countdown

Yep, it’s put up or shut up time. I had a lot of fun last year; my first year of graduate school was almost everything I wanted it to be: a general lack of stress, moving along at whatever pace I wanted, reading only when I felt like it (and even then reading only a little), and generally screwing off. I knew that when it comes time to enter the job market, what you did in your first year rarely translates into anything meaningful when it comes to landing that long sought after tenure-track position.* But things have changed. This is the second year.

No more waiting until the last minute to get a paper done. I have too many other things to do.** I have to apply for travel funding for the winter, and the summer. I also need to apply for pre-dissertation fellowships with the SSRC, and a host of others. On top of all that, I have this little matter of the thesis to complete, which shouldn’t be too hard, at least as a practical matter. But at the same time, if I plan on turning this thesis into an excellent dissertation (which, right now I think it has the potential to be***) , I really need to make sure that I am on top of not only the research that I am doing, but also that of everyone else in the world.

I will have to continue my correspondence with scholars in my field (that I finally got the nerve to email and start a discussion with– thanks, Money!), as well as present papers at the occasional conference (there is one coming up next spring that I am applying to– that LAWCHA one that we all got a notice for through H-Net). I have to do a lit review for a paper that I am writing with a professor in Sociology about historical and contemporary trends in Peruvian migrant labor in the west and midwest, as well as collaborate on analyzing the data analysis after the field research is done. Oh yeah, what about shoring up my QE committee? My dissertation committee? Who is going to be checking out my thesis anyway?**** All these things will need to be done sooner rather than later.

Seminar papers only get in the way, so I have written drafts for the book reviews I need to do (for the most part) , and I already have my topic picked out for my extended book(s) review in the course. I should be getting on that next week. With any luck, by the first class meeting, I should be done with the bulk of my work for the quarter in at least one class in the Fall quarter, and ready to take on the other.

The time for sitting around and making inane jokes about my lack of production is over. As the Notorious B.I.G. said, “it’s clobberin’ time.”

If any of you want to join me, feel free. I will read your work, you will read mine, and we will have a no-holds-barred discussion about our strengths and weaknesses in our work, with the ultimate goal of intense thoughtfulness, close scrutiny, honesty, and intellectual production that we can be proud of. Playtime is over. Who’s with me?

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*Not that many of us are headed toward tenure track positions, at least at a larger research universities. Certainly there are a chosen few, those lucky enough to work with someone stupendous and has a wonderful research project (which, from what I have seen and heard, could be any one of us, really), as well as the luck of the draw to catch the fancy of an overworked job search committee member at First Choice University. But where we are, both geographically and with the reputation of the school, not many of us will be interviewing at Harvard, or even UCLA, for that matter. But we know this, and we are fine with it. Those opportunities are out there, and if they present themselves, I can’t think of anyone better besides all of you to be on the receiving end when opportunity knocks.

**Note that I haven’t even mentioned the union, which has become more and more busy in the last few weeks. More on that later.

***This may change. Oh dear lord, this may change.

****I have already done this. I am awaiting the school year to meet with them.

~ by dystopic on September 17, 2007.