Submission!

 

 

Candidate no more

After six years of the hardest academic work I have ever had to do, I am pleased to call myself Dr.

I feel as though things have building to this moment since I arrived on campus in 2008. I watched a number of students defend before me, always with a knot in my stomach and at least half as nervous as they must have been. What I know now, after standing in that spot myself, is that you really do become the expert.

I  have just a few minor edits to make the document ready for final submission and then, that is it.

That is it.

That is it.

I now have a new answer to 'the' question: I am an Assistant Professor.

Milestones

I've been joking for the past few weeks that I'm getting my PhD in three parts. The first part, ceremonial, graduation. The second part, mandatory, the defense. The third part, official, the piece of paper.

That said, I received my ceremonial PhD two weeks ago and it was every bit of the amount of amazing you'd expect. I turned in my dissertation a few days later and I'm now preparing the defense.

Graduating was incredible though. Getting hooded by my advisor, having many of my parents in attendance, seeing Joe in the crowd. It really did make me feel a sense of accomplishment, even though I still have to defend my dissertation before I can be formally called "Dr."

A few short days later Joe and I celebrated 10 years of marriage. This one feels like less of an accomplishment and more of a reality check--has it really been that long since we put rings on each others fingers? 14 years together...

Also, because my family is amazing I put them to work while they were in town and we now have a beautiful new fence:

Before

After

So as my Dad kept saying this was one of two 'da-fences' in my life...onwards to the next dafence...in the meantime we're doing a little hiking and checking on on the whole soccer bit that's been happening right now.

Taking in the view

The view from the hotel room

Around this time every year I disappear off to the annual meeting of my discipline to go mix with a whole host of different people. Last year I made my way back from field work via this conference and it was a bit daunting, but a good way to hit the ground running on my dissertation upon my return.

This year it was necessary for me to be there to present work from the dissertation, but I find that being at these meetings is a roller coaster of ego boosts and bruises. What I mostly looked forward to was connecting with my colleagues who I hadn't seen since last year, and possibly drinking in some better weather (not quite literally, but I did enjoy a couple of cold ones at that little green gazebo thing which was conveniently between the convention center and the hotel).  After snow and leaving in freezing weather, Portland (where I made my flight connection) seemed balmy and basically anything that followed became tropical.

It was really quite lovely while we were in Florida and though I am usually a diligent attendee at these conferences, I did find one morning to sneak away...









We had a few perks from holding our meeting at the convention center, which included free trolley rides up and down the main stretch and discounted tickets to local spots. I took advantage of the reduced price of aquarium tickets. It was me and another colleague and about a million school groups, but it was lovely.

As seen in the exhibit hall

Cruise

Trolley to the aquarium

 

The obligatory duck photo for a UO duck

Can you spot the flamingo?

Not exactly sure what this guy was doing in a aquarium...

I love these guys because they always look like they're smiling

Swimming with the sharks

Flamingos again

It was pretty incredible to watch these flamingos take flight and swoop around the enclosure. We also were delighted by the scuba divers (above) swimming with the sharks. The gal in the tank had a microphone and was answering the questions from the kids on the other side of the glass, all the while sharks were swimming around.

Quite possibly my favorite to watch.

Lego surroundings

In case you missed it in the last photo.

Dory amongst the clown fish

total fail.

How I feel after being at the conference

The cats are trying to help

Pocket assists with my methodology chapter.

In the new year...

In the past, I have not tended to look towards resolutions as the year draws to a close - a couple of years ago a group of friends set some intentions and I am proud to say that I was successful in my professional intent--in fact to think where I was two years ago in my degree and what I hoped to accomplish and to look now at what I have accomplished gives me a nice bit of perspective in a moment of professional struggle.

This year though, I am not so interested in myself as the clock ticks past midnight, but in the hope of alternatives, the strength of resistance, and the importance of struggle. Tonight is the twenty year anniversary of the movement and though my interaction and research and passion is but a tiny star in the great universe of this groups' work, I feel a sense of pride and joy at the celebration.

Caracol Oventik, JBG - 2010

¡Viva la Sexta!

*Update: Nice summary of 20 years accomplishments in the 500-year struggle: Ya Basta 
...and in headline news, photos and stories from the area where I work: Struggling on  

Words.

I know that as of late I haven't written many words here. I also note that since this is now a new non-traditional format for communication that nobody has likely noticed or felt the absence more than I have.

That said, the reason that there are fewer words here is because, as of today, I have written 25,007 words of my dissertation.

So there.

Learning 'autonomy'

For a couple of years I've been wanting to attend this seminar in Barcelona--and the draw was mostly the seminar, with the city being the perk. I finally received funding to attend this year and as I sit in a train station, class finished and taking a couple days to myself, my mind feels ready to explode with the weight of my attendance.

This is where I went to class

The seminar was many things--not quite what I expected, but also, at the same time, more than I anticipated. I think I made some good connections and I have a lot to think about going into my dissertation writing.

The travel itself was both exciting and daunting. I feel as though all I have been doing since November of last year has been traveling. (I set a record for days home the week before I left for Spain--8 days in a row!) I'll have another week at home and then I'm off to Chiapas again for one last reconnaissance research trip. So yes, travel, lots of it. I feel a bit fatigued. But also very rewarded, because I get to be present in all of these really fabulous places and meet new folks and so on.

My only experience with Europe prior to this past month was the UK, which in my memory feels very different than Spain. In fact,

Furnicular

Spain reminds me more of Mexico than either my experience or my imaginary of Europe. I like using the Euro and I love the underground and the other myriad forms of transportation available--in the past two weeks I have been on the metro, the light rail (yes they are different), high speed train, furnicular, cable car, taxi, bus, and my own two feet. And I have to admit I walked whenever it was feasible distance-wise--and more than I meant to due to my awesome navigation skills (more than once I wandered some miles because I took a right instead of a left--I am a brilliant geographer).

My class was at Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona in a less-touristy neighborhood, which was really nice. Anytime I went to a more touristy venue I started to feel claustrophobic.

Because my visit was only punctuated by short ventures out, there's not the same storytelling to be done. I did take some photos (over here on flickr) and the ones in this post are just a few of my favorites. It was almost impossible to not take too many photos of the rocks in Montserrat and the cathedrals in Valencia--every time I thought I had captured them I saw something new (er...this means, lots of pictures of rocks/bricks and mountains unfortunately)...

I started to compartmentalize things that I liked and didn't about being here.

Un cafe = espresso

Some of my favorite things were:

• espresso to go
• the buildings - mostly just that no matter where you turned there was something fabulous to look at
• the food (meat, cheese, bread, wine...repeat). I had to take myself to the mercado and get some vegetables to feel normal again.
• the transportation (as I've already extolled above) -- also, being whisked through the suburbs, which randomly have 15th century cathedrals or other century castles just hanging out in the general area...

Things I was less enamored by (or at minimum amused by):

Available in cans too...

• dog shit, everywhere. In a city where the majority of green space is defined by trees poking out of patio there's no where to go...
• fashion, there's a whole new level in Barcelona, I felt like a hiker amongst ballroom dancers--also the baring of bras I'm not a prude, but it took a little getting used to
• finding out the hard way that 'clara' translates to 'shandy' and not to 'lager' (as it does in Mexico)
• Catalan. Seriously, I thought I would have a rough time keeping up with Castilian and instead I was faced with not knowing Catalan--oh well.
• getting lost was really easy for me and not nearly as fun as when you're with someone else (read: Joe) 
• Also, when they take all the other place-settings away, which I realize is not necessarily a thing here in particular, but just made my individual travel all that much more visible to me.

  

  single-serving again

I'm finishing this post in a hotel bar near the airport and I feel relieved to be traveling tomorrow.

One last round of tapas and ridiculously cheap and delicious wine. Bed. 3 planes. I arrive the same day I leave, just barely (with 9 hours difference). My major goal this week is to recover from jet lag before I get it again.

All programs need this button

click when frustrated...

Culture shock

I finally realized how hard it is to be back in the states. All I had to do was grade student papers...sigh.

Me, My Dissertation, and I

Fieldwork, it is a right of passage. It is a joy and it is a pain. It is excitement and it is fear.
I'm leaving tomorrow. I will be gone until April.

This doesn't impact that many people greatly as I may as well be on the moon for as much as I've kept up with folks the last 5 years. The PhD had to become more of my life than a job for awhile and it will consume me to some degree over the next year as I immerse myself off and on back in Chiapas. Afterwards though, it will be a job again. I am committed to this. I will write, I will work, I will have a life. I owe a couple of colleagues major thanks for helping me come to this revelation.

That said. I'm going into the field--literally. I will be in and out of touch. This old-fashioned communicating tool, the blog, is what I will do to broadcast myself. Stop in if you care to, follow-by-email, or get updates.

I've been missing people for awhile now. Being away and in the unfamiliar makes the pain of being away more acute--no matter where I am.

So, I'm off to the fields of coffee farmers, I will participate in the coffee harvest, I will observe the sale of beans to cooperatives and to fair trade coffee roasters...and so on.

AB...D

I wanted the title of this post to be the alphabet song...you know ABCD...minus the C. But no strike-throughs in post titles apparently.
Although I have some superstition in announcing before I have all the signatures on the page (one of my committee members is out of the country for break), I think it is now safe to assume my new title.
I have successfully advanced to candidacy, making me a PhD Candidate...or in shoptalk, ABD, which stands for 'All But Dissertation."
I never have to do that again.

This, to me, was a huge revelation, one that I will likely swim in until my fingers become pruney.

In real terms, what that means is I now get to focus "almost exclusively" on my own research. No more classes, no more exams. Just me, my project and I.
The almost exclusively part reads: as a graduate teaching fellow I am still obligated to, well, teach. I'm the lead instructor for a course this coming winter on Latin America and I'll be a grader in the spring. I've been offered the opportunity to teach the local foods field course I developed last year again this summer, so I'm also looking forward to that.
The other part of the "almost" is the grant writing. I have two grants under review right now and will submit three more before the quarter is out. The grants are another huge step in fulfilling the obligations of an ABD...they serve two important purposes: 1) they prove that my research is interesting to an academic (and/or professional) audience via obtaining external funding and 2) they provide me with funds to complete dissertation research which is pretty fucking essential.

The full weight of being on this side of my degree has not yet hit me. So...ahem, "one stage of my journey is over," yet another begins.

From the immensely useful PhD comic

Nearly there

After a 2.5 hour session today I can report that I emerged from my exam defense still whole. I have 1 rewrite and a small addendum to turn in next week.

I have conditionally passed my exam.

Whew.

Spatial thinking

 

The nerd in me (and likely Massey as well) wants to reverse this to say "your space for place."