i just returned from a very quick trip to memphis where i celebrated thanksgiving with some friends from davis. (and i do mean quick-- i drove there on thursday and back saturday, thus putting me in the city for less than 48 hours.) it was really nice to spend some time with the friends as i hadn't really spent any significant time with most of them in years (and, in some cases, decades.)

on friday, i was able to play tourist and went to BOTH the national civil rights museum and to graceland. when i go back to memphis, i would happily return to the civil rights museum, but have had my fill of graceland. the museum was AMAZING-- a super powerful multi-media exhibit. for those who don't know, it's located at the lorraine motel, where MLK was assassinated. so that in and of itself was powerful. there was a great 30 minute documentary (now available through netflix) called 'witness,' about his life and assassination, and i learned a lot. (for example, he was in memphis to help with a sanitation workers' strike. never knew!). the rest of the museum was dedicated to the civil rights struggle, particularly for african americans over the last hundred years. they had film playing of the unrest in birmingham--it's pretty powerful to see people being attacked with fire hoses. as you can tell, i was really moved by the museum and would highly recommend a visit to the museum.

graceland was a great spectacle. some thoughts: 1) the mansion itself was quite modest in size, by today's standards. it was probably only 5000 square feet or so. 2) a little disappointing that elvis appeared to have redecorated in the 60s and 70s-- there was A LOT of shag carpet (including on the walls of the staircase!). 3) had no idea he was buried there. this is what a bad elvis fan i am. 4) i do not exaggerate when i say there were at least 10 gift shops on site. 5) got to see his cars (nifty!) and his private plane--and not just like a vomit comet, but a HUGE plane. that was fun.

but going to the two museums on the same day was an interesting juxtaposition. all i could keep thinking was that elvis appropriated black music to make a profit. (no need to come back with the fact that he exposed the world to black music, thereby paving the way for black musicians. i've already heard that.) but in any case, glad i went to both.

the weekend was a nice little getaway. am now back and gearing up for the craziness of the end of the term with more candidate visits, many final papers to read, and god willing, doing a little writing of my own!

i am very disheartened to hear about the 32% fee increase at the university of california. (to be honest, i'm pretty sickened about most things that are happening in ca.) over the past two decades, a UC education has gone from a very affordable, high quality education to a not-so-affordable education. don't get me wrong, 10K a year is still a lot cheaper than private tuition, but it's nothing like the 3300 a year I paid (or, more precisely, my parents paid) in the mid-1990s for me (and they paid considerably less than that for my sisters).

I've been reading about all of the student protests on campuses-- UCLA, Cal, and UCD among others. And how the students are angry with UC. It seems to me that their anger is misdirected. Shouldn't they really be pissed at the state--and by extension all of the idiot voters who have passed dumb laws over the past 30+ years that has led to the underfunding of UC? It's because the universities are so underfunded that they have to pass these increases. So it seems to me that the university is stuck between a rock and a hard place. They've already made pretty dramatic cuts (10% faculty pay cut for a year-- which is sucky as faculty don't make a whole lot--in the grand scheme of things--as it is; they also just decided to close the UC Sacramento Center, which provided internships and class experience in Sacramento--thankfully, the UC Washington Center, is still open). And these are just a few examples. I know there are more.

In essence, what is happening is that the University of California system (and the CSU system, too) has gone from being a public institution, providing benefit to the entire state--both by being affordable for students who attend and producing graduates who will work to improve the state--to being almost a private institution. Education is not an individual benefit, but a public good. It seems that the taxpayers in the state of CA have forgotten this.

well this is exciting and rare. i've got nothing going on this weekend (almost). was supposed to go on a hike this morning, but the organizer's son got sick in the middle of the night. since i was still in bed when she called to tell me this (might have overslept just a tad), obviously i am not heartbroken. i can use the day to go to the gym, anyway, and not have to battle with the thousands of students for parking. (or dozens anyway).

will also finish lesson planning for my last two substantive classes of the semester-- we talk about readings next week and then the week after thanksgiving is final presentations where the students do all the work. so, that's fun. i'm also feeling like i'm getting life back under control. i'm not going to lie, either, i'm looking forwrd to my final download, in which i only teach one class next semester. YAY! must. pump. out. a lot. of. research.

one month til i head to CA. excited about that, too. but, of course, much to accomplish before any of that happens.

i have had a rare few hours to work on non-teaching related things today. how delightful! i managed to submit a manuscript to a journal (one that i had presented at my conference two weeks ago) and i also waded through a whole bunch of e-mail. will soon turn to something else-- not sure what, though. i made the conscious decision to leave my teaching stuff at the office today, so that i would only focus on other things. good decision i say.

i do feel like i've been in a constant panic for the last few weeks. been running from conference to conference, which has been great, but it also has meant that i haven't had time to spend on work-- which means that i end up spending the little time that i do have on teaching prep because that's the immediate and necessary thing to get done. of course, teaching doesn't get me tenure.

on the fun side, doug from ohio state drove down yesterday to speak to my intro to student affairs class last night and do a presentation on semester at sea today. it was super great to get to hang with him and show him (briefly) around ktown.

i have a feeling that the next few weeks are going to be crazy. more candidates arrive the week after thanksgiving for the assistant professor position-- and since i'm on that search committee, that means i'm booked with 'em. but oddly, i don't have much (minus course prep) to do between now and next week. hooray for that. might i actually get some research done? that would be a miracle.

i'm in atlanta for the NWSA Conference (National Women's Studies Association). Decided to come check it out to see if this is a community that I want to participate in in the future. It's a decidedly different crowd than the higher ed crowd. I find it interesting to be in a space where I am middle of the road (compared to higher ed conferences where I am pretty liberal). It also is a space where a lot of different types of scholarship are accepted-- For example, I went to a couple of sessions on blogging-- one of which was run by the editors of feministing.com, a blog I read on a near-daily basis. It helped me rethink about the role and accessibility of feminism. In addition, this has been fantastic because I got to hear a lot of really notable feminists speak (Angela Davis, Chandra Mohanty and Jacqui Alexander, Kimberle Crenshaw and Bonnie Thornton Dill)-- The last four women engaged in conversations with each other-- it was very cool. And it was also really awesome because it was a nice reminder how much positionality matters-- That knowledge is not generated in a vacuum, but is so dependent on who we are and our social location. A nice regrounding in my feminist principles.

When I was looking into coming to NWSA, I was psyched to find out that Joshua Radin, perhaps one of my favorite artists ever, was playing at the Center Stage (a small and great venue) in town while I was here. So, my lovely friend Adam was nice enough to go with me. And the concert was fantastic. Joshua bills his work as "whisper rock"-- He's like a lighter version of Jason Mraz-- For the uninformed, his music gets used a lot on Scrubs and Grey's Anatomy. (I first discovered him when I saw Danny perform to one of his songs on Season 4 of SYTYCD.) In any case, his show was as fantastic as I had hoped. In a particularly delightful moment, I am 99% convinced that my boy looked and nodded at me during one of his songs. I LOVE YOU! (This from a gal who is decidedly unswoony.) Lowlights: the incredibly trashed woman behind us who sang a lot, off key, to his songs. Please note that I am pretty convinced she was the only person in the hall singing along.

In any case, I feel re-energized on multiple levels-- By hanging out with Adam and going to the concert (I am taking real time off!), but also by connecting with an academic community with (some of the) same values I have. And, the fun will continue-- Tomorrow I get to see my friend Lauren for some eating and shopping-- Awesome!

well i'm back in knoxville. and i'm tired. which is hardly surprising since i was A) on conference time and B) almost adjusted to the West coast time. swell! happy to be home, though have realized just how much i actually have to do. and, of course, i leave thursday morning for my next conference. thankfully this one is drivable, so much less panic there.

the exterminator came today. he laid bait underneath the house. imagine my delight when i heard a rat eating some of it like half an hour ago. (or what i can only assume is a rat). i hope the little bastard leaves the crawl space and dies somewhere outside, so i don't have to deal with hir corpse. peace out buddy.

so tired. currently pounding coffee as i finish course prep for this evening. cutting it a little closer than i would normally like-- but i didn't have much of a choice.

i leave tomorrow to fly home from my conference. it's been a good, though quick, trip. it was incredibly rejuvenating to be able to see folks again and i have some possible research collaborations to pursue. so that's exciting. met with the ex-advisor for a little while who basically put the fear of god into me (the low to which the title refers). later in the day, i ran into some grad students from another school and one said "you're margaret s., aren't you?" someone knows who i am?? wow. that was kind of cool.

being an early career faculty member (the new synonym for junior faculty or assistant professor) is a weird limbo state. you do not have the protections of tenure nor have really established a name for yourself in the field. but at the same time, you are starting to do work that some people follow. it's an interesting in between.

am off to bed, i hope. need to rest up for my hours of sitting on a plane tomorrow.

i'm in vancouver. so far, so good, though admittedly, i've been here less than 24 hours. i am also starving as it's 10 am in knoxville and i have yet to eat breakfast. meeting a friend in an hour. just broke down and hate half a breakfast bar. hopefully that will tide me over.

am doing the usual conference schmoozing. i always love seeing folks from across the country at these things. it's also a good head check because even as hard as i work, there are A LOT of people who are doing way more interesting (and fabulous) things than me. very humbling.

going to try to get a little presentation preparation in before i get to head off to breakfast. (yay!)

i went to a halloween party for the first time in many years. i went as a fanilow (for those of you not in the know, that would be a barry manilow fan.) i had an awesome barry shirt that joanna bought me at my 30th birthday bash (it had his face in gold on it). i almost made a button that said "i <3 barry". the rest of the costume wasn't so much a costume as what i had around the house. i must say, it was fun to dress up.

i also hung around the house for a couple of hours to hand out candy. i LOVE being a homeowner (or at least having a place where people come trick or treating-- no one ever braved the hill in LA). i had two urkels come to my door, which just seemed to defy the odds. my other favorite costume was this teen (tween?) who was a bag of jelly beans-- he was wearing a garbage bag that was filled with half filled balloons. LOVED IT.

am having my students over tonight. so this means lots of cooking and cleaning for the day. i think this is my last entertaining of the year, which is nice as i can then let my house revert to its natural state of chaos. :)

happy my 1/6 birthday!

well, my supersonic pest repellant devices appear not to be effective. either that, or i unknowingly ate a package of instant noodles (dry) in my sleep. and so, i admit defeat and will now call the exterminator. so horrified. stupid pest.

it's raining outside. i hope it clears up before tonight as i bought like 3 lbs of candy and i really don't need to eat it all myself (note: v. glad that i, on a whim, decided to store the candy in a cupboard and not on the counter. how mad would i have been?) am also going to a party tonight, but will stick around for a little while to give out candy-- mostly so i can see my 3 year old neighbor.

anyway, work as usual, so that i can party (relatively) guilt-free.

i'm not sure how i feel about the white house going after fox "news", but i agree with them that they are not a news organization. the fact that they pretty much sponsored the tea parties in the spring is proof of that. i'm not completely sold on msnbc, either. it seems like they do just what fox news does-- just, as jon stewart remarked last night, not as well.

i think both networks are a sign of just how much society has changed in the past ten years. as one of my friends commented, it's like the country is permanently in a state of running for election. there does not seem to be any real bipartisanship and it's always about "getting" the other guy (or girl). i wish that editorializing did not get equated with the news.

it's friday. i am pleased. it's been a hell of a week.

yesterday was not a bad day. i got a manuscript accepted to the journal of higher education, which is a pretty nifty journal in our field. i literally jumped up and down and screamed when i got the e-mail. i scared the crap out of the dog.

it was a long process, too. submitted the manuscript in january. in late april, i got a 'revise and resubmit' with five pages of single spaced feedback from three reviewers. (there are basically four things you can get from a journal: accept, accept with revisions, revise and resubmit, and reject). so, i took a month and attended to the comments and sent it back in. three months later, i got ANOTHER revise and resubmit. this time, one of the reviewers loved everything i did, a second gave me a few suggestions for changes, and a third reviewer was not so wild about it. so, really, the name of the game was just to get that first reviewer on my side. and it looks like i did. because i got notice of acceptance yesterday. i am pretty damn excited.

also in other good news, this supersonic pest repellent thingy seems to be working. have not caught sight or heard a peep from the rat. farewell buddy. glad i've scared you out of the kitchen. may plug one of these bad boys into the basement, too. if i could drive ze out of the house for good, that would be AWESOME.

today, i'm taking part of the day off-- it was already planned pre-acceptance, but i shall call it a celebration. i'm getting frozen yogurt and going shopping. i am very excited.

so, not a bad day yesterday and i'm hoping for a similarly good day today.

i need a day off. am hoping to take one this weekend. am pondering going somewhere and driving around and looking at the fall colors. i fear this signals another way in which i am becoming more like my mother.

got my conference paper in last night at 11 pm. go me. (it was due by the end of the day.) you'd think there'd be a sense of accomplishment, but now i'm faced with course prep, other papers, other research, reading students' papers, comp exams, etc etc. you get the idea. you can also see why i need a day off.

in completely unrelated news, i think AAA is the neatest organization ever. in addition to being handy for a tow (v. helpful when you're driving a 13 year old car that does not like the cold), they do all sorts of other things. for example, i went in yesterday to order canadian dollars for my trip to vancouver next month. and it was free (well the money wasn't free, but no charge!). the exchange rate is CRAP (it's basically 1 to 1. yuck!), but to be able to go and get money so i'll have cash on my arrival is insanely convenient.

that is all. off to toil through a bunch of other work. oh, and rat is still alive. exterminators don't seem like a good option (laying glue traps and charging me $75 and not coming back to get the stuck to the glue trap rats doesn't really seem like a good deal--for me or the rats.)

it's 45 degrees outside. it's october 16th. this does not please me. i slept with three blankets on my bed last night-- definitely means it's time to put on the winter comforter.

had a lovely (though brief) visit with the davis friends. they arrived around 7-- i showed them around the house and then we went out to dinner downtown to a great restaurant on market square called la costa. they seemed to really like their food-- i loved mine: a black bean and wild mushroom quesadilla with goat cheese. amazing.

this morning, they had a quick breakfast and they are off to continue their journey west. was very nice to see some folks from davis. doesn't make me feel as far away.

of course, now i am left with writing the rest of (more of?) my conference paper-- i wrote 7 pages yesterday, which is awesome. i'd really like to be able to bust out the rest of it today. i have A LOT of other work waiting for me. would also potentially like to go to farmer's market, if i can endure the cold.

good times!

the rat still lives. wouldn't go into its trap of death last night-- and yet ate another one of sadie's toys. i hate you rat and yet bow down to your tenacity. enjoy your last few days, buddy, because next week, we swing into high gear.

got a call out of the blue yesterday from some friends of the family who are in dc and passing through knoxville today. (dick and carol, for those of you keeping track at home). in any case, they will be staying with me, which is fantastic. also fantastic is the fact that i have kept my house mostly clean since having my students over a couple of weeks ago, so it is not the mad dash to clean. this is also good in that it puts some time pressures on me to get my paper done.

and so that, dear reader(s), is how i will be spending the day-- cleaning and writing. woot woot.

the rat continues to elude capture. either ze is not smart enough to find ze way into the electrocuting trap of death, or ze is too smart. i'm giving it through the weekend and then after that, i think i need to pony up and get an exterminator. swell. no idea how much that costs or what it entails (is it like termite fumigation when they put the tent on the house? no idea.). perhaps i'll find out.

have a paper to write this weekend. and 16 papers to grade-- well 15 since one of my students still hasn't turned in his, though i expect that he will. not sure when i'm going to get everything done. thankfully it's "fall break" which basically means nothing except that i feel less guilty about not going into campus. last fall break, i flew to CA to meet george and see the rest of the fam. am a little sad not to be there now. i wish i lived closer.

okay, to work.

so i've decided not to apply for the fellowship. after consulting with the advisor, it seems like my ideas, while good, are not fundable. (i.e. they aren't 'sexy' enough for funding agencies.) and rather than run around like a chicken with its head cut off (even more) and perhaps put together a proposal that might be fundable, i've decided to put it off for a year.

part of me feels like i've failed because i don't like to not do things. but part of me feels greatly relieved. another part of me is v. worried about what the advisor will think of me for this decision. it's funny that even a year out, i'm still wrapped up in what he thinks. i'm sure two-years-ago-me would laugh at this, but sometimes i wish i were back in grad school. yes, it was hard as hell, but at least then you only had to answer to one master. (the advisor). now, there are so many people you have to worry about. i very much preferred the one master game.

the rat still lives on. going to buy its death trap today. also discovered that my fridge was leaking (or more precisely there was an eensy leak in the water pipe going to the fridge for the ice maker. with a friend's help, i have now turned the water to that pipe off and leak solved. voila.

in addition to buying the rat trap today, i intend to spend some time working on a paper. should be good times-- at least i am no longer as panicked as i was. this too shall pass, i'm sure.

well, i had a good run. i seem to be getting sick again-- that was almost one month in good health, so i suppose i should be grateful. am trying to take it easy today in the hopes that maybe i'm not *really* getting sick.

but if i am, i'm not surprised because i am exceedingly stressed out-- back to the good ol' days in grad school. i feel like i have 800 balls in the air-- teaching has been taking a lot more time than usual. please note that i do not dislike teaching-- in fact, for the most part, i really love it. however, faculty are not evaluated based on their teaching performance, but rather on their research output. and research has been getting the shaft for the last couple of weeks.

add to that that i am applying for a fellowship and need to refine my ideas--well, like two weeks ago. so, that's weighing heavily. have a conference paper to write. also have a monograph proposal to write. add to that other random flare-ups at work and it's one hell of a month.

oh, and i appear to have a rat in my house. i find this infinitely more horrifying than having a mouse (which i occasionally do). bought a huge trap yesterday. going to set it soon. if it doesn't work, i'm totally ponying up for the $40 fancy state of the art trap. do not care. want it gone.

i try to live simply. i think many of the problems with the economy over the past few years (decades?) are due to americans' penchant for excess. i am still driving my 96 tercel (and desperately hoping she makes it another year). i still have an (awesome) hand me down tv. my bed is on one of those no frills metal frames.

and yet, i desperately want a new prius--and have for like three years. i have been dreaming about new bedroom furniture for a year now. (frankly, i have no problem with the tv, so perhaps that was a poor example.) but there are things i want.

and i feel bad about wanting them because there are so many people who have nothing. i also don't feel like i have the money to buy them--even though i know i make a pretty decent salary. (it's hard when a lot of it goes to a needy house and many dog-related issues and frankly the fact that i need to build some sort of savings). so, i suppose there is no real point to this post except that i need to remind myself that happiness does not come from that new car or the new bed set, but rather from the moments that don't cost anything--like the walk i'm about to go on with the doggles or the cookie dough i will make myself sick eating later (technically costs something-- no need to point that out).

in any case, happiness does not come from material objects. but i wouldn't mind occasionally finding that out for myself.

turned in my annual review materials today-- this basically involved reflecting and writing a lot about what i accomplished in the past year, what i want to do next year, and what my philosophies re: teaching and research are. today this mostly involved doing a lot of hole punching and collating. as much work as this is, i actually find it immensely helpful. it helps me think about what i'm interested in doing, but it is also helping me to collect all the necessary paperwork for the promotion & tenure process on an incremental basis. hopefully when i go up in four years (crap!), i won't be scrabbling to find everything.

hopefully.

having my students over on sunday for dessert. this involves me cleaning the house, which is fantastic, but my house really looks horrific now. it also involves baking. this task i am more excited about.

this week has been consumed with teaching duties and the annual review stuff. research got pushed aside. (sorry friend.) am particularly stressed because i'm hoping to apply for a fellowship, but i'm not wild about the idea i had, which has created a wee bit of panic. (i have a month until the app is due, but i really need to notify my recommenders soon. crap!). oh well. perhaps genius will come to me sometime soon. but i don't think it will be tonight.