Death of the Author

You know what's hard? Writing about intransitive, authorless writing. Have you ever tried to write about writing? If you want a headache and writer's block, you should give it a try. If you just want the headache, I recommend reading Roland Barthes writing about how writing is performative (something where the action is the saying of it or its name - like how saying "I thee wed" when you get married makes you married, except that when you are writing you are working with syntax and grammar and meaning, unless you are a) Mr. Barthes, in which case your hand takes over and writes without you, which is clear BECAUSE YOUR TEXT MAKES NO SENSE, or b) me, writing "writing" over and over and getting NOWHERE.). See? Headache. And I haven't even told you about intransitive writing, or gotten you tangled up in memory and subjectivity and all that.
The good news? I'm already on page 3 of my 25 page term paper, and I think I can easily fill up 22 more pages repeating this simple formula over and over with different fancy and/or made-up words: How can this theory possibly make any sense at all? Then, in the end, I get to say that the questions it raises are beyond the scope of this paper, although I'm already tempted to end it by saying that I would write more, but it is my authorial duty to die.
The bad news? There are quite a few other things I could/should/would rather be doing right now, like baking cookies or reading a book that's not for school or cleaning the bathroom or Christmas shopping. More bad news: if I don't get this paper done by Tuesday, when I leave for Wyoming, you'll probably get a shot glass from a truck stop in South Dakota for Christmas. It's the thought that counts, right?
On the other hand, Christmas shopping usually requires that I a) leave the house and b) spend money, two things which I am not very interested in right now. For one thing, money is tight. As for leaving the house, there was a cold snap here on Sunday, followed by a bunch of snow, and even though the sun is out and it is all of 5 degrees, my boogers still froze when I went out to shovel this morning, and I think it's reasonable to expect that all those idiots who had the bright idea to buy Mini Coopers in August for the fuel efficiency are still out there, skidding to a halt in the middle of busy intersections while trying to make illegal U-turns and then just sitting there, through 3 stoplight changes, not moving, with that grim, blank "I-have-no-idea-what-all-that-honking-is-about" look on their faces, refusing to make eye contact with anyone or to move OUT OF THE INTERSECTION but hopefully remembering to count their blessings (1. My brakes work really well, 2. Minnesotans are too passive-aggressive to confront a stranger).
Now, doesn't that make my term paper seem more appealing? Yes, yes it does.

The trenches

It's that time in the semester that makes me refer to campus as "the trenches." It's a bad time (if you couldn't tell by my last post), one for slipping and nearly breaking my neck on icy sidewalks, for vitamin D deficiency, and for obligatory why-am-I-doing-this-to-myself anxiety. This is always accompanied by vivid fantasies of Other Things I Could Do, along with a very Eeyore-ish moping that I am utterly unqualified to do anything but this. This year's fantasy is a bookstore/coffee shop. I have already scanned a number of help-wanted ads on craigslist and established that no one in their right mind would hire me for anything. So I guess I'll stick around.
Things look grimmer than ever for academia, which has something to do with my fantasies. Funding at public institutions is getting slashed, there's a hiring freeze across the entire university, and there's so much infighting and competition for funding that many great ideas and projects never get off the ground. Meanwhile, I'm reading Derrida and Barthes and some other French guys (despite the fact that I'm in German Studies) who all write about the inability of language to convey meaning, authors to write literature, and literature to hold value.
BUT! This is so far my most humane finals period so far. Teaching has given me much better balance in my life, and while I'm worried about my finals, I'm more focused at the moment on getting my kids ready for theirs. I'm also writing a final paper which is both difficult and interesting (it's about memory, authorship, and trauma), AND is relevant to my long term research plans.
So I'm sitting on a vaguely uncomfortable office chair instead of a throne, wearing pretty worn-out clothes that I can't really afford to replace at the moment, instead of a drapey gown and tiara, and I only have a slowly dying laptop instead of a scribe monkey. Oh well. I'm pretty lucky to be here, instead of sitting in an even less comfortable chair in a cubicle somewhere, in pantyhose and high heels, typing expense reports on a machine running Windows 97. I guess I'll save the bookstore for when I really need it....

I am not dead.

I know it's been a bad month for this blog. Bad semester? Anyways, here is something I promised a couple of people I'd post:

Signs of an Abusive Relationship

1. Dominance — Abusive individuals need to feel in charge of the relationship. Your abuser may treat you like a servant, child, or even as his possession, and try to control your time, your possessions, even your finances.
2. Humiliation — An abuser will do everything he can to make you feel bad about yourself, or defective in some way. After all, if you believe you're worthless and that no one else will want you, you're less likely to leave.
   
3. Isolation — In order to increase your dependence on him, an abusive partner will cut you off from the outside world. He may keep you from seeing family or friends, or even prevent you from going to work or school.
   
4. Intimidation — Your abuser may use a variety of intimation tactics designed to scare you into submission.
   
5. Denial and blame — Abusers are very good at making excuses for the inexcusable. He will commonly shift the responsibility onto you.

No, this post is not about Rob. I ran across these the other day in a newspaper or something, and while I was reading them, it hit me. Graduate school is an abuser. It controls my finances, it isolates me, it is often humiliating. There is the intimidation factor, which is especially bad because there is the threat of leaving grad school and being unemployable in other fields, and the threat of finishing and being unemployable in the field I've studied. And the denial and blame makes regular appearances whenever we are ballsy enough to complain.
Not that this makes me reconsider the wisdom of my decision to be here. As long as the funding is here, I will be too. Probably. But it did revive my fantasies about alternative modes of happiness, which now include careers as (in no particular order) baker, yoga instructor, writer, electrician, vice president, and translator. This is a Good Thing, because the job market was grim for people in my field even before the economy tanked. Now people around here are talking about the job market as if there is only one open position out there, and it's a 6-8 load as adjunct at the University of Timbuktu. I kid you not: the future is so grim that we are reading Kafka and talking about how hopeful it is.
In other news from the academy, I presented a paper at the Midwest Modern Language Association conference wherein I made jokes about feminine hygiene products and talked about fictional margins, I presented a list of issues on behalf of the graduate students here to our dwindling faculty wherein I reminded them that if they are so over the cannon that they can't be bothered to teach it to us then they shouldn't make fun of us for not knowing it, I presented a project to my theory seminar wherein I babbled incoherently about Derrida, Freud, Derrida, some other stuff, and Derrida and was warmly received despite the obvious fact that I had no idea what I was saying, and I found a pile of books I meant to read before moving that will now have to compete with wallpaper removal for my attention over Christmas break. Also, humanities are getting axed, those damn science people across the river are taking all the money, and bus fares are going up.
Thanksgiving is right around the corner, and I CANNOT WAIT to have several consecutive days in which I will worry about cranberry sauce and pies instead of my career, the ability of language to express meaning, the role of the author, ruptures, intertexts, or the aporia of prosopoeia.

Aaaw

This warm award to those of my students who asked me if and when and what I'm teaching next semester, and then had the good sense to pretend to be excited that I said yes, and the when and what fit with their schedules. And then they ALL turned in their homework. Now, I know teaching is not about being liked, but that was just what I needed in the middle of this exceptionally stressful, anxious week.
Also, a warm fuzzy award to Rob, who spent his day off yesterday painting the den instead of gloating about getting to stay home.
Of course, this sets a precedent which may ruin every vacation day he has for the next thirty years....

First snow

Snow in November, Obama in the White House...all I need now is for my house to be clean, and all will be right with the world.
Edit: snow may mean the onset of winter, but it also means the onset of Uggs season. I've seen at least 35 pairs already today - I find these shoes both functionally and aesthetically ridiculous, and it does put a tiny damper on the lovely weather. Just one more reason to stay home....

Done.

I voted! Despite reports of record turnout and extremely long lines, it took us about ten minutes, from walking to the polling place from our house, to signing the ledger, to filling out the ballots. Rob did get scolded for talking to me while we were voting, but all in all it went very smoothly.
On my way out, I ran into my former roommate Ben, who is working for Americorps and volunteering for the DFL. I haven't seen him in years, and this was only our second civil conversation since I moved out years ago. SO BIZARRE.
Anyways, now we're home, watching the last of this excruciatingly long campaign season's ads and debating whether to institute a new presidential election tradition of ordering pizza. It is such a relief that it's almost over!
If you haven't voted yet, get to it. Democracy will thank you.

Go vote!

Just a reminder: tomorrow (or today, if you're reading this on Tuesday, November 4) is election day. VOTE. PLEASE.
I tend away from the political here, but I am taking a break from our regularly scheduled complaining about grad school to let you know that it is really important that you go vote. If you don't vote, you will make the baby Jesus cry. This is doubly true for those of you who have never had a chance to vote in a presidential election before (Matt and Chris!) - if you do vote, an angel gets their wings. Or something.
I'm endorsing Obama and encourage you to do the same. By the time you read this, it will probably be too late for you to change my mind, not that I think you'd try, but people sometimes surprise you....