The Scamp’s First Day as a Doctoral Student

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Riddle: How many doctoral students does it take to create a study group?

Answer: too many.

 

More than thirty minutes of class time was dedicated to putting the groups together. Some of the groups were still not finalized at the end of that time. Don’t get me wrong, I am in a program with some very very intelligent people, but man did they make that process harder than it had to be. They started trying to sort us by the district we work for, then the times we wanted to meet, and finally, I just looked to the three people I knew who lived near me, asked them to be in my group, agreed on a time and place, and called it a day. There are only 22 of us, it really should not have been that hard.

Other than that, the first day went smoothly. I really like the group of people that I am working with. There are some really sharp, really funny people in the program. I like the unique perspectives, and even found a couple of people who are interested in basic skills and basic skills education. The unexpected bonus is having the pleasure of being in class with two individuals who know my mother. They are hard working, funny, and quickly agreed to let me form a study group and presentation group with them. I can already tell that I will get along with them just fine. I even went to school dressed like an adult so as to make a good impression.

 

Look mom, I'm wearing heels!

Look mom, I’m wearing heels!

 

I love that dress. It was the last thing I bought in Scotland, and I have been saving it for months for just the right occasion. The heels were not the smartest choice I have ever made, but they make the dress look better, so I toughed it out for the evening.

The day was filled with overviews and expectations for the classes, and included get to know you games (I had pick three words that best described me…I channeled my inner feisty philosophy teacher and wrote down take charge, snarky and sassy…..so much for professionalism). I hate get to know you activities, but I am glad that I have a better sense of the people I will be spending a lot of time with. I’m not really looking forward to the philosophy class (There is one of you who can expect a lot of questions coming your way…you know who you are), but I am going to enjoy the culture of high ed class. I feel like I have a better grasp on the materials in that class than any other. I also love the professor, so that helps a lot. She showed us this video last night, and I think it really speaks to her sense of humor:

 

 

I had a job interview today, and while they are making me jump through a lot of hoops, the people are really nice, and I am hoping that my year and some change long stint with being unemployed has finally come to an end. In the meantime, I have plenty of reading and a critical incident scenario that needs to be written……which really means I am going to read a crime novel or nap through the Angel game.

You may all start calling me Dr. Scamp now, just to get used to it when I graduate. I think it has a nice ring to it, don’t you?

The Scamp Orientates

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I should have known I was in for a long day when the orientation retreat email did not have an end time listed for the day. The retreat started at 9, which to me was reasonable, and I assumed it would be a lot like summer school and I’d be back home by half three.

I made it home by 5, and that was only because I evaded the meet and greet dessert reception with other cohorts. The day-o-fun was not scheduled to end before half 7.  It was quite a day. It started with get to know you games complete with scattagories, Disney Princess jigsaw puzzles and beer pong (well, there was no beer in the cups, after all it was only 10 am). I hate get to know you games, but I was seated at the kid’s table (or so I am calling us…we are all the same age and a bit younger than most of the people in the room) and they were willing to make jokes, laugh through the games, and generally keep me from wanting to crawl under the table and play Candy Crush on my phone.  We had to try and define culture and suss out what is valued in education, and what is not. I was so uninterested in the day, that during a brainstorm session on professional ethics, I joked that it was okay to date your professor as long as you were both single

…..that one didn’t go over so well.

I also learned that I start school on Tuesday……as in 3 days from now. I thought I started first week in September, so needless to say, I have no books yet, just got my parking permit, and haven’t figured out whet room my classes are in. Thank sweet baby Jesus for the retreat today. I would have missed my first day of school.

The one good thing that came out of today was getting to spend some more time with the people I will spend a lot of time with for the next three years. I like all of them. 2 of them work with my mom, three of them are my age, and all of them have great senses of humor. I don’t know if any group can top the EdLang girls in terms of amazing cohorts, but this will be pretty darn close.

Because I don’t know how to read a calendar, I am spending my last free Saturday night being tortured by the sounds of Victor Rojas and Mark Gubicza….I think my ears are bleeding.

Tomorrow I am going to lay by the pool, finish reading the philosophy 101 book for Tuesday night, and try to get some nice solid tan lines. Life as I know it ends on Tuesday.

The Scamp Ends Her Summer

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Tomorrow I will spend my day at orientation. All day. I will have my picture taken for the website (oh goody, just what I want), listen to people in the program now tell me how they are getting through it (coffee and crack….how else does one get through grad school?), and spend a good portion of the meetings either looking out the window or if there is no window, wishing for one.

 

In other words….I’m not looking forward to it. I sat through summer school, I don’t know if I need to sit through this too.

 

It’s not all bad though. I get to see the people that I met at the beginning of summer, all of whom I enjoyed, and I get to busy myself with reading, writing, and the long days that come with being in school. I need the routine and the busy schedule so I don’t focus on the fact that despite my best efforts, I still do not have a job. It has been over a year now, and unemployment stopped being fun months ago.

Sugardaddies.com isn’t looking so bad to me right now….

It isn’t a bad thing that summer is ending since I spent most of it writing my dissertation anyway. I have spent the last few days being very lazy and trying to take advantage of having nowhere to go and nothing to do. I’m anxious to be on a schedule again. I find myself a little out of sorts these last few weeks not spending all of my time writing or editing. There is only so much Project Runway I can watch and so many hours I can spend in the gym before I get restless.

 

 

The Scamp Completely Completes Her Dissertation

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Exactly 4 months after I sat at my desk in Scotland and wrote a rough outline for a potential research project, my final draft is complete. No more editing, no more counting words or triple checking references, and no more children’s literature for a long long time. As of 11:30 pm Pacific Standard Time, my labor of love is now in the hands of my readers…..or at least in the in-box of my supervisor and the secretary in the front office who is going to print my hard copies.

It is too late in the evening for me to be super excited, but I am very very very happy with the final product. I think it is some of the strongest work I have ever written, and it is much better than my last dissertation (or thesis as it is called here). Tomorrow, I will do the happy dance and try to get everyone I know to read it and tell me how awesome I am.

On the bright side, I now have 8-10 hours in my day that are free….well at least for the next 7 days. I have a stack of novels waiting for me to read them, and the weatherman tells me we are all set for a heat wave. If you listen closely, you can hear the pool calling my name.

In case anyone is dying of curiosity about what my paper is about, here is the abstract:

  ‘¿Como frijole?’ or ‘How you bean?’ Is Not a Greeting:

How the Use of Critical Literacy Can Raise Elementary School Teachers’ Awareness of the Picture Books they are Presenting in the Classroom 

This study was aimed at adding to the field of critical literacy analysis by highlighting the importance of analyzing cultural representations of Mexico in children’s picture books.  Gary Soto’s (1995) Chato’s Kitchen and Judy Schachner’s (2005) Skippyjon Jones in the Doghouse were used as two examples of how Mexican culture is represented in children’s picture books. The aim of this research is to highlight the importance of analyzing critically the picture books before they are presented to students in the classroom. Teachers can encourage cultural sensitivity among their students by choosing culturally sensitive picture books to read in the classroom. Two pages from each of the stories were analyzed with special attention given to how the authors and illustrators used color, texture, layout and characters to represent Mexican culture. In addition to the visual text, I analyzed how the use of Spanish words affected the representation of Mexican culture.

This study starts with a review of critical pedagogy, critical literacy analysis, and critical media analysis. Important research and scholars are highlighted, as well as the definition of critical literacy analysis that was utilized for the purpose of this study. Because picture books are analyzed, literature on children’s literature and picture books was also analyzed. The study concludes with a reflexive discussion on the importance of content and analysis and action research, as well as how the example of analysis used in this study can be used to analyze cultural representation in any picture book. I conclude with a reflection on the importance of using critical literacy analysis to encourage cultural sensitivity.

If that isn’t enough, I’ll even show you the pages that I analyzed.

Skippyjon Jones Skippyjon Jones in the Doghouse 

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8S1BDVrKQSKHrfPSKRDY3Cy4

Chato’s Kitchen

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If that doesn’t tickle your fancy, then use it as a cure for insomnia. I promise that Chapter Two will put you to sleep before you can finish reading about critical literacy analysis.

I would like to thank my family and friends for letting me sit in my office with my headphones on and ignore them, for feeding me and entertaining me on breaks, pretending to understand what I was writing about ,and to my mommy for reading the whole thing to make sure all the commas were in place and all the words were in a proper order.

The Scamp Re-formats

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I am just about done with the final edits (cue video)

Along with the editing, I was forced to reformat the paper using a referencing system I know nothing about. Thanks to Google, and a line by line reading of all 16,667 words, the paper now reads like a Harvard referenced dream (If you don’t know what the Harvard system for citations is, don’t you fret…I can now tell you all about it). I spent a good portion of the day working on it, and by tomorrow, the goal is to be completely done.

My paper is not the only thing that is getting reformatted.

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For the last couple of weeks I have felt like I have been wearing a “Kick me” sign. Yesterday I hit my breaking point, complete with a hysterical sobbing fit in the middle of the 25 Hour Fitness parking lot in La Mirada (I know I hurt my mom’s feelings when I said that I hate here and all I want to do is go back to Scotland, but I seriously mean it in terms of going back to my happy place).  I have done nothing but work on my paper for months. I haven’t seen or chatted with my friends as often as I would like, and some days I don’t even leave the house. In my cabin fevered state I was starting to resent the people around me. No one was calling to ask me how I was feeling or how my paper was going, or they were calling me to complain about mundane problems or self created drama. I was being lied to by people my friends, or complained about for not being around. My supervisor cancelled a meeting with me half an hour after it was supposed to take place…generally, I was just feeling like my time wasn’t valuable, and my feelings didn’t matter.

It hurt. It hurt a lot, and admitting that it hurt, and that I let someone else hurt my feelings is hard (although, a very wise friend brought it to my attention that the fact that I can admit that, and acknowledge that shows great growth and maturity on my part.).

I wallowed. A lot. Yesterday was a pity party of poor mes and why am I the bad guys. Today though, I made a choice. I could continue to have a friendship with a self-serving person, or I could move on and rid myself of the stress and drama.  I reformatted my criteria for who qualified as a friend, emailed my supervisor all of the questions that I had for the meeting along with times when it was convenient for me to meet, and decided that I am going to have to make a little extra effort to reconnect and foster friendships with people who I know will not bring unnecessary drama into my life.

I know my therapist would be shaking her head at me for falling back into old ways, so I am going to try and take a more active role in keeping myself from any more meltdowns….if for nothing else than the fact that I am an ugly crier. My face gets blotchy, I oooze snot (which is not fun to deal with in regards to a fresh nose piercing) and I usually give myself the hiccups.

It is not a pretty picture….

 

 

 

The Scamp on a Sunday

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I always know it is Sunday because I wake up feeling remorseful.

Today was no exception. I got an email from my supervisor with the last two annotated chapters of my thesis, and even before I made it out of bed I was trying to think of things to do that would keep me from having to sit down and look at the edits.  I did my part of the house cleaning, spent way too much time dicking around the internet and chatted with a couple of the lads from Scotland.

When  I finally focused on the edits, they weren’t that bad for the most part. The problem that I am having is that in every place my supervisor asks me to explain something further, or link my research to the massive amount of literature I read, I just can’t do it. I’ve been staring at the paper for the last four months, and can no longer see how I can improve it, and can no longer think of clever things to say about the books and their representation of culture. Truth is, I read a massive amount of literature, but I never really made a concrete plan on how I was going to use it in my analysis. My methods were not in line with any one philosophy. My research mainly consisted of pointing out the flaws in one story and highlighting the positive features in another……not really groundbreaking (and thank sweet baby Jesus is doesn’t have to be). I never had that light bulb moment where I could connect an old white guy’s theory to my motivation for the research (mostly because my motivation for the project was the fact that I could do it all from my desk and I didn’t have to interact with people).

Tomorrow I am going to try and finish the last of the edits and get myself in the mindset of a meeting with my supervisor. I was grossly under prepared for the last meeting, and I am not going to make that mistake again. If I am lucky, maybe she will just tell me what to write and I can stop stressing about having to finish the entire paper in just under 6 days.

Might be time for a nap.

love-sleep-7

 

The Scamp’s Favorite Word

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Wanderlust: my favorite word in the human language. I’ve always suffered from a severe case of it (although, I do not see it as suffering in the least) and wasted no time getting out and about in the world once I graduated high school. Every three to four years I’ve looked for the next adventure. I just came back from my adventure, and should be good for the next three years, but right now I am itching for a a new destination.

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I’m not doing so well at home. I came home a different person. I had a plan. I was happy, I had worked through the worst of my break-up, worked through some of my fucked up emotional issues, and I was a girl on a mission. I came home and fell right back into my old habits. I’m grouchy most of the time, I am not being a great friend, and I have yet to find a job so I can pay my bills. Right now, the most adventurous I get is driving to the gym every day.  I can hear my Scottish therapist’s voice in my head telling me what to do, and how to change my thinking, but for some reason my brain is not fully processing the message. Part of me wants to blame the fact that I have been working nonstop on my dissertation for the last four months, but now that I am just about done, I have no excuse for the “piss off” attitude I have been carrying around. I’m going to really have to beat feet to get some insurance soon so that I can get myself back into therapy in case I can’t get myself out of my funk.

That is the logical step instead of quitting the program before I have really started and becoming an Alpaca farmer in New Zealand….I have a feeling Alpacas wouldn’t like me, and I don’t like the idea that my cat would have to be quarantined for so long, so I guess I will have to put that dream on hold…at least for the next three years while I finish my program. The great thing about going to an international school is that I met people from every corner of the globe, so now when I am feeling restless, and my finances will allow me, I am can pick a spot, see people that I really care about, and have an adventure with them in their homelands.

globeroom

 

 

For now though, my adventure will come from my desk and a classroom. I’m about to start a grueling school schedule with a lot of late nights spent reading, and mornings spent writing. I only had 15,000 words to write for this paper (I say only, but it was a lot) and the next project has to be in the line of 100,000 words, which means a lot of time sitting in my office, or the library looking at the Berry and pretending to write.

Given that no more work is going to get done today, I am going to nerd out with a  travel book and think about my next destination.

 

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The Scamp Hurts Herself to Prove a Point

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I went to the dentist today. I’m not a huge fan of the dentist (insert widely inappropriate joke about not liking things in my mouth), but my mama kicked me in the butt and made me go. I haven’t been to a dentist in about 3 years, and the last time I was there was less than pleasant. The pain pill I take sucks the calcium out of your body, causing my teeth to literally rot from the inside out. I had a fair amount of work done during my last visit, and the thought of having to do that again with no insurance scared me. The dentist’s office was running a special on cleanings though, and so off I went early this morning to get my chompers checked. Lucky for me no cavities and no scary gum disease or degeneration (probably the only good thing about asshole David is that he has stronger love for flossing than he does anything else. He got me to floss regularly, and my gums and teeth are happy for that much).

 

….but I digress.

As part of the visit today I had to fill out a complete medical history. I had to list my illness and all of my medications. I just figured they wanted to make sure that I wasn’t going to spontaneously combust while sitting in the chair.

The hygienist who took care of me today was a really great girl about my age. We chatted about Scotland, about how she once wanted to be a teacher, and about how scary life is without insurance. While we were waiting for the dentist she mentioned the Lupus and asked me all kinds of questions about being diagnosed, being treated, and being tired all the time. She told me that she had never met a person with Lupus before and that she is in the middle of being tested for it. She is worried because she shows a lot of the symptoms, but doesn’t really know a whole lot ab out the disease. I did my best to reassure her that it wasn’t the end of the world. I told her that if she did have it she would get used to being tired,  that there were plenty of options for exercise, and that my life was pretty normal. She laughed and said she was glad to hear that because her mother-in-law is a nurse and told her if she did in fact have Lupus it would ruin her life. I laughed and promised her that it  wasn’t the end of the world.

and now to the part where I hurt myself to prove a point…..

The gym has become my daily break from writing. I go and do yoga or rowing and sweat for an hour. It has become a stress reliever as well as a change of scenery from the tiki masks in my office. I was feeling uninspired today so I went to the gym to do some yoga and see if I could find my focus. When I got to the gym though, I just kept thinking about what the hygienist said about her life being ruined if she had Lupus.

Was my life ruined? Sure, most days I am too tired to really want to get out of bed, but insomnia keeps me from sleeping, the joints in my fingers are so swollen I can’t get my rings off, and increased stress can cause me to lapse into a down cycle that makes me cranky, sore and a general pain in the ass to be around, but my life isn’t ruined….is it?

My aches and pains usually keep me from doing any strenuous workouts. I’m not supposed to be on treadmills, or lifting a lot of heavy weights. Since the pool was closed today, I hopped on a treadmill and decided that I was going to run until I was no longer focused on the stress of my paper or the potential ruin that was my life.  3 miles later (which may not seem like a lot, but for a girl who hates running is a lot) I was sweating, out of breath, and immediately regretting my decision.

4 hours, a hot shower and some iced knees later and I am still regretting it. There is a reason why my doctor told me not to do anything strenuous. The worst part of all of this is I have run out of pain pills. I can’t see my doc for another 2 weeks (not that I am counting) and I can’t really take Aleve because it causes me to bruise, so I should be taking it easy, but just had to prove to myself that I wasn’t ruined despite already knowing that I wasn’t.

On the upside, a small discussion of my analysis and a conclusion is all that separates me from a complete dissertation. I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. I will now be glued to my desk chair so that I can finish it tonight, and start the editing process tomorrow.

I also think I will skip the gym….

A Scamp and Her Best Ideas

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All my best ideas come to me in the shower. I’ve plotted many an act of revenge, a night on the town, and even several drafts of my plot for world domination under the spray of hot water.

Today was no exception. I have been struggling for two days to finish the analysis section of my paper. I’m tired of looking at the same four pictures, tired of trying to find academic sounding ways to say one book is racist and one is a little less racist. I have been fighting the wall of analysis and the headache that comes from staring at a computer screen for eight-ten hours a day. I took a break to movie hop with the mama and the sister, and during my afternoon off I ate popcorn, Skittles and red vines until I thought my stomach was going to protest. Needless to say, I came home in no mood to work.

The shower saved the day though. It was in the middle of conditioning my hair when I finally figured out how I can save my analysis and get my word count back down to a manageable level. I spent the last two hours working and got things back on track. With four days until the deadline to be completely done with my paper, and two sections still to write, it is clear that I have my work cut out for me.

That’s what tomorrow’s for.

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