Today I found out that my PhD viva (what Americans would call a PhD defense) will likely take place in early December.
Repeat after me: Oh. My. Flipping. Hell.
I’ve been freaking out all day and haven’t gotten much work done. For your viva, you have two examiners (who’ve read your dissertation) conduct an oral examination of 2-3 hours. The viva is the examination/defense. The two examiners decide whether you receive the PhD or not. This is probably slightly different from the American system. I don’t know the examiners and they are not from my university. I’ve never had any contact with them, so they are completely objective. My supervisors and I have to nominate the examiners and we’ve chosen two female novelists/academics who have already agreed to examine me. The college has to approve them, but I don’t anticipate a problem there. One of the examiners is going away after the holidays, so the viva has to take place in early December. This is what I just found out today, which has me totally panicked! I have been planning to submit my PhD by October 30th, but I really wanted some wiggle room in case I needed more time. I didn’t think the viva would take place until sometime in January, which for some reason was comforting, probably because it seems far away, in the new year. If the viva were in January, I could probably submit the PhD at the end of November or even early December if needed. Now that’s not possible. I have NO wiggle room. And I haven’t even finished the novel yet! And I still have to complete the academic part!
Deep breath.
It’s all for the best, really. It would be fab to have this done before the end of the calendar year, before the holidays, before my birthday. And my visa expires at the end of January, so if I can pass the PhD in early December (If! If!) then I’ll have a better chance of changing to a work visa before my student visa expires on January 31st, without having to leave the country, etc.
I can do this. I can do it! The sudden news has just thrown off my equilibrium, that’s all. Will I be done with this in 4 months? Is that even possible? I have a hard time imagining it, but it’s for real. The paperwork is done.
I went to a conference at Exeter this week, where I read from my novel. I was the lone fiction writer at the conference. Fiction writers (and creative types in general) often feel out of place at these sorts of academic events. Presenter after presenter does “theory speak,” making it seem as if their own mind has been erased and reprogrammed with the thoughts of Judith Butler. Reading a novel excerpt in an environment like this is intimidating. When you share your creative work, you put yourself out there in a way that you don’t if you’re just spouting theory like a trained circus animal. It made me feel very exposed, but I didn’t flee. I did my reading and to my relief, it was very well received. I think after several hours of academic papers, I was like a cool drink of water for the audience. People were riveted by my reading. I got more questions than anyone else and afterwards many people wanted to talk to me about the book and gushed with praise. I really couldn’t believe it. It gave me a much-needed boost before the upcoming retreat, where I’ll lock myself away in the French countryside to do nothing but write. Maybe I’m not crap after all? Well, we’ll see.
I had a bit of time to look around Exeter, which seems to be a very nice town, with an amazing cathedral and lots of interesting shops and restaurants. It seems the only time I travel around to English towns is for conferences. Train travel is prohibitively expensive here, so I take very few trips outside of London. I enjoyed the view of the countryside from the train window – that’s about as good as it gets for me!
Anglofille said @ 10:43 pm | academia | Permalink | Comments are off
It’s Friday night and I’m livin’ it up. Oh wait, no…just the opposite. I’m home working on my dissertation. I’m currently writing my Fight Club analysis (while listening to the soundtrack of The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert) and I’m going to throw two questions out there:
[1] This first one is just for the Yanks (and I know those of you on the East Coast are nearly snowed in, so you have nothing else to do but help me). There’s a famous scene in Fight Club where Brad Pitt’s character makes a big deal of the fact that he and Edward Norton’s character know what a duvet is. It’s apparently a bad thing that men know what this word means – it’s a sign of their figurative castration! I have transcribed this scene from the film and added the following footnote:
-“Duvet” is more commonly used in British English than in American English and many Americans (male and female) would not be familiar with this word.
I added this footnote for two reasons: I’m doing my PhD in England where the word duvet is common, but it’s not as common in the States (which is why it was an issue in Fight Club). But the key point for me is whether many women would not know this word. I think there are plenty of American women who would not know what a duvet is. Thoughts? This might seem trivial, but it’s important to my analysis.
[2] This will be for the more academic-minded amongst you. Is anyone out there familiar with the work of Max Weber? One of the profs in my department said that Weber might be able to help me with my Fight Club analysis, particularly the idea that consumer culture is traditionally considered something female, which is of course important to Fight Club. I have no idea where to look in Weber’s oeuvre to find this (nor do I have a lot of time to read much of his stuff). Does anyone happen to know about this – or, alternatively, know of another writer whose work might be helpful?
All right, I better get back to work, where I get to write sentences like this: “This reference to Lorena Bobbitt, the Ecuadorian-American woman who famously sliced off half of her husband’s penis and threw it from the window of her car, inserts the issue of literal castration into the narrative.”
It’s that time again – I must dust off the academic portion of my dissertation and begin working on it again. Chapter 1: Fight Club. You all know I love Fight Club. It’s a brilliant indictment of capitalist-patriarchy and the damage it does to men. That’s not the dominant interpretation of the film, but that’s how I read it. All of the issues in Fight Club are relevant to women as well, even if on the surface it’s very ‘male.’ Anyway, the next month will be spent writing the novel and finishing this chapter on Fight Club. How I’m going to do all of this work on top of teaching remains to be seen.
Perhaps in related news, my novel is becoming increasingly violent. It’s always had shootings and bombings, but you can distance yourself while writing about that kind of violence. Now I have beatings and torture, which is very up-close-and-personal. At first I found it difficult to write about such things because I was disturbed that these ideas and images existed in my mind, but now I sort of enjoy it. The people being beaten and tortured are really vile, so they deserve what they get (think Tarantino’s ‘Inglourious Basterds’). Because of that, it’s sort of cathartic. I’m not sure how I’ll reconcile the feminist ideals of my novel with the violence, except to say: Why should women have to play nice? It certainly hasn’t gotten us very far.
Today I put Chapter 7 to bed. All 107 pages of it. I moved about 30 pages from it to another chapter a few weeks ago, so I’ve completed at least 137 pages since I returned from Paris in mid-August. Of course the chapter is not really finished – it needs a lot of work – but I’ve written it through from beginning to end. Time for Chapter 8. Chapter 7 was pretty fun to write. I realized that one of the characters will murder someone before the end of the book. Oh – and I know the ending of the story now. I came home one day a few weeks ago and in a white heat, wrote most of the last chapter (but not the very, very end). So I know my character’s fate. It made me cry.
I’m starting to worry that I can’t keep up this pace all throughout the winter. Where will I find new reserves of creativity and brainpower? Are these finite resources? My head hurts. It’s completely pitch dark here before 5:00 p.m. I’m starting to sag a bit. I have to wear my glasses all the time now too. That can’t be good. And I have pains in my hands. This really can’t be good. What are the early signs of carpal tunnel? I’m too young to die.
I quit my job at the language school. I just finally had enough. I had already given up one of my classes there but had one left. In my remaining class, half the students were Spanish and they just did not like me one bit. They would come to class late each day (I’m talking 30 or 40 minutes late), they’d talk all during class despite me telling them to be quiet repeatedly, they’d skip many classes then complain they didn’t understand the subject matter. Finally, I began to throw them out of class for behaving this way. They were extremely upset about this and claimed that in Spain you can come to class late, skip class, etc. Well, terrific, it sounds like a fab system, but we’re not in Spain, we’re in England, where you must attend class and show up on time. After five weeks, this message should have sunk in. If you don’t like it, hit the road.
Not surprisingly, they complained to my boss that I am too strict. The spoiled little rich kids didn’t like being told off. [I call them "kids" but they're in their mid-twenties and should know better.] My boss defended me, apparently – I don’t know because I wasn’t there, but that’s what he said. But it doesn’t matter, because I quit. The fact is, I didn’t want to teach this class. It ended up being too much work, way more than I had anticipated. The class was spread over three days and it took away a tremendous amount of time from my PhD work. The lesson prep and marking ate into my day, then there was the actual class, then afterwards I felt drained from having to deal with all the attitude I got during the class. Even on my ‘off’ days I couldn’t switch off from it. But you know, I would have stuck with it, to the detriment of my PhD and my mental health, because I do have a sense of loyalty. I didn’t want to let the students down. But after they stabbed me in the back, the whole equation changed. I’m going to push myself to the brink and let my PhD suffer for 8 more weeks because of these brats? Nope, sorry. Not going to happen. So I left. See ya later kids, good luck to you, buena suerte!
And you know, I feel like I’ve been reborn now. I still have the university class I teach on Fridays, but that is a pleasure. [I also still have my American job.] But getting rid of my job at the language school has freed up my days and it has made me feel so liberated and alive. Yesterday I was at the library all day long! I read! I wrote! I lost myself in ideas and creativity. It was intoxicating. I am grateful for these last five weeks of hell at the language school, because I came to realize that while this PhD is a nightmare in many ways, it’s also a gift in other ways. Having time to read and to write is something that should not be taken for granted. Now, to be able to lose myself in my novel nearly all day, everyday, is an opportunity that I should cherish. My time as a student and with this novel is coming to an end and I’m not going to take on any more responsibilities that distract me from this. I am putting myself first and that’s that. I’ll have less money, but I’ll survive.
Now, I am going to finish writing this goddamn novel if it kills me.
I knew I’d have a meltdown during the last year of my PhD, but I didn’t expect it to come right at the beginning of the first term. This past week was not good. Once again, I have gotten in way over my head with too many responsibilities. Three jobs, for crying out loud, on top of a full-time PhD that’s in its last year. This wasn’t intentional. I have my American job and then I accepted two classes at the language school where I’ve taught for years. I’ve never taught two classes there at once, since one class alone is about 7 hours of teaching time. But since I have to pay rent now, I accepted the two classes. Only after I accepted the classes at the language school did my university offer me the teaching job that I wrote about in my last post. I obviously couldn’t turn that down, so voila – three jobs.
The two classes at the language school equal about 14 hours of teaching time, not counting marking and prep (which is, of course, unpaid). The university job is only 2 hours a week, but those two hours pay more than a seven-hour class at the other school, which is the educational equivalent of a sweatshop. British university lecturers have it made, let me tell you. I’d love to see the lecturers I know survive one week at the language school. Anyway, the language school job was just too much even on its own. I knew I had to do something about it, but I had committed to the classes. Once the term starts, it’s really crappy to back out of a class. So I felt conflicted, but my PhD and novel were on the line – if I kept the 14 hours, I could kiss my PhD and novel goodbye, because in my time away from teaching, I was just too exhausted to write. The PhD/novel requires dedicated, concentrated work and a level of mental energy that is not easy to sustain if there are too many other distractions. Last Wednesday I was in bed with stomach pains and couldn’t move. Everyday I just felt like crying. Finally I was honest with my boss at the language school – I told him I felt as if I were drowning. I thought he would be angry or fire me, but for whatever reason he was nice about it (in some way, it must benefit him). So now I just have one class there, one class at the university and my American job, which I can take time off of if I need to. It’s still too much, but this is one of the most expensive cities in the world and living here ain’t cheap. I’ll have less money, but at least now I’ll have time to write each day.
When I think about all the the sacrifices I’ve made for this novel and PhD, I feel sick. If it were just the PhD, it wouldn’t be worth it. But the novel could be something really great, so I’ll finish the damn thing, even if I’m poverty stricken and my life is in shreds by the end of it.
I finished the week with a terrible sinus cold, but even still I managed to get some writing done this weekend. I hadn’t been writing for a while. I still can’t write at home, so went out to a cafe this afternoon and wrote five pages while drinking hot chocolate (okay, and eating a brownie). I really missed my character so much. Writing and spending time with her this weekend was like being with an old friend. It’s strange to have feelings like this about someone who doesn’t actually exist in any way except in words, but the fact that I have such strong feelings about her and that I feel she is real on some level perhaps means that I am doing something right. I still have a few months of writing left to go and then the revisions, but I have this sense that I’m nearing the end of my time with her. I think the next few months are going to be about that – sending her out into the world on her own, my little girl.
Today I started my job as a Visiting Lecturer in Creative Writing at my university. I’ve been away from the the American university system for too long to remember what the American equivalent of this title would be, but I doubt it’d sound as grand Visiting Lecturer. This title makes me seem important in some way – I’m just visiting, too good to stick around for the long-term. Appreciate me while you can.
This job was a last-minute surprise and though I had already accepted two classes at the language school where I’ve taught on and off for two years, I obviously couldn’t turn down this university job. It’s very difficult for PhD students to get any teaching in my department, particularly in creative writing, and I’m the only creative writing student who is teaching. [I should note that I don't actually consider myself to be a student of creative writing, though I am technically a student at the university. However, I have an MFA in creative writing, a 2-year terminal degree that entitles me to teach any creative course that I damn well please.] So anyway, I’m very lucky to be teaching and it’s a big break. I’m only teaching one class, but it’s for the whole year.
I went to a conference at Oxford last weekend. Stayed overnight in the student halls at Balliol, which cost £66 ($110). Good crimeny, this country is expensive. The rooms were just average (though they had heated towel racks in the bathroom), but the dining hall where I had breakfast was cool: long wooden tables, lamps, stained glass windows, oil paintings of white dudes, real place settings…servers! How the other half lives, eh? My friend said it was like Harry Potter, if that means anything to anyone. And the quad was gorgeous – American-style grass (bright green on steroids), flowers, beautiful stone buildings. I wouldn’t have minded moving in there for a while.
On Friday night, the streets of central Oxford were filled with groups of loud teens and extremely aggressive homeless people. I wanted peace, so went back to my room and had a bath and then read Lady Oracle in bed. It was lovely. No internet, no TV, no mobile phone reception, just silence. The next morning, I was up early (imagine that!) and the streets were totally transformed – beautiful morning light through the trees, autumn chill in the air, people riding their bikes down the quaint, narrow streets. I wonder what it would be like to be a student in that kind of environment? Sometimes I feel bad that I missed out on a real campus experience as an undergrad. Where I did my BA was the exact opposite of Oxford (or anything remotely close).
The conference was on writing/reading the body in contemporary women’s writing. All the presenters were post-grads (in American English, that’s “graduate students”), so the quality varied, but overall I found it a worthwhile experience and left feeling inspired. As a fiction writer, it’s strange attending events like this because it’s very much about picking apart novels from the reader’s point of view, rather than a writer’s point of view. I feel as if I’ve crashed their party and don’t really fit in. On the other hand, I felt happy that I am writer, rather than someone who only comments on what other people have written. Sorta reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from When Harry Met Sally, when Harry tells Sally that by becoming a journalist, nothing interesting is going to happen to her, she’s just going to be writing about interesting things that happen to other people.
I’m afraid I may have annoyed the presenters on a “chick lit” panel. This one woman did a presentation on Irish chick lit, during which she made the case that chick lit is empowering and feminist. (All the examples she read contradicted this, including one in which a Nigerian woman with a “big butt” inspired the Irish women in one novel. She didn’t even see how offensive this was.) She also said that chick lit explores issues like menstruation and childbirth, which are normally taboo in literature. Huh? Absolute insanity. I had to challenge her on these ridiculous assertions, since she’d insulted my intelligence in such a way. It was clear she’d never really been challenged before, since her defense was that for women from small-town Ireland (including her), chick lit is feminist. Oh, okay. Perhaps she can put a disclaimer on the front of her dissertation that says: “This dissertation uses a feminist framework that is only relevant to women in rural Ireland.” And then while she’s at it, she can replace The Second Sex at the library with back issues of Cosmo.
Some things get under my skin, clearly. My dissertation (the boring academic part) deals with chick lit a lot, so I have strong feelings about it. If my fellow post-grads are producing this kind of garbage analysis, then I suddenly feel much more confident about my own work.
I’m teaching back at the language school now, which I’m not too pleased about. I should have taken this term off, since I notice that my patience is running thin. You need a lot of patience to deal with students who are not fluent in English, but I’m struggling to be the nice, kind, patient teacher. I find myself sighing a lot. At this point in the academic year, I’m burned out. I’m also stressed out by my own PhD work. So anyway, big mistake taking the teaching job, but now I’m stuck with it.
Okay, now a funny story. Obviously, all of my students are foreign. Many Asian students ask to use “English” names in class. For example, a Chinese student may ask to be called Jane or Mary instead of her given name. This is a very common practice, but sometimes it can cause problems.
A couple years ago, I had a female student from China who wanted to be called Fanny. I thought this was fine, but when my boss found out she had a heart attack. She said this girl could not call herself Fanny. It was then I learned that “fanny” means “vagina” in British slang. [You shouldn't use the term "fanny pack" here.]
Hey, just to update you on my previous post, yesterday went swimmingly! I taught two creative writing classes and I really loved it. It was wonderful being able to teach in my own field — I had fun planning the lessons (they seemed to really like the Raymond Carver stories) and teaching the classes themselves was a joy, because the students were actually interested in what I had to say. I’ve been teaching at the language school lately, where the students aren’t motivated and don’t care at all. At the language school, I was just there to get a paycheck because the students weren’t interested in learning. It’s such a different experience to actually teach students who want to learn and to feel, at the end of the day, that I may have expanded their thinking a bit or at least exposed them to a writer they’d never heard of before.
Though the language school offered me a raise the other day, on Thursday I ended up quitting my job there. My university has offered me teaching for next term. I don’t know all the details yet, but I’m really excited about this opportunity. My boss at the language school ended up being really understanding and congratulated me. I know my days of teaching crappy classes at crappy schools aren’t behind me, but at least for next term I get to be a university lecturer!
This week and next week, I will be teaching two creative writing classes at my university. This opportunity arose last week while I was in Budapest. The person teaching these courses cannot finish the last two weeks of the term. It’s damn near impossible for PhD students in my department to get teaching work, particularly in creative writing, so this is a great opportunity for me. And did I mention this job pays a ton? In dollars, the hourly rate is in the triple digits!
Though I have a fair amount of teaching experience in the field of English, I’ve never taught creative writing before. And this is what I want to do for a living when I grow up. The thing is, it’s very difficult to get teaching work in creative writing at university level without having published a book, hence my lack of experience teaching in this area. I’ve taught literature, essay writing, dissertation writing, basic writing skills, English as a second language, etc., but never anything creative.
The upshot of all this is that I’m a little worried on Friday I’ll discover I’m not good at teaching creative writing and/or that I don’t like it, which would mean I’ve just wasted the last three years of my life. But hey, no pressure or anything.
I’m planning my lessons now. I think on Friday we’ll focus on Raymond Carver. I just opened his collection, “Where I’m Calling From” and thought I’d share the epigraph:
This afternoon at work, Anglofille is determined to quit her teaching job for next term. She tentatively agreed to do it a few weeks ago but is now having second thoughts.
Anglofille says: “Um, I don’t think I can teach here next term.”
Her boss says, while making a face of extreme pain: “Why? I really need you next term!!!”
Anglofille, feeling uncomfortable, says: “I know, but, um, I have another opportunity.” [Anglofille explains other opportunity, which is not a sure thing.]
Her boss says: “But can’t you do this job too?”
Anglofille, realizing that he is not going to give up without a fight, says: “The thing is, on the days I teach here, I don’t get any PhD work done. And I need to finish my book next spring.”
Her boss, sensing Anglofille is weak, says: “How about if we only schedule you on one day a week instead of two? Then you can do the other job too and still have time for writing.”
Anglofille, growing annoyed that her attempts to extricate herself from boring, low-paying job are backfiring, says: “Um, well, that would be helpful, but you see…I don’t mean to sound crass, but the amount of hours I spend here versus the amount of money I make…it’s, um, not really worth my time.”
Her boss says: “I’ll increase your pay.”
Anglofille did not see this coming. She is offered £4-per-hour pay rise. Anglofille suddenly realizes that her boss thinks she’s playing him. She feels drunk on power.
Anglofille says: “Well, hmmmm.”
Her boss says: “I’d really hate to lose you. Even though you’re not here that much, you’re part of the team. And you have expertise that others here don’t have.”
Anglofille, realizing that flattery really does gets you everywhere, says: “Okay then.”
The British have a saying — “lost the plot” — that I quite like. It means to go crazy. So the sentence “Jane lost the plot” means that Jane went crazy.
I’ve adapted this idiom for my own use and given it my own special meaning. If I’m having a bad writing day, I say that I’ve lost the plot. Of course I mean it literally. I’ve lost the plot to my novel, nothing is working, the characters are rebelling, the story doesn’t make sense. I’ve lost the plot! It manages to sum up exactly how I feel.
Luckily, the writing is going really well right now. I am often very productive in the autumn. The danger time is coming though — Christmas break. Last year I went off track completely after Christmas and New Year’s and didn’t get back to writing regularly again until April. That is not an option this year. Since I entered the third year of my PhD in September I’ve felt a real sense of urgency. I really have no time to waste. This is good, because I accomplish nothing without a deadline. While I’ve always known the general deadline for my PhD, a deadline that was two or more years in the future did little to motivate me. Quite the opposite, it gave me a sense of security and luxury. But now I can see my deadline. I can see how close it is and I’m writing like mad. It feels good to be writing, to have the pressure on. I like it. By the end of this current academic year, I need to have the novel finished and in good shape so that in the fourth year I’m just doing revisions. I’m not taking all of a fourth year – maybe half of it. Also, I will start looking for a New York literary agent in February. That’s my goal. I have a couple personal recommendations for agents, so I hope that gets my foot in the door. No time for losing the plot now.
My reading on Friday went swimmingly. I was so nervous though — I thought I was going to hyperventilate in front of everyone. My friends and my advisor said they couldn’t tell I was nervous at all. I hope they weren’t lying.
It was a packed room — the head of the department was there and lots of faculty, plus students. Part of my novel deals with teenage girls, so in the chapter I read there was discussion of boob size and stuff like that. Reading this in front of all these people was a bit embarrassing, to be honest.
Anglofille had her PhD upgrade today. Anglofille totally kicked ass.
I have written about the “upgrade” in two previousposts. It’s a big deal. It’s been looming large over my life for months now. Getting all the materials together has side-tracked me from my novel in a big way, but the upgrade is a necessary evil. They have to evaluate your work to be sure you can handle doing a full PhD — if you pass, you are “upgraded” to full PhD status from MPhil status. So now I am a real PhD student. Ahhhhh.
Tomorrow there is a conference for the whole department, where the upgraded students will present their work. I am going to read a chapter from my novel. I am the only fiction writer who has upgraded, so I’m the only one who will be reading from a novel-in-progress. Everyone else will be reading scholarly stuff. The chapter I’m reading has a few naughty words in it and ends with a line about a guy in prison masturbating, so I hope I don’t ruin this whole dignified affair. Everyone will think I’m a total slut.
Thanks for your comments and emails regarding my PhD upgrading! I appreciate everyone’s support. I got everything submitted yesterday. I won’t know until the beginning of June whether I passed or not, but I will try not to think about it too much.
I think it’ll take me a few days to get back on track with my work. I feel as if there’s a big hole in my life suddenly. This upgrading deadline has been looming over me for months and it’s weird to have it behind me now. I’m not quite sure what to do with myself! This doesn’t mean I don’t have tons of work to do. I have even more work ahead of me than I realized. As part of the upgrade, I had to make detailed outlines of my dissertation and also submit a timeline for completion. Seeing it all written down was a wake-up call. I was aiming to finish in September 2009, but now I think December 2009 is more realistic. I have so much work to do it’s overwhelming. What’s worse is that I’ve wasted a lot of time, which is making me kick myself, but all I can do now is move forward, slowly but surely…
You probably won’t hear from me again until this weekend. I have the deadline for my PhD upgrade on Friday and I still have massive amounts of work to do. If I stay up until 3:00 a.m. each night, I might just make it.
Right about now I’m starting to wonder if it was smart to choose Fight Club as one of the novels I’m examining for the academic part of my dissertation. I could have chosen Jane Austen or something. What is wrong with me?
Fight Club has lines like this:
“It’s easy to cry when you realize that everyone you love will reject you or die. On a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone will drop to zero.”
or this:
“Everything you can ever accomplish will end up as trash. Anything you’re ever proud of will be thrown away.”
I also get to write about the fear of castration and all sorts of fun things. This is such a strange subject matter for a feminist like me to be writing about. On the bright side, I’m hoping to be the only person in the history of my university to submit a dissertation with the sentence “F–k Martha Stewart” in it. Fingers crossed.
Today I met with my supervisor, a well-respected novelist. She read three of my chapters this week and she said, regarding my concerns raised in the previous post:
1) I worry too much.
2) I am writing a novel that is highly publishable.
That’s a good way to end the week, at least.
I am stressed right now because I have to upgrade soon. When you register for a PhD, you are technically an MPhil student. You have to upgrade to full PhD status, usually at the end of your first year. I took a leave of absence at the end of my first year, so I am upgrading now at the end of my second year. At my school, this is a formal affair — I must submit completed chapters, a bibliography, an outline of my dissertation, etc. I must go through a mini-viva and then participate in a conference where I have to give a reading of my work and take questions from the audience.
I am quite nervous about this (duh — as if I wouldn’t be!). My materials must be submitted one week from today and I am frantically racing to get things done. I’m not used to having deadlines like this. It’s a shock to the system, actually. Normally I just email my supervisor when I want a meeting, which is all very laid back. This is major stress now. I’m not in the habit of doing academic writing, either. I have been working on my novel all year but now I must submit academic work for the upgrade in addition to the novel. Academic writing is hard, dammit. Fiction writing is harder, of course, but academic writing uses a different part of the brain. Fiction writers just get to make sh*t up. Now you want me to use citations?
As a result of all this cruel stress, I have not been sleeping well. I have the hugest bags under my eyes to prove it. Plus I’ve had headaches every day. Part of this is thanks to the change in the weather – it’s suddenly quite warm and summery and because of that, the students in the hall where I live have gone berserk and make so much noise outside at night that I can’t sleep. Still, if this little upgrade can impact me like this, imagine what I’ll be like when I actually have to submit my PhD. I may need around-the-clock psychiatric care.
Today at a meeting of PhD students, the head of the English department invited us all to submit our CVs so we can be considered for teaching work for the autumn term. Oh, except those of us doing PhDs in creative writing need not apply. Apparently, the students refuse to be taught by anyone who hasn’t already published a novel. After the meeting, I asked him if I should at least submit my CV, you know, just in case something opens up. He said not to bother.
This is the major downside of doing a PhD in the UK, at least in a subject like English. There aren’t many (if any) opportunities to teach, which kinda sucks if you want to have a career as a university lecturer. I mean, what am I paying these people for? I thought it was to train me for my career. Newsflash: PhD students, particularly int’l ones like me, are not just cash machines. If you’re a student in the UK right now, you should know that there’s a good chance your university lecturers haven’t been trained to teach at all. See, that’s the flip side of this idiotic system.
In other news, we also learned today that our department has a very high rate of placing their PhDs in teaching positions. Their high rate of success is…drumroll…50%.
Basically, if I want a teaching career in creative writing (and I’ll have to teach creative writing — given that I’ve specialized, no one will consider me to teach straight English, apparently) then I need to publish my novel. It needs to be published by a reputable publisher and get reviewed well. If I can’t manage to pull this off in the next couple years, I won’t have a career. Then what will I do for a living? I really have no idea. It’s not as if I didn’t know this already. I did. But the stark reality is just hitting me. It’s difficult enough writing a book but now I have to live each day with the knowledge that my whole future is depending on it.
Anglofille is an American living in London, finishing up a novel and a PhD, taking photos, and blogging about expat life, books, feminism and perpetual angst.
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