus I’ve got a sense of where I’m going that I wouldn’t have if I just sat down to my unread sources without a clue in the fall. That being said, though, I was a bit glib about how difficult it would be to balance the two. My time writing is overshadowed by a need to not let the writing take away too much time from research. My time researching is overshadowed by the question about when I’m going to start writing. My time here is not unlimited and each of those tasks is time-consuming and emotionally draining in its own right.

It’s also worth asking whether I must write this chapter right this second. Technically, no. But my advisor is waiting for a chapter and the longer it takes me, the more worried I get about how the advisor sees me. But even more important than that, I’ve gotten to the point where I have to write this chapter now. I’ve read so much of the sources, I’ve thought about it for well over a month. It’s like that feeling when something’s on the tip of your tongue, only that something is an entire chapter. It will drive me bonkers if I don’t get it written.

So write it I will, without this really important source. I’ll have lots of footnotes saying how I have yet to read this, which I’m sure will go down a treat with the advisor. But then again, the advisor has made it clear that structure and argument are more important at this point that complete mastery of the evidence, so I’m not fully in the wrong here. Plus if I mention that it would have taken me several weeks to go through this file properly, I’m pretty sure the advisor will prefer to get written work sooner rather than later.

Sorry for the length.

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camouflage

24Jun09

I realized yesterday just how much I’ve become attached to being able to blend in here. I had dinner with a friend from the US yesterday; this friend has a particularly American presence. Tall, slightly louder on public transit, friendly in that very American way, among other subtleties. I focus on presence here because I have a strong American (though not regional) accent so the jig is up once I open my mouth. I’m completely fine with that but I do love not being pegged as an American the second I step outside. Anyway, when I was with my friend, I felt unusually uncomfortable because I could no longer blend into my surroundings. And I felt bad because I was judging the friend as though I were British. It was weird.

I’m not one of those people who slips in and out of accents. I’m too inhibited for that and I think it’s horribly tacky and strange when people do it. But I’ve done a similar transition: I’m starting to think and behave like a Brit, or at least like a Londoner. I’ve gotten very used to moving through the city in my own little world, with my headphones on, and with a purpose. Nobody’s going to say anything to me; I don’t have to say anything to them. It’s wonderful. So even though I was talking to somebody I knew, it was weird to be riding on the tube and talking to anybody, let alone to be talking at a slightly louder volume than I would normally with the few British friends I have.

And yes, I’m a horribly judgmental person but there’s not a ton I can do about that.

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a random smattering

24Jun09

• Per usual, now that the end is in sight of this research trip, I’m upping my game. If I want to be successful in this profession, I have to stop lazing about until I have two or three months left and then clicking into gear.
• I’m not sure if I’ve gained actual weight but I’ve been feeling particularly sluggish and heavy lately. That needs to get sorted.
• People who handle the problems life hands them without getting completely broken in the process impress me. I find it impossible to remain anything close to happy for any significant length of time.
• Wimbledon is considerably less interesting to me now that Rafael Nadal’s not playing, a decision of his that I completely support. (Frankly, for several years now, I’ve been questioning his insane playing schedule.) That said, as much as I love the Brits, I just can’t get behind this Andy Murray buzz so I’m hitching my horse to the Roger bandwagon.
• The last twenty minutes of the Real Housewives of New Jersey finale last week were genius. The best thing I’ve watched in 2009.
• I’m trying a new writing method for the chapter I need to finish in the next few weeks. I’m taking handwritten notes on the sources rather than the more free form musings I’d done for the last chapter. But again I’m at the same problem: too many sources to read so that the process of writing drags out much longer than my advisor would like. Maybe that’s less about my writing style and more about the unmanageability of my project. I shudder to think what’s going to happen when/if I begin to develop a second book project. Isn’t that the time you really go for broke?
• While I continue to take horrid care of myself, at least I have booked a weeklong vacation/writing retreat/getting away from it all trip to my favorite part of the UK. Cannot wait.
• As for cute guy in the cafe, that whole thing caused me much anxiety a few weeks ago. Then I stopped caring and am relatively cool about the whole thing. That being said, although I’ve been to the cafe several times since first seeing him, he’s been there only one of those times. Such a waste of eyeshadow.
• Music: really loving La Roux, Agnes, and Lady Gaga’s Paparazzi (though not Lady Gaga herself)

That’s enough for now, I think.

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this seems impossible…

09Jun09

but I think I might have a good (and not just functional) relationship with an advisor who has my back and is excited about my work. And I haven’t switched advisors. I’m overwhelmed by this new development and somewhat dazed but I can’t deny it anymore: we’ve turned a corner and now things are good, actually bordering on great.

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this could be interesting

08Jun09

Yesterday I had coffee with one of my male friends at a cafe where a very hot man works. I’ve been to this place before but I’d never seen this guy. And, as would be my luck, I was with a man. I looked at this guy repeatedly during my conversation with my friend and he seemed to be looking at me. So tomorrow I’m going back, just to see. I’m keeping my hopes as low as possible; these things never turn out in my favor. I’m telling myself he has a girlfriend, unless I find out otherwise. But I’ll be putting on makeup (something I only do if I’m going clubbing) and otherwise going out of my way in the hopes of seeing this guy again. What I’ll do if he’s there again other than smile, I don’t know. I’m incredibly, almost pathetically, self-conscious and shy when it comes to this stuff so I’m making no promises that there will be an extended conversation or that I’ll “flirt.” It will be a major step for me if I just get myself there with eyeliner/shadow on.

Fingers crossed this doesn’t turn out badly.

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breaktime

07Jun09

It should come as no surprise to longtime readers that I have a hard time taking care of myself. I work, work, work until I can’t any more, at which point months can go by without much productiveness. The idea of taking a break is foreign to me. My family never took vacations. We were too poor to nor were we a close enough family. The idea of me, my mother, and my father spending hours in a car together (or flying somewhere together) and sightseeing and generally hanging out as a family is laughable and ludicrous: I can’t imagine a more horrible and awkward situation. I’m going to avoid specifics here but let’s just say that my mother didn’t take care of herself either and forced herself to live through and endure a number of situations that boggle the mind, the final of which killed her. So I don’t really know how to take care of myself, whether it’s taking vacations, taking weekends off, going to the doctor when I need to, figuring out how to sleep better, etc. My default position has been to ignore problems as they come up, bury myself in work when I can, and hope that it won’t all blow up in my face. In fairness to myself, that approach got me through college and got me through the first four years of graduate school but it’s been ugly and the price has been steep.

Why do I bring this up now? I have roughly three months left of this research trip, the last major one for the dissertation. I’ll have to return to Global South Country briefly at some point and of course I’ll come back to London at least once before it’s all over but for the most part, this is it. With this deadline looming, I’m feeling the pressure to buckle down. So I’d planned to work right up until I leave, with tons of time in the archives plus tons of time writing. And then I realized that I just can’t do that. I cannot work nonstop right up until I leave. Next semester is going to be insane: I have to rent an apartment for the first time ever, furnish it, write and present my first major conference paper, plan the trip to GSC, write a few chapters, apply for a whole host of fellowships, and keep an eye on the job market. (I’m not planning to go on the job market fully but if something good’s around, I need to be ready for it.) All that while dealing with my normally tumultuous personal life and whatever else may happen. So now I’m trying to be okay with the fact that it’s okay for me to stop doing research in mid-August. I’m not there quite yet. What am I going to do for two weeks? Shouldn’t I be maximizing my time here?

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my recurring problem

04Jun09

Since this is an academic blog in theory, I should say a little about how I’ve been progressing on my dissertation. Except that progress has been quite slow, mainly (though not solely) because I still haven’t figured out a way to avoid allowing my recurring and crippling bouts of intense loneliness to lead to complete work paralysis. These bouts stem from a really unfortunate series of events my parents set into motion with little thought to how their actions would affect me. It’s also about the way I’ve handled said events, which hasn’t been great, but I did the best I could under some pretty difficult circumstances. So the consequences of muddling through (with none of the support that families and partners often provide) is that every now and then it all overwhelms me and I’m incapable of doing any kind of work. This isn’t good.

[And yes, I see somebody about these issues when I'm in residence at my university.]

What concerns me most is the idea of having an academic career (or any career, for that matter) with the knowledge that several times a year I’m incapable of doing any work. For some reason, I’ve convinced myself that “real historians” work obsessively and daily and so I wonder whether I’m really cut out to be an historian. I may or may not be but what I do know is that in my own way, I do belong in the field.  When I’m in the groove, I’m in it. I have historical questions I want answered, I have ideas about teaching history and about teaching my field specifically, I have future projects kicking around in my brain, I enjoy writing. But when I check out, I could be unproductive for months.

I have no real solution to this dilemma. For the foreseeable future, these depressive moments are going to be part of my life. They come on suddenly and can be sparked by almost anything. And I can’t force myself out of them either; even if I could, I’m not sure that’s a good thing. Suppressing sadness, grief, and anger is part of what got me in this mess to begin with. And so I’m stuck.

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more on sotomayor

29May09

Let’s move on from the chitchat about her diabetes and on to something more infuriating: the idea that she’s unqualified. Certain conservatives have been going on and on lately about how she’s not qualified. Here’s what kills me: for better or for worse, Yale, Princeton, and Harvard have been the benchmarks of excellent education (and therefore qualifications) for centuries in American life. It used to be that if you went to any of those three schools, just the name alone conferred an aura of “qualified” onto you. Frankly, it still does. But Judge Sotomayor didn’t just go to Princeton and Yale. She went and excelled or, as I like to say, she “whupped up” on everybody there. At Princeton, she graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa as well as winning the highest undergraduate honor. At Yale, she was editor of the law review. And yet somehow these markers that have long been good enough to mark white men as qualified now mean nothing because she’s a woman of color.

Like my mother always said, when you’re a minority, being on par with everybody else isn’t good enough. You must do better than everybody else around, so as to leave no doubt about your qualifications. But apparently even that’s not good enough.

There’s a convenient double-standard here where when a white man (or even woman) does decently at one of these three Ivies, they’re qualified; but when a woman of color does better than all of her peers, she’s intellectually suspect. So here’s what I propose: either going to an Ivy means something or it means nothing. If she’s not intellectually up to snuff, then getting an education from these institutions means nothing. If an education from any of these three institutions is the mark of excellence for white men (regardless of their actual performance), then let’s give her her due: acknowledge that, in two different settings, this woman demonstrated her intellectual rigor to the satisfaction of our basic standards of judgements (Latin honors, university prizes, Phi Beta Kappa, law review) and let’s move on to the more substantive debate about her actual judicial decisions.

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traveling single, part 2

28May09

This past weekend I went to yet another midsize/slightly obscure British city by myself. It was good, actually, less weird than my last trip. I’m really enjoying getting out of London, which is a bit concerning. And I’m learning a few things along the way.

1. Xenophobia can rear its head at the most unexpected times, mainly around the use of “British”/”English”.

2. I’d say never spend a Sunday night in this particular town unless you live there and have access to your own kitchen but I suspect this is a fairly common phenomenon. It’s probably just best to avoid Sunday evenings in midsize towns. Any restaurant that wasn’t a national chain or that served Indian cuisine (or in a hotel) was closed on Sunday. Even national coffee chains were closed by 4:30. This included local cafes and tearooms (closed all day Sunday) as well as the high-end restaurants that specialized in modern British cuisine with the all-important focus on local produce. Closed. I ended up at an Indian restaurant recommended by the owner of the B&B where I stayed. It was good Indian but still a disappointment.

3. Cathedrals are better tourist spots than castles. I’m pretty much over castles. Every city worth its salt seems to have one that’s been turned into some kind of museum. Some of them are worth the entrance fee (and note, many of these entrance fees are insanely steep). But the castle in the place I visited this weekend was no Edinburgh Castle. I got my student discount but still I’m not sure it was worth my money. Inside was interesting enough but not really worth my time or money. On the contrary, the cathedral was much better. It’s much more contemplative. I happened to be there during Evensong so there was beautiful music. So it was more meaningful in a way that the castle was not. And it was free.

I’m planning at least two more trips while I’m here. So we’ll see.

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quick sotomayor thoughts

27May09

I have a few posts brewing (and I mean that this time) but I just had to say this about Sonia Sotomayor. I don’t really have much of an opinion about her; I’ll wait until I’ve read more and the hearings start. But I do want to say this: I find it deeply troubling the way her diabetes has been discussed lately. Diabetes has become such a buzzword these days, code for “lazy, gluttonous, and fat,” that we apparently cannot even distinguish between type II diabetes and type I. Have we really forgotten about juvenile onset diabetes? Did nobody else but me go to middle school and high school with people who need insulin shots or who got fitted with pumps? And why must we castigate people even if they have type II diabetes? While it’s true that adult-onset diabetes is often the result of poor diet, even that’s no longer strictly true; note the increasing rates of diabetes among people in the third world. And even the standard “American poor diet” isn’t something that we should always consider to be a moral failing. See, for example, this recent Washington Post article that explains just how much more poor people pay for things by virtue of not being rich enough to afford a car, for example. Corner stores charge more and let’s get real: corner stores aren’t usually teeming with bountiful and fresh produce, a wide selection of whole grains, and lean meats.

So let’s stop criminalizing people who are ill and let’s stop criticizing intelligent women because they were diagnosed with diabetes when they were 8.

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