The gift of time

The best possible way to spend
a Sunday afternoon

It's spring break, which means that choir has disappeared from my weekly schedule. I've sent my passport off to be processed for yet another visa, which means that I'm stranded in the UK for a while, and do you know what my daily schedule looks like? I go rowing or erging at some point during the day, and the rest of the time I sit at this laptop tinkering with documents. Some are job applications, one is an article long overdue for revising, one is a friend's PhD chapter, which I'm proofreading.

But overall, there is a ludicrous abundance of time to take things at a leisurely pace. Sunday, for example, was a perfect gem of a day. In the morning, I had a magical outing with Cantabs, the town rowing club I've joined. The boat was so well balanced that we could work hard but feel the reward of a beautiful glide. After a cheeky nap, I then had a very different kind of outing with some folks from college who are still in town during spring break. Half men and half women, we paddled gently to the end of our usual stretch of river, hoisted the boat out and around the lock, and paddled a bit further to a pub in the town of Waterbeach. It wasn't quite warm enough to justify how long we sat outside to consume our burgers, pints, and desserts, but we refused to slink inside when the sun was shining. We then rowed home, careful not to upset our now-very-full tummies. A four-hour lunch? Why not. I spent the evening watching something interesting on TV and got into bed thinking, "This was a good day to be alive." Simple pleasures, and enough time to enjoy them.

Feeling positive

Well, here it is: the final copy of my dissertation, bound by the venerable J.S. Wilson & Son bookbinders, who have been in business in Cambridge since 1830! I'm sort of afraid to touch it, actually.

To add to my cheerful mood, spring is definitely drawing on. It's hard not to feel optimistic about life when the sun is shining, the birds are chirping, and little flowers are forming their annual skirt around the big tree on Trinity Hall's Latham Lawn. I am spending my afternoons writing job applications, which normally depress me terribly. But somehow I'm feeling positive anyway.

Friends, let us rejoice.

One month ago yesterday, I had my viva, and it was quick and painless.

I haven't written about it yet, partly because so many friends have asked how it went that I'm tired of my own report, and partly because the idea of the viva still makes me nervous, even though it's over and done with. They began by saying "We enjoyed reading this, we learned a lot from it, and we're going to recommend that it pass with minor corrections. So you can relax, but don't relax too much." We then spoke very pleasantly for an hour and a half. I answered some questions better than others, but they were on my side, which was hugely helpful. Minor corrections = fixing typos and odd inconsistencies, so they were easily done over a couple days.

The English Faculty's degree committee approved me on February 26th, in accordance with what I'm told were very positive examiners' reports. Today the university's Board of Graduate Studies should have done the same. I now have a month to hand in a hardbound copy that will remain in the University Library foreeeeeever! So, I spent my afternoon finding an endless stream of minor formatting problems as I attempted to create a PDF containing my entire PhD. It now exists -- hold your breath until I get it to the printer!

Step by step

After that downer, I figured I better update you with something more positive. I got my passport back with a week to spare! Without getting angry at me, the powers that be rescheduled my viva. And the extra time at home gave me a chance to actually work at the office of the company for which I edit, which made me feel like a real grown-up for the first time in quite a while.

And now I'm back in Cambridge at last. And my viva is tomorrow. TOMORROW. I am in a strange state of simultaneous terror and "que sera sera". Everyone seems to agree that you can't do too much to prepare apart from reread the dissertation and think about how you'll respond to probing on the weak points. Then try to enjoy it as an engaged conversation about your work. I've taken this onboard, and I'm trying not to freak out. I think I'll feel okay as soon as it actually gets started -- but it's the unknown that scares us most, isn't it? No actual incarnation of a monster is as frightening as the shadow and suggestion of one. So even though I know my examiners will be fair, they still go bump in the night right now.

I've been thinking a lot lately about how we construct narratives to make sense of our lives. When I was in Iceland, one of my new friends from the hostel was trying to find me on Facebook, but I have a rather common name. When I told him to cross-reference for Stanford and/or Cambridge, his reaction was that general mixture of being impressed and "well aren't you fancy?" But that version leaves out the years of working jobs I didn't like very much, the many many rejection letters I got -- twice -- before getting here, and the things that happened along the way, like a year of pulling my hair out over rowing, and missing three weddings of old friends. If things go well tomorrow, we can revel in the triumphalist narrative it seems to complete. But first I have to get there.

Trying to stay positive

It's 2015. I've said to a few people that I've rarely faced a new year knowing so little about where I'll be or what I'll be doing at the end of it. So far, I have to confess, it hasn't been a promising start.

First, I miscalculated how long it would take to get my visa extension back. So I've had to rebook my flight, taking my best guess as to when I can travel again. Second, I finally -- finally! -- got an email about when my viva (PhD defense) will be. You guessed it, it was set for a day I can no longer make. I hope the repercussions aren't awful.

And as I contemplate going back, I'm starting to wonder how selfish I've been to say I'll stay living in England for another year, just because I like it. On whose money? Mine, if I can bulk up my work hours. But the fact is, even "giving academia a try" takes a few years of waiting around, and being a 31-year-old who remembers having a job, I don't know whether I have that kind of patience. I'm sorely tempted to take a real, full-time position somewhere and have everything sorted. But possibility only comes with its Siamese twin, uncertainty. I'm trying to stay positive.

Possibilities

Merry Christmas!

This is the time of year when we look ahead to the promise of new things coming. Whether it's the arrival of baby Jesus, the clean slate of a new year, or just the slow return of daylight, it's around now that people tend to think about what's coming next. That's certainly the case for me.

After handing in my dissertation (and after a week's trip to Scotland), I was right back at work to produce a conference paper. It was very much a show-and-tell of my early digging around, but it went over well in London, Ontario -- after I took a week to check out Iceland because, well, I could. (Iceland Air allows free stopovers on your way across the Atlantic.) I saw the northern lights for the first time and soaked in geothermal hot pools next to a semi-frozen lake. Most importantly, I met some fun people who made the week a jaunty adventure rather than seven days of reading in coffee shops. (Though that would have been alright.)

The conference was for the North American Victorian Studies Association (NAVSA), and it's a big 'un. The last time I attended was at the start of my second year, and it was maybe my second conference ever. I didn't know anyone. It was awkward and uncomfortable. What a difference it makes to have academic acquaintances to bump into, and friends with whom to nosh on hors d'oeuvres at the opening reception and then slip away for dinner. I had a lot of fun. Dare I say it? I felt like I belonged. The problem with academia, of course, is that such a belonging may be cut short by the economic necessity of taking a job that is available now instead of hypothetically-maybe in a few years, if the wind blows south-southwest on a blue moon Tuesday as two albino magpies cross your path. I'm very fortunate in that I'm enjoying the editing I'm doing on the side right now, and I actually feel valued. It's good to remember that I have skills! So I try to look ahead without too much anxiety.

May the future be as surprisingly pleasant as a sunny
October day in Scotland.

When I was living in my first-ever non-student apartment during the two years following graduation, I used to stay up late scrolling through the Oxford and Cambridge websites, fantasizing about getting to England for grad school. I did get there, and I spent many hours sitting in a library in the agony of trying to write something, and then 500 more somethings -- and despite that, it has been a dream come true. Now I find myself scrolling through job postings and imagining places I could live and projects I could chase through yet more libraries. The brutal truth is that academia is an impossible career to try for these days, even if you've ticked all the right boxes. But we can always dream, right? And what is Christmas if not a time to dream of possibilities?

It's in!

Despite what everyone said,
I did not find this part anti-climactic.

Sorry to leave you hanging for so long, fair readers. In short, the dissertation is in!

I got the comments back from my friends, and by the end I was desensitized enough that I could just run through them and make necessary changes. I held my breath while the miraculous referencing system called Zotero created my bibliography; I fought long and hard with the college printer to get the final version onto paper the day before it was due; I took the two copies to Staples that night for binding; and I submitted them at 12:30pm on September 30. I had lunch with my friends at the pub, and then, contrary to what everyone expected of me, I got right back to work -- but on something entirely different.

You see, I somehow managed to stumble my way into a job as a technical editor for a company back home, so I just might be able to support myself again, rather than being in debt! But I'd been more or less neglecting it during the finishing-up process. So, it was time to catch up.

Not too long afterward, though, my friend Emily came to visit from home, and we took a week to travel in the northern regions of Britain: a cold, gray afternoon in York, followed by several glorious days in Edinburgh and the highlands, and a final treat in the Lake District, where we were glad to have our waterproofs along during one of our walks, because the heavens opened for the first time on the whole trip. It was the perfect vacation, really.

And now? I've been back in the library, taking pictures of how people have represented Anglo-Saxon text in printed books. This is in service of a conference I'll be attending in a few weeks. So, as usual, I'm keeping myself busy. But it's a fun kind of busy, and I'm not at all tired of telling people that I've handed in.  It is a sweet, sweet thing.