I dreamt last night that my grad advisor had read the recent review of my book. She came to me, looking sorrowful.
"It was pretty good, right?" I said. "I mean, I know that she has some criticisms, but it was good on the whole."
"It was very...polite," she replied. "But if we had caught the errors that it points out in time, you never would have passed your defense."
I was devastated. I tried to rally myself to point out that the reviewer had really liked my chapter on ---, but the skepticism on Advisor's face checked me. And I woke up, wondering whether those little criticisms outweighed all the praise, and why in the world the reviewer would have contacted me if she didn't like the book.
Polite!
Could I have a more literal dream-life??
Showing posts with label who needs therapy?. Show all posts
Showing posts with label who needs therapy?. Show all posts
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Monday, September 6, 2010
Brush your damn teeth
Las Vegas airport (1)I tried a few new things this summer. New-old things. The first was meditating; as I said, I'm keeping this up into the school year, as far as I can.
The second was to take my diary more seriously. I chose this goal rather than the grander one of writing, say, a page a day; basically I wanted (and want) to have a diary that says more than "Long day I'm tired" and that actually describes or discusses at least one small thing every day (or so).
I've kept a diary regularly since I was fourteen, so--wow, about exactly twenty years now. In my youth, I wrote nearly every day, and often at length; once I started having relationships in which I didn't sleep alone in my bed every night, that regularity weakened. I still wrote often, but not daily, and occasionally a week would pass (and still passes) in which I wrote/write nothing. I don't usually reread my diaries, although I do consult them now and again, so detail and a thrilling narrative aren't exactly important. But I decided early this summer that "taking my diary seriously" meant giving serious space--if not daily, at least often--to reflection and absorption. So that's a thing that I'm doing.
A week or so ago, I came up with a new one: When I brush my teeth, I am to brush my teeth. That's it.
That sounds silly, I know. The thing is, I started noticing how the instant I had the toothbrush in my mouth I would start rushing around and doing something--turning on (or off) my computer, checking my email, straightening up the cushions on the couch, whatever. This was not only weird, but it was hard on my toothbrush: if I got absorbed in an email, say, I would find myself absently gnawing on the bristles whilst contemplating a response. And then the toothpaste might start to...manifest itself--it was gross, and weird, and honestly, I am not losing productivity by taking a freaking minute to brush my damn teeth. Besides, can I not relax and just do a thing now and again? Why must I let myself be so constantly distracted?
So that's the latest resolution. When I brush my teeth, I stare at myself in the mirror and brush my teeth. If a cat is in the room, I am allowed to pet the cat (and even to sit on the edge of the tub and place her on my knee, if I like)--but that's it.
Just brush your damn teeth. The world moves fast enough on its own.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
But on the other hand, so what?
I've been thinking on and off this summer about goals and ambition. I'm a pretty ambitious person, and I'm good at setting and reaching goals. So, for example, I have this big pompous pre-tenure goal--and now that achieving it is actually a real possibility, I'll share it here: I aim to have published an R1's tenure-worth of stuff before getting tenure. I've decided, somewhat arbitrarily, that this means a book and six peer-reviewed articles--of which I currently have four accepted (not all at equally fancy places, but some lack of fanciness is all right. After all, I teach 4/4; this is one concession I can make). So that gives me three years to get two more PR articles out. Doable. And it makes me feel all fabulous and important.
The downside to all of this ambition and achievement, though--well, there are several downsides. The most obvious one is that it's painfully ego-centric. Everything is about MY achievement, MY accomplishments, etc. Focusing so much on the self and the self's own importance is, first of all, selfish and not particularly conducive to a more compassionate, charitable, humble, or service-oriented state of mind. The second (and more selfish) problem with ego-centric ambition is that it's very fragile. What if my book gets a bad review? My ego, my sense of self, suffers. Identifying heavily with one's accomplishments only works when one's accomplishments are clicking along very well, and that can't happen for ever. It's ultimately a stressful and unsustainable way to live.
I've been thinking about these things because it's summer--and despite what various people are saying, it's STILL JUNE and summer IS NOT almost over--and I have a long list of Things To Do Before School Starts. These include:
So what I decided to do about a month ago was to recalibrate my goals. Of course I'll work on the above--for one thing, I have to, and for another, I'd be really bored if I didn't have some work to do; I do actually enjoy most of the above, as long as the pressure's off. But the actual goals for the summer--the priorities--changed. They are now the following:
A few weeks ago I read an article in a Buddhist magazine that I used to subscribe to (the subscription ran out in May, but I have a stack of back issues that I'm reading through whenever I'm on the elliptical). In it, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche talks about accessing the goodness in ourselves and in the world--and how our ego-centrism can get in the way of that. He describes a scenario in which someone has achieved something and wants praise. Of course, he says, such praise would be nice; you want recognition and congratulation, and it hurts not to have it. "But on the other hand," he goes on, "so what?"
That stopped me right there. What a beautiful way to put it--yes, of course, you want these things, but you don't have them, and so what? So what if I don't achieve my arbitrary and self-important publication goals? So what if I'm not The Very Best Professor Ever (or whatever my small-minded ego tries to convince me that I have to become)? So what if I don't finish my checklist? Maybe, in the time that I'm not completing all my personal little goals, I might do something nice for TM, or make the cats purr, or call my brother. The work goals are nice, but they don't matter.* So what?
So here's to a happy and equanimous summer!
*Of course, I have the questionable luxury of teaching at an institution where extensive publication is not required or expected (or really supported). Ultimately, I guess, the "so what?" would also apply to not getting tenure--so what?--but I admit that that would be a hard pill to swallow. I acknowledge here, therefore, that the choices I'm making are less about external requirements and more about my own pride and ego--along with love of the field etc., they're what drive a lot of my desire to accomplish--and are not identically applicable to everyone. But if we were all truly enlightened, then we would be able to greet every situation with the same equanimity: So what, after all?
The downside to all of this ambition and achievement, though--well, there are several downsides. The most obvious one is that it's painfully ego-centric. Everything is about MY achievement, MY accomplishments, etc. Focusing so much on the self and the self's own importance is, first of all, selfish and not particularly conducive to a more compassionate, charitable, humble, or service-oriented state of mind. The second (and more selfish) problem with ego-centric ambition is that it's very fragile. What if my book gets a bad review? My ego, my sense of self, suffers. Identifying heavily with one's accomplishments only works when one's accomplishments are clicking along very well, and that can't happen for ever. It's ultimately a stressful and unsustainable way to live.
I've been thinking about these things because it's summer--and despite what various people are saying, it's STILL JUNE and summer IS NOT almost over--and I have a long list of Things To Do Before School Starts. These include:
- writing a conference paper for September
- planning my classes (two new preps each semester next year, plus comp needs its annual retooling)
- drafting up a research plan for the Next Big Thing
- reading a mess o' books
- brushing up on my Latin in preparation for my July research trip
- reading a pack of Chaucer, whom I know remarkably ill for someone in my field.
So what I decided to do about a month ago was to recalibrate my goals. Of course I'll work on the above--for one thing, I have to, and for another, I'd be really bored if I didn't have some work to do; I do actually enjoy most of the above, as long as the pressure's off. But the actual goals for the summer--the priorities--changed. They are now the following:
- meditate daily (except while traveling)
- exercise regularly, because it makes me feel good in my body and makes me more attentive to the physical world
- enjoy myself, and not fret when doing so means that I haven't completed a daily To Do list.
A few weeks ago I read an article in a Buddhist magazine that I used to subscribe to (the subscription ran out in May, but I have a stack of back issues that I'm reading through whenever I'm on the elliptical). In it, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche talks about accessing the goodness in ourselves and in the world--and how our ego-centrism can get in the way of that. He describes a scenario in which someone has achieved something and wants praise. Of course, he says, such praise would be nice; you want recognition and congratulation, and it hurts not to have it. "But on the other hand," he goes on, "so what?"
That stopped me right there. What a beautiful way to put it--yes, of course, you want these things, but you don't have them, and so what? So what if I don't achieve my arbitrary and self-important publication goals? So what if I'm not The Very Best Professor Ever (or whatever my small-minded ego tries to convince me that I have to become)? So what if I don't finish my checklist? Maybe, in the time that I'm not completing all my personal little goals, I might do something nice for TM, or make the cats purr, or call my brother. The work goals are nice, but they don't matter.* So what?
So here's to a happy and equanimous summer!
*Of course, I have the questionable luxury of teaching at an institution where extensive publication is not required or expected (or really supported). Ultimately, I guess, the "so what?" would also apply to not getting tenure--so what?--but I admit that that would be a hard pill to swallow. I acknowledge here, therefore, that the choices I'm making are less about external requirements and more about my own pride and ego--along with love of the field etc., they're what drive a lot of my desire to accomplish--and are not identically applicable to everyone. But if we were all truly enlightened, then we would be able to greet every situation with the same equanimity: So what, after all?
Friday, February 5, 2010
A candidate for analysis?
Sometimes--like most people, I suspect or at least hope--I'll do something that's minor but kind of foolish, and maybe someone will notice and remark that it was unwise. So, like, today, trying to be helpful, I opened a colleague's office door in front of a student (we have a suite that locks from the outside; we have individual door locks, too, but most of us don't use them)--not to muck around or snoop, but just to glance at something--and later another colleague, who was there, said, "I don't like the idea of students knowing that we don't lock our doors...."
He was right, of course, but it was not a hugely big deal, since the suite is locked when no one's in there. And we certainly don't let STUDENTS poke around in others' offices (although I did find a mysterious late paper on my desk when I came in the other day--but there are other possible explanations for that, such as that a colleague (or even my husband, whose office is next door) dropped it off).
Anyway, the point is not whether I did something foolish or not--I'm willing to admit that I did, although I would add that it was also trivial--but rather that I find it extremely hard to let go of this kind of thing. I get hung up on it and find myself wanting the person who "caught" me to grant me some kind of absolution. Or else I can't think about it without working myself up into a paroxysm of self-defense, trying over and over again to convince myself that I was PERFECTLY JUSTIFIED in my behavior.
Really what I'd like is to be able to comfortably accept that I commit errors now and again and not have to grapple with this nagging guilty sick feeling. Because the other annoying thing is that the residue of regret--even for trivial things--tends to stay with me for a long time; I'll probably remember this afternoon's slip-up with shame for years.
What is it about admitting that we're (or I'm--maybe it's just me) in the wrong that's so threatening?
He was right, of course, but it was not a hugely big deal, since the suite is locked when no one's in there. And we certainly don't let STUDENTS poke around in others' offices (although I did find a mysterious late paper on my desk when I came in the other day--but there are other possible explanations for that, such as that a colleague (or even my husband, whose office is next door) dropped it off).
Anyway, the point is not whether I did something foolish or not--I'm willing to admit that I did, although I would add that it was also trivial--but rather that I find it extremely hard to let go of this kind of thing. I get hung up on it and find myself wanting the person who "caught" me to grant me some kind of absolution. Or else I can't think about it without working myself up into a paroxysm of self-defense, trying over and over again to convince myself that I was PERFECTLY JUSTIFIED in my behavior.
Really what I'd like is to be able to comfortably accept that I commit errors now and again and not have to grapple with this nagging guilty sick feeling. Because the other annoying thing is that the residue of regret--even for trivial things--tends to stay with me for a long time; I'll probably remember this afternoon's slip-up with shame for years.
What is it about admitting that we're (or I'm--maybe it's just me) in the wrong that's so threatening?
Friday, January 1, 2010
New Year's Day and we're off to a poky start
Two posts in December, eh? That's a new low for me, I think. Hm. Maybe Resolution # 4 will be to do something about the pitiable rate-of-blogging around here.
Anyway, the holidays were fine etc. etc. Relaxed at Mom's house until we just sort of had to...escape. I can't relax for too long, I find. (I used to claim that I didn't understand the need to "relax," but somehow having an actual job has changed my tune there. I've noticed that I have a propensity for making sweeping and unfounded pronouncements of that sort. It could be endearing. I suspect that it's annoying and bizarre.) Anyway, after a few days of Mom's House of Decadence--with the wine, and the cookies, and the hugely fat cat, and the squishy dusty sofa, and the movies on demand--I kind of start despising myself. I need activity. So it was a lovely visit and it was lovely to come home.
I'm feeling a bit put out about how 2010 is starting off, though. First, I am, frankly, anxious about next week's very very safe "procedure"--the heart thing--and am even more anxious (I hate to admit) about the $1700 price tag. I mean, thank goodness I have insurance, etc. (If I didn't, though, I just wouldn't have had this checked out, and the likelihood of its actually killing me is minuscule, soo...? Okay, are my priorities completely off here?) But that's a solid slab of cash. And TM and I, with our loans and on our salaries (hooray we have full-time jobs, but still--Field just ranked in as the lowest-paying college in the state, at least among colleges and universities that shared their salary information), are not rolling in dough. The money issue alarms me. I'm also hoping to go on a couple of trips next year--one to Ireland with my mom, and one to an overseas conference, and there's talk of going somewhere fun for spring break--so...yeah, my priorities are ridiculous. Never mind. Writing this paragraph has made it clear that no one should pity me at all.
Nonetheless, this stuff is stressing me out, and, since we start classes on the 11th, I'm feeling that I won't really have the chance to restore myself and get all organized and refreshed for the semester ahead. And I am also consequently beating myself up for not being more upbeat and energetic during these last weeks.
Another reason for the sluggishness, at least today, is that I celebrated New Year's Eve with a scorching urinary tract infection that hit me just before midnight. (Prior to that, TM and I had a lovely quiet evening together, full of fun and delight. It wasn't all bad, by any means.) So I stayed up in the bathroom until 4 am reading and shivering (it's damn cold here) and drinking appropriately calibrated fluids. It's pretty much gone now, though I'm still guzzling cranberry juice to make sure, and I've had some naps and things and feel okay. But heck, today has not been the restorative and energizing January 1st that I typically enjoy. And the irony of getting this infection really no earlier than 11 pm, so that it fully hit me right around midnight, after more than a decade with no such troubles--hell, what's that about? In a completely irrational way I'm a little worried about this year.
But okay, it's time to move on from all that. 2009 was, in many ways, pretty awesome. TM and I got engaged, moved in together, and got married. We traveled to Dominca and France. I gave papers at Kalamazoo and Leeds. I got a book contract and scored an extra course release for next semester. My brother and his wife conceived a child. In fact, other than the irritating medical issues and, oh, the health care debates, wars, etc., it was a pretty good year.
Here's what I'd like to think about for next year.
1) I want to work on learning to promote my research and to network better (an idea I got from a recent post of Dr. Crazy's). I suck at these things, actually changing the subject when people ask me about my work, and this is a problem.
2) I want to more consistently make time to exercise, but I need to give some very concrete thought to what this will look like before I make some kind of resolution, since amorphous "exercise more!"-type resolutions don't work very well. In fact, I need to be more concrete about no. 1, too.
3) Work on my relationship with money. I don't like the fact that what scares me about my procedure is the cost (which is not even all THAT unreasonable, and which I can cover quite easily from my savings), and that the price actually makes me want to cancel it, despite the preceding parenthesis. Anxiety about money hampered my enjoyment of our France trip last summer. These things bother me; I am not at all wealthy but neither am I about to starve. I am not profligate, so the occasional bigger expense is not a catastrophe. I'm trying to see next week's credit card hit as an opportunity to work on how I think about money: to be grateful, for example, for its ability to cover such costs without actually affecting my day-to-day living at all, rather than begrudging its removal from my account. I think that it's very important that I try to do this.
There are other things I'm kicking around, too--I sure do love me some self-improvement--but I think that that's enough for now. Time for a glass of cranberry juice. And happy new year, everyone!
Anyway, the holidays were fine etc. etc. Relaxed at Mom's house until we just sort of had to...escape. I can't relax for too long, I find. (I used to claim that I didn't understand the need to "relax," but somehow having an actual job has changed my tune there. I've noticed that I have a propensity for making sweeping and unfounded pronouncements of that sort. It could be endearing. I suspect that it's annoying and bizarre.) Anyway, after a few days of Mom's House of Decadence--with the wine, and the cookies, and the hugely fat cat, and the squishy dusty sofa, and the movies on demand--I kind of start despising myself. I need activity. So it was a lovely visit and it was lovely to come home.
I'm feeling a bit put out about how 2010 is starting off, though. First, I am, frankly, anxious about next week's very very safe "procedure"--the heart thing--and am even more anxious (I hate to admit) about the $1700 price tag. I mean, thank goodness I have insurance, etc. (If I didn't, though, I just wouldn't have had this checked out, and the likelihood of its actually killing me is minuscule, soo...? Okay, are my priorities completely off here?) But that's a solid slab of cash. And TM and I, with our loans and on our salaries (hooray we have full-time jobs, but still--Field just ranked in as the lowest-paying college in the state, at least among colleges and universities that shared their salary information), are not rolling in dough. The money issue alarms me. I'm also hoping to go on a couple of trips next year--one to Ireland with my mom, and one to an overseas conference, and there's talk of going somewhere fun for spring break--so...yeah, my priorities are ridiculous. Never mind. Writing this paragraph has made it clear that no one should pity me at all.
Nonetheless, this stuff is stressing me out, and, since we start classes on the 11th, I'm feeling that I won't really have the chance to restore myself and get all organized and refreshed for the semester ahead. And I am also consequently beating myself up for not being more upbeat and energetic during these last weeks.
Another reason for the sluggishness, at least today, is that I celebrated New Year's Eve with a scorching urinary tract infection that hit me just before midnight. (Prior to that, TM and I had a lovely quiet evening together, full of fun and delight. It wasn't all bad, by any means.) So I stayed up in the bathroom until 4 am reading and shivering (it's damn cold here) and drinking appropriately calibrated fluids. It's pretty much gone now, though I'm still guzzling cranberry juice to make sure, and I've had some naps and things and feel okay. But heck, today has not been the restorative and energizing January 1st that I typically enjoy. And the irony of getting this infection really no earlier than 11 pm, so that it fully hit me right around midnight, after more than a decade with no such troubles--hell, what's that about? In a completely irrational way I'm a little worried about this year.
But okay, it's time to move on from all that. 2009 was, in many ways, pretty awesome. TM and I got engaged, moved in together, and got married. We traveled to Dominca and France. I gave papers at Kalamazoo and Leeds. I got a book contract and scored an extra course release for next semester. My brother and his wife conceived a child. In fact, other than the irritating medical issues and, oh, the health care debates, wars, etc., it was a pretty good year.
Here's what I'd like to think about for next year.
1) I want to work on learning to promote my research and to network better (an idea I got from a recent post of Dr. Crazy's). I suck at these things, actually changing the subject when people ask me about my work, and this is a problem.
2) I want to more consistently make time to exercise, but I need to give some very concrete thought to what this will look like before I make some kind of resolution, since amorphous "exercise more!"-type resolutions don't work very well. In fact, I need to be more concrete about no. 1, too.
3) Work on my relationship with money. I don't like the fact that what scares me about my procedure is the cost (which is not even all THAT unreasonable, and which I can cover quite easily from my savings), and that the price actually makes me want to cancel it, despite the preceding parenthesis. Anxiety about money hampered my enjoyment of our France trip last summer. These things bother me; I am not at all wealthy but neither am I about to starve. I am not profligate, so the occasional bigger expense is not a catastrophe. I'm trying to see next week's credit card hit as an opportunity to work on how I think about money: to be grateful, for example, for its ability to cover such costs without actually affecting my day-to-day living at all, rather than begrudging its removal from my account. I think that it's very important that I try to do this.
There are other things I'm kicking around, too--I sure do love me some self-improvement--but I think that that's enough for now. Time for a glass of cranberry juice. And happy new year, everyone!
Monday, September 7, 2009
This has nothing to do with anything, but
I just got off the phone with my mother, and it has me feeling very slightly low.
This often happens when I talk to my mom--and my mom, don't get me wrong, is fabulous. Truly. A wonderful, warm, funny, smart woman; a very loving and supportive mother.
But why, why do I pick these stupid fights? Tonight I could see so clearly that it had everything to do with me telling her not to tell me how to live my life. It's such a cliche. I actually raise subjects simply to assert that I'm going to go about X thing my way and she'd better not tell me otherwise. It's ridiculous, especially because she's actually pretty good about not telling me how to live.
She never seems too upset by it, either, and I'm left feeling even more ridiculous.
I know that I have to let go of any fantasy I have about The Perfect Relationship With My Mom (or with anyone, for that matter). But I would also like to simply not do that. Or at least, not do it so often. I think that I can make that happen, most of the time. I think that I'll try, anyway. Because I love my mom, and I don't want to feel sort of baddish about talking to her.
You'd think that you'd outgrow this kind of thing, wouldn't you?
This often happens when I talk to my mom--and my mom, don't get me wrong, is fabulous. Truly. A wonderful, warm, funny, smart woman; a very loving and supportive mother.
But why, why do I pick these stupid fights? Tonight I could see so clearly that it had everything to do with me telling her not to tell me how to live my life. It's such a cliche. I actually raise subjects simply to assert that I'm going to go about X thing my way and she'd better not tell me otherwise. It's ridiculous, especially because she's actually pretty good about not telling me how to live.
She never seems too upset by it, either, and I'm left feeling even more ridiculous.
I know that I have to let go of any fantasy I have about The Perfect Relationship With My Mom (or with anyone, for that matter). But I would also like to simply not do that. Or at least, not do it so often. I think that I can make that happen, most of the time. I think that I'll try, anyway. Because I love my mom, and I don't want to feel sort of baddish about talking to her.
You'd think that you'd outgrow this kind of thing, wouldn't you?
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