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Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, HER Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed by Lori Gottlieb My rating: 5 of 5 stars Gottlieb offers her own experiences as an individual undergoing therapy, plus her insights from her own practice as a therapist. She shares her struggles writing about other topics, but I see no signs of word wrangling her way to this volume. THIS is the book Gottlieb was meant to write. It proves as captivating as any mystery or thriller, with a balanced narrative split between her dual roles, and bolstered by her academic knowledge of psychotherapy itself. Having been diagnosed with depression in my 30s and medicated, I still struggle with the issues that may well be major contributors to my depression. Throughout this book, I saw myself in Gottlieb's patients, and in Lori Gottlieb herself. I will be heeding the titular advice. This book may well revive what the author describes as an endangered profession. It made me feel safe and determined to explore alternatives to pharmacological treatment alone. View all my reviews

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Several ideas for self-care.

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Stop and Take the Time to Read HOW TO STOP TIME

How to Stop Time by Matt Haig My rating: 5 of 5 stars I used to eschew fantasy, in all its iterations, but difficult times call for genuine escape. Dive into Haig's novel and follow the life story of Tom Hazard (as he is currently known) through generations. Yes, literal generations. Hazard is an albatross, or alba, as they have labeled themselves, the individuals whose aging process moves at a snail's pace, if not slower. Surviving as an alba requires all sorts of machinations, including frequent moves and name changes. Worst of all, albas are cautioned to never, ever fall in love. Clearly that single condition rests at the heart (pun intended) of Haig's tale. Past entanglements and current attractions challenge Hazard, driving the reader to rapid page-turning as Haig's narration alternates between past "lives" and the present in 21st century London. It's well worth the read, particularly as it gets twisty near the end. I can see why it's been picked up for a possible film. It's a compelling, entertaining and emotional read. View all my reviews

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It's not brief, but it is so important. Read it.

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Meet the PhDiva, @Dissertating

I often receive direct messages asking if I am a bot. I am indeed a real person, and this is my story.

From my earliest days, I found the printed word fascinating and chose it over toys. My grandmother provided junk mail, which I promptly edited. I read early, choosing To Kill a Mockingbird off Grandma’s bookshelves when I was only 7 or 8. Obviously, school would provide me the penultimate stimulation and satisfaction, so it makes perfect sense that I would still find myself there (as a student) at age 48… and through age 55, as it turned out.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. I completed a Bachelor’s in English at age 22 and took a job teaching HS English in a small town in Ohio. Little did I know that I would remain in that position for over 20 years, having married, had two sons, earned a master’s degree, divorced. When my younger son was a senior in HS, I worked on a project at the state department of education, which led to my seeking full-time employment there. It was time. I had taught nearly everyone in that small town and I was eager for a new challenge.

Choosing Career Change

I moved to the state capital, Columbus, and began work as an English Language Arts consultant. Before long I was promoted and became an official bureaucrat—a title I detested. Somehow, I had gotten myself the education job that took me as far as possible from students, and I was disheartened. A much younger colleague at the department felt similarly, and she suggested that we go back to school for our PhDs. “We have to battle the brain drain,” she insisted. So, we both enrolled part-time in Ohio State University’s PhD program in Educational Policy and Leadership.

What a challenge. In addition to my 40 hours per week with the department, I taught one night class each term in college writing. I couldn’t give that up because it helped fund my PhD classes, so I found myself taking one or two classes each term, teaching another, in addition to the full-time job commitment. Thus began my bag lady period. I organized my life into three bags: student, teacher, and bureaucrat… and each bag matched its role—a backpack, an oversized tote, and a briefcase all lived in my car’s trunk, along with a file box and other assorted office supplies. Keeping my bags separate helped me focus on the task at hand. While at work, my teaching and grad school work sat in my car. While teaching, I couldn’t be distracted by work commitments; while in grad classes, I had to be fully present.

Ohio State required its doctoral students to have one term of residency—meaning I had to be enrolled full-time, taking 10 credit hours. At the time, the university was still on the quarter system, so it meant only 10 weeks of a schedule cram packed from early morning to late night. I spoke with my supervisors at the department– we chose a summer term, as our workload there is lighter– and they allowed me to use personal time and vacation days to attend classes. I enrolled in one weeklong class that met from 8 am til 5 pm each day and showed up on day one in a bright floral blouse, wearing sunglasses. I welcomed the other class members to my vacation! It was a rough slog, no doubt, but I had the time and my brain yearned to learn.

This continued for four years, until I realized that I was nearing 30-years’ service and could consider retiring. A professor had already offered me a graduate assistantship, if and when I could go full-time, so I met with the appropriate parties, and set my retirement for June 30, 2011. The department honored me with a lovely breakfast party—but I never looked back. I had worked there 8 years.

Finding and Losing Academic Footing

With a monthly pension check plus the small graduate research associate stipend, I continued my PhD studies, and picked up a graduate interdisciplinary specialization. I felt in my element and fully enjoyed my full-time academic life. I earned high marks, received high praise for my writing, and confidently entered the “dissertating phase.” If you’ve read my blog, or my posts to Researcher Chronicles—you know that did not end well. While I was well-matched with an advisor whose interests aligned with mine (state education policy and its implementation), we had a tense relationship. He left me to my own devices, which I took at the time as an indication of his respect for me and my years of practical work in my area of study. Ultimately it led to my appearing in my dissertation defense like a deer in the headlights, an expression we use here in America to describe a deer caught crossing a highway as it meets up with oncoming traffic and certain doom. As the debacle drew to a close and the committee filed out, I sat across from my advisor whose first words were “This was as much my fault as it was yours.” We didn’t speak long; I refused to cry in front of him. I would revise and redefend. I had a year.

Pushing Forward to Success

I was totally unprepared for how this failure would affect me. I had failed big before (divorce)… but somehow this cut me to my heart. I do not fail academically. But I did. Adjusting to that reality took a while. I had a newborn granddaughter, though, and I offered myself as her Friday caretaker. She didn’t care if Nana had her PhD! Eventually, I looked into her eyes and realized that I should be an example to her. I had to try again. Though my dissertation had sat untouched for three months, I opened it up, and began anew.

I remember clearly reading through it one day and having a visceral reaction—my body tensed, I blushed deeply, and I realized that this was not at all defensible. Advisor misconduct aside, I took responsibility for the failure and plodded on. Having conducted a qualitative study, I dug back into the data and chose grounded theory as my methodology. It was my only way forward, as it allowed for hindsight driving one back into the data looking for new insights. I submitted a total of three revisions to my advisor, who in this iteration provided detailed feedback each time. (By that I mean 11 pages single-spaced in response to the first revision.) It was a brutal process, but I persisted. My second revision only merited 8 pages of feedback, so we were getting somewhere! The third… well, the substance of his email appears as one of the slides here. A few sentences assured me it was go time. The second defense: a success!

I received my degree at 55. I deliberately chose not to apply for tenure-track jobs because I did not need to. I could choose to do what I loved and I did. I teach both face-to-face and online (education and English classes), and I serve as developmental editor for Ohio State’s education journal, Theory into Practice. My littlest inspiration, granddaughter Eila, has been joined by baby Bea, just this year. My life is full.

So that is my story… what’s yours?

Since April 2015, I have maintained a Twitter feed to support graduate students and "dissertaters" on the road to PhD. @dissertating now has over 9,000 followers. Join us!

These paragraphs served as the core of a live motivational talk I gave 29 Nov 2018, hosted by @Editage.

[therestisbest]

Don’t fear failing, you’re in good company!

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Spring has sprung (allegedly—the forecast would indicate otherwise). How about some personal spring cleaning?

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Why I’m an Unapologetic Democrat

[from the response to the #SOTU by Representative Joseph P. Kennedy III, Democrat of Massachusetts]

Many have spent the past year anxious, angry, afraid. We all feel the fault lines of a fractured country. We hear the voices of Americans who feel forgotten and forsaken.

We see an economy that makes stocks soar, investor portfolios bulge and corporate profits climb but fails to give workers their fair share of the reward.

A government that struggles to keep itself open.

Russia knee-deep in our democracy.

An all-out war on environmental protection.

A Justice Department rolling back civil rights by the day.

Hatred and supremacy proudly marching in our streets.

Bullets tearing through our classrooms, concerts, and congregations. Targeting our safest, sacred places.

And that nagging, sinking feeling, no matter your political beliefs: this is not right. This is not who we are.

It would be easy to dismiss the past year as chaos. Partisanship. Politics.

But it’s far bigger than that. This administration isn’t just targeting the laws that protect us — they are targeting the very idea that we are all worthy of protection.

For them, dignity isn’t something you’re born with but something you measure.

By your net worth, your celebrity, your headlines, your crowd size.

Not to mention, the gender of your spouse. The country of your birth. The color of your skin. The God of your prayers.

Their record is a rebuke of our highest American ideal: the belief that we are all worthy, we are all equal and we all count. In the eyes of our law and our leaders, our God and our government.

That is the American promise.

But today that promise is being broken. By an administration that callously appraises our worthiness and decides who makes the cut and who can be bargained away.

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I had no idea how to be a mother. My son was stiff in my arms and then he opened his mouth and started wailing, like this world was an affront to him.... I was a straight A student, I was an overachiever; I had never imagined that this, the most natural of all relationships would make me feel so incompetent.

from SMALL GREAT THINGS, Jodi Picoult

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I sat back and made little commentary as the profusion of sexual harrassment allegations came to light, aside from posting #metoo with no explanation.

But THIS, this extends beyond the pale. Rivera asserts that women “may be criminalizing courtship and conflating it with predation.” [He later apologized, as they all do…]

Gentlemen (and I use this sobriquet loosely),

This is precisely the issue: unwanted sexual advances do not constitute “courtship.” In my own lifetime, the meanings of courtship have evolved, but never once has its meaning included one person’s assuming control over another for the purposes of sexual gratification. The devil-may-care borderline promiscuousness of our college years resulted largely from mutual bad decisions, not assault or rape. But unfortunately, assaults and rapes did occur…and even IF the perpetrator assumed to be in a “courtship” situation, taking control DID cross the line into predation.

Rivera, we don’t need your man-splaining. We understand our experiences completely. The restaurant manager who offered me and my female co-workers rides home in exchange for sexual favors was not courting us. He was a sexual predator. His attention was not flattering or flirty. Co-workers insisting on hugs, talking about sex, and worse– nope. Not courtship, definitely predatory.

Let’s draw a firm line: No “business” is flirty. Keep your “courtship” rituals out of the workplace. We don’t really want work with a side of romance, let alone a heavy heaping of suggestive comments, unwanted groping, forced kisses, and beyond.

Sincerely,

One Woman

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How to Read like an Academic

One amazing technique I learned in my very first master's level class years ago has shaped my academic reading from that day forward. I also teach it to all my college writing students as many university writing assignments rely on a thorough reading of source material. My adaptation of a descriptive outline requires utilizes these steps: 1. Number the source material by paragraph. 2. Read each paragraph, highlighting key words and phrases, never entire sentences. 3. Write a single sentence summary (SSS) of that paragraph in your own words. Avoid specifics, strive for a general understanding of the piece. You can always look back for the details. 4. Continue for each paragraph, writing an SSS for each. 5. If a summary is required, type your SSSes together into a single paragraph. Take the time to edit them for flow and clarity. Add specifics as needed. 6. If you're collecting research for a lit review, be sure to type a full citation for the source in the header. Add notes as to where you the original doc can be found, etc. Save the document. Feel free to contact me via Twitter for additional details: @Dissertating

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Give me a good Brit series and I'm down through the end. PARANOID is no exception. Dino Fetscher and Indira Varma lead a capable cast, which features SCOTT & BAILEY's Lesley Sharpe, among others. The opening scene murder reveals not only the complexity of a large-scale conspiracy, but also the multiple layers of the community members and the investigators themselves. While the story draws to its logical conclusion by Episode 8, I'm hoping this is not the end for this ensemble cast, nor for the European venues.

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“I guess this is what marriage is, or was, or could be. You drop the mask. You allow the fatigue in. You lean across and kiss the years because they're the things that matter.”

Colum McCann, Let the Great World Spin

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“Literature can remind us that not all life is already written down: there are still so many stories to be told.”

Colum McCann, Let the Great World Spin