voncookie | April 22, 2010
Incipient migraines are always my downfall when it comes to insomnia. My choice is, suffer with the headache, or take the Excedrin Migraine meds which have caffeine in them and get rid of the headache, but suffer from insomnia. Tough choice. Today I chose the Excedrin, dammit dammit dammit, and I really really really shouldn’t [...]
voncookie | April 21, 2010
…that I (at long last, and after much struggle) have a job for next year!!! Wait, it gets better. Not only do I have a job for next year, it’s a job at Big U. Which means I won’t have to relocate to some random Whatsamatta U. Which means I won’t lose my social circle. [...]
voncookie | April 8, 2010
Sorry I’ve been so silent since last week. It’s hard to know what to say after one becomes a supposed “expert” in one’s field… at least that’s what the degree would imply… Something they don’t tell you — getting your Ph.D. requires a shift in identity that comes as a total shock. Case in point: [...]
voncookie | March 12, 2010
Academia is, make no mistake about it, currently shooting itself in the foot. It is signing its own death warrant, digging its own grave, doing all that is humanly possible to make sure that humanities education becomes completely irrelevant in the 21st century. The mechanism by which it is doing this is quite simple: No [...]
voncookie | March 7, 2010
After much deliberation, and hemming and hawing, and, of course, feeling like utter crap about the whole thing, I have decided to STOP applying for any more academic jobs this season, unless, of course, they are what could be a *perfect* fit. I’ve been having such a hell of a time coping with the cycle [...]
voncookie | December 28, 2009
2:30 a.m. There is absolutely NO excuse for the fact that I am awake right now. NONE whatsoever. I’m using my time productively but I’m so pissed off that I’m awake that it’s making me even less likely to sleep. A vicious cycle indeed. I’m convinced that I’ve found the perfect job, perfect in every [...]
voncookie | December 27, 2009
9:45 a.m. Been up for about an hour. Today really is the only “down day” of the entire convention– a day for me to practice my hobnobbing skills for the rest of the convention, a day for me to come up with an answer to the question: “So, tell us about your dissertation?” and “Why [...]
voncookie | September 17, 2009
Oh, it has begun, and how! I am writing my first postdoc application, due, well, practically yesterday. I feel like I have committed about a million faux pas in asking for letters of rec already. Damn. And if I’m not mistaken, my hair is already falling out thanks to the cumulative stress in my life [...]
voncookie | September 15, 2009
That’s how many jobs were listed today in my field as the opening bell rang on hiring season for the Big Scary Convention people. By the time I culled the list, I had about 24 potential jobs and/or postdocs on my list. To put this in perspective, as one person pointed out to me on [...]
voncookie | September 13, 2009
Slick Management Firms’ hiring processes (those of all three of them) are currently on a collision course with the highly convoluted and time-consuming nature of landing a job in academia that culminates in Big Scary Convention. As mentioned in a previous post, the thought of me being unfaithful and window-shopping outside of academia is an [...]
voncookie | September 3, 2009
I feel like Elmer Fudd today as I hunt down Calls for Papers (CfPs) that pertain directly (or even not-so-directly) to my field. I’m tiptoeing through cyberfields in search of the Wild Humanities Forum, an elusive creature, given to the pursuit of tweed and arcane knowledge. Be very twiet… Humanists frighten easily. Kind of like [...]
