Thinking (and writing) ahead

In the past few years, the department has recently gotten much better about helping prep us grad students for the "real world" of the job search and the job. Today we had a visit from the head of Cambridge University Press' Classics division.

He started out with the idea "Okay, you've finally landed that nice plushy tenure track job, and now in order to keep that job, you've got to produce your first book within 5 years." I thought it was supremely helpful - everything from proposal etiquette (it's fine to send them in cold) to differences between dissertations and books.

On that note, in my time I have definitely read a few scholarly books that were too close in line with the dissertation they're based on. They spend the first chapter tracing the previous scholarship of their subject, get bogged down with discursive footnotes, and tend to be repetitive, since you want to prove to your committee that you really do know what you're talking about. The audience for a book is very different, though, and it kind of sounded like he was recommending keeping the ideas but trashing the rest of the writing.

He also gave some information on timelines, like if you wait til year 4 in the tenure process to get the ball rolling, you'll be too late. He also warned against writing the book and then getting in touch with publishers - because again, then, if you have to change a lot, it will be too late. Get in touch with publishers with a book proposal in year 1 or 2, and then by the time the tenure hearing rolls around, you'll probably be in the clear. Then you can worry about those articles!

I'm not sure who in the department is behind all of this, but I hope they keep it going. Once Dr. Leach retires, with her experience goes our advantage. This kind of stuff is all they can do to ward that off.

Maintaining Radio Silence

Okay, yes, I'm still here. Two weeks ago we had our week-long trip to Campania, and this past week was the last week of the seminar. Almost everyone left yesterday or this morning - hard to believe it's over!

Lately I haven't been blogging because Dr. Leach has been putting so much pressure on me to start dissertation work that it's just easier to avoid being in the library (and thus on the internet) to begin with. She is just tickled pink to have all this time to do work, whereas I would really rather be enjoying my last few days in Rome. A direct quote "It's just so hard to make myself go down the hill [to Trastevere and the rest of Rome] when I could be in the library!" Funny, I'm having the exact opposite problem!

My irritation kind of hit a high point the other night when I was talking to someone about a chapter she had me read. I said something about wanting to make a copy of it before I left so that I could take it home, and she squawked "Oh, but we have that at Indiana!" Then why is it so damn important that I read it here?!

I know that it's important to get started on a dissertation as soon as possible. I know that. People keep telling me that "the best dissertation is a done dissertation" and "work on it every day for at least a few minutes" and other well meaning advice, but I'm not going to have a brilliant brainstorm in a single week, especially when I don't want to be reading in the first place.
One lousy week of vacation is not going to keep me from finishing.

I feel like sometimes she is trying to remold me in her own image and it makes me want to scream, "I am not you! I have a life! I have a family that matters! I like to eat chocolate and olive oil and the occasional donut!"

Anyway, enough with the rant. I think I need a vacation from my vacation, and I definitely need one from my advisor.

News in Brief

1. We had an insane flash flood downtown yesterday. After it stopped pouring, I walked out of Ballantine on the way to my car...and was confronted by this:

This little stream is normally about 4 feet wide. Dr. Long always called it the "Mighty Mighty Jordan" with more than a tinge of sarcasm, but on this day, the river got the last laugh.

2. I have an apartment in Rome! Sheesh, finally. It's this one: http://www.mercuriusrelocations.com/romanrentals/id115.html . No washer, AC, or internet, and probably it was too much money for having none of those amenities, but it's close, has a great kitchen, lots of light, and a bathtub. And more importantly, it's mine! I was wasting hours every morning perusing Craigslist and hoping that I would have a fantastic offer miraculously materialize in my inbox, but now I can finally focus on tomorrow's exam.

3. Sahara Mart now carries a bar of milk chocolate I can have! It's $5.00 a bar, which seems like a lot, but until Tuesday, I had not had milk chocolate of any kind for over a year. It's made by the same company that makes the dark chocolate bars I can eat, but it's a brand new line. Their dark chocolate is really good, of course, but it's also really intense. Sometimes I just want something light and sweet, although at that price it definitely won't be a weekly indulgence.

4. Special Author exam tomorrow morning. I still won't be done, though - I didn't find an Italian article to review til yesterday, so she told me I could just turn it in early next week. Argh. I really wanted to have this all over with... Aaron made me laugh really hard the other night when he referred to the criteria of "one foreign article" as "Affirmative action for articles."

5. Daffie's getting around easier, Aaron's over his cold...I'm the only one who's still kind of a wreck, but hopefully by tomorrow afternoon, at least part of the stress will be over!

6. My poor lime tree is in recovery. I had been neglecting it before we went to Maine, and when we got home, all the leaves but four were off. I put it outside on the porch where it could get sun, warmth, and lots of rain, and today I noticed that there are tiny leaf buds all over. Yay! I probably will never get as many limes off it as I did last winter, when it lived in the sunroom of our old house, but as long as it's green and smells nice, I will be happy.

A milestone.

Woo! I just finished all the Greek for Special Author! Roughly 7500 lines total, and 1000 of those were in the past 3 days. So I've definitely gotten faster at this, although being under the gun has made me enjoy it less. After the exam is over, I'm going to take a nice long break from reading Greek. Maybe forever. (ha ha...)

Unfortunately, I've still got miles to go before I sleep. Up today: researching manuscripts. Tomorrow and next week: 4 more reviews. Ugh.

Also up for today: homemade bread and tomato soup for dinner.