School | The Scamp Abroad

The Scamp at the End of the Year

Posted on December 30, 2014 by erranteditor

There are two days left in 2014. The universe spent most of the this year shitting on my face, and with my possible expulsion from the doctoral program pending review; it does not appear that 2015 is going to get off to a good start.

I have spent almost a year of my life depressed and stressed in a program that literally broke my spirit, I have spent many an hour in my therapist’s office trying to figure out what I should do about my degree. I had big big plans for this degree. It was my ticket to a full time university gig, and my ticket to improving basic skills writing programs at the community college level.

This degree was my ticket out of the United States. With those three fancy letters behind me, I was going to set off on my next grand adventure to the land of Kiwis and beautiful beaches. I wanted to finish off my prison sentence here and then go be a happy healthy adult in a country that feels okay about dual citizenship. I know that it is foolish to say that the degree is the only way to fulfill this dream, but it is almost impossible to get a university teaching post without with a doctorate.

While I love my job at the community college, and feel like I am reasonably good at what I do there, I do not know if I can be happy in this area after all that has happened. While I was in Estonia, I had decided to stay in the program, tough it out, get my degree, and move on. Now with a trumped up charge of academic dishonesty, and the supervisor who processes my time card withholding mine so I do not get paid on time, I am thinking that it is time to move on.

I have decided that I am going to see about transferring back to the University of Edinburgh. I am going to email the lovely woman who supervised my dissertation (she just so happens to be the same person who runs the PhD. program) and see if there are funding options that would allow me to stay loan free, and if some of the work that I have completed here could save me some time on completion there. It is a long shot, but, that’s what I thought of my chances getting in the first time. Right now, anything would be better than staying in this program, so I am going to try and get 2015 off to a good, or at least, hopeful, start.

Right now, even the thought of being able to go back and finish my degree from a world ranked university rather than a school I am embarrassed to admit that I attend, sounds pretty darn good to me. I spent the last few months trying to salvage my education here and not give up because I thought that it would mean that the horrid people I am forced to be with once a week would win. I thought I would look like a quitter if I admitted defeat and didn’t finish out the program. I thought that I could put my head down and lay low for the next 214 days in hell.

I’m not a quitter, but there is a big difference between getting my soul crushed for a meaningless degree, and walking away to get the education I deserve, and should have had all along. The biggest mistake I have ever made was turning down a chance to stay in Scotland to come home for a boy.

It has taken me two years, and a lot of pain, but it looks like I finally have a chance to correct it.

The Scamp and Passover

Posted on April 16, 2014 by erranteditor

This week marks the Jewish celebration of Passover.

For those who don’t know anything about the holiday, here is what Chabod says about it:

After many decades of slavery to the Egyptian pharaohs, during which time the Israelites were subjected to backbreaking labor and unbearable horrors, G‑d saw the people’s distress and sent Moses to Pharaoh with a message: “Send forth My people, so that they may serve Me.” But despite numerous warnings, Pharaoh refused to heed G‑d’s command. G‑d then sent upon Egypt ten devastating plagues, afflicting them and destroying everything from their livestock to their crops.

At the stroke of midnight of 15 Nissan in the year 2448 from creation (1313 BCE), G‑d visited the last of the ten plagues on the Egyptians, killing all their firstborn. While doing so, G‑d spared the Children of Israel, “passing over” their homes—hence the name of the holiday. Pharaoh’s resistance was broken, and he virtually chased his former slaves out of the land. The Israelites left in such a hurry, in fact, that the bread they baked as provisions for the way did not have time to rise. Six hundred thousand adult males, plus many more women and children, left Egypt on that day, and began the trek to Mount Sinai and their birth as G‑d’s chosen people.

So now that you’ve had a history lesson, you can get the Scamp’s interpretation of Passover. For me, it is a chance to get together with my family and take pictures like this one:

Plague sandwich anyone?

Last year I didn’t celebrate Passover in Scotland. I was trying to deal with heartstompapoolza, and trying to make the most of the time I had left in the city. This year, I am spending the day in class. I spent the first night at a baseball game, and accidentally ate a hot dog. While I am not kosher, I’m sure that eating pork on a Jewish holiday is frowned upon somewhere. I was appropriately greeted with locust. We laughed and had a great time at the game, and with the fact that I am a bad Jew, and that would not have happened if we were at a formal seder.

I’m spending the second night in class. I fact, I am writing this from class when I should be paying attention to leadership styles and human resources.

While I am not spending the holiday at a big family dinner the way we usually do, I have to admit that I am not sad about it. I often feel a little fake at the family dinners because I do not consider myself religious in the traditional sense, and lately, I have not been feeling particularly interested in mixing with more than my immediate family. In fact, I didn’t feel bad about being passed over on the invite list for the family dinner. I have four weeks left in the semester and have enough on my plate.

I got to spend last night with my family, and at the end of the day, whether we did it around a table with a formal seder, or in the bleachers at a baseball game, so I consider the holiday a success.

Chag Sameach everyone.

The Scamp is a Shitty Juggler

Posted on December 13, 2013 by erranteditor

I’m tired.

Not the tired of going to bed too late and getting up too early. Not the tired of a good long workout, or the completion of a paper. No, this is the bone deep, weary tired of having too many balls in the air at one time. It is the tired of someone who has every second of the day scheduled. I’m juggling two jobs (one of which I really like, and one that pays my bills), school, homework, and a paltry attempt at a social life. I’m not doing very well at any of. I’m distracted at work, distracted in class, and haven’t put in nearly enough effort into my homework or relationships. I have a student loan to sort out, and have yet to pay my tuition or register for next semester. I still do not have insurance. Lately the only thing that I am doing well is sleeping and putting off work.

The end of the semester cannot come soon enough. I have one final separating me from the completion of my first semester of the doctoral program. I’m not sure if I have learned a lot, and the final next week will certainly answer that question, but I am happy to be standing near the finish line.

I did not do nearly enough writing while I was in Scotland, and have yet to do any since I have been home. The trip was a good recharge, but coming home and then jumping right back in to school and work has left me with a cold (well, that could have come from the boy, who has been sick for a couple of weeks). The boy told me that I tend to be fatalistic about my disease, and while I don’t agree, he asked me what would happen if I spent one day not thinking about how tired I was, or how much pain I was in. In theory, that would be great. I would love it if I could find a way to shut off that part of my brain. I have decided that I will try that while I am tied up in study groups this weekend preparing for the final.

Today though, I am just going to take some meds, go to bed early, and hope that I wake up tomorrow a little less tired.

The Scamp Orientates

Posted on August 25, 2013 by erranteditor

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

Posted on August 24, 2013 by erranteditor

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’s Favorite Word

Posted on August 2, 2013 by erranteditor

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.

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.

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.

The Scamp and Fast Cars and Freedom

Posted on June 25, 2013 by erranteditor

When the cat’s away, the mice will play….or at least that it my motto for the next 24 hours. My mom was nice enough to accompany my dad to the mountains to do a little work on the cabin (I like to think the world revolves around me, so her choice to go was to help me out). That’s right, this girl has the house to herself until tomorrow morning. That means I don’t have to wear my headphones to listen to music while I work, I won’t be distracted by the TV, or have to hide from baseball, and the best part of being alone overnight:

I don’t have to wear pants.

…and now a quick pause for my happy dance

I wish I could say that I am spending the day lounging by the pool or laying on the couch watching TV. Instead I am locked to my desk (well, the desk I have now claimed as mine) trying to write the introduction to my dissertation. I’m about 2,000 words in, and I have to say, I think it is complete rubbish. Luckily it does not have to be a perfect little gem right now. I have to say it is nice to be able to take a break from doing research and reading other people’s writing. I’ve been reading some crap studies lately. The only good thing about that is that it gives me hope that someone will actually want to publish my work. I currently have 3,000 words written, which means I am only 12,000 from my goal. I got a little distracted today with a trip to the gym, and currently Top Gear U.K. has my attention, so it might be time to call it a day on the writing.

I am going to spend the evening trying to rearrange my room and clean it up. Right now it is full of boxes, shoes and books on teaching, and that is making it hard for me to focus. Right now, I need all the focus I can get. I have been home for about a month and have yet to settle into a normal sleep schedule, and have yet to secure gainful employment. I’m starting to feel like this:

I know this will change…in fact, I am hoping that it changes on Thursday. I finally managed to get an interview for an instructor position at Fullerton college. Hopefully they will be dazzled by my wits and my red pen and they will hire me on the spot. I have a lot of bills to pay, and would like to have some money coming in to pay those down. My mom told me the other day that she would like me to keep living with them until I pay off my loans, but since it will be at least 10 years before that happens, I can’t see that happening. I have no desire to stay in the U.S. after I graduate…..especially when New Zealand needs English teachers and I could supplement my income by working at a place like this:

http://www.sheepworldfarm.co.nz/

Really, that would be enough to cure my wanderlust for awhile.

The Scamp Needs a Title

Posted on May 10, 2013 by erranteditor

Yesterday I was finally able to meet with my supervisor (which reminds me that I now need to email her again to set up another meeting for next week), and although she claims she didn’t get any of the 6 emails I sent her, she does have a really good plan of attack for me and is okay with me going home to finish my work (I’m going to rot in the in-between for lying about the seriousness of my mom’s brain tumor, but I have decided that I am okay with that). Her strategy for getting everything written and turned in on time is to give the students she is supervising homework for each week. I’m all for this as it keeps me on schedule and keeps me accountable for the work that needs to get done.

Among the first bits of homework is coming up with three possible titles for our dissertation. This one has me stumped. I know why I am choosing to undertake the research, and I am well underway with my theory and literature, but I can’t think of a title to save my life. I figure since I can’t think of anything, maybe one of my 7 readers can. I need a title that gives a good vision of the paper that I am writing. Something catchy, but informative…something that will allow the readers to know what they are getting into so they can skip to the next paper.

Here are the details of my research:

I’m going to be using critical literacy and the concept of the language of power to examine two books, Chato’s Kitchen by Gary Soto and Skippyjon Jones in the Doghouse by Judy Schachner. I will be examining both the text and the pictures of both of these stories and discuss how the choices made in terms of language used, structure of the story and the choice of illustrations affects the way in which children view the Mexican culture. Part of the disucssion will focus on the importance of teachers critically analysing the books that they are presenting to their students, and how the right choices will help their students become strong intercultural citizens.

This was the title I used on the proposal I had to turn in, but it is crap:

Skippyjon Jones in Chato’s Kitchen: A Theoretical Study on the Importance of Portrayal of Mexican Culture in Children’s Literature

The problem with this title is that the project this title suggests is one that I would not be able to complete in a matter of months. It also lacks the info that the research is aimed at how critical literacy will help teachers when deciding what books they will teach in their classroom.

So I need to come up with some new possibilities to take to my meeting on Wednesday. I am prepared to bribe my readers into helping me, so the person who comes up with the best title will get an awesome Scottish present…..and by awesome I mean haggis flavored chips.

The Scamp Doesn’t Wanna

Posted on May 7, 2013 by erranteditor

Today the sun came out. Not only did the sun come out, but it was 63 degrees! My legs saw the sun today. I wore my toms instead of boots and tights. I walked around without a jacket. I felt great.

Until I didn’t.

I only have ten days left of my adventure here and I have come to the realization that I do not want to go home. I like the safety of my Scotland bubble. There are no painful memories here, no worries about a social circle and friends, and in my little fantasy land, there is no worries about bills, my lack of job and paying for school next semester. I ran out of time to travel, and was unable to see some of the other parts of the UK that I thought I would get to. The end has snuck up on me. I’m not ready. I still have yet to hear from my supervisor about a meeting and have to wait until tomorrow to get the paperwork signed for my leave of absence. I know that I pushed a lot of this to the last minute, but I am a little disheartened at the lack of support from the professors. I hope this isn’t a pattern that will be repeated for the next four months. It will be harder for me to get things done when I am more than 5,000 miles away.

Today I was up at half 6. I read 3/4 of a Stephanie Plum novel before I finally got up and decided to start the day. I’mm not sure what has been disrupting my sleep pattern, but it is on the fritz lately. I have been having nightmares about David which leave me feeling sad and empty, and I am worried about my dissertation and the research that I am doing. I know that these two things are just a product of stress, but I am worried that they will take over and I will go back to being dark and twisty. I don’t want to be dark and twisty.

Last night I packed up parts of my room to ship home. That made the end of the journey seem more real. Today I took the first box to the post office to send on home. While that doesn’t seem like a hard task, I had to carry the box and walk the 10 minutes to the office. The box didn’t seem heavy, but by the time I reached my destination, my arms wanted to fall off. I still have two more boxes that have to be walked and shipped. I’m thinking I am going to wait until Thursday to do the second box and I will take care of the third one on Monday. In the meantime, I am going to do some pushups and work out my little chicken arms.

I need a pint….or maybe three.

A Useful Scamp

Posted on October 9, 2012 by erranteditor

Today is the first day in a long time that I felt useful. I have been in Scotland for over a month now, and while I am loving my time here (minus the undergrads), I have not really felt like I have contributed anything to the space that I am inhabiting. This morning I woke up early to chat with the love of my life, and schleped myself to the education building for my 9 am class and spent all day cooped up inside. I was feeling grumbley and sour walking home until I was stopped by a woman outside the office building by the dorms. She was in a panic because she couldn’t find her wallet. She wanted to know if I had seen anything on my walk up the hill and she was fretting about how she was going to get home. Scotland is a city of public transportation. If people don’t walk, they take the bus. The bus only takes a bus pass or exact change. She kept apologizing to me for holding me up, but I know how I would feel in the situation, so I didn’t feel the least bit bad about trying to help her.

Those who know me really well know that I do not carry cash. I just carry my ATM card. The thing about money here, is that until I put cash in my Scotland account, it is really expensive for me to use my American card everywhere. Last week I pulled out some cash to have on hand for things like a quick snack or lunch, and as it happened I had enough money for a one-way on the bus, so I offered it to her. She apologized several times for stopping me and asking, and told me that was not the reason that she stopped me, but I told her I hopped it would be enough and not to think twice about it. She looked like someone’s mom. She also looked like the type of woman that would always have juice boxes and snacks on hand for play dates and she probably walks her kids to school every morning before catching the bus to work. Before she ran to catch the bus, she promised that she that when she got everything sorted she would drop money into the charity box of my choice to repay the kindness. At first I told her she could pick, but then I told her to drop it into something education related.

I know it seems silly that £2 could make me feel useful, but knowing that the woman was able to make it home made me feel better. I’m sure cancelling all of her cards and getting new sets of everything will be a pain in the ass, so I am hoping that not having to spend hours trying to figure out how to get home made it a little less stressful. I also hope that someone would do the same for my mommy if she were in the same situation.

Maybe I should spend less time cooped up in class or in the library with my nose in a book, or maybe I should spend some more time volunteering or being more useful, but for now, I will just feel good knowing that I finished the walk home in a better mood than when I started.