GSA #7: How to Write a Ph.D. Dissertation (Part 1)

Psyyyyyyych! (Or is it "sike"?) As if I am able to write such a post. In fact, this is a post on how to write any ol' book-length project, but I just wanted to write a post using the above title. As my friends gear up to defend their dissertations—yay!—and I gear up to start revising my 200+ page monster—nooooo...—I thought it would be nice to recall some of the methods I used to "write a Ph.D. dissertation".

There are multiple books out there precisely on this topic (like this, this, and this—the top 3 hits for an Amazon search for "how to write a dissertation"). My cohort was told by our former Director of Graduate Studies (that's what it was called back then) that these books actually help, a sentiment that was echoed by my GUIDE mentor. Being me, of course, I went to check one out at the campus library—but since the popular ones were (believe it or not) already checked out, I borrowed Alison B. Miller's Finish Your Dissertation Once and for All! Apparently she got her Ph.D. in psychology and has a project management background, which actually suited my working style. (Never mind the fact that the title makes writing a dissertation sound like an excessive drinking habit that you need to kick.)

Anyway, if there are 10 ABDs in the room there are probably 10 ways to write a dissertation, so here I merely articulate what I ended up doing, in order to analyze it a bit and improve it for my next stage. (And of course, this is geared more toward the humanities than anything else.)

1. Take advantage of seminar papers—Any reason to write a paper is a good one, more so if you've got a prof responsible for giving you feedback (you hope). You can synthesize a whole term's worth of readings and discussion into a 10–20-page paper! Too bad for me, though, I am no longer taking seminars...which then makes it important that I...
2. Take advantage of (conference) presentations—(The motivation for this post, in fact, is a presentation I have to give in November for the grad students in my department.) Jot down the questions and comments you get, regardless of what you think of them or who asks/gives them—it's free feedback, take it!! (And honestly, the only reason I've been to cool cities like Boston, Toronto, and Singapore is because I've had conferences there. Conferences are a great opportunity to hear interesting presentations, and who knows, maybe you'll even find yourself a part of a book project.) 
3. Keep files and folders of your ideas—That means Word (etc.) files for things that interest you and Finder folders for all your papers, QE materials, conference abstracts, etc. Keep your words and find a place in the diss for everything—for now. (You can delete them later.) As I've said before, I'm better at editing than I am at writing—and I can only edit if there are words on the page. Besides, I write my dissertations like I cook my dinners: I don't pick out a recipe and go buy the necessary ingredients, I look at what's in my fridge and figure out what I can make from that. So: I look at what random papers are in my folders and figure out what dissertation I can write from them. It doesn't produce great meals, but at least you don't starve.  
4. Have a writing group—Nothing like good ol' peer pressure to churn out a dissertation! Have (bi-)monthly deadlines, meet up for coffee to give feedback, or just sit together in a room and vow not to leave until you've written the full 120 minutes (with breaks in between). It's such a good feeling to know you have company in moving these projects forward.
5. "Write Like a Motherfucker"—I didn't come up with that, one (TPII talks about who did), and two, I actually didn't write like a motherfucker my last year in grad school. (Other things in life happen even while working on these projects.) But writing is your job: You don't write only when you have brilliant insights, you don't write only when you feel like it. The fact that being an academic isn't a regular 8-to-5 job doesn't mean that you can't treat it like one—and sometimes you just have to work through it like you would any other job, while trying to strike that mythical work/life balance.

人生

「人生」って・・・「人が生きる」って書くんだな〜って、今（ホント）思いました。

考えてみると、人生って不思議だな〜。何処にどう生まれるかなんて全然コントロールできないけど、何しろ生まれたからには、全力を尽くすしかない。それでもこの世は不公平で、滅茶苦茶ラッキーな人と、滅茶苦茶そうでない人がいる。それでも、みんな生きて行かなくちゃいけない。

心配はしません。きっと、きっと大丈夫だから。悩んでも、心配しても、何も始まらない。兎に角、前に進む。自分に素直になって、大切な人を支えて、大切な人に支えてもらって。「何もできない」って思っても（それが事実でもそうでなくても）、あんまり自分を責めないで。

それより、仕事辞めて実家でフラフラするのって、皆さんどう思われます？

あ、写真小さいけど、分かります？茶色いてんとう虫。この前家で見つけて、思わず写真撮っちゃいました。（サッシ汚くて、すみません。）

私が感じた事。

俳句・・・と言う物に、最近興味を持ち始めた。

英語で言う "haiku" は昔から好きになれなかったが、日本語で書かれた俳句を実際に読んでみると、これはなかなか面白い。今の所、何が何だか本当に分からないが、ほんの少しずつ勉強して行きたい。

と考えていたら、知り合いが『ランドセル俳人の五・七・五』と言う本を貸してくれた。幼い男の子が俳句に興味を持ち、登校拒否の間に詠んだ俳句を集めた本だった。それを読んだ私が何を感じたか。

それは、「教育と言う制度を信用するな」と言う事だった。国が決める教材。教師と親の対立。子供達の間での関係。何を望んで学校に行くのか。何が目的で塾に通うのか。何を期待して進学するのか。

「学」とは何なのか。人間の中に何を埋め込み、何を引き出すのか。幸せになる事。相手を理解する事。健康な体を保つ事。他者の命を奪わない事。

自分が感じた事を１７文字に納め、違う人と分かち合う。それが俳句、また「学」なのかもしれない。

GSA #6: Conference (and) Abstracts

To this day, I've never had an abstract accepted to the MLA conference. It's a funny feeling—a part of me is like, "Who cares? It's just a giant meat market with little regard to Asian Lit anyway...why should I go?" But another part of me is like, "Dammit, why won't you let me in?!?!" It's like Virginia Woolf (er, Nicole Kidman) says in The Hours: Even crazy people like to be asked.

But the last few months have been abstract season, which means I've been churning out a lot of abstracts—and reading a fair amount, too. I usually follow the advice from The Professor Is In on how to write conference paper abstracts, and it makes me feel better about what I submit. I understand that there is both some amount of formula to these things, as well as the need to be original and true to your own style/scholarship. But there are certain necessary ingredients for a good abstract, and the advice is a good place from which to start.

Especially in organizing conference panels (third time's the charm?), I always get a little confused when I read abstracts without an argument. You tell me what you're going to study, you tell me why it's significant...but for crying out loud, are you going to have anything interesting to say about it??

We know that conference abstracts are a guess at best: that when it comes time to write the actual paper (two weeks before the conference), it'll look different from what you proposed six months before. And I think that's good—it's a sign that, even in those six months, you've learned and thought about more things to make you write a better paper. But without that initial guess, how will you know which direction you're headed?

Book Renewal Fetish

This morning I went to the city library to return some books and check out some more. But when I got there, the sign on the door said...CLOSED. Apparently I'd missed the memo that today was the day for the library to sort out its materials. ::sigh::

Throughout my Ph.D. program I constantly had books upon books checked out of the library. During coursework it was for writing my seminar papers, which meant that at the end of finals week I could return most of them and bring down my checked-out books count to a single digit. While writing my dissertation, I constantly had books on hand I needed to read, more books for which to procrastinate on my writing, more books to fill up my desk space (or two). I'd read through them and take notes, or I'd read parts of them, or I'd read none of them and just gaze longingly at their spines—with a promise that I'd read them after I wrapped up whatever draft I was working on.

What I couldn't get enough of was renewing books. All I had to do was log into my account online, click a couple of buttons, and voilà! I could keep all of those books sitting on my desk for another six months! (Was it? I forget.) It was like proof that I was working: Look at all these books I have checked out! I must be making progress on my dissertation!

Yeah, right. When I moved to Japan I didn't bring that many books, knowing my stay here was temporary. And now I have this lovely office with (count 'em) EIGHT floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, and I only have a handful of books sitting on them. Nowadays I check out just as many (or more) books than I did as a grad student, but I actually read them all, and I read them a lot faster.

I'm taking up a "no renewal" policy, kids. No more clicking online buttons for me. I check out the books I need, take down the notes that are useful, and return those puppies to their homes. I feel a lot more efficient, and I feel better (in my own little world) that if there are others who need the books, then they don't have to wait a long time to get to them. It's like a strange form of "recycle, reduce, reuse"—it's up to you! Even if my bookshelves do feel a little lonely.

Ah, money.

Last night I read a book on budgeting and saving. Its gross bourgeois assumptions aside, I really enjoyed reading it. (This, of course, has much to do with the fact that it had lots of pictures…I love books with lots of pictures.)

Growing up in a modest household, saving money became a habit, then a perverted kind of love. That love served me well, though, when at 23 I had saved up enough money so that I could quit my day job and work at my beloved retail job instead. (So what if it didn’t let me pay for much aside from my $1,125/mo studio in the Mission? It was for less than a year, until I started grad school…though it’s funny to think that “grad school” presented a more stable financial option for me back then.)

The problematic* nature of this post (and the book) will be addressed later; for now, as a single woman pushing middle age, I want to review the things that I know are good financial planning practice, even if I don’t always do them. (*Stuff like living off of a TA salary, having kids in grad school, etc.? That’ll be included in the “problematic” post to come.)

1. Review your spending. Where does all your money go? Does it leave your wallet for good causes, or does it just gush out into a big money hole? Track it for a month and be pleasantly surprised (or not).
2. Budget. No no, don’t budget like UC Regents does—because that’ll make you shrink the size of your library and pay too much to administrators and sports coaches instead. But do figure out what percentage of your income should be going to what. For Ph.D. students aspiring to be middle class, that starts with 25% for rent, 10% for utilities (Internet and phone included), 20% for savings, etc. (Um…right.)* Once you have a (realistic) budget, actually try to stick to it.
3. Build up an emergency fund. I’m not talking about emergencies like the Next Great California Earthquake; I mean the “3-to-6-months” worth of living expenses that’s often suggested by folks who apparently know better, including things like monthly loan payments. This is why Steps 1 and 2 are important. 
4. Plan five years ahead. Moving? Getting married? Spawning another human being? Account for that in addition to your earthqu…I mean, emergency fund, and set aside. (Or at the least, start a separate "fund" or two.)
5. Invest. What? You have money leftover?! Holy cow, it’s time to visit a site like ShareBuilder and start reaping the benefits of the capitalist market! (No, I'm not advertising for ShareBuilder...though it isn't a bad idea to invest even if you haven't totally prepped for Babies #1, #2, and #3.)

I also figured out last night that, to send a kid to UCSD for four years of undergrad, I would have had to have saved $580 every month for the last 18 years. I wonder how much I’d have to start saving if I were to send my kid to UCSD in 20 years. ::shudder::

「ぜいたくは敵だ！」

友達が斎藤美奈子の本を勧めてくれたので、何冊か図書館から借りてきました。読みたかった『文壇アイドル論』は他の学科の図書室にあったので、まず『戦下のレシピ』から始めてみました。

今の食べ放題の社会には分かりにくいかもしれないけど、やっぱり戦争って厳しい。（日本語って all caps ができないから残念。）ウチのばあちゃんは農家だったけど、ヤミで大根とかをマッチやら何やらに換えてたってよく聞きました。大変。

On Beauty, or, a Followup to Makeup

[What the...I just did a search on Pinterest for both "beauty" and "beautiful", and I'm kind of confused by the difference in the results...]

Last week I mused about makeup, and some of the reactions to that post made me think a bit more about beauty and what makes someone attractive to someone, and in what context. 

For example, in thinking about Jay-Z and Beyoncé, and how...different...they look, I remarked on male privilege via money and power in heterosexual couples, to which my partner replied, "Actually, Jay-Z has different experiences that make him an interesting person." 

That makes sense. And for someone who has her own life experiences and passions, who can be more attractive than another who is driven and works to make the most of his talents? Isn't that something powerful, something that makes a person attractive to someone else?

Clearly I don't need to wear makeup to look like a "white person". Nor do I need to wear makeup to look like an "attractive Asian (or Japanese) person". But I'm still curious about untangling those threads that link up changing the way we look to feeling happy, to being and feeling more "attractive".

I'm not talking about Japanese makeup and haircare practices from centuries ago. I'm not going to shave my eyebrows or put white powder on my face. I'm not talking about skin whitening creams that became popular after the turn of the century, with the modernization/Westernization/militarization of Japan. And I couldn't really speak to practices in uses of cosmetics in other countries, because I just don't know.

But when I say "look like a white person", I'm not talking about—and other people aren't talking about—people who don't fit the bill of the assumed attractiveness that is de rigueur. We're not talking about people who are short. We're not talking about people who are overweight. We're not talking about people without long, shiny hair (or people who are balding). We're not talking about people whose nails are short and dirty from working with their hands. We're not talking about people with rough skin or sock tans.

We may be talking about people who aren't white, but who are tall and thin and sufficiently-breasted (or whatever). We may be talking about people who are transgender or transsex who are then commodified because they manage to flabbergast the audience by looking so much like a beautiful version of [insert preferred binary category here]. But we certainly aren't talking about "real women" that a company like Dove would use in its commercials. We're not interested in real real women, because that's just too much; we're interested in fake, Photoshopped real women. Does that difference make sense?

When I hear "beauty" and "whiteness" I assume we aren't just talking about race or the shade of our foundation. I assume we're talking about power and (cultural) capital. I assume we're talking about the complexities that come from being hapa and therefore you have your dad's curly hair and your mom's flat nose. I assume we're talking about the trend among men in some societies who get talked about for their metrosexuality or for wearing makeup to get job offers. That's what we're talking about, no?

I do sometimes annoy myself for overthinking things...but then again, I'm not sure where "thinking" becomes "intellectualizing" becomes "overintellectualizing". I'm not fool enough to think that I'm the only one who thinks this way; I'm also not fool enough to think that everyone else thinks this way, too. But I feel too uncomfortable just siting here doing whatever my instinctual preferences tell me to do—after all, where did my instincts and preferences come from? I sure as hell wasn't born with them.

Writing vs. Editing vs. Revising

The other day I was giving comments on a job application cover letter written by a friend of mine. It was a solid letter to begin with, discussing her research interests, teaching experiences, and intellectual trajectories.

What I ended up doing to it, though, was not only giving it comments, but also EDITING it to smithereens. I mean, cutting words here, moving things there, combining paragraphs everywhere, etc., etc. I took a step back after I was done and was like, "Shit, that is a great letter." (Maybe my friend prefers the original, but.)

One thing I've known for some time is that I'm a much better editor than I am a writer. So I love editing what other people have written (and also, I guess, what I've written), but it's so painful for me to write that first draft. And even though I enjoy revising a lot better than I do writing (once I have that first draft), I still end up doing a lot more nitpicky editing than actual, substantive revising.

Help. I don't think people make it as academics being mere editors of their own work. Research, write, revise...but so little emphasis on editing. I know editing is important—but how can I get some balance here?!

「エロティシズム」とは

とか言っちゃって、「エロティシズム」って一体何なんだろう・・・とか考えてます。

先日読んだ本で、上野千鶴子が結構分かりやすい「エロティシズム」の定義を述べていましたが、忘れてしまいました。（忘れちゃったら、何冊本を読んでも元も子もないのに・・・）

（最近ちょっと「壇蜜」にはまってます。いやいや、色々と事情がありましてね。ちょっとした私的な研究対象になってます、はい。）

でも、本当に、「エロティシズム」とか「エロティック」とは何なのか。見た目の問題？感情の問題？物理的／生物学的な問題？基準は、一人一人？それとも社会が決める？文化？男性と女性はどう考え、どう相手が考えていると思うのか？異性愛者、同性愛者との間では、どう考えるのか？

やっぱり、個人的な好みですかね〜、何がエロくて誰がエロくないかって。

（画像は京都駅の天井です。全然エロくない。）

Makeup or Make-Up?

I've been thinking about makeup (make-up?) lately. This "thinking about" has been somewhere between me thinking about donuts (e.g., "I wonder what flavor cronut I should get next time?") and me thinking about education reform (e.g., "What is appropriate teacher training for a 'liberal arts' education at the secondary level?"). As in, I wonder about the theoretical implications of choosing between new lipliner and new eyeshadow.

Hey, don't laugh. I only started wearing makeup when I started working, and only because my manager gave me samples that her mother sold through her work at a Japanese cosmetics company. Since then I've accumulated random makeup items, but mostly as gifts from other people. No joke, 90% of what I own, I never even paid for.

This wouldn't be a problem, except that that means I end up with a lot of things that just don't look right on my face. For example, of the seven lipsticks/lipglosses I own, exactly two are colors I actually feel comfortable wearing. That's 28.6%, which, the last time I checked, is an F.

But what can I do? I'm grateful that people give me all these things, and I'd feel bad not using them. And I'm not about to go spend $30 on new lipstick when I have various shades of rose and mauve scattered about my bathroom cabinet. Hence years of mixing colors and finding innovative ways to "use" makeup items.

Except that's just the donut side of thinking about makeup. The education reform side is that I can't quite come to terms with my own desires to wear makeup (except those days when I'm like, fuck it, all I need is sunblock), even with the understanding that "wearing makeup" is just another way for us to "fit other people's standards of beauty". Oh, come on—it's true. We can talk about all the ways makeup plays up our best features, makes us beautiful, helps us love ourselves...but please. What we really mean is, it makes us beautiful in the way Western (and thus most other) marketing has defined beauty, and it helps us love ourselves because we get that affirmation from others that makes us feel so good. (Sooo good.)

You want me to use lipgloss because it makes my lips look fuller (but not too full)? You want me to use shadow on the bridge of my nose so that it looks like I have a three-dimensional nose rather than the two-dimensional one with which I was born? You want me to change the shape of my eyebrows to suit this season's trend? Oh come on, now. I have books I have to be reading.

But still...if I want learn how to shade and highlight my face in such a way so as to make it look more like a white person's face...is that so bad? If I want to wear concealer so that my skin looks even, with no blemishes or pores (and thus biologically impossible), am I a sellout? It's so nice to look and feel pretty...and it's true, thinking that I look pretty makes me feel a whole lot better about myself than when I'm sitting there thinking, wow, what a mess. It's like a pair of good heels—height and longer legs, even if it's all an illusion. And if I'm paying my hard-earned money to get that illusion from multinational corporations, to learn how to do that in a way that suits my own face—is that so theoretically criminal?

To Apply, or Not to Apply

(Wait, didn't I have a post title like this somewhere else a little while ago?)

It's a funny thing trying to decide whether or not to apply to a particular job post. Last year it was like, "Anything with the word 'Japanese' in it, I'm applying!" but this year it's like, "OK OK, no need to be so voracious here." Like, like...

There are jobs that I clearly can't apply to (not my field, not my time period, etc.), and then there are jobs where I'm like...is this a job I want over the one I have now? And would I want to apply (ever) to jobs in particular geographic locations, when I know that my heart belongs in sunny California?

And what of the question of research vs. teaching? Why the valorization of research institutions over teaching institutions, when I'd much rather be in the classroom teaching than in my office writing? Or am I spoiled even to have such a preference?