The External Funding Blues

So for those of you who don't know, though I'm sure the majority of the readership for this blog does, OGS stands for "Ontario Graduate Scholarship" (although my friends likes to refer to it as the "Orbiting Garbage System"), and SSHRC stands for Social Sciences and Humanities Research council, and is pronouced "shirk" which ironically, is a verb meaning "to avoid work or duty" which is what graduate students routinely do with their proposal writing, making the phrase "I'm shirking SSHRC" the ubiquitous response to the question "what are you doing today?" amongst graduate students during application time.

Basically what these grants translate into is $. Both of these government agencies provide funding to worthy projects at the graduate student level. The only trouble is you have to prove that your project (and you) are worthy! AND, you don't really quite know what they're looking for. So upon my return, my proposals for OGS and SSHRC are taking up the majority of my life right now, though I still have to keep up with school work, hence why I am writing this blog...

At least it's cathartic.

So before I left for my trip, I met with a few professors regarding my proposals and one of them advised me to reorganize the whole thing. So that's what I'm doing (reticently) now. It's very hard to maintain a critical distance from your own work. I put so much effort into this, and I don't want to change it, but I see why it needs to be done. I had arranged my proposal chronologically, going through the texts in the order in which they were published. My professor very wisely advised me to seperate the sections based on the different subject-positions (race, class, gender) that I will be analyzing. It makes more sense, but it's so much more work. I like my friend's idea of just writing "please?" at the end of this and hoping for the best! I am going to keep working on this until the last hour, but it's becoming quite onerous. I also have heaps and heaps of grading to do, and I don't feel like reading undergraduate writing at the moment. I am so stressed out. It sucks to be back. Can I go back to Amsterdam now?!

On the plane, going home :'(

I am on the plane on my way home from Amsterdam now. I am going to write this and then pass out (perhaps with the assistance of some gravol), so I can get back into the right sleep patterns for Eastern Standard Time.

The rest of the conference went well and was very interesting. There was one paper on video game adaptations that was especially astute. The author argued that the abiliy of the user in "World of Warcraft" to film, edit and replay the player's actions within the game functions as a sort of adaptation from video game to film. Very interesting! I never realized how up and coming video game studies are. Or how interesting they can be!

We decided to go out last night to a club called Paradiso, which was converted from an old church. The D.J set his equiptment up where the altar would have been. Iconoclastic, nice! Moral of this story: I am too old for clubbing. Jenna and I spent 18 euro on cover, and we ended up leaving early and sitting on a patio near a canal and talking about life. Much better than the club!

We also had dinner at a very nice restaurant to commemorate our last night here. It was in the Red Light District, which I thought was unusual, since the area is not know for it's food... I found it especially unusual since we had to walk down a dark, graffittied alley to get to it. When we arrived at the door, three men in suits, presumably restaurant patrons, though we'll never know for sure, said "Hello, ladies," increasing our trepidation about entering. There was a blue curtain shielding the door which we had to pass through to enter. It you know anything about the cultural significance of architectural apertures and curtains in Amsterdam, you'll understand why our trepidation was increased further at this point. Jenna, being a braver soul than I, walked through the curtain first and I followed. The restaurant was beautiful. Haha, you thought that was going somewhere else didn't you? Nope. Just a nice restaurant.

We were seated immediately and provided with menus. Jenna had found this place in her guide book but did not check to see what the symbol €€€€€ meant. It turns out that all restaurants in the book are rated for price out of a possible 5 €, and this one was at the top. The waiter returned after we almost had a coronary upon seeing the menu, and provided us with a narrative for each of the entrees, telling us how the meat had been raised, how the dish would be seasoned, even down to the plating. All of it was explained. I thought about how interesting it is that when you inscribe something with a narrative, it automatically gains more cultural value than it initially had. (I'm not a literary scholar or anything, pfft....). The food was delicious and the wine was the best I've ever had. Although the dinner was (very) costly, the experience was worth the price. The chef even has a michelin star, which is apparently a very big deal in the culinary world. It's almost like winning a Fulbright Award, but for a chef!

I guess it's out of the world of fancy dinners and interesting conferences and back to the world of OGS and SSHRC...

One More Conference Paper for the CV!

The hostel switch was the best thing we could have ever done. It's so much cleaner and nicer! I finished revising my conference paper and presented it today. See?:

It was well received. I've decided though, that in future, I am only going to submit abstracts to conferences for essays that I've already written. It's all well and nice to say "wow, that's an interesting topic, I think I'd like to write an essay about that" when you're submitting an abstract months in advance, but when the time comes to sit down and write that paper and you're bogged down with teaching, course work, and travel plans, you realize maybe it's better to use something you've already written. That's okay. I'm learning as I go here... I always get a bit nervous when presenting, but at least you're just reading off what you've already written. Since there were 4 people on my panel, and they only allowed 90 minutes for it, there was no time left for discussion or questions which was disappointing (but also, strangely relieving). But people were asking me questions and engaging with my presentation during the drinks afterwards. I think everyone just wanted to get out of there and have a beer! It was nice to have questions in this more relaxed, slightly less interrogative atmosphere.

I was speaking with a professor from a university in the UK, and we were talking about Canadian Literature, which is my main area of academic interest, and he told me about a book he'd read which he thought I might find interesting (and I DO!). It's called The Tenderness of Wolves by Steph Penney, an agorophobic British writer. The novel is (in part) about the harsh landscape of early 19th century Canada. The irony is that Penney has never been to Canada, on account of her being agorophobic. I have a great deal of interest in this text since it garnered much literary critical (most of it positive) attention. She was long listed for the Orange Prize. How does a text which appropriates this somewhat archaic view of Canada as a desolate, scary, freezing cold space, get nominated for numerous literary awards??? It's almost like since Canadians are no longer writing texts that subscribe to this "Garrison Mentality" (Frye) [yes, I just used an in-text citation in my blog], writers from other nations are doing it for us. Very interesting! Perhaps I'll incorporate this into my thesis or write a paper on it (just for fun, NOT!).

Anyways, the conference is very engaging and I am meeting lots of very interesting academics. There was even someone on mmy panel who just graduated from UW for PhD less than a year ago. He teaches at a university out west, in Kamloops, BC, and he's tenure track! It's good to see graduates of the program who are meaningfully employed.

Since we got here, we did a tour of the Dutch countryside and I went to Anne Frank's house, which was a great deal more emotional than I had anticipated. On our tour, we walked through the village of Marken,

took a boat ride to Voldendam,

tried dutch pancakes,

had pictures taken in Dutch costume (what's the good of being a tourist if you can't have a sense of irony about it?),

went to a museum,

visited a windmill,

were shown around a cheese factory,

and saw how wooden shoes are made.

What a long day!!! I was shocked by how many languages our tour guide spoke. I counted at least 5 languages that she used during our tour (English, Dutch, French, German, and Spanish) and I think she probably knew even more! She seemed very happy with her job and very fulfilled. I have a hard time with just French!

Speaking of French, we stopped to ask this couple directions and they responded that they knew only French. Being the good Canadians we are, we decided to rey to communicate with them anyways, having been taught French all through school. Well! They could not understand anything we were saying! It was at that point I realized that Parisian French and Quebecois French must be very different. I feel slightly ripped off now that I know my French knowledge doesn't really help me in Europe. :(

Anyways, I am having a wonderful time here in Amsterdam, the conference is great, and I don't want to come back down to reality. I know that when I get back I will have a lot of work to do, especially on OGS and SSHRC, and I'm thinking maybe I'll just stay in Amsterdam. No? Not a good idea? Okay, I'll come back. I guess...

In Amsterdam!

NB: All of the posts I've written while in Amsterdam were posted when I got back, since internet costed 4 euro an hour there, and I am a grad student. I wrote these posts down in a journal, and the posted date reflects the date I wrote the entries, not the date they were published. Enjoy!

So I landed in Amsterdam today to attend an academic conference. The plane ride was long and I didn't get any work done, which is a problem. I did get some sleep though, which is unusual for me since I'm always up until ungodly hours working on things. I was pretty hungry when I woke up since I had been asleep when they handed out the tiny and somewhat disgusting trays of chicken korma. I guess that's what you get when you fly charter. In coach. Somehow, I think I would have still been hungry even if I were awake when they handed those out. The whole plane reeked of it. I looked around and saw many green-looking faces. I think air-sickeness comes less from motion and altitude and more from the culinary joke that the air travel industry plays on its patrons...

When I got off the plane, I had to grab my pack from the baggage carousel and find a live person train ticket vendor, since I had no euro change for the ticket vending machine, having just arrived. Being bleary-eyed and disoriented, not knowing where I was going, and having a 20 lb. backpack strapped to my body, all of this took about me about an hour and a half. I decided my dream of appearing on and winning The Amazing Race might be dead.

My friend Jenna, who is touring Europe, decided to meet me and picked me up from Centraal Station. She was happy to see me (and my new haircut) and we walked over to the hostel I had booked for us. While this hostel was "conveniently" located near the train station, and for some unknown reason received excellent online reviews, it was just GROSS. The place reeked of weed (I am having a very olfactory experience so far), and everyone there was completely stoned. Since I was arriving early in the morning, my bed was not yet "vacated," so I (reticently) stored my pack in their lugggage storage and went for a walk of the area. I was stricken by how quiet the streets were, even at this early hour. It was about 8 am local time. There were no bikes, cars, or trams anywhere. Clearly, this is a different way of life that the North American hustle and bustle of the early AM rush hour. I like the calmness here. It's so quiet here and the canals are so beautiful. We stopped at a tiny bakery to get some juice. It was the only place open. After our little forray out, we returned to the hostel so I could check in. We did this, and went up to take a nap (Jenna loves naps, and I was really jet-lagged). When I got there, however, there was someone still in my bed! We had to wake him up and tell him to hit the road, find a clean set of sheets and remake the bed ourselves. We then decided, after seeing the condition of the room and who we'd be sharing with, that we would change hostels and move to an all-girl dorm, in a no-smoking hostel. Jenna made the booking so we're staying here tonight (oh, joy) and moving tomorrow. I think we might venture out tonight for a couple of drinks and maybe walk through the infamous Red Light District, if we can work up the courage! I still have some finishing touches to put on my conference paper. Maybe I'll work on that when we get to the next hostel...

My first post...

So I've been given an assignment. I have to create a blog for one of my grad clases about "Writing the Self Online." So here we are and I have no clue what to write.

I guess I've decided to theme this blog around the idea of my life (or lack thereof) as a graduate student. The first and most difficult part of life as a graduate student is something called "writer's block," a phenomenon which I am currently experiencing... The Urban dictionary defies writer's block as :

"A period of time when a writer's mind is completely blank and drained of any kind of inspirational essence. They are unable to write. They start to bang their head against the basement wall. It bleeds. They scream and shout in agony. And finally, they pray that the pain from this blunt physical trauma and the sight of the sweet sweet catalytic blood finally gives them SOME kind of weak-ass idea."

Or:

"An imaginary non-existant concept designed to help writers feel less guilty when they lack the mental capacity to write well for a certain time period. The real reason for this temporary lack of creativity is usually one of the following: distraction, health problems, lack of focus, laziness, or sometimes just the basic idea of writer's block can scare a writer into actually getting it. "

A friend of mine, Joe Farag, wrote this lovely poem during essay writing and posted it on one of my facebook group walls. I think it is appropriate now:

The Blinking-Cursor Demon
by. J.R. Farag
"blinking cursor, why do you mock me so?
don't you know your incessant blinking makes me feel so low?
I look at the blank page, white as freshly fallen snow
and think to myself "out, I shan't go"
blinking cursor, cease your incessant assault!
writers' block is hardly my fault!

blinking cursor, forgive my procrastination
but sitting staring at the screen has cause great alienation
blinking cursor, I beg you, give me some sweet respite
I promise maybe, perhaps tomorrow, I'll sit down and write"

I love quotes. They take up so much space! I mean... they're important in setting up your argument within a previously existing discoure between academics. Yeah.

Right now, I am working on my SSHRC and OGS applications, and I also have a conference coming up in a few days. But since I have writer's block for both tasks, I'm not really getting anywhere. I know I'll get both done, I just have a sneaking suspicion that I will be suffering through a few all-nighters very soon.

I suppose I should get back to "working" on my grant proposals now. Stupid blinking cursor.