"We make it up as we go!"

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File this under 'things you never want to hear from faculty'.

With the new semester upon us, old issues with the department are quickly fading into the background as new ones fly in my face. We had our pre-semester department orientation a little over a week ago, during which we were all reminded about degree requirements, given teaching advice, and generally poked and prodded into admitting the semester was about to start. My department offers two different Ph.Ds: musicology and composition. Each program had a faculty representative at the orientation to answer questions specific to their specialty. In general, there were few questions from the musicologists; their faculty have worked hard to nail down degree guidelines, language requirements, and departmental expectations.

Then the composers started asking questions. After the first few "I don't know" answers from our faculty member, the musicologist representative (who also happens to be the director of graduate studies) began to look worried. After a few more, he jumped in and suggested that the composition faculty meet ASAP to actually solidify the program requirements. Our faculty member admitted to being sufficiently embarrassed on behalf of the composition faculty, and promised to take care of the situation.

The composition program has been in existence for about 7 years.

What terrified me the most was the fun reaction to the question of when the MA actually gets awarded along the path to the Ph.D. Both professors piped up at the same time, with two completely different answers: "at the end of the 2nd year" vs. "after comps in the third year". Hooray. No one in my program has ever gotten it before; they all came into the program with MAs and didn't care to have another one. I'm doubly interested in an answer to this question: I came straight from my BA, and I'm planning on leaving at the end of the second year and would prefer to do so with an MA in hand. Luckily, the faculty responded with an answer after only a few days: I'll get an MA at the end of the second year after my huge paper is (hopefully) approved by the faculty.

Our faculty rep was nice enough to meet with the composers after the orientation to see if we had any other questions he COULD answer, and to compile a list of what we all wanted to know. Unfortunately, the only answer he could really give us about all the fuzzy degree requirements was, "Well, we're a pretty young program, we've pretty much been making it up as we go along." I'll reiterate. Seven years this program has been around. If this were an undergraduate program, all of the requirements would have had to be nailed down before the major could even be offered, and the grandfather clause is in full effect should any changes be made during the program's evolution. Why are grad programs held to a lesser standard? The grandfather clause bit especially irks me, but I'll get to that next time.

So, if the faculty gets to make things up as they wish, does that mean I get to make up research, assignments, and excuses too?!

Great start to the year.

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Changes [2] - Composing, Philosophy, and Power Games

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Continuing on from the previous post, I want to elaborate a little on my issues with the faculty as composition teachers and the Big Damn Fuckup that was my first year meeting.

I was planning to give the department a second chance this term, see if my second year got any better with one professor gone on sabbatical and another who was gone last year returned to active duty. The meeting in June was the last straw, however. First of all, the fact that I didn't even know about the meeting until the day before speaks to the department's disorganization and unclear expectations. Then, as I'm waiting outside the door for my turn, a guy in the second year of the program me tells me that this meeting determines whether or not I can advance to the next year of the degree and their expectations are really high. Something this important, and I wasn't told? I get in there and essentially get ripped apart, alternately told that my piece is really innovative and terribly executed. Without reciting the entire conversation, they were expecting a publisher-ready score and had different ideas for how the piece should have gone. Interesting, considering it's my piece and I thought that my musical ideas were the ones being expressed, not theirs.

Admittedly, part of the problem is system shock. I was always taught by previous composition teachers that your music is your own, and no one can tell you how you should write it; advice can be given on technique and the like but ultimately, it's your piece. Coming to this place and being told what specifically to change has been a serious issue for me, and I just don't believe in that type of artistic instruction. If something in one of my pieces doesn't work, fine, let me know where and why and I'll figure out how to correct it on my own. I retain creative control over my work, the piece is still 100% my own thought and effort, but it's better for the constructive criticism that's been given.

Another part of the issue was the quality they were demanding from the score when they knew that (1) I'd never produced a non-standard written score before, (2) was striking out into new notation territory, and (3) got little real help from the faculty past the initial very rough draft. Seems like setting me up for failure and a nice dressing down, which I certainly got. Sure, everyone needs to get knocked down a few pegs when they get to grad school; we all come out of undergrad as the top of our class, the best of the best, the ones in charge. Obviously, that doesn't continue in grad school. However, I've found through my own experiences and from talking to others that you get humbled more than enough within the first few weeks, if not the first few days. The first time I sat down to discuss the listening and reading assignments for a seminar class, I felt so horrible about myself I wanted to quit. I thought I was dumber than shit on a brick and would never make it through school. Additional dressing down not necessary; I already feel stupid and useless, thanks. Skip the unnecessary pot shots at my non-existent ego and give me some real feedback. Being told "...you're going to have to work twice as hard to be as smart as everyone else here" is just cruel, and that's an actual quote.

At the end of the meeting, though, I was stunned but largely okay. I had some things to fix, some of which I really didn't want to change but would for the sake of passing my first year. Then came the cherry on top. They ask me when I can have my revisions in, and I tell them that I'll be leaving town very soon, already have a summer job, several other time commitments, and some work for another professor that I had promised I would have finished before I left town. I say that it's unlikely I'll be able to begin revisions until after I return from Atlantic Center for the Arts (something they should have been proud of, but didn't acknowledge at all). The head of the department says no, forget about Professor Y, he can wait, this comes first. None of that other stuff matters, this is your degree, you have to do this to advance to the second year. You need this done in two weeks, forget all that other crap.

I don't appreciate being told what my priorities are. When I make a commitment to something I follow through, and that's that. I will not drop my job, my previous coursework, or anything else that I've already committed to because you decided to give one day's notice for a meeting in which you tell me that what you want is more important than anything else, ever. They actually told me to just pull lots of all-nighters and get it done. Promoting unhealthy work habits in your students? Yeah, okay, sometimes we do pull all-nighters, but it's our own choice and it's usually because we've not managed our time well. That's our problem. I won't sacrifice a healthy amount of sleep just because you want to show me how much control you can exert over me.

So, I ignored what they said and revised my piece after I got back from the residency. Soon afterwards, a message was sent out to the whole department by the head of music graduate studies with the guidelines for revisions of first year projects and papers. The policy states that we have until mid-September to do revisions. This is not a new policy.

It was all a power game.

To be continued.

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Changes [1] - Provocation and Revelation

I've been waffling about what to write in this post. There are so many things I want to talk about, but I've been trying to avoid having it all rush out in one big projectile of incoherent, stinking blog-vomit. So much has changed in the last three months; it's hard for me to parse, even now. I suppose that, just like the last time the proverbial shit hit the equally proverbial fan, I'll start with the facts and elaborate over as many posts as necessary. Otherwise...I'll never start. No wonder so many academic papers begin the same way!

Anyway.

Fact #1: The composition faculty, at a big important end-of-semester meeting that I didn't know existed until the day before it happened, told me that my first year composition project needed revisions. Okay, fine. No big deal, was expected. They dictated to me what changes were to be made, and some of them fundamentally altered the piece. They also demanded that I drop everything (job, work left for other professors from the Spring, home responsibilities, etc.) and do the revisions immediately. That is a big deal.

Fact #2: Going to Atlantic Center for the Arts was a life changing experience.

Fact #3: I have finally decided for certain that I will be seeding applications to other universities this fall. The programs I apply to will be MFAs and perhaps Ph.Ds in interdisciplinary arts, not music.

So. Obviously there's a lot going through my head right now. I've been thinking about leaving this university almost since I got here. I've known since the beginning that I don't really fit here, either artistically or socially, but I've been trying to make it work anyway. Great funding, health insurance, a prestigious school seal on my degree, all very nice things...but I've realized that the degree itself matters less to me than the process I go through to get it. If I'm miserable during my entire time at this school, the quality of my work will suffer, and the degree won't be worth a damn because I won't have a good portfolio of music, art, and writing to back it up. Assuming I even got to the degree-acquiring part, considering how incompatible my ideas are with those of the department. I accomplished so little this academic year that I feel quite embarrassed, and after the experiences I've had this summer and the work I've produced, I know that it's not my brain, it's the environment. I was very relieved to discover this. I thought I was broken. So, with renewed confidence in myself, I looked back on my time at this university and realized...wow, this place really blows. And not in the entertaining, orgasmic way.

To be continued.

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One Month Ago, I Was Here

((Written on June 26th, while phdead.net was under construction))

Contrary to the evidence presented by this blog, my first year of graduate school did NOT kill me.

Ph.Dead went on hiatus for a lot of reasons. Not only did finals week creep up on me, but Mr. Dead and I (for some unknown, insane reason) scheduled our new lease to start on the last day of finals. Brilliant, I know. Though we're still surrounded by unpacked boxes and random trinkets we could swear we got rid of, we're at least away from the mold and enjoying our new house. Perhaps the most exciting reason for the break was the designing and construction of phdead.net, which I've already ranted about but can't stop admiring. Unfortunately, there was a negative side to the hiatus as well; I've been honestly too angry about my current school circumstances to write about the whole situation. The recent developments will have their own post fairly soon, as I think I've finally gained enough perspective to give an intelligent, semi-calm rant.

This summer has shaped up to be a lot busier than I had originally anticipated. I began the summer as I usually do by creating a list of all the books I wanted to catch up on and video games I wanted to play. I figured that I would have plenty of time outside my 10-20 hour/week work-from-home job to do what I do best: nerd out and consume cheesy sci-fi novels. Suddenly, that time evaporated. This was in part due to the aforementioned school issues. Mainly, it's because I was suddenly notified that the artist's residency that I applied for back in February had someone cancel, and I was number one on the wait list.

So, here I am. I couldn't very well pass up the best artistic opportunity of my life, could I? I'm now writing from my parents' house in Florida, waiting for the welcoming dinner on Monday night that officially kicks off the residency. I was lucky enough to receive a scholarship from the residency that completely covered my fees, and my parents covered my plane ticket as a birthday present, so this has been an all-around Good Thing(tm). I'm both excited and terrified about the chance I've been given. But more on that later. For now, I've been summoned to go to the mall with my mom, who wants to spend at least as many dollars on me as there are miles that normally separate us. As a dirt-poor, twenty-something graduate student and wife of an artist, who am I to argue?

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Alive and Kicking!

With many, many thanks to Mr. Dead, Ph.Dead is back from its unannounced summer hiatus with a shiny new layout and web address! The new phdead.net is up and running! Those of you who are still using Internet Explorer...well, first of all, why? Second of all, you should either switch to Firefox or keep using the blogspot address for the time being, as the new site is still a bit buggy in IE (what else is new?). Those of you using readers or subscriptions to keep up, make sure you update your addresses to reflect the new location, as I'll only be crossposting to blogger for a short time.

I'm so thrilled about the new look of Ph.Dead! Several months ago I decided I wanted a real layout, so I did a little research, sketched what I wanted on a sheet of paper, and handed it to Mr. Dead. He took my chicken scratches and produced this beautiful, sleek site that looks just how I imagined it! Major kudos to him for a fantastic job.

Ph.Dead is kicking back into full gear, so more updates are coming soon!

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Nose Removal Increases Productivity

Of all the things that I anticipated would leave me paralyzed and motivationless at the end of the semester, the one I didn't see coming ended up doing me in.

Allergies. I hate them so hard. I've had them my whole life, year-round, every year, without fail. Before coming to this university, I lived in a state with next to no seasonal changes. I didn't think I even had seasonal allergies. Living through spring in a state that has a full palette of beautiful seasons has taught me the error of my assumption. I find this rather depressing, because it means that I'll be debilitated by allergies during exam time every year! Every morning I wake up, immediately have an allergy attack, pop pills, chug tea to chase off the fatigue, and wander through the day in a haze of exhaustion brought on by my wiped out immune system. I've never needed so many naps before. Reading dry academic texts is difficult on the best of days; with my body is exhausted and my eyes falling shut every few minutes, it's nearly impossible. More caffeine doesn't seem to be helping, it only makes my body feel even weirder. You'd think after all these years, I would have found a solution! I tried opening the window to air out our moldy, dusty townhome, but then pollen blew in the window and covered my desk. So. Best I can do is take a pill every 12 hours on the dot and buy up whatever other over-the-counter symptom treatments are available.

While I'm here, I may as well give a progress update. I'm roughly halfway through my English paper on Promethea. Not all of it has been formally written yet, but I've been making semi-informal annotations to get myself writing. I have a lot of trouble with editing while I write; I won't commit a sentence to paper if it isn't perfectly crafted. That obviously makes for extremely slow progress, which is why I've started doing annotations in blog format. It really helps me a lot, since it seems to take the pressure off and lets me just dump the ideas out of my head without worrying so much. It seems dumb and simple, but it's a huge step in the right direction for me. I'm hoping to have this paper mostly done by tonight, with just editing and formatting left for tomorrow. Then it'll be time to launch straight into my Spectralism paper! Thrilling, really. Wish me luck.

All's Quiet on the Blogging Front...

Is there anyone academically-affiliated that doesn't hate this time of year? I see both students and professors shuffling around campus in a burned-out daze, and I'm right there with them. Everyone is stumbling around with armfuls of books, looking despondent and exhausted, hardly noticing the beautiful weather that's finally graced us with its presence. Even the frat boys are hunched over their laptops in the library, looking sober and focused. It's really a depressing time to be on campus. If you aren't already worn down by your own work, seeing even the most cheerful students repeatedly slamming their faces into a pile of nasty books will sure do it for you. It passes eventually, though, and midway through next week half of these kids will have already flown home for the summer.

Today is the last day of classes. It's also the last concert of the year, and I unfortunately volunteered to perform on it. Gotta go out with a bang, I guess, filling this last day with as much work as possible. Time to move into serious paper crunching mode.

First up to bat is my final paper for Narrative & Time. I've decided to write about the comic series Promethea, written by Alan Moore and penciled by J.H. Williams. Specifically, I've decided to go all hardcore comic scholar and analyze Williams' panel structure as a method of portraying temporal and spatial instability. This one will be somewhat difficult, as most of the resources I need are already checked out of the library with no hopes of recalling them, but I think I have enough information to lay a firm groundwork and overlay it with lots of my own analysis. It's due on May 4th, but the professor has begged us to get them done as early as possible. My goal is to finish by May 1st or 2nd, leaving time for...

...paper number two, the one for my Spectralism class, and the one that is likely to kill me in my sleep and drink my blood. The good news is that all of my interlibrary loans have finally arrived! Let there be confetti and ponies on this happy occasion! The bad news is that I have no thesis statement for this paper yet. I have a topic, resources, and examples, but no argument to make yet. My professor assures me that as I do my analysis, an argument will present itself to me. I sure freaking hope so. The analysis will take long enough by itself without me agonizing for three days over what to write. This paper is longer and more in depth than the previous paper, so once I start writing I need to churn it out fast.

I'm so ready to write 40 amazing pages of analysis in the next two weeks. And grade a bunch of final projects for the Music & Computers class. And move to a new house halfway across town.

Bring on the caffeine!

Library Woes: ILLs and Recalls

The library means so many things to grad students. It's a place to scour shelves for dusty old books (50 of which you will check out, haul home, and not return for three years). A place to work for long hours (especially if the library assigns carrels to grad students). A place to eat (since you never actually leave). A place to sleep (made easier if you have a carrel). A place to socialize (because when do you ever see your fellow grad students otherwise?). A place to hide from annoying students (because if there's one place you know they won't be, it's in the library working).

Of course, the library serves two other important functions. Stealing the little bit of hard-earned money each grad student possesses, and accepting sacrifices of small animals on behalf of the interlibrary loan gods.

I don't think there's a single grad student in the world that ends a school year without library fines. Those who are in their comps year often amass fines in excess of $100. The 'recall' function is either evil or a lifesaver, depending which side of the recall button you're on. If you're working on a paper and really need a book someone has checked out, it's amazing, assuming the other person actually returns the book in a timely fashion (or at all). If you're in the thick of your comps and someone recalls one of the key books for your topic, you're pretty much boned. There's no way you can return the book, so you rack up $1/day fines until you make sure you don't have to retake the exams. As if we don't spend enough money on books we actually own, we have to pay a ridiculous amount for books we don't even get to keep. Fantastic.

My current predicament has me on my knees before the shrine of the interlibrary loan gods, praying for swiftness of delivery. This problem is partially the fault of the professors. If they would assign papers more than 2-3 weeks in advance, I would have plenty of time to order the music scores and books I need and have them arrive in enough time to be useful. Every day, I refresh my 'library requests' queue to see if there's been a status update, and every day the words "request sent" stare back at me. This is way worse than tracking a package. Yes, I always worry about $100 worth of Amazon orders going missing, but I worry more about failing a class due to lack of paper resources and being expelled from the program, thus derailing my life for the next 5+ years. Melodramatic? Yes. Yes it is. But it's hard to not see the apocalypse approaching when the semester is ending and you still don't have the score for the piece you're suppose to have analyzed in the next three days. Come on, guys, I even told you which university within 50 miles has the item listed as 'on the shelf'! You can do it, I believe in you!

I think it's time to pray harder. Is ramen, pizza, and beer an acceptable offering for library gods? Somehow I think burning books in their honor would be offensive. 

Can I Write My Paper About Space Monkeys?

Some very hard-working people have inspired me to stop feeling sorry for myself and just get to work. When I talk to my grad student friends I know from other departments, they sound like I did in undergrad. They talk about how swamped with work they are, how much effort they're putting in, but in the end everything gets done and it's all good work. Right now, they're all going nuts with the end of the semester looming, frantically researching their final papers and climbing toward that staggering page count. I've been having the opposite problem since I got here; since I've been so unhappy with everything they're forcing me to do here that it's killed my motivation. They work so hard, but I just don't care anymore. Without motivation, and without a topic to care about, I find myself freaking out at the last minute trying to churn out some bullshit, and it ends up being subpar work that I'm not proud of. I used to enjoy (as much as anyone can enjoy) writing academic papers for two reasons: I liked the research phase of collecting tons of books and learning a bunch of new stuff, and I liked the "job well done" feeling that came with writing a paper and knowing I did the best I could. I liked being able to go back, read a paper, and be proud of the conclusions I had drawn. Now, I feel like I can't make myself work, no matter what I do.

Well, I'm just going to try harder now. I have two final papers coming up. One of them I know I can enjoy writing, because I have three topics in mind that I can get into. That paper, of course, is for my English class. If not for that class, I might have gone crazy and left by now. Of course, it only has to be 10 pages. Figures that the one I care about is the short one. My other paper has to be 20-40 pages, and it's going to be really hard to find a topic that I give a damn about that will actually fit the class. For the most part, I've found the music we're studying to be pretty painful to listen to. The thought of listening to it enough times to write a 20+ page analysis of it makes me sad inside. I have a meeting today with that professor to brainstorm paper topics, and he's the only professor I've felt comfortable talking to about my give-a-shit issues, so he seems on board for helping me find a topic I care about. I hope we can come up with something without me having to tell him that I hate the music he's devoted his life to studying. I really want to do a good job with this paper, if for no other reason than to prove to myself that I still have the ability to work hard. If I find a topic I can really get into, then I'd love to use this paper for the big paper I have to turn in at the end of year two to prove that I can write like an academic. That paper is apparently a really big deal, so most people try to write it as part of a class so it goes through lots of editing. If nothing else, that idea serves as some extra motivation. Less work further down the road? Yes, please. In fact, it's time for that meeting right now. Here's hoping it's not painful.

Something Smells Like Burning...

I took this weekend to do some reading for pleasure, rather than seeing just how close I could get a match to the pages of Bakhtin's "The Dialogic Imagination" without setting the pages on fire. I always forget how much my favorite pastime relaxes me (the reading, not the fire). It's like a 'reset' button on my brain, but not one of the ones you have to push by shoving a paperclip into it. That's more what school feels like. I read some comics, immersed myself in a young adult fantasy series by one of my favored authors, and scored some great deals for future reading at the used book store. As usual, this has lead to me spending way too much time managing my Shelfari page, but even that has a certain relaxation factor to it. I should require myself to read at least one book for fun each month. When the school year hits, I tend to stop reading anything fun that isn't fanfiction. Allowing myself one novel per month would likely go a long way toward alleviating some stress. The only problem is stopping once I start! I've blown through three short novels in the past few days, and my Kermode reading for English is starting to get jealous. Maybe I'll see how flammable it is after class today.

So, not that I'm counting or anything...but the last day of classes is only 21 days away. The last day of exams is May 8th, but I keep forgetting that this university is huge, and thus has an exam period of almost two weeks, most of which has nothing to do with me. My undergrad university took about five days, and two of those days the campus was nearly empty. So, freedom and sanity are far closer than I originally thought, and I'm feeling a bit more hopeful about my chances of finishing this semester alive. If someone takes the matches away, I might even make it to the end without burning any particularly nasty theory texts.

I think I'm going to buy one of those giant desk calendars so I can draw large, satisfying X marks over each day that passes. Maybe using a razor blade. We'll see what kind of week I have.

Persistence = Beer

For the sake of some levity around here:

"Once upon a time there was a student who wrote a dissertation. At the end of his rope and convinced his committee didn't care about the damn thing anyway, he took a chance.

A little ways in, he wrote in the middle of one paragraph, "If you're still reading this, I'll buy you a beer."

A bit later, he did it again. "If you've made it this far, I'll buy you a whole six-pack," he wrote.

Further on, he decided, what the hell. "If you're actually still reading, I'll buy you an entire keg!" he added to the end of one particularly intricate argument.

When he got to his defense, his advisor chuckled, clapping him on the back. "You, my boy, owe me a six-pack!" he said with a knowing wink."

It would be even funnier if it weren't so true for so many people! Times like this I'm glad my dissertation 80% project/20% writing instead of slogging out 200+ pages of head trauma. Much love to the person who posted this joke in one of the grad student communities I frequent.

Now, to make the subject line doubly meaningful, I promise to buy myself a beer when I'm done writing this paper. 

Proverbial Shit, Meet Fan (Part 2)

((Continued from previous entry))

After re-reading the e-mail in which my independent study bid was rejected, I've realized some things.

What irritates me most is that he rejected my independent study request because he thinks I need to do more writing. He said: "There's a serious writing component to the program, & for most people it's the most difficult component. So if you have a chance to work on writing in the context of some academic class, that's helpful. At the end of next year, you'll have to submit an academic paper, typically incl. fairly rigorous analysis, some 'big ideas', a 'clear thesis', and so on. We tend to be pretty demanding about the quality of that paper. It's a big plus for you if you've already basically *written* the paper in some other class."

Now, this makes me very angry for several reasons. (1) I suggested that the independent study have a writing component. (2) Last semester I wrote a paper on my own, not as part of a class, submitted it to a conference, and had it accepted. I had no support from the faculty on this whatsoever. (3) That paper was actually the SECOND academic paper I had written and presented at a professional conference. No other student in my department has done that. Add to that the fact that I'm 8-10 years younger than the average student in the program. I'm not saying my writing is perfect or that I have nothing to learn, not at all. What I am saying, though, is that I don't need an analysis-based class to force me to write. All those classes do is make me churn out bad papers on topics I don't care about. I can do research and write papers on my own about topics that actually interest me, and if I have a faculty advisor who actually cares and is involved then I bet the paper would be even better.

I haven't given up the fight, but I'm just too worn out to pursue it further right now. I'm going to present the above points to him and see if he'll reconsider, but I'm not all that hopeful. I'm more concerned with getting through the semester with my sanity and health intact at this point. I've been sick three times in the past four weeks. I haven't been that bad off since my sophomore year of undergrad, the same year I had a nasty struggle with depression. I've felt myself slipping back to that time, and this recent bout of illnesses has really brought it home how close I am to being back at that point of my life, a place I never though I'd be ever again. Mr. Dead has been quite worried, as he was there for it last time, and has convinced me that I need to schedule a meeting with the composition professors to try and set things right. If it looks like things can't work out for me here, he's made me promise that I'll look for other programs to transfer to.

It scares the crap out of me, because I don't want to have wasted this entire year of work. We're also just getting to the point where we're making friends and having fun here, and now we're talking about leaving. Of course, my biggest fear is that if I leave here, I won't be accepted to any other programs, and then what will I do with my life? Ultimately, though, if I'm miserable here, is it worth it to stay? Even if they offer to change things, will I be happy if I stay, or have I already become too bitter towards them?

Maybe I'll build us a hobbit hole and become a reclusive artist who lives off the land and bites anyone who comes near. That sounds way better than getting some fancy piece of paper.

Proverbial Shit, Meet Fan (Part 1)

There's a lot going on right now, and I don't really know how to start writing about it all. I guess we'll start with some basic facts.

Fact One: My plea for an independent study got rejected.
Fact Two: My health, both physical and mental, has seriously declined over the month of March.
Fact Three: I'm going out of my mind because I hate this department so much.
Fact Four: Mr. Dead has finally convinced me that I need to look in earnest for a different program.

Fact One brings up some major problems, and has been at least partly responsible for Facts Two through Four. As I've complained about before, 4 out of 4 seminars thus far have been analysis-based; I feel like we've gone over method of analysis derived by someone with a typewriter and a need to pad their tenure portfolio. Add the fact that most of this analysis has centered around music I don't even enjoy listening to, and you have one big ball of unhappy, repressed Megan. Most of my classes might have been fine, perhaps even really interesting, had they existed on their own in a mix of different types of classes. I'm in a creative field. Ultimately, this is a music composition Ph.D program. I'm supposed to be making my own art and learning how to write about it, but in reality I've done almost nothing of either one. When they were trying to recruit me here, they told me that I could take my art in whatever direction I wanted. Sure, I can do whatever I want...on my own time, with no support or interest from them. In the meantime, I need to write this type of composition, compose for this ensemble, and analyze these pieces.

I really thought coming to grad school was going to mean more freedom. I thought I would be using this time to develop my own thoughts and opinions, to hone my artistic skills, to find the path that most suits me. The only progress I've made in those areas was done completely on my own, no thanks to them. This place is trying to box me in, instead of help me grow. What's infuriating is that the director of the program keeps insisting that they don't do that, that they're totally open. Maybe that's true at the dissertation level, but I have to survive three years of this bullshit before I get there, and I'm not sure I'm willing to put up with it.

I'll elaborate on the above listed facts as soon as I untangle everything going on in my head. Influx of nasty, pissed off posts, coming right up. To be continued.

Christmas in March! Presents?

My professor and advisor from my undergrad university knew me way too well. Though I tried to play it off as a common trait of serious students, he saw through me and announced it to the class: "Registration is Megan's favorite time of the year. It's like Christmas!"

Okay, so it used to be true. I used to spend hours looking through the course offering book, writing down the numbers for every class that interested me, and making elaborate charts that detailed which graduation requirements I still needed to fulfill, which classes would meet the requirements, and which classes conflicted with each other. I loved classes. I admit it. It's one of the reasons I decided to go to graduate school; I wasn't ready to stop! I took some of the most random things in undergrad that had nothing to do with my degree or career path: Latin I, Human Sexuality, Religion Seminar, Biology 101 (for science majors...ouch!), Love & Sexuality in World Religions...the list goes on. I graduated with something like 152 credits in four years. I was DUMB.

Right now, I could use some of that old dumbness back. Registration time has come around again, and I find myself pretty apathetic. Part of it is the simple lack of options. I'm required to take two seminars each semester, and the composition program is so small that there are usually only two seminars offered, one analysis and one creative. Oh dear me, however shall I choose? True, I'm also required to take two seminars outside the department over the course of two years, but I've already taken one and I'm saving my second one for a creative writing class offered only in the spring. Thing is, though, that every single class I've taken here so far has been analysis-based, due to some weird scheduling issues and professors being on sabbatical. An entire year of analysis. No creative classes. Even my composition lessons have been more focused on technique than creativity, and I've not gotten the chance to do any work on the projects I really want to be devoting my time to. This is a problem. This is one of the big reasons I've been going out of my mind this year and hating my program.

Good news is, I may have found a solution. Independent study! I have an e-mail out to one of the professors asking if he'd be willing to save me from eternal torment and give me this opportunity to have two creative classes next semester. Think of how much I could get done! I might actually get to tackle some of the projects I've been dreaming up since I got here!

It seems too good to be true, after the way things have been going here. But I'm going to hope! A lot!

...and maybe conduct some creepy rituals to ensure the professor agrees. Accept my request for independent study, or the voodoo doll gets it!

Can the Computer Write My Lecture, Too?

I think I deserve a teaching award for today. Most Determined TA, or perhaps Most Inadvertently Entertaining TA.

Today, I have no voice. Between my recent bout of influenza (yes, right on the heels of my spring break illness) and my choir rehearsal last night, my throat has apparently had it with my abusive ways. Of course, Fridays are my lab days, where I teach three computer music lab sections back to back. I bet you see the fun starting already, don’t you? Here are the possible solutions I considered.

Scenario #1: Cancel Class
No way. Today was all about me teaching the kids how to work the portable recorders they’ll be using for their next project, and I really don’t want to waste class time doing that. Besides, I FEEL fine!

Scenario #2: Try to Talk Anyway
By about 9:30, I realized there was no way this was going to work. I had been up for an hour and a half, done lots of productive coughing, downed some tea with honey, and given my voice plenty of chances to show itself. No luck. Best I could produce was a gargling whisper once in a while. Besides, I’ve abused my vocal chords a lot in the past 6 months, and I’m starting to worry that I’ll do permanent damage. Scratch that idea.

Scenario #3: Charades!
I briefly considered trying to convey my short lecture on the M-Audio MicroTrack Recorder through gestures and pointing. Then I laughed at myself on my students’ behalf and moved on.

Scenario #4: Typing Frenzy
This actually had some promise! I type everything out, they read it as we go along, and I show them the buttons as they read. Of course, everyone reads at different speeds, and it’s hard for them to look at the text and look at the recorder at the same time. Okay, fail.

Scenario #5: Text-to-Speech!
A nice improvement on scenario #4: type everything out, but have the computer read it to them while I demonstrate! The computerized voices are pretty funny, and I knew there would be a lot of giggling, but this seemed like the best option for getting the information out there in a way that made sense. We have a winner!

The kids were surprisingly sympathetic for the most part, and I think it went well! They definitely laughed at the computerized voice at first, but they were good about taking notes and helping me out when someone had a question. Class ended up only being about 15 minutes long because of it, but at least they got the information they needed. Mission accomplished! Time to go home and not talk all evening.

Is it dumb that I’m worrying about whether my voice will be back in time for World Dungeons & Dragons Day tomorrow?

This Nutshell is Cramped.

Artist statements suck. Sitting in front of a computer trying to make a short and generic statement about my art and technique sounds like an exercise in eye gouging and facepalming to me.

Unfortunately, my recent residency applications have turned what was formerly a mere observation into a first-hand account. Lucky for me, when my task was complete, my eyes remained intact. Ultimately, it was probably good for me to try and get a handle on my body of work, but I'm not big into defining things that don't need to be defined. It's part of what makes me a bad academic.

Anyway, here's what I came up with. Hopefully it doesn't make you want to gouge eyes, too.

--------

"I believe that the concert hall is far too limiting to contain all musical expression. In my work, I attempt to present music in as many forms as possible by invading the art gallery, the theater, the internet, and most especially the streets and alleys of the city. An evening concert is a wonderful experience, but reaches only a small fraction of the population. I seek to bring the sounds of 21st century music to a variety of audiences in any location I can get to.

Moving outside traditional music venues often means fusing sound with other creative disciplines. Much of my work is inspired by literature, visual arts, and theater. Many pieces begin with the question, “How can I combine music with that?” and end with a hybrid work created in partnership with another artist. Unique spaces, both virtual and physical, also intrigue me and often lead to site-specific performances and installations.

Technology is an essential element of my work and is used both in enabling the presentation of sound in odd locations and in bending sound into new roles. I work with a variety of hardware and software in creating my pieces, and especially enjoy blending traditional acoustic instruments with new technology. I firmly believe in the laptop as a performance instrument, and consider it my most important tool in creating music."

Spring Break: 2009 Report

Well. That didn't go as well as I had hoped. Remember that nice mantra I was repeating about not getting sick? Apparently my meditative powers failed me, because I spent all but two days of spring break coughing up vital organs all over the couch. There was a pretty hefty to-do list for spring break, one that included both things that needed to get done, as well as things I'd been wanting to do for a long time. Most of the wants fell through; no new website layout, blog layout is still under construction, no work done on art projects or composition. However, lots of the needs got taken care of, some to a better extent than I'd hoped for. 

Big news number one is that not only was I able to get some apartment/house searching done, I found a house that was perfect for us. Even better? It's ours now, with a lease starting on May 8th (the last day of finals, incidentally). All one level, a yard for the dog, no roof leaks, close to campus, along several bus routes, and cheaper than our current townhome! We're extremely relieved to have found this place, and that was definitely the highlight of spring break. 

In between naps and delirious headaches, I was able to scrape together an edited version of my portfolio DVD and write a new artist statement, which I'll probably post here. Those were the hardest parts of my residency application packages, so getting the rest together to be postmarked by that Friday wasn't too bad. All of my grading got done, albeit later than I'd hoped, and I was even easy on the kids like the professor wanted (feh...). I spoke last entry about Mr. Dead and I working to get healthy again, and I'm pleased to report that we've actually made progress on that front. We've been doing some light exercise at least 5 days/week, and we're actually eating better, too. I really hope we stick with it because I can always think and work better when I'm healthy, and I'll need the extra boost to my well-being to get through finals time. All-in-all, I'm not doing too bad. 

Things are going to be pretty crazy from here to the end of the semester, of course. The end of spring break always heralds the beginning of a two-month-long crunch time. Though I'm not thrilled about the final papers that'll be due, the grading hell that exams bring, my end-of-year-one portfolio review, or the high stress level that permeates the air, I am looking forward to being done with my first year of grad school. 

Eight weeks until the hardest part is over.

Eight weeks until we move into our new house. 

Eight weeks until a three-month break where I can re-orient myself and figure out how to make the best of my time here. 

...but who's counting?

Spring Break: 2009 Edition

Ah, spring break. The time of warm beaches, scantily-clad coeds, relaxation, and fun.

Only not. 

I'm pretty sure spring break was invented for two reasons.
-- To give grad students time to catch up on grading/reading/research/eating/etc.
-- To be a form of punishment for grad students, to break their spirits even further so they become willing slaves of the university.

Assuming that I'm NOT actually getting sick on my first day of spring break (and I feel like I should be repeating a mantra here), I plan to fully accept my punishment and make the best of it. In fact, my to-do list is comprised mostly of things I've been wanting to make time for all semester. My portfolio website has been down for months and needs a full redesign, there's an artist-in-residency application deadline that I'd really like to make, I have several art projects on the back burner, and I've been dying to get back into electronic music improvisation and rebuild my performance interface. Of course, at the same time, I've got a lot of grading to do, reading for classes, and house/apartment hunting to do. Hooray. The good with the bad, I suppose. I was really hoping to get away for a few days, head down to the family cabin and just...be gone for a while. Our recently revealed financial issues are making that impossible, unfortunately, but hopefully I'll get so much accomplished I won't even mind. 

On top of all of this, Mr. Dead and I are working hard to undo the nasty things stress has done to our bodies and brains since we moved here. We're getting back to the way we were eating when we first moved here (which was good, actually), and we've started getting regular physical activity again. We're even getting back into yoga again, in hopes that it'll help with the whole relaxation/de-stress thing. I'm using spring break to really solidify the new/old routine and willpower, so hopefully it won't crash and burn as soon as school starts back up. 

So, high hopes, right? 

I am not getting sick. I am not getting sick. I am not getting sick. 

Really. I mean it.

Grad Students Should Be Poor Anyway, Right?

I was having a good day, too.

The terrible Economy has finally taken out its deeply repressed mommy problems on my little family. Sure, we’d gotten smacked around a little in the past; it took my husband six months to find a job that didn’t involve espresso after I moved us to this forsaken little hole. Eventually, it seemed that Economy got bored with us and finally allowed Mr. Dead to find a job that he really loved. He came home smelling like printer ink and curry instead of old milk and mocha, and all was well. Unfortunately, the position was always a bit tenuous. He was the third employee out of three at a very tiny, privately owned business. With Economy looming over the owner and making him all twitchy, Mr. Dead was counting the days until he’d have to sell his soul to the caffeinated masses…again.

I think Economy saw how happy and comfortable we were, overheard the conversations about moving to a better apartment and buying more audio equipment, and decided that he had to intervene. Two days ago, Mr. Dead was informed that the little business he works for just isn’t pulling in enough money to cover his wages and still pay the electric bill for the shop. Economy sat back and cackled while the poor owner, who loves Mr. Dead to death and feels terrible about all this, apologized profusely and promised future employment should things change for the better.

Economy, I’d like to kick you in the crotch right now. It’s hard enough to make a living as a grad student without you getting our spouses laid off. What are you going to do next, take away my fellowship? My teaching assignment? You, sir, are a class A dickface.

This is yet another reason that I regret coming to this university. We’re in a city that was named the #1 place to live in America in the recent past. That means that the city is completely packed with very experienced workers and their families who moved here for the wonderful community, so there are no jobs and no housing. It’s impossible for a fresh-out-of-college like Mr. Dead to compete in this kind of job market. Yeah, jobs are tight everywhere right now, but this town is particularly bad, and it’s going to kill Mr. Dead if he has to go back to working retail. He’s an artist, and it just destroys his creative spirit to be in that kind of environment.

I really wish my university would be a little more open with their jobs. There are grad student-only jobs that they have to beg and plead with people to fill, and so many of them are things Mr. Dead would love to do. There should really be some sort of spousal hire system that applies to grad students too, not just professors.

Back later. I have to go tape Mr. Dead’s resume to the forehead of every HR person on this campus.

/spit Economy

Interlude: Why I Teach

I just had the best conversation ever with a former student. This girl is an international student form China who was in my Music 101 class last semester. We had several opportunities for students to share their musical talents over the course of the semester and she jumped on every chance, eager to share Chinese traditional music with the class. She played the hulusi, a type of free reed instrument with a beautifully smooth tone. She was a very enthusiastic student, and did very well in the class.

I ran into her today on my way out of one of the many campus coffee shops. She stopped me and we exchanged a few pleasantries, but she seemed like she was bursting to tell me something. She finally told me that she and some of her friends had gotten together and formed a Chinese music ensemble, and had already performed three times! She said she really missed music class, and was going to try taking instrument lessons next semester. She said she loved music so much and really wanted a way to keep up with it outside of class. I gave her profuse congratulations on taking the initiative to form the ensemble and getting performances together so quickly, told her who she could talk to about music lessons, and told her that I'd love to come to a performance sometime. I'm thinking about composing a piece for their ensemble so they could play on one of the big university concerts. That would be awesome.

I walked away from that conversation grinning like a fool and feeling great about life. Moments like that are why I love teaching.

"Hokay, so, heres sum dataz!"

So often the wisdom of the world is expressed through targeted snarkiness.


((Click to enlarge - will take you to the Socks and Barney site))

The application to academia is obvious, I hope. This comic summarizes one of the biggest problems I have with academic writing. The way I see it, the point of research is to find out new information or make interesting observations about a topic, then share what you've learned with as many people as possible. Using restrictive language (big words, field-specific words, too many words) seems contrary to the whole idea. Why do academics need things explained to them in such painfully complicated terms? Perhaps they feel that their intelligence is being insulted when they read something that non-specialists can understand. I'm sure the writer feels much smarter after writing a completely incomprehensible 200 page masterpiece of excessive citation, as well.

I try to avoid this in my own writing whenever possible. Being early in my academic career, there are certain hoops I have to jump through to pass courses with decent grades. My personal writing, though, the academic writing that I do for my own private research, is very different from the forced BS that assignments are made of. Whenever someone in the field reads it, though, they immediately start criticizing. Their critiques are generally that I am not using the "accepted language of the field". I feel like thanking them at that point, because that's my goal - to explain things in terminology that everyone can comprehend. Though I keep getting slammed for it, I'm planning to stick with it. Part of being young and stupid is being overly-idealistic and thinking you can make a difference in things larger than yourself. At the very least, I figure people will eventually get bored with worrying about my writing style and either accept it or blacklist me from all future conferences. At this point, I'm not entirely sure which I'd prefer.

Honestly, until someone catches me opening my essays with "hokay, so, heres sum dataz," I don't particularly care.

Feeding the Scholar-Eating Lion

I heard a great story the other day that really made me laugh at the academic world. The story comes from India, and is a lesson for those who "live inside their head" too much. 

To summarize the beginning, there were four scholars who had been friends since childhood. Three were extraordinarily well educated in the all the arts and sciences, while the fourth had only common sense. The other three were reluctant to let the fourth travel with them, as they did not wish to share the earnings their great knowledge would bring with one so uneducated. They decide to allow him to stay, and they begin their travels. Along the road, they come across the bones of an animal. Here's where the real story starts:

The first of the educated men said, "Here is a chance to show our ignorant friend how much we know.  Here lie the bones of some dead creature.  Let us see if we can bring it back to life by using all that we have learned."  Then he added, "I know how to put a skeleton back together!" The second Brahman, not wanting to be outdone, said, "I can give it skin and cover it with flesh and give it blood."  As he did this, the third Brahman stated that he could breath life back into the body.

As he said this, the fourth Brahman spoke up.  "My friends," he said, "I concede that you have learned much more from books and schools than I have, but my common sense tells me that we should not bring a lion back to life.  I do not believe we are wise to do this.  If he comes back to life, he will want to eat us."

The first three Brahmans were angry with him.  "We let you travel with us even though you are not very knowledgeable like we are.  You know so very little, and yet you presume to kow more than we do?

"I only know what my common sense tells me," the fourth Brahman stated.  "However, if you intend to persist in bringing the dead lion back to life, please hold your efforts until I have climbed this tree."

After the fourth Brahman climbed the tree, the first three Brahmans completed their task of bringing the lion back to life.  As the breath of life filled his lungs, the lion let out with a great roar and ate up all three scholars who were on the ground. With a full stomache, the lion was not willing or able to climb the tree and eat the fourth Brahman.  So the man with no formal education had the sense to climb down the tree and go back to his former home."

Herein lie two great lessons for the academically-inclined: 

1) Knowledge and common sense should be taken in equal parts.

2) Your snobby academic pride will get you eaten by a lion.

There are a few people around here I would love to put in this sort of situation. Granted, the art of lion-building seem to have fallen by the wayside, but I'm sure this story could be suitably taken as a metaphor for the death of one's academic career. Hell, students often seem like lions around here, and I know a few people who just get eaten alive by them because they're too wrapped up in themselves. It seems like the longer one sits in a Ph.D program, the further their social skills deteriorate as well. Or perhaps it isn't their social skills in general, only those that apply to people within their own field. Either way, I beg all my fellow graduate students: as your head fills with knowledge, please be careful what you delete in making room for the new things. Don't let it be common sense and decency! 

----------

Thanks to mikelockett.com for the text of the story "The Lion Makers".

Important Dietary Info for Students

Breaking news for graduate students! Important information concerning a staple of the student diet has recently been uncovered. 

This just in: Roast Chicken flavored Ramen is way better than the regular Chicken flavor.

More at 11.

Be More Punk Rock, Old Man!

I'm a little terrified by the paper I'm writing, for a lot of reasons totally unrelated to the fact that it isn't even close to done yet. It's actually the point that I'm making and the people I'm making it to that make me feel panicky. 

How do you tell a bunch of old guys that they've become stagnant in a field where progress is law, tradition is sin, and innovation is the only path to success? Using an old musical gimmick is like a socialite wearing the same dress to two parties. These men, at some point, all began going to the same tailor, requesting the same cuts and colors, and eventually ALL ended up wearing the same dress.

Okay, so the metaphor has gone too far. This isn't about men in dresses, this is about music, damnit. But you see my point.

Part of the point of my paper is that the field of electronic music started out with the avant garde, the rock-n-roll sensibility of doing the weird shit, knowing it's awesome and edgy, and having that devil-may-care attitude about the opinions of others, rebelling against the status quo. Where did that go? How did we end up sitting in darkened concert halls, staring at the little blue lights on the stage monitors and listening to the same "swoosh, floop, pop!" sounds from every piece? Other fields of art have managed to blend their newfound academic credibility with the above-mentioned qualities. Electronic music, on the other hand, just rolled over, said "Oh, we're legit now!", and promptly began going to bed early, listening to music more quietly, and hanging out with people who wear ties. 

To be fair, not everyone in the field is like this. But those who aren't, those who still try to capture the excitement of tinkering with things we shouldn't and writing whatever music they feel like writing, they are shunned. They're considered immature, unrefined, not academically suitable. There will be no university jobs for them unless they're willing to squeeze into the mold and keep their dirty habits as quiet weekend activities in the privacy of their garages. 

I'm trying not to fall into the same trap, I really am, but this school is trying desperately to force me down. I'm thinking the solution might be to get weirder, to stay up late, to be louder, and to wear my tie around my head. If they want to keep me from getting my degree because of it, so be it. You can't stop the signal.

-----

For an humorous, self-disparaging account of the concepts discussed in this entry, check out Mark Applebaum's piece entitled Pre-Composition, which you can listen to on DRAM. 

Sanity is an Endangered Resource

I spent my morning being terribly academic, sipping a chai latte in a localorganicfairtrade coffee shop, listening to Depeche Mode, and furiously highlighting and annotating my hundreds of pages of reading. Then I went to the basketball arena to watch the inauguration with thousands of other people. Then I came home and dropped a class.

Okay, so the reading for Musicology scared me. A lot. Not the content so much, though a rant on that will be coming soon enough. I realized that while this week I may only have 20 pages of reading for my English class, before long I would have a total of 500-600 pages of reading between the two classes. On top of all that, I would be expected to write a lot and continue composing extensively. Today I realized that there is no way I can possibly do all that and retain my sanity. 

I've been very sensitive about my sanity lately. I've gained a lot of perspective since graduating from undergrad, and I see now that I pushed myself way too hard and sacrificed my happiness way too much for grades. I spent a good deal of undergrad strained to the limit, on the verge of breakdown, constantly taking on more and trying to be perfect at all of it. In the end, I missed out on a lot of life, but had a lot of really great work to show for it. I've gone in the complete opposite direction since then, and I'm having a hell of a time trying to strike some sort of balance. I have seriously burned out from going so hard for so long. This year, instead of dying because I'm working so hard, I'm dying because I'm having trouble forcing myself to work, to care about what I'm working on. It doesn't help that I'm really unhappy in my current program. I'm hoping that with a better lineup of classes and a more positive atmosphere, I might be able to turn things around this semester. I'm happy, I have a great home life, and I love nerding out with Warcraft and my D&D friends and reading. But I need that other kind of happiness, too. I never feel more fulfilled than I do when I work really hard on something and have a professor tell me that it's excellent work. It's not so much the praise that I need, though I do require the occasional affirmation that I don't suck everything I do. It's an artistic and intellectual satisfaction that I'm missing. 

If I don't get that by the end of this semester, I think it might be the end of my time at this university.

And now, without all that scary reading ahead of me, I can devote my full time to my conference paper. Time to grab a beer and dig in.

 

Procrastination Leads to Caffeination

This was previously posted in a more private blog on December 17th, 2008. I give you this, because the topic has come back to bite me in the ass...again:

"A note to all of my friends either currently in academia or heading that way in the future:

Never submit an abstract and bibliography to a conference assuming that the work is so bad that they would never, ever accept it. They will do so just to spite you.

Fuckfuckfuck.

So, as you probably have gathered, I've done just this. I submitted an abstract and complete bibliography to the SPARK Festival of Electronic Music and Art back in October. I was working on finishing up the research portion and planned to start writing the paper within the next few weeks. The call for works went out about a week before the deadline they set, so there was certainly no way to actually write the paper in that amount of time. Besides, they were only asking for an abstract and sources, so I figured all would be cool. I'd be done with the paper by the time they sent out notifications. So, I shat out the abstract and threw together the bibliography before the idea for the paper was even fully formed. I knew it was bad. It was certainly the worst 150 words I had ever written and didn't make my concept sound appealing at all. I submitted it anyway, feeling somewhat obligated since I presented at that festival last year and I wanted to stay active and keep my name in their heads. I also kind of hoped it would magically get in, since it would mean staying with my best friend for a week. As soon as I clicked submit, I resigned myself to the fact that it would never be accepted because it was so bad. I started to feel embarrassed that I had put such terrible work out there for others to see. 

So, I promptly forgot about it. Before long, the semester got so busy that I had no time for independent research, only for grading and writing papers for courses. The notification deadline for the conference came and went. I assumed the fact that I didn't hear anything at all meant they hadn't accepted the paper. That's the way it usually goes. I was somewhat relieved. 

It turns out they were just letting me finish up my semester and relax for a few days. Two days ago I received an e-mail saying "Congratulations! Come present your paper in February!" 

FUCK. Yay? FUCK.

They haven't sent out the e-mail asking for camera-ready papers yet, but it's only a matter of days. I figure, hey, it's the holiday season. I can probably stall for a few days, saying I'm out of town (which I am) and that the paper is on my hard drive at home (which it's not) and I assumed I had not been accepted because it was 15 days past the notification date (which I did). This should work; I know the guy who organizes the conference, and he's a hell of a nice guy. In the meantime, though, I'm working frantically to write a properly academic-y paper with only partially-done research. At least my abstract is done!  D:

I'm so boned."

After writing this original post, I proceeded to do additional research and flesh out my idea a bit more, but never actually write the damned paper. The holidays came and went; no call for papers. I began to think, hey, last two years they never actually published the papers in the conference book. Maybe they aren't going to do it this year either, so they aren't bothering to ask for them. I put it off even longer, thinking maybe I would get lucky and end up presenting on a paper I never actually had to write. New Years came, then the beginning of the semester. No word. A few days ago, an e-mail finally came asking for biographies, headshots, etc. for the conference book. No mention of camera-ready papers. Could I really be so lucky?

No. Of course not. I went to the submission page for the bios and pictures, and found a spot for an abstract, and an upload area for full papers. This festival is notorious for being terribly unorganized, but I've never minded before now. Thanks for the notice, guys! They want it today. I feel confident that I can stall for a few days since they never actually publish the papers. "But but, you never gave us a formatting template for the paper! How am I supposed to know how you want the paper to look?" Not a big deal. What is a big deal is that I have several hundred pages to read for class this week and in-laws visiting today, and somehow I'm supposed to write this paper in the meantime. ARG. Why do I do these things to myself? 

If you're looking for me, I'll be the over-caffeinated one shaking in the corner and babbling about the cyberpunk aesthetic.

Playing Catch-Up: Fall 2008

So, as the end of the fall 2008 semester tried its best to grind my face into the ground, I tried my best to keep blogging. I obviously failed, as the low post count for December will show, but that isn't to say I didn't churn out some material. In fact, I have several text documents full of post fragments, topics to cover, and notes on events that I fully intend/ed to post eventually. I may get around to elaborating on some of these at some point in the future, but since most of them will likely never see their own post, I give you: December 2008 in review, Ph.Dead style. 

-- What the hell is up with students friending me on Facebook? 

-- I am going to dissect the next person who tells me what I should do with MY compositions.

-- How to talk about John Cage, one of my heroes, to an indifferent class: "He was a composer and music philosopher who specialized in skull fucking tradition." Can I say that?

-- "Grades should be submitted within forty-eight hours after the final exam." WHAT?! What about my own exams? *cry*

-- What happens when you pick a bad topic for a 20 page paper and it's due in two days...

-- I never thought I'd actually be wistful about saying goodbye to my Music 101 classes. 

-- A gift from a student? For me? And it was shipped here from China?!

-- End-of-semester crunch time...what fun.

Time for my first meeting of the semester. *deep breath* 

First Day Back Blues? Or Purples?

New semester, new posting season for Ph.Dead. 

No, I did not actually die at the end of last semester. It was a particularly unrestful winter break, however, due to excessive traveling and excessive our-apartment-is-falling-apart-but-they-won't-let-us-move raging. Now, the fateful day has arrived: the first day of classes. Time to brace myself and charge headfirst into chaos. 

So, what does the new semester hold for me? Well, hopefully it will mean increased motivation above all. I'm taking some classes that I'm terribly excited about, and the class I'm teaching this semester is not only NOT at 9 AM, it is also NOT a non-major class, NOT a 100-level class, and NOT 120 students large. Instead, it starts at a very reasonable 11:00 AM, contains all music and computer science majors, is a 300-level class, and is capped at 30 students with 10 students per lab session. The lab is what I'll be teaching, and the course material is right up my alley. Intro to Music and Computers, AKA Intro to What I'll Supposedly Be Doing for the Rest of My Life. I'm actually looking forward to this, and it'll mean I get to brush up on lots of material I should know like the back of my hand anyway. 

The professor I'm TA-ing for this semester is a visiting lecturer from Berklee, and I have to admit that I was nervous at first. All the professors around here are so snobby and anti-idealist, I was starting to fear that all computer music professors at the graduate level would be the same way. Not so. Within the first few minutes, we were pretty comfortably chatting, he was asking me for book recommendations for the class, and we jointly expressed our frustration over the crappiness of this school and the disorganized nature of the program. I thought it was just me that got kicked into the middle of everything and told to just "figure it out"; well, turns out they extend that same courtesy to faculty members. This guy has restored my hope that maybe you CAN stick with this field and not let academia turn you into a jaded, pretentious asshole. Ah, the light at the end of the tunnel. Fortunately, I also have this same guy for my composition lessons this semester, so I'm looking forward to working with him in that respect as well. 

One thing that I think will help keep my sanity as well is that my schedule is much more cohesive than it was last semester. Most of my classes occur in the 11:00-2:00 range, with a few exceptions, which makes sharing the car with the husband-unit much easier. Less evening classes also means I might be able to keep up a light raiding schedule for World of Warcraft this semester. Yes, I know, not exactly top priority, but it's one of those small bits of social interaction that I value very much. I'm also auditioning for the choir at our local Unitarian Universalist church ((What? Me in a church?! I know, crazy. But it's all non-religious and relaxed and fun!)), so that will hopefully be another fun and social activity. I'm trying not to get my hopes up too high, but overall, life seems on track for a much healthier and happier semester.

I'm going to kill whoever has been making that annoying beeping noise for the past TEN MINUTES in the next cubicle. 

Healthier, happier semester.

There's about to be blood. 

Beep....beep....