It's Been a Long, Long Time

     Let's just say I've been VERY busy since my last post back in JANUARY (wow, really?). While some things have stayed the same (e.g. unresolved issues back home still ill left unresolved, with relatives I am still refusing to speak to), some things have changed...and some of it is actually good. I finished my second master's degree in June and I am now officially a PhD student (yay!). My thesis had some issues (like a last-minute cancellation of my defense in February which I have likened to the scene in Goodfellas where Joe Pesci's character is walking into the house to become a made man with the triumphant music playing only to be shot in the back of the head), but I looked at the josei manga Cappuccino as a cite for feminist critique and cyberculture study. The feminist angle was inspired by my committee chair (who has now left to go to another university, which has left me feeling a bit untethered), but it had to be modified to reflect Japanese feminism (which makes sense), and the cyberculture angle comes from the fact that the translation I read was done illegally online. It's really cool that it is available online (I'm not sure if it will ever be printed), but I'm not linking to it because of some possible copyright issues with the images I used. I believe I am protected under Fair Use, but why risk it.

     Anyway, I'm posting because I'm a bit frustrated with the way my world seems to work for me. Hubby lost his job in August (which sounds like a broken record because the same thing happened at the same time last year) and because my university doesn't deign to pay graduate students during the summer, we are broke. However, the biggest thing bothering me is that my daughter's 3rd birthday is coming up on Sunday, but we are having trouble getting anyone in her age range to the party. It's not her fault that her birthday falls on a holiday weekend this year, or that despite telling two of the parents ahead of time about this they still had other plans which were taking them out of town; it's just upsetting to me because my family has had a long history of not being able to have successfully well-attended parties. It wasn't until I was an adult (with friends I've known for more than half my life) that I have been able to have enough people show up for a party to consider it well-attended. Honestly, having a 25% attendance rate for my sweet 16th (1 of 4) was a success to me because someone for me showed up.

My standards are quite a bit low.

     Anyway, I'm upset for her because none of her friends will be there. Fortunately, she's young enough that it won't be a problem, but I'm not too keen on doing any more of these things. It's hard to have a party for a child when it's on a holiday when people want to spend time with their families (not for me, but that's because there are very few family members I still want to speak to who aren't living in my house), and if I had known that people were not going to show up, I would have given her a party on another weekend. We're competing with a holiday and the opening weekend of the Ohio Renaissance Festival (and we do attend this, but we go towards the end of the season so I can buy stuff on discount; that has more value to me than the 50% off entrance fee for the opening weekend, but I understand why people are going when they're going). It also helps that we do a little something for her at church, so she is going to be on cake overload for her birthday.

     Maybe I'd be a little less upset if this week hadn't been so stressful, but as I seem to only function if I have at least a minimum level of chaos, stress, and instability in my life, I'm somewhat used to this. I hope my baby girl has a happy birthday anyway.

     Well, it's late and despite wanting to end on a happier note, I need to be bright eyed for photos tomorrow. I'll try to make sure that I post pictures and/or video soon because my girl is TALL! She's not yet three, but she's 40 inches tall. No, that's not a typo. And she's thin, too. And she looks just like my mom. And whether you see that as a positive thing or not to end on, for me it's a good thing. Goodnight everyone. When I do get online, it's more likely my Twitter page so holler at your girl! :-)

I'm getting a little dizzy...

While I'm still trying to get my head around this whole pregnancy thing, the academic front is heating up. I got an e-mail from my advisor informing me that I was awarded a fellowship for my first year of graduate school! Now, imagine my surprise when I found out that I got something I didn't even bother to apply for because it required a high GPA that I knew I did not have.

What this fellowship means is that I do not have to worry about working for my first year (which is exceedingly helpful considering the circumstances), and I will only lose about $1,000 off of my current income. And that would only be if I had worked my 20 hours every week, which I haven't been doing for the past three months, so the income will be comparable. The way I see it, I need to work even harder in school to prove to everyone that I deserved this fellowship and that I deserve to be in school. It's a national Graduate Enrichment Fellowship, so I'm very honored that I earned this, and I know my advisor had a lot to do with this as he's been my biggest champion in the department since our first meeting last June.

Fortunately, he's not the only person in my corner. I told my mom about the fellowship and I mentioned that these things were for smart people, "so I don't know how I got one" and she told me that she always thought I was smart. She then told me that she always believed in me and that she was proud. All of her siblings [her dad, like mine, had kids in other marriages] are knocked out by the fact that I'm going for a PhD, and my grandmother almost lived to see me get one. A dear friend of the family who was only 55 passed away recently and, apparently, she was proud of me, too; I think she might have been more excited than anyone else when I got my first degree, so a lot of people are rooting for me (but nobody bothers to tell me these things until it's too late to thank them). And then there's my husband who gave me the most support as I was contemplating this insane endeavor, so I've had a lot of people for me and I don't know anyone against me (nor would I care at this point).

It's a little overwhelming to think about all this right now, but I am going to jump on accepting this fellowship before the deadline passes in April.

And, in other news, I have a headache. It's not very important nor does it fit the rest of the narrative, but it might explain why this post doesn't make 100 percent sense. I'll get off work soon, pick up my medicine and library book, and get off my feet for awhile.

And for the ladies who have been through this whole pregnancy thing before: do you have any recommendations for maternity clothing options? Other than shopping online for clothes, I'm stuck for what I can do right now. I'm right at that point where things are starting to not fit anymore, but I'm not large enough for maternity items (and I'm a plus-sized, tall woman). I think my biggest concern is for shoes; I'm already a 12w and I don't know what I can do if my feet get bigger. Any and all advise is welcome, appreciated, and sought with great interest!

I'm Much More Stressed Out Than I Thought

The following is a "note" from my Facebook page that I wrote yesterday about feeling stressed out. After re-reading this, I realized that I was much more upset than I thought.

I'm using this opportunity to vent a little, because I'm trying to do so much in preparation of applying to grad school...and things are feeling more out of control than they really are these days.

I spent this summer talking to professors at OSU about doing a PhD studying strong women in comics (primarily Wonder Woman, Sailor Moon, and how they either reflect or influence their respective societies) and I've discovered that there are other people as crazy as I am who think that this is a good idea [imagine that]. I've been trying to get myself to write the follow-up e-mails to everyone I spoke with as well as the two professors I still need to contact, but I keep freaking out about it and other things in life get in the way.

I've also signed up for a reading group where we're studying Jewish Graphic Novels in the hopes that I will be able to come up with better ideas for my own topic of choice (and get free copies of books like "Maus" in the process). I'm also hoping to sign up for a comic book conference that is meeting at the end of the month, where I can see Alison Bechdel [Dykes to Watch Out For and "Fun Home"] and other artists and get exposed to so many other works that exist in the genre. [Don't ask me why I read a lesbian comic: I read four of them and one that is of gay men, which may be my latent bisexuality coming out or that they are just very compelling stories.]

Add to this that I have been studying to take the GRE [You know; that test I didn't have to take for my MLIS degree] and I'm facing the dilemma that I can no longer do math [Which just sucks!] and that my vocabulary is too limited to do well on most of the verbal portion of the exam. I've also been trying to teach myself how to read Japanese and I've learned 36 hiragana and katakana characters...but I may have to stop until after the applications for grad school are turned in so that I can spend more of my time on what I need to get into school.

I'm still trying to hold down my current job, my husband has been sick for more than a week (which has resulted in me sleeping on the couch for the past six days), and my choir rehearsal schedule got shifted to Wednesdays (which isn't too much of an inconvenience because I usually call home [Cleveland] on those evenings, but it just added to the stress ball that has formed in my back). And to top it all off, my heart hasn't been happy with me and beats hard for no reason at random [I'm going to tell a doctor about that today] and I still have to deal with grief from my grandmother about not giving her great-grandchildren [as if I'm doing this on purpose].

So, in short, I'm really effin' stressed out right now (and, honestly, I wouldn't have it any other way).

So how are you all doing?

Later (because I feel a little better now).

Update: I forgot to mention that I have to earn a second Masters degree before I can even begin to work on my PhD...because the library masters is considered a "professional" degree and not an "academic" one. Fun, huh?

I wasn't feeling too sociable yesterday and really didn't want to go to choir rehearsal because my crappy moods are like the Lasso of Truth times ten: I have a difficult time holding my tongue on everything. If truth serum was this effective, more people would be in trouble.

To not go into it too much, I was majorly pissed that I had to purchase block cheese for the chili dinner the choir had just to find out that someone else bought bagged cheese [Which was something that I was told was "unhealthy" because of the extra additives put in the cheese to keep it from sticking.] and just said some things that showed how much I dislike most things that people like.

And, apparently, I looked very exhausted from the moment I got home from work until I went to sleep on the couch (again).

My husband wouldn't go to the doctor because he was feeling better before I went to rehearsal, but funny enough he was sick again by the time I got home.

I think I've been sleeping on the couch for over a week now, and it stinks!

It is Banned Books Week, so get out there and read something! Also, happy belated Music Lovers Day (it was yesterday).

I wish a person could call in "bitch" the way you call in sick for work.
"I'm sorry, I won't be in today. I came down with a case of total bitch, and I don't want to infect anyone else with my shitty attitude."

And if I actually got sick time, that'd be a very viable (and truthful) situation.

I'm tired, crabby, and prone to bouts of crying or fits of rage, and I'm nowhere near PMS, so I'm logging off.

Enjoy the day & get your hands on a good banned book! ;-)

First Day of Book Discussion Group

I attended my first session of a discussion group on Jewish Graphic Novels, and I have to say that I'm glad that I found out about this because it was very interesting...and I'm getting free books in the process!

The first book (of five) that we read and discussed was Will Eisner's A Contract with God. It's a collection of four short stories that are about people living in a Jewish tenement house in 1930s New York. This book is the first in a trilogy of works that I'm going to have to hunt down because the stories were all fascinating. One in particular, "The Super", struck me as so sad that I felt very bothered by the ending [I won't reveal it, so you'll have to go and get it from your local library and read it yourself!] and was glad that I got to discuss it in the group.

The group is made up of approximately 25 people from all walks of life. Some are Jewish, some like reading graphic novels, and some didn't quite read the flyer closely enough but came anyway. We talked about some of the Hebrew symbols that you can see in the title story, and how the oppressor/oppressed relationship in The Super gets flipped before the end, and about cookaliens and how they really were like what we read in the fourth story. There was a man who went to cookaliens as a child in New York [And I understand them to be places out in the country where the wife would take her children while her husband stayed in the city to work weekdays and visit on the weekends. The wife would [typically] do the cooking for her family while there, which garnered some comments on how this wasn't so much a vacation for the wife, except that it was a vacation from the husband!] and there was someone who used to work at the resorts in the area in the summer a la Dirty Dancing, which I thought was really cool to learn about in the group.

We got our next reading assignment, Maus, and I'm looking forward to reading both volumes again. While I may not have articulated everything I heard in the group, I did get a great deal out of it. It's being led by an English Professor, and I feel as if I am going to have a better idea of how to formulate ideas for the Masters/PhD program I would like to embark upon. I just need to make sure I get into contact with every professor I spoke with this summer (as well as the two I need to still talk to) by the end of this week so that I can get into the meat of my application process. That, and I need to get more focused on my GRE preparations.

I'll have to let you know about the interview I did for The New Standard, if I haven't mentioned it already...because I can't remember what I've said recently and where.

That Brain Age 2 training has been helping, but I don't think my brain's gotten much better after a week of it.

Here's hoping that I'm going to be able to get "back on the wagon" of blogging more regularly. Later ;-)

Update: I forgot to mention that I need to send a thank you card to the man who paid for all of the books for this group. He's a member of the OSU Friends of the Libraries group and, upon hearing about the group, offered to buy the materials for the entire class!

Good news, everyone!

My meeting Friday went over well, so I feel a little better that my PhD aspirations are not half-baked!

[50 points for whomever can guess where my title comes from]

I met with an English professor to discuss the potential of my PhD project, and he spent the first portion of the meeting talking about the challenges of doing a major in comics, and the difficulties of finding a professorship based on a degree on comics. This was the type of spiel that people give to discourage people from pursuing something; it's usually effective in at least dampening one's spirits because it forces you to face the realities of your dreams (and crushes them) and ground you to reality. I've heard this before & I've felt the hurt and low-level devastation from hearing such words in the past [i.e. when I found out that I couldn't minor in music when I first got to college], but that didn't happen this time. I felt that his words of caution were things that I suspected were part of the challenges I would face if I got into grad school to study comics, so I took my feelings as a sign that I really should pursue this degree.

We discussed comic book stores, the possibility that there may be three departments that may be best suited for what I want to study [Comparative Studies, English, and Women's Studies], and who I should speak to in helping me with the dilemma of which department I should try to get my degrees in(because I would have to get another Master's, no matter which department I get into). He made a good sell for working under the English department in that it would be easy to assemble a committee and I would be able to get jobs based on having degrees in English instead of Comparative Studies [Women's Studies has been ruled out simply because of the dearth of faculty who would be open to such an odd focus], but that CS has more flexibilty (something that the CS prof had mentioned in my meeting with him). So the question is this: Do I apply to the department that is newer and allows for greater flexibiltiy, or do I go for the more traditional department with a better chance of getting work in the end? There is yet another option; I can (possibly) apply to both, or get into one and transfer to the other department after finishing my Masters.

What I liked was that this professor told me that he would assist me whether or not he ended up as my advisor (which is extremely encouraging), and he feels that I am in a position to succeed in my endeavors because I didn't rush into grad school; I've taken my time to come to a decision on what I'm passionate about and know the work that it takes to make it through the program. He told me about a program that's coming to the University in October...and how he'll try to help me get in on the student rate, and about a website where there are people who review comics (a possible writing opportunity), and he even likes Hello Kitty (but he may have been teasing me on that one [it's okay :-)]). I've got a lot of research to do on the different programs, application processes, and decisions to make on how I want to proceed. I need to get in touch with more people and prepare to better explain my PhD concept to the Curator on the 3rd.

I felt really good about this, so I've got to work hard and do whatever it takes to get back into grad school. Even though I know I won't be able to study my passion right away, the fact that I'll be studying anything is very exciting for me.

Ja ne!