danieleWrites

Do not be angry with yourself. You've done nothing wrong. I have no idea what's going on in his head, but he's the one that decided to attempt to initiate a more personal relationship, not you. From your description he sounds inappropriate rather than predatory. He waited until you were no longer his student to start laying down his moves, creepy as they have been. You have the option to report him for being creepy and inappropriate, but as he's been hitting on a former student, not a current student, it's probably a crapshoot. This doesn't mean that what he's doing is okay, because it's not, but it's not necessarily either illegal or against university rules. It's creepy. Well, it might be more. Is his current and future help contingent on your companionship in some way (not necessarily sex, long drives where you talk about non-academic things count)? If you think yes, report him. If you think no, don't report him. You can start the reporting process at the university's counseling center, with the department either the head or a different professor that you trust will work in your interests. You can also go to HR, student affairs, or any number of places. The place to go to is the one that will listen to you, that you trust, and will think of you first, not the university's immediate reputation as predator-central. If you think no and you think you'll need his help, you can salvage the situation by establishing boundaries, which you don't seem to have done yet. Write the summary/abstract to your thesis first. Then contact him via email. Explain that you are not available for a long drive, but you are interested in discussing the summary of the thesis for publication purposes. Arrange to meet him in his office when other professors will be in their offices, and then hold the meeting with the door open. If he asks for your help in rearranging his cabinets or books or whatever, pick up your things, apologize for interfering with his time and offer to reschedule the meeting when he isn't so busy, and then give him two or three times to choose from, times that you know in advance will have other people in the department around. If he asks you out for coffee, politely decline without a reason. No, thank you. If he pushes, explain that computer science is a difficult enough field for women, and that you want to maintain professional relationships with respected members of the field, or something of the nature. You're rejecting him, you both know it, but it allows you both to pretend that he's not a dirty old man and that you still respect him. Every time he offers or behaves inappropriately, rebuff him in a way that allows you both to behave as normally as possible. If he does not respect the boundaries that you're drawing, eliminate all personal contact and find another professor in the department to help you prepare the thesis for publication. If he does not respect the boundaries that you are drawing, then find someone you trust to discuss the situation with, someone that can help you enforce the boundaries and, if needed, use university channels to make him stop. If you do maintain contact with him, do so only in a professional setting, email and in person during business hours only. No more coffee shops, no more helping him with his busy-work, no more conversations that don't include the profession. This will reinforce the boundaries that you have set up. Do not take this to mean that you shouldn't have done these things before, because none of these things say "come get me, big boy". Not a one. They don't mean anything because he crossed a boundary that you didn't know you needed to put up. In your mind, he was still the professor and that boundary still existed. In his mind, you were no longer his student, and the boundary no longer existed. Once the boundary has been re-established with a professional relationship only line, keep it that way by not allowing him to cross it and by not crossing it yourself.

Consider this a massive whine aimed at a bunch of people who totally get it. I've used Canvas and Angel as a teacher (old Blackboard, Tegrity, and Angel as a student), and I'm going to be using new Blackboard at my new school, as a student and a teacher. Yeah, they are the same Blackboard, but it's kind of like upgrading from Windows 3.1 to Windows 7, that's how long ago I used old Blackboard. I like to use the OLS to give quizzes, because I use quizzes (like everyone else) to hold students accountable for the reading. I hate taking up 10 minutes of class time to give a quiz that I later have to grade, so I have the quiz online, due right before class, and while I still have to grade it (I give short answer rather than multiple guess), I get the benefit of being able to read it, always having the name on the quiz, and never having to collect and then pass the quizzes back out after grading. Plus: accountability and I can make it pedagogically worthwhile because they have time to answer the questions. So, new to Blackboard, I go a-hunting for info on how Blackboard does quiz/exams, or if that's even possible. I open up google (who doesn't these days?) and type in blackboard quiz. Google suggests "blackboard quiz hack". Apparently, there is thriving community of coders that know how to work around various OLSes that like to talk about hacking these OLSes online. There is also a huge market for non-coding, failing students (some consider a B a fail) looking for coders to beg and bribe into helping them hack the OLS so they can change their grades. I am not only sad for the state of ethics in our universities, I'm irritated because I'm going to keep a paper grade book. If these students would put half the effort into doing the assigned work as they do into cheating, they would have good grades.

I've felt exactly the way you do. I've caught at least one plagiarizer every semester. My first one was horrible. I felt so bad for the student because he had a sobby backstory and I wanted so badly to help him. I had my department behind me, which helped a lot, and the TA Wrangler was (and still is) a great guy who has time to listen to snot-filled whines and never-ending why?! This is a simple perspective to look at plagiarism with: each cheater devalues the degrees of every person at the school. Google the Piper High School cheating scandal. I was an undergrad at K-State when that news broke. The Powers That Be at K-State took it upon themselves to draft a letter to incoming Piper High graduates about ethics. The sad part? The cheaters were sophomores, not seniors, and the seniors were paying the consequences for the actions of what amounted to 13 people and their parents. South Korea just had every SAT exam canceled due to rampant cheating. Colleges have paid attention. I teach comp and lit, and I begin every class with a plagiarism lecture. Most people who do cheating think it doesn't hurt anyone, especially in a gen ed class, and they get a little pressure taken off. I show them the Piper High fall out, which includes a woman that had graduated in the 90s who didn't get a job because her diploma was from Piper, and then ask them to think about how they would feel if people looked at their college degree and thought that it had less value, or that they were cheaters because a few others in the university had made headlines as cheaters. When I was an MA student, that included my degree.

I'm guessing that since WQ Seals makes seals, you're not what we'd call a construction worker (e.g. carpenter, plumber, electrician, HVAC), but rather a person on a line, a factory worker. Construction trades have unions that will advance your training, taking you from apprentice to journeyman to master. Factory trades also have unions, but they work a bit differently. For example, the guy on the paint line doesn't get training from the union and there is no journeyman or master card. If you're truly a construction worker and you like construction, get your GED and find out what the union has to offer you in terms of getting your journeyman card. Prevailing wage in many parts of the country is high. If you are a factory worker, still get your GED. It's getting to the point where no diploma, no job. If WQ Seals decides to move their operations to China, you're out of a job and you won't have skills to fix it. The assembly line is a great way to create product and to create jobs, but the person who is on a line that assembles cars can't fix the car, unless that person is also a mechanic. Is it worth it for you to get the diploma? Yes. Adult continuing education programs can get you that diploma for little money around your schedule. You can get a GED. If you're interested in college or vo-tech, you can get into college with a GED, just not all of the colleges. Most community colleges, vo-techs, and a lot of 4-year universities will take a GED if you've got a high enough score. That cut off varies depending on the school. Is it worth it to pursue further education in a vo-tech, community college, or university? That depends on what you want to do with your career.

The GRE study guide. I had to learn how to take the test. There is a method. William Zinnser's On Writing Well. Not SOP oriented, but it has good advice for writing samples, and writing, period. The articles that the faculty at the schools I was interested had published. I was able to eliminate schools based on those articles, and then focus my SOP and tune my writing sample. I wasn't looking for a single professor of interest, but at least five who had interests and experience relevant to my interests and plans. It helped me tailor the SOP for the department, rather than a single person. I did not contact the departments I applied to, aside from the application process. I applied to two programs (low on funds) and got into one of them, the one I preferred. I didn't read books or guides and didn't find this place until after the application deadlines had passed and I was looking for general info on when I could expect to hear from them. I didn't use any application guidebooks. I used my MA faculty.

Yeah, don't emotionally blackmail the department for 2 reasons: 1) it's just flat mean, rude, and poor behavior, and 2) more selfishly, someday you'll want to return to grad school. Do you want to be forever known as, "oh, yeah, that student that made us help her/him move." Now, depending on your medical condition, you can often get support or help from support groups in the area. For example, I have epilepsy and I've gotten a lot of help from epilepsy support groups over the years. Now, they didn't help me move, but I have gotten a ride to the store a time or two.

Call up the personnel department and ask what the rate is for an adjunct. It's a flat, semester rate based on credit hour. Some places base it on credit hour *and* enrollment. I had a friend that adjuncted and only got paid the full semester rate if she had 75% or greater enrollment. They cut her pay when students dropped courses. Adjuncting is great for people who want to teach a little on the side, but it's pretty much the gangrene of academia.

The fact that you can ace the speaking and listening quizzes means that you have managed a block with the alphabet. You process language in the same area of the brain, but you do it in a different way when you use your eyes rather than your ears. You already know the grammar and vocabulary, so that means you have to apply that knowledge to letters. Your first step should be to look back at what you've done to study for the class and honestly evaluate your effort. Grades do not reflect effort, but an ability to take a test on the subject. Did you put in your best effort so far? Were you slacking off? Do not look at your grades, look at the time you spent outside of class working on your coursework. If you put in the time, then you've done everything you could to get the good grade. Don't say that you obviously didn't put in enough effort because you failed the written portion, that's not true. Everyone has different abilities when it comes to learning a new language. Would you get peeved at yourself if you failed to do advanced physics during a summer course? Of course not, because it's physics and it's supposed to be hard! Language is harder because the rules are contextual, idiomatic, and don't make sense (remember the whole i before e, except after c thing? Or how were and mere don't rhyme?) Your second step should be to forgive yourself for not being perfect. (anecdote: I took the Defense Language Aptitude Battery with 43 other people, 8 of us passed it, of the 8, only 6 were accepted as linguists because the military had enough people who could only get into the easiest languages, of the 27 navy people who started at DLI the same week that I did, only 12 of them became linguists). Just because a person has fantastic abilities with their native language, it doesn't mean that have linguistic aptitude. One of the DLAB failures had a BA in French. Look in the mirror and tell yourself that it's okay to do your best at something and fail. It's unreasonable and unhealthy to expect yourself to be fabulous at everything you do. NO ONE can do that. If you fail, you will still find a way to your goals. It may be a different path, but it can still happen. You've had a successful academic career so far, and I'm willing to bet that this is the first time you've run, face-first, into an academic wall of failure, and so you never really did learn how to fail. Unless your PhD is going to be in that language, a B isn't going to hurt your PhD hopes. Your third step should be to speak directly with your teacher for specific drills and to find a tutor. If you are doing something positive, you will feel better about yourself. You're chasing your tail with guilt and beating yourself up over perceived failure. It's a waste of your resources and it's hurting both your performance and your health. Give yourself permission to be human.

She's "technically" on vacation until early July. Ask yourself this: Would I want to be bothered by something that's not a crisis issue for me while I'm on vacation? The answer is no. It may be very important to you to get this done ASAP, but to her, it's just not that much of a priority. Schedule a meeting with her in mid-July. If you can't go to her office because you're not there, schedule some phone time or some Skype time. Don't try to read between the lines via email, it's self-defeating.

Uh. Why would you put a Microsoft OS on Apple hardware? Apple hardware is specifically designed to work with the Mac OS. While Apple hardware is inferior to PC hardware (generally speaking: less memory, less power, more money), the Mac hardware/software combo is pretty solid, which makes it such a powerful force in the market. Not to mention Apple hardware is not fully compatible with Windows. If you're not a power user, I would totally recommend against it. Quick test: open up the registry and understand what you see. If you want Windows 8, do not buy Apple products because you cannot get an Apple machine with anything but an Apple OS. If you want Windows 8, you have dozens of PC manufacturers to choose from, so you'll have to figure out your hardware needs and choose one accordingly. My rule of thumb: you can never have too much RAM. Screens are cake. You can dock pretty much any laptop into a better screen and, if you shop wisely, you can dock several types of tablets into a different screen. My $89 Android does a mini-HDMI thing. What's not cake are video cards, audio cards, RAM, and so on. If you need to work with graphics or audio (and I bet you will), you should prioritize these cards and the RAM over screen. Yeah, the Retinal screen is a big hoohah, but what good is it if you spend most of your time frustrated with a computer that can't handle your work? Figure out your computing needs and get the hardware accordingly. The work I do requires that I have about 7 applications, four of them resource heavy, open at the same time. I dock my laptop so I can use a large monitor so I can work with more of the applications at one time without having to switch between windows. The Macbook Air can't handle the load gracefully, though OSX would rock it. I don't need a powerful video card, but I do need a lot of RAM. I picked my laptop based on screen size and the amount of RAM that it came with and could be upgraded to. My gamer buddy uses Alienware (Dell) because it comes with the graphics cards he needs. He uses a Linux machine for his LAN parties and schoolwork.

My big problem with pretty much every article on graduate school circulating these days, and past days, is that it's an all or nothing proposition. You're either entirely miserable in grad school or you're entirely happy in grad school. Nothing ever fits into discrete, happy/miserable categories. The only, single category that captures my entire grad school experience is stressful. Stress was good, bad, and somewhere in between, but there was stress. I ran the gamut of happy to miserable from one end to the other, during my MA. I expect my PhD to be no different. Elementary school, middle school, high school, the military, my half-year as a couch potato, my life in Alaska, or any other state, it's all been a gamut depending on what event was taking place at the moment and my attitude toward that event. The author's main point stands, I think. If your attitude is that you will be miserable in grad school, you will be miserable. If your attitude is positive, you will have a positive experience in grad school.

I hate these things. I had one the other night that was so real, I thought I was actually living it. I am actually stupid enough to entertain the idea of getting an MFA and a PhD at the same time. Even though I only want an MFA in the abstract, as a degree collector, not because I intend to ever do anything with it. I have no intention of ever getting an MFA. Except maybe later, because there are some kickin' low residency programs. No, Daniele! Bad! Bad! No biscuit! I spent most of my day logging on to my university account to make sure I hadn't enrolled in three extra classes. I'm still doing it. Urgh.

Nothing is stopping you from calling the position whatever you like. However, if the places to which you're handing your CV think it's a great idea to call your employer up and ask them to tell you how you did in your job as a Student Adviser, Assistant Adviser, or whatnot, you're going to have a person saying, oh, no, she was a mentor, not an adviser, and a potential employer thinking, yeah.... If that's the official job title, don't change it lest it turn around and bite you. Like ANDSI said, leave the title and work the role.

I have external hard drives. I've never run out of room on the internal hard drive, but I do have two externals in which I use to back up weekly. Unless it's important paper writing time. I had about 10 backups of my thesis available at all times. I was so paranoid, I was terrified that I was experience computer failure on my computer, my office computer, the two hard drives, and the entire internet. So, even if 128 gig isn't, external storage exists.

I roadtripped from Kansas to Alaska with three cats many, many moons ago. We let them roam the vehicle while we drove. We stopped every few hours and let them outside on harnesses and leashes (betrayal on a cat's face is way harsh). We put litter in disposable pan liners in a cardboard box so they had the opportunity to use it every stop, and we didn't have to clean the litter. Overall, they enjoyed the trip. Keep the cat in a carrier. It's safer for you and the cat. Take the cat on a few trips in town so it'll get used to the sound and scent of the vehicle, and won't assume it's a trip to the vet. Use a leash and harness so the cat can get out and stretch its legs during the trip. Since it's a 12 hour trip, withhold food, unless the cat has a condition, but not water. Make frequent stops so both of you can stretch!

In the US, you get a free credit report every 12 months from Equifax, Experian, and Transunion. There are a ton of "freecreditreport.com" type of dealios out there, but they're fake or they charge money for what should be free. I start here because I suck at bookmarking and I'm a bit paranoid: http://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0155-free-credit-reports The is the page from the FTC that gives consumer information, including a link to the real free credit report website. I get one report every 4 months to keep on top of my identity and my credit. I get my W2s in, I order a credit report. I get memorial day poppies from the Legion, I order a credit report. Halloween decorations hit the stores, I get a credit report. Just how I remember.

I like to think of myself as a pretty practical person, so the PhD is less about wanting a PhD than it is about wanting a job that requires the PhD. I decided that I wanted to teach as a main job and keep up my hobby of learning interesting stuff. Unfortunately, I dislike children (you may pity mine, poor guy). I'm okay with teenagers, so I did consider high school, but the current educational paradigm for secondary eduction is kind of like a North Korea for teachers. I admire the strength and fortitude of anyone who can teach high school for any length of time. I totally agree that it is not your fault, no matter who blames you. So, that left post-secondary education. That means PhD, unless one wants to wallow about in adjunct hell. I picked English because my previous university had an MA for English, not for sociology. And I love writing and reading. And, frankly, what I do in English is not much different than what I wanted to do in sociology, only the people in English don't give me the stink eye for thinking literature has a lot of things to tell me about people and society. So, the PhD is the hoop I must jump through to obtain the career I want. All of my experiences in the university have only taught me that my earlier thinking---teach with a sideline of reading my way through the non-fiction section of the library---isn't nearly as fabulous as the real thing. Real research, real conversations about research, and teaching not only variety, but teaching courses I designed, not based on what political in-fighting is happening. Hey, my kid went k-12 in Kansas. I taught him about evolution and big bang theory, just to make sure he didn't miss out.

Hmm. The key seems to be 1) larger vocabulary and 2) develop thinking. For the vocab, read a variety of things. Poetry, drama, essays, whatnot. I recommend Dryden. He's a hoot. If you can, get a major anthology for general literature, like Norton or Oxford. You'll get tons, except for essays. You should be able to pick up readers with a lot of essays in them. Because you're a creative writer, I recommend reading creative writing "theorists". Gag. I call them pontificators because the pontificate. Theory must be testable. Srsly. Rrrg. Don't limit to dramatists. Charles Simic has some great stuff that's difficult to read, which makes the ol' brain work harder. If your problem in writing papers is making connections, then practice making connections. My preferred literary theory book is Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan's Literary Theory: An Anthology. Each theoretical perspective has a discussion explaining what it is, and then it has readings from the major theorists. In addition to reading, you should write, too. Use the theory you're learning to write opinions on whatever literature you're reading. For instance, you can take Death of a Salesman and apply each theory to it as you work your way through whatever literary theory anthology you get. Go out and find lit crit papers on Death of Salesman and compare your application of a theoretical perspective to what someone else has written. I say Death of a Salesman because tons have been written on it. Shakespeare and Ibsen works well, too. Hey, keep a blog. That could be fun.

I'm reminded of Label Theory at the moment. "New Woman" is just a label that helps us slot works into discrete categories based on similarities. For the most part, this label is helpful tool because it allows us to discriminate between stuff that's got the female archetypes and stuff that doesn't. I think that, in this case, it's a hindrance because it keeps your focus so narrow that you'll have trouble selling yourself to a program that doesn't have a New Woman scholar in it. While I think that it would be totally fab for you to study under a New Woman scholar, there's nothing wrong with pursuing your New Woman studies under people who are inclined in a different direction, yet are still into gender studies. Look farther afield for a program that has someone into deconstructionism, someone who is into gender studies (like, half the country these days), and someone who is into the literature of the place and time you're into. Turn of the century France. They don't have to be into what you're into. They just have to know enough to guide you on your path to your expertise. The idea of being a protege relationship is sweet, but not necessarily practical. They don't have to study it for you to. Instead, in your SOP, explain how Dr. X, the deconstructionist, Dr. Y, the gender studies-ist, and how Dr. Z, the French literature-ist can all help you further your studies of fin de siecle. They aren't looking for an apprentice; they're looking for a person that their department can do a reasonably good job of developing into a PhD. They don't have to be New Woman scholars to help you be a New Woman scholar. After all, the first New Woman scholars developed the field on their own. There's no reason why you cannot do the same thing and get your PhD as you go. Do they need to teach you the "New Woman" field, or is that something you can mostly do on your own as you research? It sounds as if you already know enough about the subject to kickstart your research without someone like Ann Ardis mentoring you. So, if it were I (and it was before), I would look for a program that has a people who can prod me back onto the path during my research, rather than teach me the specifics of what I want to research. If you have a chance, drop by the office hours of your old MA profs and chat with them about their experiences writing their dissertation. One of mine became one of the foremost experts on Bluebeard through research, not because anyone knew much about Bluebeard.

I'm not divorcing, but I have considered some 'what if' scenarios. What if I divorced? Became widowed and decided to remarry? I've decided that I'm not changing my name. I did it once, before I had anything out there in the world to be associated with. All of my diplomas have my current last name on them. I was in the military and all of my military documents have my current last name on them. Everything I've published has my current last name on them. All of my taxes have been filed under my current last name. Why should I do something that disassociates me with my life? Patriarchy? Bleh. I don't care if my now-spouse turned into the next greatest evil. Or, conversely, if I turned into the next greatest evil and my now-spouse divorced me and demanded I quit using "his" name. I'm not changing my name. It's my name now. I've done a lot with it and I've met a lot of people who associate me with it. I'm published by that name. Name changes confuse the issue and cause bureaucratic snarls that I have no intention of dealing with. I think the name thing is over-rated to begin with. I have a name to differentiate me from everyone else out there, or we'd all be "Hey You." It has no inherent value other than nomenclature. I've added value through my own actions. To change the name to satisfy a patriarchal system, simply because I'm a woman and was expected to take my spouse's name, is a ridiculous reason to change it. I'm glad I did take his name when I married him. I've now got a nicely anapestic name that ends with a soft consonant, even if it does take too long to write down. However, I'm not changing it again. But that's me. Though, if I ever write a novel, I'm tempted to masculinize my name for Franzenfreude reasons: Daniele to Danny.

If it does not say on the check, they don't expire; they become what's called stale dated after 6 months past the date the check was issued. The problem is whether or not the issuer puts a stop payment on it if it has not been cashed within 6 months. If you choose to wait, you can still get your funds. It may not be a simple matter of going to the bank and cashing it, though it might be. If you cannot get a bank to cash it, you can take it to the university cashier and either have them cash it or reissue the check. If you think you won't get around to cashing it for more than 6 months, email the issuer with your question.