Taking Initiative

It's the first day of 2017, and it's a bright, quiet afternoon in Oakland. 2016 was a year of unexpected educations. My son was born, and I learned about myself that I can act only in his interests without feeling like I am gone or utterly changed. I took an ambitious job, and I did not succeed in it, closing down an avenue I thought was going to define my life.

December of 2013, December of 2015, December of 2016 -- all years in which I left positions, variously despondent and hopeful. Januaries are quiet winter mornings that open up possibilities.

What I would like for myself in 2017 is to move from possibilities to acting. From dreaming and ideas to purposeful action.

Taking initiative, not waiting for permission or approval. Being bold. I crave structure, but perhaps in the end that sense of making and completing checklists makes me complacent.

Moving from idea to action will be 2017. Whether in the political arena, or moving from to-do list to completing tasks, to pitching interviews and reviews and articles -- and then actually writing them.

To be a writer, you have to write.

And then, I am a mother -- and this year, with fewer barriers, a much more present and engaged mother. An engaged and active partner.

This will involve challenging myself to make plans, to look ahead, to strategize. To try to anticipate the unknowns, or at least build in buffers. More than just the "swallow the frog" of doing the hard thing first, this needs to be trusting myself to spearhead and develop ideas, to plan out and follow up.

This is more than informational interviews and gathering facts and knowing about things. It's synthesis and action and invention.

A Cautionary Tale? Or an Inspiration? Both?

I was asked to discuss my career path by the career center at my undergraduate institution.  Since I feel like a scrambler more than a planner at this point, I found that quite funny, but tried to answer their questions truthfully (if optimistically).

Here's the result! 

39 working days left (including today)

I was supposed to spend yesterday working, but instead I read, took a nap, got my nails done, and went  out to dinner with my boyfriend. That turned into a 3 hours long discussion about our future and my future in academia. I feel that I am being asked to choose between fulfillment of a long-held personal dream and my personal needs, including kids and not being a ball of stress all the time.

Is it just stubbornness to hold out for the 0.5% chance of a perfect job? What am I losing if I make a tenure-track job my first priority?

I am worried that I'll end up with a job rather than a career, and doing so will devastate me. My ambition and drive to succeed has always been a huge part of me, and I worry that putting personal desires ahead of professional ones will mean giving up a huge part of myself and what I take pride in doing and being.

I am constantly torn and fear making the wrong choice, closing off options forever. Becoming a failure.

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Dissertation goals for the rest of the day: Figure out argumentation for 3rd chapter on Heaney and Boland.

As is, this is a chapter that described Heaney and Boland's representations of Irish society through the metaphor of the earth. It is simplistic and under-theorized, even if the readings are good. But this chapter was written when I was trying to make this an ecocritical dissertation, which is not where it has ended up going,

Idea: to make this chapter into a meditation on the lyric and Irish identity. Not saying "this is bad and old" compared to the experimental poets I work on, but exploring the relationship between identity and form in a postcol state. Using the same poems, "The Tollund Man in Springtime" and "Domestic Violence" as an example, I hope.

To that end: I am revisiting all the books and articles I have on Irish identity, the self, lyric, postcolonialism, and globalization. I hope this won't take too long, because this chapter needs to be done in the next 2 weeks. Luckily I have MLK Jr day to work on it.