Clearing Out

OK. I admit it. I have been somewhat lax in 'putting things away' for some time now. I have frequently explained this by saying that the flat is small and is therefore untidy because I have no where to put things, but, in my recent attempts to make space I have discovered that much of my previously 'necessary' clutter is rubbish. Magazines I have failed to throw away. Smaller bits and pieces that I kept at the time 'just in case' and can't now remember what they relate to.

I'm making some progress clearing out. Slowly but surely surfaces are reappearing in my flat. I intend to keep it that way, but we'll see. Habits that have developed over the last couple of years living by myself might be difficult to break. But, I do have more motivation now the Physio has come to stay with me for the summer. I am more aware of the clutter now that someone else sees it every day than when I was living by myself. I really do think that when your mess affects only you, it is much harder to remember to be tidy than when your mess affects other people. Added to this, the Physio is a very tidy person, and I know that the state of my flat bugs him, even though he doesn't say anything. So, I intend to make the effort. I used to be a tidy person. I can do it again.

Besides, I actually like living in a clean and tidy space.

Making (some) progress

Well, the conference paper on 'new stuff' went reasonably well, although there was very little discussion of my paper after the panel. I suppose if the audience had felt strongly that my reading should be challenged they would have done so, either during questions or afterwards, so I'm taking this as positive. Perhaps the audience were all just tired though.

I ran out of time to write some more 'new stuff' for my second conference in May, but managed to find a section on my thesis to present instead, without looking too much like I'd shoe-horned it in. That conference was an extremely interesting day on one topic, with plenty of time for discussion, and I enjoyed very much being back in the Beautiful Scottish City that I Miss.

Now my plans are to turn the first paper into an article, reasonably quickly. I wanted to carry on with it immediately after the conference, but with exam papers to mark, a further paper to produce and then twelve 4000-word projects to mark, I've sort of lost the momentum. But, my co-organisers have managed to find an avenue for publication of the conference papers as a special edition of a journal, and I'm excited about producing something to publish. Hopefully my writing nerves won't impede me too much.

I might revisit the section taken from my thesis for the second paper to produce an article too, but I might just leave that one in order to develop it when I turn my thesis into a book (book proposal part 2 of summer plan). I also have an article I've been sitting on for nearly twelve months that needs some referencing amendments and that's article no.2 or 3.

So, I feel I'm making progress. Not a lot, but some. And that is better than no progress at all.

Getting back out there...

I am having a major crisis of confidence over a conference paper I am writing.

It's the first piece of new research writing I have done since I submitted my thesis a LONG time ago. My last conference paper was taken from my thesis, so I knew before I went to the conference that that reading of that play has already been 'approved' in a variety of ways. This is new. This is mine. And I haven't had a supervisor read it, or an examiner tell me it's good enough to pass.

I think my paper will be one of the last on the day, and I'm concerned that, after everyone else's, mine will look very thin. There are so many other things I would like to do to it / add to it, but there just isn't space in a 20 minute paper. I'm also worried that I have fallen into 'lecture writing' mode, since lectures are the only things I have researched and written in the last 2-3 years. I work hard on my lectures, to produce informative and critically engaged / engaging material for the students, but I also think that this is a different discipline from research related writing.

I made a deliberate decision to produce something new for this conference, to boost my research self-esteem (when you've produced nothing other than lectures for a few years, you start to wonder if you'll ever be able to get back into it). But at the moment I feel more academically (and professionally) vulnerable than I have felt in a very long time.

I suppose the only real way to overcome this is to expose my paper to the questions and criticisms of the conference delegates and see what happens.

But I admit, I'm a more than a little bit scared.

Election time

I know this is going to be the tightest run election in a long time, and the resulting government structure is somewhat uncertain, but in some ways, I have to say, I am bored with it.

I am bored of not being told exactly what each party's policies are, and I believe this is because being told exactly what they plan for us would make them less 'electable' / popular. This is not a high popularity contest; this is an election to government.

I am bored of getting SO many leaflets from Political Parties in the mail that all tell me why I should not vote for 'the other guy' but not telling me why specifically I ought to vote for the leaflet sender ('because the other guy would be really rubbish' is not an answer).

I am bored of answering my door buzzer to find that it is someone who wants me to give them access to the building so they can leave yet more unhelpful leaflets in my mailbox.

I am bored of being treated like I am stupid; like I don't know that I'm not being told true facts. My least favourite tactic assumes that I will be swayed to vote a particular way by a leaflet full of photos of famous people who think I should. I may be a fan of many of these celebrities, but as I said before, this is not a popularity contest; the support of famous people does not necessarily make your policies the best ones.

I will go to vote tomorrow, and I hope I make a sensible choice. But I suspect, if I do, this will be inspite of, not because of, the information I have been given.


Edited to add: since the result gave us a hung parliament, I'm finding it a little more interesting!

Seeing differently 2: confidence and criticism

I know I said in my previous ‘seeing differently’ post that we shouldn’t judge by each other’s standards, but in this post I’m going to suggest that we take into account what others think we are capable of (only if it’s positive!). We are often so much more ‘down’ on ourselves than we should be.

We all have insecurities about our abilities. I’m just going to take one, teaching related example from this academic year. For the first term, I taught two theory classes. One group is very friendly, interested, relaxed and open to new ideas. In the other, I had two or three students who spent the whole class looking sullen, responding to my questions with a certain amount of diffidence, and in general looking at me like I didn’t know what I was doing, either as a tutor or in relation to the theoretical concepts I was teaching. I admit, I am not at my most confident teaching some theories (Lacanian psychoanalysis on the mirror stage is one of them) but I know I am a good tutor. I have student feedback forms that say this. I have peer reviews that say this. I have several years of experience, and have learned some useful techniques for running seminars, and also, for teaching theory. But three sulky students managed to bring out the underlying theory-related securities that I have. Half way through the year, a colleague whose specialism is in philosophy and literary theory returned from sabbatical and took over teaching the group with the sullen students. (I have since learned that these students behave the same way in his classes as mine, suggesting it was not my teaching that was their problem).

Since I was teaching them at the time they handed in their essays, I had to mark them. These essays allow students the freedom to do a theoretically-informed analysis of any text they wish, and this makes the assignments difficult to mark. I also am not involved in setting the questions for this team taught course, and I think most people would agree it is easier to mark questions that you have set. However, I marked the essays and then passed them over to Theory Confident Colleague. I worried that he would look at them and think my marking was terrible, and my knowledge and application of theory was poor. I found myself avoiding him, in case he challenged me on this. He has never given me any reason to think that he thinks I am not competent, but because I know this is his specialism, and because I am not 100% convinced of my abilities in this area, I project my insecurities onto him, and turn it into his potential judgement of me.

I have marked theory essays and projects before and my marks matched up with the moderator’s mark. Other colleagues think I am a good tutor; I have been peer reviewed in theory classes with positive comments. I don’t say this to blow my own trumpet. I say this to emphasise that I, and I think we, are more inclined to listen to - or indeed invent - negative criticism that is in tune with our own insecurities than we are to take on board the positive things people say.

But we need to start taking on board positive criticism too. The reason colleagues say nice things about my teaching / lectures / marking /research (cross out until you get the one that applies to you) is because I have done something else – or this before – that gives them the impression that I can do it. Why don’t I believe them enough to be confident? I need to start seeing myself, my work, my abilities differently.

I was going to write this post some time ago, but one of my Shakespeare students questioned her grade and complained not to me, but to a senior colleague, who, as course convenor, then asked to moderate my marking. Because I had come out from under a mountain of 130 essays, and several of my students had got lower grades than I would have expected of them based on seminar performance, I assumed that it was my marking rather than the student’s complaint that was in the wrong, and lost the confidence I had found to write this.

My senior colleague agreed my grades, and the student will have to work harder in her exam revision to raise her final grade. But the fact I so nearly didn’t write this is testament to the fact that I needed to write it. I’m not saying we ought not to take on board comments that may be critical of our practices; everyone has things to learn. But we shouldn’t focus exclusively on the negative, or project our insecurities onto colleagues’ possible opinions. If your colleagues tell you that you are good at something, believe them!

Walking through the mist

As I left the University this evening, a fairly heavy mist was hanging in the air.

I know from friends and family who drive that this sort of weather is not good for driving, but for me walking to the bus, and then home from the bus stop, it isn't really a problem. In some ways I quite like it. It's atmospheric. Literary. It feels a little like walking through the pages of a Victorian novel.

But on the other hand, it also feels a little like walking round when I'm not wearing my glasses.