Back to the Dark Ages (of TV)

We took the plunge. We cancelled cable. We didn't just switch from digital cable to regular, or from regular to the local-channel-reception-only package. We went cold turkey. The Comcast tech came today to take away our box. I made sure he took the remote too, since I bet they would charge us for it.

The seed for this drastic step was planted by the digital reception converter boxes that we got. Our TVs are old with cathode ray technology. No shiny new flat screen HDTVs for us, at least, not until the price for them plummets. While we had digital cable in our living room, the small TV/VCR (double whammy of obsolete technology) just had an antenna. I had been seeing the ads warning us that we will lose reception in February 2009 if we didn't get one of these boxes, so I signed up for the government-issued $40 coupon. I signed up for two of them, in fact, since we have two televisions. We have lived without cable in the past, it wasn't inconceivable that we would live without it in the future. I wanted the option, anyway.

Turns out that the reception is fabulous and crystal clear. Apparently with digital, you either get it clear and perfect, or you don't get it at all. When we saw how good the reception was, we thought, "Hmmm.... we could cancel cable and save a little money...."

A few weeks later, we had a very real discussion about the fact that my husband comes home from work and gets sucked into every episode of Law & Order and crappy movie that TNT/TBS/FX can put on. It doesn't matter how bad, if they blow crap up, he's there. This seems weird to me, because while I watch a lot of TV, I can't watch just anything, I have to watch things that I really enjoy, a category that does not include Lethal Weapon 3 or SVU. He felt that he should be doing work in the evenings instead, but just couldn't resist the siren call of Sam Waterston and former Senator Fred Thompson. As a good wife, I made the offer that we could get rid of cable, if he really thought this would help him do work at night. Plus, it would save us about $70 a month once our Triple Play deal expired.

We decided to do it. To make up for it, we signed up for Netflix, a decision I am not sure is terrific, given how long it is taking them to ship our initial movies out, plus we are getting TiVo, which was part of the deal I made with myself for passing my oral exams. I am not really sure how great TiVo is going to be with broadcast, but at least now I should be able to watch every single episode of Globe Trekker.

Our TiVo is supposed to arrive today. By UPS. This means that I will need to sign for it. However, since we don't have cable anymore, and our Netflix movies aren't supposed to get here until tomorrow (and I'm not even sure that I'm getting one that I want- I know that discs 1 and 2 of Season 2 of The Wire, another show that I hate but my husband loves, are supposed to arrive, but no word on my copy of The Holiday), I wanted to run to the library to get some DVDs to tide me over.

My local public library is a lot like TJ Maxx in a bad neighborhood. You walk in and it's dirty and unorganized with sketchy people in there (seriously- my library has homeless people looking at bikini pictures on the internet), and at on any one given visit, you can't find anything you want. However, when you start stopping in all the time, you find treasures. Masterpiece Theatre DVDs! That new non-fiction book you've been wanting to read! An audiobook of Terry Pratchett's YA novel The Wee Free Men!

Unfortunately, Friday is usually not the best day to find treasures, as everything tends to be picked over. However, I was desperate. I have one episode of the first season of Big Love left (and my liking for this show has gone downhill over the 11 episodes that I've seen so far), and beyond that, nada. And I was worried I would miss the delivery of our TiVo. I tried to make my library trip as brief as possible, and ended up with Masterpiece Theatre's Adam Bede (someone at the library must have ordered the George Eliot boxed DVD set because they have all these DVDs), the sequel to Before Sunrise called Before Sunset, and Supersize Me. Not my top selections, but they will do.

Meanwhile, at the library, I am shaking with fear that the TiVo is going to arrive while I am gone, and then we're not going to get it until Monday, because UPS doesn't deliver on Saturday. I quickly do my cursory browse of the new non-fiction, cookbooks, and craft books, pay my fine (because I always have fines on my account), and hightail it out of there in the hopes of catching Big Brown, should he happen to come by.

There's no yellow/brown post-it on the door of our apartment building. Phew! It ended up being anticlimactic, though, because the UPS guy didn't even need buzzing in. He just left the package, which was half my size, downstairs by the mailboxes.

So for this weekend, it's George Eliot, PBS, fast food, and me.

Recommendation for all the struggling academics

Getting to ABD was a long time coming for two reasons. First, the way my program is structured means that I had a lot more hoops to jump through than any other program that I know. Second, I spent about a year making not much progress.

At one point, my advisor had the "Come to Jesus" talk with me that went something like "I'm concerned that you're not making progress; maybe you should talk to someone." I had been exploring the idea of a dissertation coach, but hadn't made that last step. I know from experience with therapists that it can be tough finding the right one, plus, it means that I would actually have to start doing, you know, work. At this point, a not-small part of me kind of hoped I would get kicked out of the program. But a Come to Jesus talk? Time to get real.

I contacted one prominent dissertation coach, and she didn't have room in her schedule for new clients. She referred me to Gina Hiatt, a colleague of hers who did have time to take on new clients. I had one session with Gina, who told me that she was about to start up a new pilot program for-- get this-- online coaching (which has now morphed into Academic Writing Club. It was going to be much, much cheaper than one-on-one sessions, so it sounded like a reasonable strategy to try.

This is, in all seriousness, the smartest thing that I have done since the colossal mistake of starting the damn Ph.D. program in the first place. I cannot emphasize enough how helpful this was in building writing discipline from the ground up AND, even more importantly, getting emotional and practical support from other academics in a way that is lacking in many programs. I think I have a pretty good program overall, but I still don't have this kind of support from my advisor or peers.

It's $50 a month (if you sign up before the deadline), and it is well worth the money. It's a very affordable way to get dissertation coaching to get you going. If you are struggling with your program, seriously, give this a try.

ABD

By the way, I finally took my oral exam (and passed), so now I am ABD! Thank you, Jesus! Incidentally, this was my reaction when they told me that I passed. It got a laugh. I was not being as ironic as they thought, though, considering I called my mom sobbing the hour before (I was really nervous) and had her pray with me. Good times.

Highs and Lows

I am currently assisting with this retreat-type, introspective, intensive exec ed type class. One of the exercises that the participants have to do is to create a timeline of significant events- both highs and lows. Then, you have to write a few notes on why each was a high or low point in your life, and see if there is a theme. So, here goes.

Highs

Get into prestigious college

• triumphant
• relief
• pride
• way out
• moving to new phase
• exceeded expectations of others
• freedom

Get accepted into [student organization in undergrad]

• relief
• fun
• belonging

Full-time job offer

• relief
• excitement
• optimistic
• exceeding my expectations
• freedom/financial independence

Graduate from college

• relief
• excitement
• looking forward to new phase of life
• finally over

Living in (former city)

• First city where I truly felt at home (belonging)
• freedom/autonomy
• likeminded people
• self-discovery

Get married

• happy
• relief (that I wouldn't have to worry about getting married/having kids/etc.)
• self-assured

Lows

Rejected from numerous orgs at college (and I mean numerous)

• not belonging, feeling out of place
• struggling
• working hard, not acheiving desired results
• alone
• not appreciated for who I am

Depression

• What's wrong w/me?
• not fitting in
• atypical experience than what everyone else has
• tired of struggling and working hard to make it work
• lonely
• failure

Best friend died

• total devestation
• not thinking straight/made bad decisions that introduced chaos into my life
• still feeling negative effects today
• lonely
• fundamentally changed who I am

Living in [current state]

• feeling out of place
• feeling isolated
• angry at myself
• homesick for old city

Struggling in grad school

• feel stupid, talents unappreciated
• not acheiving desired results
• forcing myself to be something I'm not
• feel like an outsider
• at the mercy of others
• keep everything bottled up
• exhausting, stressful
• poor

Do you see a pattern? I sure do. The common themes for the highs seem to be:

• relief (getting out of a bad situation or avoiding a bad situation)
• freedom/autonomy over own destiny
• belonging

Common themes for the lows:

• feeling alone
• working w/o results (struggling, failure)
• struggling
• lack of control

So what do I want?? It seems obvious to me. I want:

• Freedom/autonomy/control
• Belonging
• Feeling successful, living up to potential

It was an interesting exercise. I think I learned something about myself.

Greetings, gentle readers!

I apologize for not updating in a while- I've been really busy recently. First, we arrived in our other apartment to find the carpet soaking wet, the result of a plumbing backup next door. Fun! We've spent the last week dealing with this. DH has been a total gem dealing with all the university housing folks, who have been resistant to doing pretty much anything related to fixing the situation. DH had to convince them that yes, they needed to replace the carpet pad that had been soaked with untreated waste water, and yes, they needed to clean the carpets. Our neighbors next door have had it much worse- the particleboard in their cabinets soaked up the waste water, so the stench has lingered in their apartment. The University refuses to replace all the cabinets, and the neighbors, who have two kids under the age of 3, are living in "emergency housing" right now, and trying to get the university to give them another apartment. Our oriental rug got wet too, so we had to send that out for cleaning, and DH also convinced the university to reimburse us for it. You can't use a rug doctor or regular carpet cleaner on an oriental rug; it will ruin it.

Second, I started teaching my class! I think this will be fun for me, although stressful and time-consuming. I think it will force me to be more efficient with my research time too. I FINALLY, finally, finally did the IRB revisions that I've been putting off for WAY too long. They actually sent me an email today saying that they hadn't heard from me, even though I sent my revisions off yesterday. I'll call them on Tuesday to try to clear it up.

I have a lot to learn with teaching, though- I went WAY too fast for my first lecture. WAY too fast. I finished what should have been an hour and a half lecture in one hour. Students came up to me afterwards to ask me to slow down! I am not used to talking slow enough to allow for note-taking, and I didn't have a whiteboard to slow me down (I was using powerpoint slides).

So goals for this weekend: do research work, plus my first lecture for next week. The other professor teaching this class has kindly allowed me to use her slides, so I don't have to develop major content, only filling in the (rather large) cracks.