Set back...

So, we've hit a setback and have bumped back the date a few weeks.  Trying not to get too bummed out... as long as I walk in December! Chin up... kind of...

Sign Sealed and Delivered!

Holy Hallelujah Batman! The dissertation is done! God bless Kyle and Jax for formatting it for me--I mail it out tomorrow and await the defense.  I didn't think I was going to be able to address all of the edits, write an intro, write an abstract, but it's done, really done!!!

Worst Week

This has been the hardest week of my life, and it doesn't end until Thursday afternoon when I mail out hard copies of my dissertation two weeks before the defense.  I've been revising my chapters according to edits and recommendations from my adviser and co-chair, which are spot on by the way, and made the whole thing so much stronger! But have yet to attend to my introduction and conclusion! Must push forward though, as my adviser is flying in from her new University--rescheduling is just not an option.  It's come down to just working as much as I possibly can and accomplishing what I need to accomplish.  It's unreal what you can make yourself do when you simply have to!

Poor Craig has been reduced to errand boy (driving the hour into U-Penn where his student ID grants me access to all texts Ivy League) and my grad assistant, looking up historical data I need to back up my claims regarding Thackeray's perceptions of Jewish and black citizens in Victorian London: not sure which role he prefers... It's frightening how much he knows now regarding all thing Victorian.  Ask him not only who wrote The Prime Minister but how it ends and what this reveals about nineteenth-century Antisemitism, I dare you!

He goes back to work tomorrow, so in this regard I'll be on my own.  But I have incredible IT savvy family and my brother and father are ready to help me format the monstrosity, currently 220 pages and counting.... Onward and upward.....

48 hrs to submitting Chapter Four...

I should get back to writing! I have about 10 pages to go and Chapter Four (of four) will be complete.  I submit it to my adviser on Aug. 31, then have two weeks to rework my intro, write a five page conclusion, edit chapters three and four, and format the whole thing! On top of this, I'm teaching at two colleges (four sections; two courses), but when you have to accomplish something, you just do!

So to motivate myself, here are a list of things I look forward to upon defending:

1. Never paying another semester bill at SUNY Binghamton
2. Returning 100+ books to two different libraries 
3. Seeing the surface of my dining room table, coffee table and nightstand
4. Watching bad TV without feeling guilty
5. Going for a hike without feeling guilty
6. Going out to dinner, a movie, a friend's house, a bar, a road trip, or Vegas with my girlfriends without feeling guilty!
7. Joking that I'm the kind of doctor that is of absolutely no use in an emergency situation
8. Having my students call me "Dr. Ray" for one class, then going back to "Susan"
9. Telling my husband it was worth it
10. Thanking my family for supporting me through this and actually coming through
11. Having this tremendous weight lifted off my shoulders

Okay! Sufficiently motivated, now back to work!

Still in the Game!

So a friend has reminded me that I haven't posted in 6 weeks and I'm horrified at how quickly time passes! We're established at the new place in Blue Bell and really happy here; it just absolutely feels right! Even the dog and cat seem pleased, though less enthusiastic about being permanently reunited.  I start teaching Composition & Business Writing at two colleges nearby and they have been amazing as well, both the people and the facilities and I look forward to meeting the students next week.

As for the dissertation! Chapter Three has been submitted, but I find myself struggling over Chapter Four, the final piece.  I've been told that things click towards the end, that you clearly see it as a cohesive whole and everything falls into place, yet I find myself struggling.  Also, I've decided I need to read one of the Thackeray novels I've somehow overlooked (all whopping 720 pages of it) in the next to days to incorporate a fascinating character... Having created a day by day breakdown of what needs to be accomplished by Aug. 31 to submit this chapter before September (thus leaving myself two weeks for editing) I'm trying to remain positive, but all of those middle-school anxieties and self-doubts persist.  But admittedly, I see the light at the end of the tunnel and am reminded of Tom Hank's quote in  A League of Their Own: "If it was easy everyone would do it" and my dad's comment "You don't have to be a genius to get your PhD, it's about diligence.  I actually know a lot of stupid people with PhDs..." or something to that regard ;-)  More soon...

Chapter 3: A Deadline and a Schedule

Well, peeps, I'm finally working on Chapter 3...or something similar to working. After I struggled for a while to get this chapter started, I decided one day to just pick a thing and start working on that. So far I have rewatched West Side Story and reread Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun. At the moment I am reading Hansberry's informal autobiography, To Be Young, Gifted and Black, in search of leads for my chapter. In other words, I'm not sure what I'm looking for, but I continue to read in hopes that I'll find whatever I am looking for.

In other news, I put together a concise outline for my dissertation for the rest of the academic year. My goal is to be Dr. S by May 2012. I am two chapters in, and I have two more chapters left to write. I also have to work on the intro and a conclusion, but these sections don't worry me as much. Honestly, I think I could sit down and write half of the intro this weekend if I had to--operative phrase being "HAD TO." When my advisor saw I planned to hand in my draft of chapter 3 at the end of September, she suggested I be more ambitious and submit it at the end of August. I'm too proud to back off from a challenge, so I agreed to September 3rd. That's the date.

Of course, after I emailed her that date, I panicked. Now I have to write it before September 3rd! Because I work best with deadlines and guidelines, I put together a mini-schedule.

The physical process of me trying to figure out how to write a dissertation chapter in 7 weeks.

This looks a lot better...

Last week was Week 1 of my schedule. During Week 1 I was supposed to put together a work plan and do some research (aside from the writing and reading that are supposed to happen anyway). I have yet to dive head first into the research. I'm not sure why I'm postponing it (does looking for one book in my library's database count?), but it's Week 2 of my fantabulous schedule and no research yet.

Frankly, I'm having trouble focusing and staying on track. I think part of the problem is that I'm not sure what I want to say yet. I have written plenty of ideas, things that I could delve into about both texts: Cold War urban politics, violence against minorities in cities, white flight to the suburbs, Broadway...I know, I know: wasn't I supposed to be looking only at New York City in my dissertation? Yup. But I feel that Hansberry's play is crucial to this conversation about urban space and home, even if I am focusing on New York City in my dissertation. And even though West Side Story is not written by Puerto Ricans, it represented Puerto Ricans in urban space and propelled these representations to a mainstream audience.

So where do I go from there? Sometimes I feel like I don't have a clear focus yet. Other times I feel like I shouldn't even be writing about these texts and I should just start over. (I have written and presented on West Side Story before. It's something I can talk about at length. But for some reason I feel like I am at a loss for words right now.) So I come here to share my ideas and get feedback. I need a sounding board for the thoughts inside my head...

My bigger problem is that I am worn out and feeling more and more anxious every day. Instead of moving my chapter forward, my daily writing just reminds me of how aimless I feel and how I have no clue where this is going. My writing so far has consisted in me talking out ideas and questions I have, but nothing that I could use to start writing chapter 3. Also, I'm starting to feel constrained by the research. I'm avoiding doing the research because I don't know where to go. I am avoiding the writing because I haven't done much research. It's a vicious cycle, as you can see.

I'm hoping by this time next week I am in a better place and that the gears are in motion. So far I've had two suggestions offered to me (both via Twitter):

1) Just sit down and write the chapter (or at least a bulk of it). Do research and insert quotations AFTER you write. (via my tweep @readywriting)

2) Take a short break from dissertation work (a few days? a week?) to stop feeling anxious and reboot my energy level. My tweeps @jovanevery and @escapeivrytower suggested I don't see this break as me being lazy but rather me recharging my batteries.

(Thank you, ladies!)

At any rate, I'm hoping to finish reading Hansberry's autobiography this week and write an abstract of what I think my chapter is going to do. I'm hoping it helps me decide once and for all what direction I'll be taking this chapter in, before I take my break from dissertation work.

Any other suggestions, dear readers? Am I the only one who gets anxious when starting a new chapter? How do you tackle the writing? What's your writing process like?

A Journey into July…

End of June**

We’re officially homeless, well almost.  After the harrowing ordeal in which Craig’s apartment was robbed while he was sleeping, he’s remained uneasy about residing in South Philly.  Last week, he arrived home late and parked his car several blocks away (as his street was packed).  Sometime between midnight and 7am, kids threw a brick through the side window of the Prius and stole 3 books of CDs; we’re assuming it was kids as the thieves didn’t bother to explore the armrest compartment which contained money, our GPS, etc.  The bad news, the CD cases included both of our combined collections from high school and college (though, as per our music savvy friends, this assortment is no major artistic loss) and more importantly, the mixes I’d sent to Craig in Iraq.  The good news: insurance is covering everything and I’m guessing the adolescent robbers will not be congratulating themselves on their new collection of Tori Amos, Dave Matthews, and 90’s country music!

On a happier note, our generous friends, A&M, who are currently travelling Asia this summer, are allowing us to temporally make their lovely house our home base when we’re in the Philadelphia area.  Sometime in August we’ll rent our own place, if we ever find one with two decent sized bedrooms and a tolerance for furry, four-legged children.   Also, I have two adjuncting positions, so I feel reenergized knowing there I’ll soon be returning to the classroom and my destiny is not being forever tied to this laptop and a towering stack of stale books!

As for writing, it ain’t easy! Even with all of this time to dedicate to the project, I find myself over-thinking and re-thinking, typing and deleting, way more than I should.  I spent the past few weeks still fine-tuning the critical frame after my adviser exposed its weaknesses.  Ten books and eighty pages of notes later, I think it’s finally congealing. First, I need to craft an intro that properly acknowledges the work of critics who have tread this cerebral path before: revisit Said’s explanation of how the Western colonizers (England & France) defined themselves against the Orient and romanticized and exocitized it countries and their natives (what makes Thackeray so fascinating is how acutely aware he was of this typically absurd romanticization and repeatedly pointed this out in his satire).  Secondly, I need to consider the ideas put forth by more recent critics such as Amanda Anderson, Ann Stoler, Benedict Anderson, Ian Baucom, etc. and to explain how they perceive the nineteenth-century English struggling to define themselves and justify their empire, to categorize other nationalities, creeds and races and to figure out how to make the incongruent groups, spread across continents, somehow fit neatly beneath one British flag.  What makes Thackeray so remarkable is that he doesn’t try to justify, condemn or explain empire, but rather points out its absurdities and simply navigates himself out of the way of controversy.  What until you hear how he handled the issue of slavery while lecturing in the United States…

 All in all, with this new approach, I can successfully revamp Chapters 1 & 2, and complete 3 in the coming week(s).  The goal is to begin Ch 4 by July 14^th.  I’m sure you see that deadlines keep getting pushed back, but the feedback I’ve received on Chapters 1 & 2 from academic folks I deeply admire has been positive and uplifting, so I must be doing something right!

JULY 4^th***

We have a home! We’ll be living in Blue, Bell, PA, about 30 minutes north of Center City (all depending on 76’s day to day mood of course) and we move in on August 1.  Craig (and an amazing group of UPenn grads) moved the last of his items out of South Philly yesterday.  Craig seems much more relaxed these days, no longer wondering what is going to be stolen next…

This 4^th of July I’m comfortably working at A & M’s house and this evening we’ll scout out some local fireworks.   Tomorrow I sit in on Craig’s final speech for his summer graduate course at U-Penn.  For his final talk, his instructions were to discuss someone or something inspirational, and we co-created a pretty miraculous speech about our dog Blue—his resilience, persistent and devotion.  Blue and I will of course be in attendance.  After that, the pup and I head back to the lake for at least two weeks of solitary writing (save a trip or two to the Binghamton library) and I hope to bring this project much nearer to its end.  I've recently had the chance to reconnect with friends in the area and feel ready to for another hefty dose of productive isolation.  Here's to positive thinking…