lately...

work has been pretty intense.  the aera conference was in philly this year and while i don't attend the conference, doing gse's party during the week of the conference is a part of my job.  being that the conference was in philly this year and that it's also our centennial year, i expected to have quite a bigger turnout than most years, so the event was quite a lot of work.  rather than the usual 120-150 attendees, i planned for 500 (and we ended up getting 600, having to turn 100 away, which was very stressful!).  overall though, the party was a huge success and my boss was happy.  that said, i'm glad it's over.


so, i gave myself a week off of dissertation work, which was nice.  i spent a lot of my downtime reading.  i'm currently reading chimamanda ngozi adichie's "americanah."  if you're into her, she just recently did an awesome interview/chat with zadie smith that is totally worth the view/listen and it's completely relevant even if you haven't read any of her books.

now that my event is over, i can get back into end-of-semester work.  for me, this includes a couple of smaller events that i do each year, some for faculty and one exciting end-of-year luncheon for staff (one of my favorites to plan because i think staff appreciation is so, so important).

finally, i should mention that i've been ruminating lately about how having to interact with large bodies of academics at once (and especially newer academics and doctoral students) can conjure up a lot of negative feelings for me.  part of this is that i get the sense that there's a lot of unnecessary cattiness and competition and sometimes, i feel (and maybe this is unwarranted) that some of that negativity is directed at me.  as a part-time student, i'm often less privy to a lot of the socializing and bonding that happens between full-timers, and so i don't necessarily get to interact with the guild of academia with the same fervor as others.  i'm also not that excited about participating in the guild, further propping it up, or even sort of working within the establishment once i'm done my degree, so maybe i just don't completely get the fascination and enthusiasm for it, despite my deep admiration for educators, researchers, grassroots actors, activists, writers, and so on.

this week, reflecting on all of the above, i was able to have a couple of very nice conversations with people who seem to situate themselves within this space in similar was as i do and it was nice and refreshing to have those conversations, to have my seeming disengagement/lack-of-engagement/desire-not-to-engage validated.  i'm not sure how much i feel comfortable using this particular space to talk about this particular issue and i can't yet comment on how possible it is to feel this way and study here.  the verdict is still out, but it does help to know that others are doing the same kinds of wondering.