Can We Do the Math?

Can We Do the Math?

Let's see. Thirty seven hundred dollars a semester for seminar. A quarter tank of gas round trip to Manhattan, at let's say $3.83 a gallon. My car holds 16 gallons, so do the math. I'm an English teacher and I am not doing the math. Sixteen dollars to park as opposed to Central Parking's normal 40.00-thank you, Fordham for the discount. Then there is the book expense. Now Fordham is not requiring books at this point, but I am a 'book-o-phile' and when my Google Scholar announces a new title in my more than 12 alerts, the Amazon account activates. It is so frequently accessed, it is a short cut on my desk top, and they know my name. "Welcome back, Sheila."I feel so wanted. Dinner is optional though I usually take my daughter out so that's another 30 at least- conservative amount. Do the math. Even without doing the math, it is easy to say that Dissertation Bacon- Hash Tag Sizzle costs a bit. But what does dissertation blogging have to do with the math? I'll bring you there.
Classwork was easy. Two classes a semester, a full time teaching job, grading papers, reading, writing papers, studying. Kept me busy for sure, difficult, yes, but compared to the process of beginning the dissertation process- it was a piece of cake. And yes, in my previous blog post about bacon, I may have made mention of the Food Network's recipe for bacon cake. And if I did not, well, forgive me-- there was one. Maple Bacon Cheesecake. The thought of creating that cheesecake was actually a pull not because I particularly wanted to make it, but because it seemed easier to digest than the struggle facing me when I was trying to compose Chapter 1. In fact, my attempts at chapter one were so feeble that when I saved my drafts, I did not even call them drafts, I called them practice. Dissertation proposal practice 1, or 2, or 3. Practice because as I came to discover, I really did not know what I wanted to do. My ideas, my interests, my questions were so big, I had difficulty wrapping my arms around any of it. It was like hugging a cactus. Ouch.

I had to figure it out. I had to stop thinking so hard. I had to just do it. Now, I do not know how many words were in the first three practice proposals. It's a lot of counting and I am not doing the math. I could hit the word count, but why bother. So I had a random conversation with someone who simply said, "If we were sitting down and we had just met, and I asked you what is your dissertation about what would you say--and keep it simple, stupid." That guided me and when I thought about it in simple terms, I was able to begin to narrow it down to, well, fifty things.. Not really, but it was down a bit. Flash forward to a class with several other dissertation inmates and one warden (in the positive sense),

and sound and helpful critique such as, "Wow, you have like 15 studies there narrow it down," and I saw a little bit of a light. A revelation of sorts. An epiphany. A realization. An Ah-ha  moment. I didn't have to do it all at once. It wasn't going to be the last thing I ever looked at. It wasn't going to be the last time I would ever question anything, or the last study I would ever do,or the last word I would ever articulate. It was just one. The dissertation is just one lens, one idea, one area to investigate. 

ONE 

SO I CHOSE ONE. And started writing. Now, while I still am not brave enough to  take the practice out of the heading for the proposal, I did narrow the lens. And as I began to write, I realized, just how much I am really asking of my own students. Think before your write, I tell them. Words are powerful. Choose them wisely. Pick the best to deliver your message. If your audience does not understand your message, it is your responsibility. Make your writing sensible. Have an argument you can stand behind and support. Care about your composition. If  you don't, no one else will. Write daily. Live it. I am asking them to do a lot, but that is o.k. because I am not asking them to do anything I am not asking myself. As I began to write, I struggled over every single sentence, every single word, every single idea. Is this the right opening? Is this verb powerful? Do I sound authoritative? Is my message clear? What is my structure like? Am I supporting my argument? Do I have an argument? I was exhausted. When I went into school the next day, I had a much deeper understanding of the students sitting in my class, a deeper respect for what they have to do. Empathy beyond belief. I told them. I shared my process and their misery. And I managed to get a page that I could live with-for a practice run. One page. Do the math. Those are very expensive paragraphs. But it is a start and the Dissertation Bacon Hashtag Sizzle has begun.

Problem Statements, Chapter 1, and Bacon

It's Saturday and I write.  Or at least I attempt to write. But really there is a battle raging in my head now. A battle for my attention and passions. The Food Network Magazine arrived today and the entire issue is dedicated to bacon.

The aroma of bacon and childhood

 Now I do not eat a lot of bacon, but I do like it, but not the run of the mill Oscar Meyer bacon. I like good thick slab bacon and the type of bacon you buy in pork stores. But I think even more than the taste of bacon is the smell of bacon and the memories it tugs out. There is something reminiscent about the smell of bacon. It reminds me of home. Now don't get me wrong. I am not saying that I grew up in a house of regular and ritual bacon eaters. We had our share of bagels, lox, and cream cheese.  But there is something about the imaginary image of bacon- its smell wafting up the stairs and sneaking through the cracks of the bedroom door..always up the stairs, never down the hallway of a ranch house. The smell of that bacon penetrating through the sleep and bringing one to consciousness with a smile and a rumble in the stomach anticipating the morning breakfast, and the laughing, and the affectionate ruffling of the hair as mom and dad tinkered in the kitchen.
Maybe that scene existed, but not in my kitchen. Still, the smell of bacon still does that and I like to cook it. I have always been a traditionalist when it comes to bacon, so I am fascinated by the culture's addiction to bacon and the fan clubs that have evolved around it. Bacon had hit the mainstream. Bacon bumper stickers, clothes, bandages, hats. Seriously, bacon is a culture with its own Facebook page. Ah a bacon passionate affinity space. Gee (2011) would be so proud. So because I am not quite sure I understand the culture of bacon, I am finding myself drawn to the recipes for bacon candy, and chocolate bacon, and bacon frosting. And I want to cook and try things out. I want to play with the memory of bacon and the reality of the food. It is a problem as I contemplate my problem statement. I negotiate with myself and make a decision. I will divide my time between my two passionate interests now--understanding the minds of adolescent boys and how they form academic identities, and whether or not the population that swears by bacon taffy are daffy.

I Can "Dissertate"

     I am not, by nature, a true procrastinator. When I need to do something, it gets done. Always, but that does not mean that I do not stress about in on the way to getting it done. I do. I worry about the how it will get done, the when it will get done, the quality of getting it done. I worry about whether or not when I start the task whether or not my conviction that I will get it done will last.
     I experience high levels of dissonance when something that needs to get done doesn't. It makes me uncomfortable and then I begin to worry not only about getting it done, but why I was waiting and procrastinating. And if that happens, then I have just doubled my dissonance, so in the end it does not pay to procrastinate. Now, I must add a caveat. I usually proclaim out loud, even if no one is present to hear, what I have to do. The verbal commitment seems to make it more real in some way and it makes me feel more accountable. Either there is  true human to listen or my collection of ventriloquist dummies will listen. Saying it out loud makes it real. Once that verbal commitment is made, one might wonder then why I might be found cleaning out the junk drawer, organizing the silverware, sharpening my collection of pencils--Procrastination--on might say, but in reality it is not.  It is thinking time. I multi-task. My brain moving in waves in another locale, while my fingers and conscious brain are mixing cookie batter, or cooking homemade tapas. And at some moment, the two will merge and I will get cracking.
     In a previous post, I discussed the special feelings that are affecting me as i begin this dissertation journey. I will not write a redundant post, but summarize by saying that the feeling has been divided between I can do this and I can never do this. So I have been cautiously starting the first chapter, slowly and oh so cautiously-like inching your toes into icy cold water. Each word was agonized over. Each idea that was committed to the page run through the wringer as though there were an invisible army of goons and goblins waiting to strike me with the idiocy of my words or ideas. But no such thing happened. And then I read a series of dissertations by unknown writers who were 'dissertating' on similar topics. And I understand all that was being said. And I realized, I have the knowledge-base I need. And I read the structure and marveled at the fluencies, but realized these were done, format-reviewed, and published. I am still in draft form. I looked at the writing and realized I can 'dissertate' the same way they can. And then it hit me. I can do this. I am perfectly capable of doing this and I will do it. I am going to 'dissertate.'

And so it begins

I feel the urge, no the need, to write this post as I stand with metaphorical new shoes to begin my journey to the land of the Big D. It is not to be confused with Gee’s Discourse with a capital D; it is a separate use of the fourth letter of the English language.

And so it begins:

Four years or so of finished and completed course work, comprehensives done and passed, prospectus in and approved. And now I stand at the precipice? On the precipice? of this journey called Dissertation. A myriad of emotions fill me. Excitement, fear, trepidation, pride, motivation. On Monday I feel prepared and ready. On Tuesday I feel inept and not ready. Wednesday fills me with the knowledge that I know what I want to do and how to do it, while Thursday has me running around in circles, staring at a white screen, totally unable to decide how to start a single sentence. Friday is a rest day and Saturday brings me back to work time. I know that much, if not all of my future weekend spare time, will be devoted to the Big D since the remainder of the week belongs to the classes of pre-adolescent students that need my attention and tutelage. And when I think of them, and of what we do every day, I feel more grounded in my journey toward the Big D because it is what is happening in my classroom and in the classrooms of today that brought me to this point.

The landscape of education is changing and the need to understand how the other big D, the d in digital, is being used to enhance the education of our students today. I am fascinated by everything I see and hear in my classroom, but I have found myself really interested in those students that can be identified as “reluctant adolescent boys”. Not new to the field, much has been studied about how boys are more disengaged and perform less successfully in traditional academic measure of literacy, but my interest is in studying how boys’ other literacy identities - their digital identities- can help academic identity development. I know what I want, and I know what I have to do to get there, but it is a daunting and fearful road. My computers are primed, my margins are set, My APA manual at my side. It is Chapter 1 time- the first of many. There is something special, scary, daunting, exciting about the first chapter. Firsts always have that special something-first dates, first child, first acceptances-firsts. I will hold on to the special feeling that firsts provide and start the journey with a bounce.

Check in every now and then to see where my journey has taken me. Perhaps I will meet up with Robert Frost on that road.