Sunday, February 12, 2012

The boredom continues

I just finished reading through this first set of rough drafts from my second year composition class.  They were okay.  It's the first paper, and it's a rhetorical analysis of a print advertisement.  As usual, there was quite a bit of writing about the advertisement industry instead of focused analysis on the ad itself, and the typical organization and clarity issues.  But nothing too unusual.

Still, I feel bored.  The next time I teach this class, I'm going to need to come up with a different analytical paper to start with.  I'm feeling completely unmotivated to go look at the assignments for the week and try to come up with some lesson plans.  Blah.

In other news, last night I was pleased to receive an email that I should be receiving proofs of my article fixing to be published--and then today, they emailed back and said that I need to put it into Chicago, not MLA style, stat.  So, tonight I'll be watching Downton Abbey and fixing footnotes.  It's not a big thing, but it is tedious.  And adding to my peevish mood.

I've got a novel to finish this week, too--Black Thunder: Gabriel's Revolt, Virginia 1800--along with a couple of chapters of Cotton's Queer Relations, and I've got to fit in a viewing of Mandigo, as well.  Next week, we read Absalom, Absalom--one of my all time favorite novels.  I need to go talk to the professor of this class again, though I just stopped by office hours this past week.  I had a mentoring lunch with a WGS professor this week (which is such a wonderful idea, and I'm so grateful that we're doing this this semester), and in response to my question about whether it's a problem that my committee is currently made up of three men, the professor strongly urged me to consider asking my Queer South professor to be on my committee.  True, this professor is a major reason why I came here, but she's been gone for the past year and a half, and I haven't had a chance to work with her at all. 

At the WGS retreat yesterday, my WGS mentor said that she'd thought about it more and thinks its even more important that I get her on my committee, as her work really lines up with my own.  Sigh.  I need to find a way to approach this that doesn't feel like asking people to the prom, which is what it feels like right now.  I know that every single person I've asked for advice about how to get through a phd program without regrets or bitterness has emphasized the importance of having the right committee, which may be adding to the stress I feel about this.

I think I get Tuesday off this week, which I haven't had in a couple of weeks.  I'm supposed to go to dance class Monday night, but I'm feeling quite reluctant about that, too.  I missed this past week (I went to sleep instead), and I believe we're at the point where we're expected to dance with partners.  I don't want to dance with a partner.  It's not like West Coast Swing, which I feel more comfortable with--I think this Chicago Swing is much more of an intimate dance experience.

Oh, peevishness.  I shall relocate myself upstairs now, and settle in for the two-hour Downton Abbey.  I expect that it will lighten my mood somewhat.

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