sore and happy

Yesterday was a melancholy day. I was feeling . . . I suppose lonely is the word, but not in quite the typical sense. I realized recently that this semester will most likely be my last semester teaching here. That should have been obvious to me, but it wasn't. And it's breaking my heart. I've talked before about not wanting to leave here (although maybe that was over at the other blog), but it's worth restating. I don't want to leave here. Not only do I not want to leave New England, I don't want to leave UNH. I don't want to leave the rather run-down building that is Ham Smith. I don't want to leave this program. I grew up in this program. This building, this program, and especially these people -- this is home now. and it's hard to leave home. Also, home is in a shaky position. We're down to two professors again (the same two that we had when I began this crazy trip) and while I know we'll recover, I want to do something to help. I suppose going out and getting a job helps, but what i want is to work here. Partially because it's safe, sure. But I want to help this place. Perhaps it's too arrogant of me to imagine that I'm exactly what they need.

But I am.

I'm sorry, I just am.

I know this program. I know where it's been and I know where it is. I know the perception of the program in other departments, I know the comp/lit divide. I know most of the literature faculty and they know me. and I could help.

I completely understand the reasons that they don't hire in house and I respect them. I get it. And part of me is excited to try out another program, see where I fit. But the loyalty that I have to this place, it makes it difficult to leave, especially now. Well, not NOW, but in a year or so. Perhaps that's the Scorpio in me.

But the realization that I probably won't teach here again, in this place and this program that I love so much, made me pretty melancholy yesterday. I started pre-missing my friends and remembering how hard it is to leave the people you grow so quickly to love.

Today, though, is a better day. I'm still heartsick about the inevitability of leaving here, but I'm trying not to wallow. I've got a year and a half and if I keep thinking like this I'll be miserable for quite a while. So I'm trying to focus on being here now.

Also, I played racquetball yesterday and today with two of my toughest partners and I am so incredibly sore from head to toe that it's difficult to wallow in anything else. Advil = happiness. I hurt. I hurt bad. But in the immortal words of John Cougar, it hurts so good. It feels good to throw myself around a racquetball court again. Feels good to remember that this body can do that. It feels good to do something physical, to wear myself out, and to play with two of my friends.

I'm also feeling pretty good because I actually got some words down on the page today for my dissertation. I've been stalled trying to figure out exactly how to go about this lit review thing. I've seen it done in my writing group -- well, I've seen the drafts and the chapters, but I'm not totally sure how to get there. How to draft a chapter. My writing process does not lend itself to this, to long term, big project writing. I tend to read everything I need to, write all over the copies I've made of articles and book chapters, mark things with post it tabs, and then sit down and write. I tend to write in big chunks and not revise a whole heck of a lot.

This will rather clearly NOT work for the dissertation.

So here's what I'm trying. I reread Susan Jarratt's "The Case for Conflict" and wrote up a summary. I then freewrote about the connections that I make from it and the things it makes me consider. I then included a bunch of key quotes. Now i'm moving on to Catherine E. Lamb's "Beyond Argument in Feminist Composition" because I think they're in conversation with each other. I'm hoping to set up my lit review as traditional approaches to teaching argument, feminist critique to those approaches, and the responses to those critiques. That, then, should give me a sort of exigence for my project. I hope it sets up the conversation that I'm trying to join and provides a space for me to speak.

That's the idea at least.

So, that's where I'm at right now. It's not far, but it's one small step for the dissertation, one giant leap for me.