For those of you who check in with site periodically, know that I have moved my blog. Check me out here:
http://www.kellyrawson.net/Home/Blog/Blog.html.

Hope to see you around!

To: My dear Vincent
On learning of your passing

I was kicking myself for not having your email. I looked all around my e-address book and old emails...why weren't you in there? I wanted to invite you to rendezvous in San Francisco with me next winter. I felt lazy, so instead of heading to the CU site I just googled you (it's good to do for a friend here and again anyway). Certainly, the memorial sites that came up as first hits must have been for other Vincent Woodard's. Who knew there were so many of you in the world? But when I clicked on the first to find out your name-twin's identity, our eyes met. Beautiful Vincent.

We hadn't spoken in ages. I had meant to change all of that. I really had. Last night, even. But I was weeks too late.

The news sent me scuddling back to my old notebooks. Lo and behold, I found some notes we exchanged. On one of my papers, you encouraged me to publish my work. You wanted me to get my voice out there. You handed me my first conference call and kicked my butt out the door, all the way to St. Louis. I never thanked you for that.

As I flip through the pages of my notebook, I find dozens of profound questions that you prompted me to reflect on. The first, of many: How can I be a true anti-racist? I still remember the sound of your voice, the gesture of your hand as you mouthed "unspeakable." You taught me about the unspeakabilty of black queerness.

I remember the day you sat me in your office and read June Jordan to me. The long, trickling stains of my tears still show on the pages of my notebook. That was March 17th, 2004. And just a short week later, more tears over Marlon Riggs, and your stories about knowing him.

And one last tear-stained page--when you told me how far I'd go and how important my voice was for the world to hear. But it has been your voice that has been ringing in my head since that day, Vincent. When I speak, you speak through me. Like the many you have mentored, a piece of you lives on in me. I am only sorry that you aren't still here to witness it.

Here in the land of Camilli, we have a bona fide knee ward. S has been laid up for a month and a day, almost to the hour. And she'll be laid up even longer until her surgery in mid-May and through a recovery of a month or two. That's a pretty dramatic cop out for running. Since I didn't want her to feel too isolated, I joined the knee ward a week and a half ago and still haven't found out what the heck is wrong with me. I wake up feeling like Superman and go to bed feeling like...something not so super. I've finally been able to drive (fairly) comfortably, so that feels much better. Watch out, Syracuse roads.

...a film. In less than an hour I am introducing The Watermelon Woman, a film by Cheryl Dunye. The film is showing as part of the Queer Visual Culture series, sponsored by the LGBT minor. It's a great film...a mock-u-mentary about a black woman actress from the 1930s. But, I will be happy to be done with tonight, just so I can check another thing off my list.

I have not yet completed a full week of dissertation work and I've already flubbed up my schedule. My goal is three hours per day. Seems easy enough, right? On days when I don't teach, I aim for more. But things just seem to come up...walking the dog, cooking, talking on the phone (only the important things). I've managed to do at least some work every day (almost 4 hours once), but I need to even it out and pace myself better. My dis (I think I need to come up with a name for it...) is already a large and looming project, those daily steps are so hard to initiate. At least when I get down to work I enjoy it :)

I just got word yesterday that my proposal was accepted to the TransSomatechnics conference in Vancouver in May. I am really looking forward to heading out there and engaging in some good conversations about Trans issues and scholarship. Now I just need to write the paper!

In part because it is easier than actually starting my dissertation prospectus, I've been reading two books about writing a dissertation. One is David Sternberg's _How to Complete and Survive a Doctoral Dissertation_ and the other is Joan Bolker's _Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day_. I've dabbled through some chapters and written lots of notes in others. Here are some of the tidbits I have taken away that I really want to hold onto:

From Sternberg:
--"One picks a dissertation topic--a relatively secondary concern--after serious commitment to the primary goal of writing a doctoral dissertation; to reverse the sequence of these two decisions is to misunderstand the nature of the dissertation and invite nonfinishing" (32).
--He suggests that a dissertator should create an office space that is devoted to nothing but dissertating...check.
--He offers a chapter on "Building a Dissertation File," which I used selectively as I constructed a basic format for the documents I will eventually need to have organized. I found this to be rather difficult because, unlike Sternberg writing in 1981, my dissertation materials will be electronic and paper. Thus, my filing system will also need to include both. I am a bit nervous about splitting things up and not having access to things when I need them, but I can imagine no other way, at least until I get to working.

From Bolker:
--"The first step is to imagine your dissertation" (3). Sounds easy, right? But it has already proven difficult. It may be easy to imagine a topic, but a dissertation? It's pretty tough and a good thought experiment.
--"You will take your own work habits as seriously as you take the material you're working on" (7).
--"Writing from an outline sometimes short-circuits the imaginative part of writing altogether" (36). This is a lesson that I am only slowly beginning to learn, or at least, hoping to begin to learn.
--"Write every day" (38). This is closely tied to her second favorite mantra: "Write first!"

This is a good place to start, and it counts as my writing for today. Though I must admit that my daily writing won't actually start for another few weeks. I am heading out of town for a week beginning next Thursday. So my dissertation work will officially begin the Monday that classes begin, January 14th, 2008.

It has been far too long since I've last posted...6 months actually. But that time period is also almost the same amount of time I've been working on my exams. I began officially reading on June 1st and had my oral defense on December 3rd. In retrospect, perhaps a bit too fast. I didn't allow myself much thinking time or time to grow as a writer. Now that the dissertation process is beginning, I am hoping to get back into blogging and back into a healthier lifestyle. Two pre-New Year's resolutions, I suppose.

I am in the middle of my second day at the Minnowbrook Future Professoriate Project Retreat, actually sitting in a session on using blogs in the classroom. The conversations here have been quite stimulating.
It isn't often that I get a chance to gather with people from across SU to discuss teaching and working in the academy. The wilderness Adirondack setting really appeals to my New England blood. Though it is rainy and, at times, snowy, I've been enjoying the time to hang out, eat good food, talk about teaching, and play lots of foosball. Before coming here, I've had a productive May--finished coursework, wrote my last seminar paper, completed and turned in grades, drafted a book chapter, ordered all of my exam books that I plan to buy, and moved my office from my living room to my dining room. Needless to say, I needed a break. Though this is hardly a "break," per se, it is allowing me the time to think about my teaching in a way that gets lost through the cracks of the day-to-day hustle and bustle of the semester.
The timing also couldn't be better because I am in the middle of planning my WRT 104 course that I will be teaching in the Summer Start program in July and August.
I am hoping that by the end of this weekend I'll have my syllabus drafted, though I imagine that I'll have a lot of revisions from my syllabus from last summer. Designing a new class always energizes me, though I won't have a lot of time to do it before I head to CT on Tuesday to pick up my mom for her week-long visit to Syracuse. Besides the trip to the farmer's market, it will be mostly a work visit, including lots of painting, yard work, and motherly touches all around. My dad will show up over the weekend and we'll continue attacking the to-do list until they depart next Tuesday. My folks are great! And May may go down as one of my most productive months.

Less than two hours ago I walked out of my last class. Not last for the semester or even the year. My last last class. Well, in the foreseeable future, of course. I've been taking classes, attending school, continuously since I was enrolled in kindergarten. Now, at 25 years old, it seems strange to be turning the corner on a different phase of my education. As of yesterday, my exam proposal successfully passed the graduate committee and I am set to begin preparing for my qualifying exams. I feel like I am growing up as a scholar...and it is a really energizing process.