Life as an Extreme Sport

Progress

...and everything else, Autumn 05, CHID 390 - PF, The Revenge!, CHID 491

I’ve discovered the oddest thing – if I read something complex aloud, I’ll have a much better chance of understanding it. I think it has to do with levels of engagement; I have to put more of myself into something if I’m reading it as well as listening to myself, and it activates different areas of the brain. It makes sense, since I’ve always learned well via lecture.

The end result of that discovery is that I was able to engage with the intimidating paper on a level that I’m happy with; I found structural issues to comment on, and did so in a manner that doesn’t have me looking like a simpleton. But man, after looking through all the papers I’ve graded this week, lemme just reinforce what a good thing it is I don’t use red ink. (Back when I was first starting this whole teaching venture, a good friend’s mother gave me one piece of advice that she felt was invaluable: knowing how chatty I am in commentary, do not under any circumstances grade in red ink. The papers would be handed back looking like they’re dripping blood, and that’s just not friendly. So now, people get grapes back…)

Beyond getting all my papers graded, I refreshed on the reading (although not as well as I would have liked; Taylor is complicated, and few people seemed to understand him – presenting myself in a light of having fully understood feels like cheating), and got “omgrough” draft of my grant application finished. I’m already thinking about how to change it, so it will be a long day of editing in gap times. I’m still not certain I can actually finish it in time for the deadline, but I’m going to try – if nothing else for the practice. There’s another round of funding in January if I really blow it this time, so it’s not a dreadful level of pressure (although getting funded now would certainly be better than then). I mostly just want to perform well so that I can get a “good” out of Phillip – the things I’ll push myself to do (like only getting 3 hours of sleep) for a little ego stroking.

At least I know what motivates me.

Inspiration

...and everything else

I know I promised Phillip I’d stop reading his dissertation if he provided me with a copy of his book, but I was short on motivation and inspiration, and just a few pages turned on whatever was stuck and I started to write. Then I hit stuck again, stumbling over affect, a concept I’m still learning and wrestling with. A quick Google later, and I think I know enough for this paper… and I found the most beautiful essay helping to explain the very concept. Isn’t this just lovely?

What is valuable about this account of affect is the way it makes trouble for all those epistemologies that begin with a knowing subject ready to act on the world or be acted upon. For the body in affect is not subjectivity to the world’s objectivity, it is a body in transition, a body in relation. To respond, to have a response is to be in a relation. This is why Massumi argues so emphatically and beautifully that affect is relationality. Drawing on the work of William James he argues that relationality is already in the world, to be in the world to participate in it is to be in an ever unfolding relation. Thinking about affect in this way means an abandonment of the subject/object dualism. What is needed instead, according to Massumi, is a notion of continuity and discontinuity that is not framed in terms of opposition but as a processual rhythm.

It’s writing like this that remind me of the passions academia/knowledge ignites.

Idyllic

...and everything else, life and living

Dreams last night. This morning, really. Dreams that kept me wrapped in the warm cocoon of bed, snuggled with a furbeast on either side of me. Dreams as warm and inviting as being buried on a cold morning under a down comforter.

Time had passed. People had changed, but instead of for the different, it was back together. Missing, longing, laughter. There were other people involved, but they were cast off – perhaps cruelly – in favour of one another. Like magnets, we couldn’t stay apart. There was a warmth, clicking.

Typing it all out sounds absurd, ideal. And I know my mind was playing with ideals, and there was really never a time or person like that (for either person). But your memory has a way of softening the edges and making things more…perfect.

I can pick out what year (age) the ideal came from.

It’s funny. I’m spending so much time with people lately, and yet I have become aware of how lonely I am. And it’s not the other people – the other people have opened up so much to me, I know so much about them. It’s me. Something in me that keeps me from taking that step, sharing that information.

Do you know, I did overcome that once, recently. And it felt like I was tearing a bit of myself out. And now it’s weird, that there’s someone I see three to four times a week, who knows these intimate details about me, knows more about me than most of my friends do. It makes me skittish. Like there’s information out there that can be held against me, used against me.

Typing this out, I have to laugh – trust issues, much? But why should I trust people? It’s not like I’ve had terrible much proof that it’s a worthwhile endeavor.

All I see when I look in the mirror is broken shards.

The Abyss

...and everything else, Autumn 05, CHID 491

So, I have to write a four page paper, double spaced, Times New Roman 12 point font. In this paper, I have to include the question my research plans to address, from whence the question arises, scholarly debates around it, the previous literature on the question, my working hypothesis, sources and methodologies, the importance of the project, talk about the educational benefits to both the research and the project, how I am contributing to the field, how my mentor guides me and supports my research, a detailed description of how the project fits into the bigger picture (of life, I guess), write it for the intelligent generalist, talk about the implications of the work, allow my passion and “voice” to show, and address challenges to the work.

…I’m sorry. Please to be giving me a 250 word limit for an abstract. I’ll take that over this any day of the week.

…this is where we see if Karen’s writing methods pays off. I’m just going to tackle a question, answer it, and go on. First draft is a first draft, and I can ditch the entire thing if I need to. Just start writing. Just start writing, and don’t let the abyss eat you whole.

Worddropping

Autumn 05, CHID 390 - PF, The Revenge!

I’m sitting here poking a paper, rather literally. Actually, if I were to be literal, I would admit that I’m laying here, occasionally picking up and looking at, or otherwise nudging, prodding, or verifying that this paper still exists.

It’s not my paper. At least not in the wrote-it own-it sense. It is mine in that I’m the one supposedly making thoughtful, wise, and relevent comments on it.

It’s a smart paper. Probably smarter than me. It intimidates me, anyhow, and that’s a weird thing. It’s been a year since I’ve been so intimidated by someone in academia, and I worked in a partnership with her. This is not so much a partnership (although I think Phillip is very right, and it would work eversomuch better for both the author and me if it were one), and so there is weirdness. Who do I think I am, to be grading a paper of this quality and depth? (I asked Phillip this evening how he handled having a student smarter than him – he nearly killed me by telling me, right after I took a swig’o’beer, that it hasn’t happened yet.)

So I lay here, and I poke and lift and look, and I think. I think about my own writing, and how it’s changed over the last year. I think about getting frustrated and using shorthand, which in academia often involves long words. I think about wanting to cover so much ground and so many ideas in a small space. I think about trying to write abstracts that are 250 words or less, and I just think. I let my brain freewander to wherever it wants, whatever ideas feel like popping up.

It’s occured to me, after a little bit of this, that I can see a space that opens just a bit, and in that open space, I see the tactic to take with giving feedback on this paper. I see a little bit of how I used to write, dropping the large words and concepts left and right, and see a bit how it transforms papers from accessible and brilliant to inaccessible and muddled (which is not to say that’s where this paper is, more than it is a carry-through of thought). I think, more importantly, I see the jumps from A to F, without detailing out those middle steps.

It’s funny, in one of those universe-poking-you ways, because I think if you were to ask my ex-husband, or anyone who has known me a while, what my biggest flaw when thinking/writing about large concepts is, it would be that I make these large jumps from one point to another. I just intuitively seem to get what needs to be in the middle and how it fits in, and can jump to the conclusion and run. But ask me to back up and cover those middle steps carefully, and I’ll get a bit flustered and caught off-guard; it’s not something I can easily explain, it’s just something I know. Phillip called me out on this early last year, and it was the first time someone had done so in a way that made enough sense to me that I’ve worked hard, since then, to stop and step through each process.

Maybe if I approach this paper from that view, of where the steps should be and aren’t, I’ll find something constructive to say.