BlogFerret

Ok, so perhaps some of you have noticed the MA Thesis progress bar has advanced to 100%. That effect is due to the fact that on April 8 (only 3 weeks ago!) I defended and passed. Suddenly I are an authority.

I am now in the format check stages and am ready to print the copies on bond paper. This means that I have to pull more money out of my butt. I am still not sure where the school thinks I get all this money to spend on crap like caps and gowns and 20 lb. bond paper. I also don’t understand why the school makes walking in the ceremony mandatory. I could refuse to participate, but it is actually more difficult to do that than to just go ahead and participate. Can’t I just quietly bask in my own sense of achievement instead of spending 2 1/2 hours in a smelly auditorium watching people I don’t know yammer and prance about? My family wants to come and sit through all of that just to watch me walk (and probably trip) across the stage for 5 seconds. Read the rest of this entry »

So here’s my status as an MA degree candidate. My Master’s Thesis proposal was approved last week. I have two quarters to write it, with three thesis hours per quarter devoted to research and writing. Those are two of the four courses I need to complete my course requirements.

I will also be teaching English 101 this quarter. I am terrified, but I suppose it’s like meeting a big dog: I will show no fear. My main issue is trying to break down into lessons something I have done almost unconsciously for the past 10 years, perhaps longer.  I can write a simple essay very easily, as long as I have a topic. (My problem has always been coming up with a topic and an argument I’m happy with.) Now I have to decide what exactly students need to learn in bits in order to successfully combine the knowledge and be capable of writing a Freshman level essay.

I’m probably doomed.

I have finished another quarter of my Masters’ Degree in English! Go me! 15 hours down, 18 to go. Oh, and my evil plans are flourishing in the realm of Literature scholarship. But before I talk about that, let me tell you about my day…
Today was absolutely horrible. It started out okay, though. I woke up and studied for my finals while eating Cheerios™ and telling my pet bird to be quiet. I am terrible at memorization, but I swear, by the time I left the house, I had all the Brontë children’s birth orders all sorted out. Again, I swear.

So I get in my tiny car and head towards Ruston, LA. Fortunately, I was an hour early. Why fortunately, you may ask? Because I was hardly outside of West Monroe city limits when an alarming buppita-thwapthwapthwap noise attacked the rear driver’s side of my Mazda Miata. As far as I know, Miatas are not supposed to go “buppita-thwapthwapthwap,” and because I knew for certain that my rear tires were older than rear tires have any right to be, I had a suspicion as to the cause. I pulled over and phoned for help, and a good thing too, because while the Miata comes equipped with a cute little toy jack and spare donut tire, it does not come with a cute little toy tire iron to go with it. Or perhaps it did, in 1991, when the car was made. I have no evidence one way or the other.

Read the rest of this entry »

Or should that be “Anxiety, M.A.”? (clever, aren’t I? tee hee. tee. hee.)

The other day I had prepared this clever post on the nature of test anxiety and whether anxiety is actually “necessary” for success. I discussed how I always get very anxious about my exams but usually get A’s on them anyway, resulting in ridicule by dear hubby. I wondered if I would do as well on the exams if I weren’t always anxious about them.  I have to admit that sometimes I’m anxious in spite of being well-prepared for the exam, but more often I am anxious because I have not prepared very thoroughly at all.  So is the anxiety really necessary?  Read the rest of this entry »

I’m done with the first quarter of grad school!  I even did pretty well: I’m not too pleased with my B in Research and Bibliography, but that’s definitely the grade I earned.  Each assignment was so totally different from the last that I just couldn’t get the edge I needed to get an A.  On each assignment I would either get a high B or a low A. I suppose the final paper must have gotten a B.

Oh well, thank heavens I don’t have to take that class again!  I am a bit nervous about next quarter, where I’ll be in a Seminar course. I took Seminar courses at Scholars’ College, but interestingly enough my memories from that era are rather hazy. Since starting grad school I have consistently felt pretty stupid, though, and I assume a seminar course means feeling even more so.
In two more quarters I’ll be able to teach Freshman Comp.  Won’t that be interesting?  Poor, poor little freshmen.  My friend Kerry has been telling me horror stories about students who leave class and then show up at the last minute trying to get a passing grade.  The policy is that if you miss a certain number of classes, you fail the class. Period.  Still, people think they all deserve special treatment.  They get their parents involved and threaten to file grievances against you in the department. So very often, when instructed by her superiors to give one of these students a chance, a teacher finds herself scrambling to grade a huge pile of delinquent assignments.  I can’t wait! It’ll be a blast.  At any rate it’ll be a nice change to be grading assignments instead of doing them.

It’s almost 11 pm and I am reading articles on writing pedagogy and eating dark chocolate Hershey’s kisses.

Is this heaven or hell?

Oh, and the ferret is busily hiding its food under the couch, with frequent pauses to stalk and kill James‘ balled up socks.

Grr. Why is it, that when I wanted so much to return to school, that when I get here, doing any of my assignments is like pulling teeth. I can’t get motivated to do the assignments, and once I get there, sticking to the work is extremely difficult.

It makes me want to overeat. I am also getting a bit disillusioned with graduate school in general. I hear that this is common. To top it off, I am taking 9 hours, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but with the faster pace of the quarter system and the higher workload, it’s actually frazzling the pants right off me.

Oh, and I will never, repeat NEVER be a librarian. Bibliography is some of the least interesting stuff in the world to me. Oh, I absolutely love the major ideas and concepts behind the whole thing, and the history of print is fun, too. Still the actual mechanics of bibliography are kind of dry. Linguistics wasn’t this bad. I actually ended up sort of enjoying linguistics. I don’t know if I’ll feel anything but relief when bibliography is over.

So apparently I am injuring myself trying to carry around my books and my laptop at the same time. James got me a realy neat red laptop case from Target for my birthday but I can’t fit my school books into it. I have a sleeve for the laptop and I put it in my backpack, but I think I hurt myself carrying it like that all last week.

The obvious solution is a rolling bag. Now of course, I want one of those cool looking rolling “backpacks” or briefcases, but honestly I really shouldn’t buy something just for asthetics, and the really neat ones are always expensive. I do have a small carryon piece of rolling luggage. I am almost ashamed to admit, though, that I am hesitant to use it for one simple reason: it ain’t cool enough. I mean, why the hell should I care if something is cool or not if it keeps me from giving myself back problems and I don’t have to spend a bunch of money on it? What do I care if a bunch of stupid college students see me hauling my mobile office around in what is obviously a small overnight case?

What do you guys think? I know you’re out there.

Thursday I started the MA program at Louisiana Tech.  I am pretty excited about it, actually.  I am taking 9 hours: Research and Bibliography, Teaching Composition, and 16th Century British Literature.  The first two are sort of “core curriculum”.  It is pretty exciting to get to take all your classes in your preferred field, instead of having to do things you don’t really care about.

I’m also  just excited to be getting on with it: I know it’s a long road from here to the PhD, but it’s a relief to be making some sort of progress.  It also makes me feel more “normal” to have a routine again instead of just a part time job.  Although as excited as I am about this quarter, I will be SO excited to do the assistantship next quarter.  I know assistantships in all their forms are merely plebe labor, but it is exciting to know that I will actually be getting some experience in what I really want to do.  I wat to start teaching and researching, because that is probably what I will end up doing with most of the rest of my life. That is, until I “retire” and become a Renaissance Festival glassblower.  Heheh.

Isn’t it hilarious that I can go from just entering grad school all the way to retirement in one blog article?  I so rock.