Anniversary Number 3

Three years ago a kind, smart, and cute person with a reddish beard and I went down to the courthouse and got married before a judge. Those of you who are friends with me in so-called real life or who read the blog I used to write might remember that we were planning a big wedding but the stress of two dissertations, the academic job market, and my lack of interest in planning in conjunction with our budget converged to convince us to near-elope. We canceled the June date that we had booked with a fancy venue and our catering contract, losing some of our deposits but maintaining our sanity. Our cake maker offered to make our cake on a smaller scale since we had already paid her a significant sum of money. Our photographer, the amazing Julian Allen, offered to come to the courthouse to take photos and then shoot some more at another location if we wanted. My gown somewhat unexpectedly arrived by the time we had made the decision, so I decided to have it altered, wear it for part of the day, and then donate it to the Bride's Project.

Credit: Julian Allen Photography

Every now and then, that attention-craving ego of mine wishes that I had had a big June wedding with hundreds of guests. But deep down I know that the way we did it was the right for us. And it was a lovely day. A few family members and dear local friends accompanied us to the courthouse and then to the botanical gardens for a photo shoot. Then, in the evening we had a smallish, catered reception at our home with about 30 loved ones, one silly beagle, cake, and libations.

I had a great wedding. I have a wonderful spouse. The past three years have been full of highs and lows, and there is no one with whom I would have rather experienced them than Mark. I just hope that very soon marriage equality is the law of the land, and that all couples who chose to do so can marry and have their marriages recognized. As President Obama said yesterday "if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.”

July Goals

This month promises to be so full of insanity that I almost considered not setting any goals at all, but then Materfamilias commented on one of my recent posts and noted how setting goals and reflecting on them has kept me moving forward even during this summer of disruption and chaos. I want to keep up the forward momentum with my 2012 projects. However, because in the next month I will be packing up my house, attending a wedding in Wisconsin, spending two weeks in New York City to work on a project with two other historians, and driving 3,500 miles in 6 days from Minnesota to Alaska with my spouse and neurotic dog, I'm going to keep things simple.

So cute, but so challenged

Here are my July goals:

1. Stay active. I plan to do this by running my last local race here this next week, getting in some running in NYC, including some jaunts in Central Park and a 5K race, and doing hotel room yoga. If I end up running 50 or more miles in July and getting in 8 yoga practices, I will call this one more than a win. 

2. Make progress on an article manuscript draft. I plan to accomplish this objective by doing some alternating of writing/revising and packing over the next few days, spending at least one of my handful of free afternoons in NYC at the magnificent public library, and using some of the time that I'm in airports, on planes, or on the road to tinker with this draft. 

3. Take lots of photos. I'm attending a wedding, working in NYC, and driving across Canada this month. It should not be hard to get lots of good shots for my 365 project.

4. Take advantage of my time in New York. I'm there to work on a cataloguing project, and I hope to find some good things for my own research agendas. I'm also planning on wrapping up my part of the co-edited project I'm working on while I'm there this month and in August. Finally, I intend to fit in some tourist-y things: the Cloisters, a Broadway play, El Museo del Barrio....

5. Be kind to my spouse.* Apparently buying a house is ridiculously stressful. So is moving even if you've done it thirteen times in the past decade alone. I want to make sure that I don't abuse the kindness of my partner by dumping extra tasks or loads of verbal abuse upon him in the moments of stress that are sure to come in the next few weeks. Most immediately, I'm trying to pack up all my crap this week so he doesn't have to while I'm in NYC.

Do you have any goals for July? What's the farthest distance you have ever moved?

*Please note this excludes all routine haranguing and jocular mocking. 

You Asked, I'm Telling: Academia and My Life

Several of you asked me questions about my research, my job, and how academia has impacted numerous areas of my life, so here goes....


Courtney, Lisa, and Elise asked: What is your dissertation about?  Elise asked if I could summarize it in one sentence, so here is the short answer: My dissertation was an examination of the integration of theater into daily life in cities in the Spanish Empire during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.  The somewhat longer answer is that I looked at how religious brotherhoods and city governments used theater to fund hospitals and orphanages in Castile and New Spain, and how this created a large cultural space in which theater operated in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.  If you want to know more, you will have to read the book when it eventually comes out.

Allison asked: You're working on a book.  What is it about? Basically, it is the same topic as my dissertation, but books are different beasts from dissertations, and I have a lot of restructuring, deleting, and new writing to do.

Jesspgh asked: How do you like academia? Honestly, I love it. I consider every day that I get to do what I love - research the past, write about it, teach it at multiple levels, engage in a community of scholars - to be a tremendous gift.

Rose-Anne asked: What do you like best about your job? There are many things that I really like about being a professor. It's a great feeling to have everything go right in a class - if the students have done the reading, have brought opinions and insights to the table, and discuss and debate with each other and I can guide that in a respectful and meaningful way, I leave the room elated.  I have also almost peed my pants from excitement at discoveries/research breakthroughs in the archives before. There is something awesome about touching documents from hundreds of years ago, and that feeling is magnified exponentially when they support a theory that you have.

What do you find to be the most challenging aspect of your job? I think the most challenging aspect is finding balance. If I'm prepping multiple new classes, have papers to grade, and committee meetings to attend and am trying to meet a deadline for a research project, it can be easy to work 60+ hours a week. Last year I often ended up working for 12 hours on my Sundays just to stay on track. Unlike with many jobs, the boundaries between work and non-work aren't always a clear in academia. Sure I might be able to work on class prep and an article from home in my yoga pants on a Friday, but I might also be working all day on a Saturday or a holiday or during the summer months (when I don't get paid) so that I can advance in my career.  Luckily, most of the time I enjoy what I'm doing, but I can get burnt out sometimes.

Amanda asked: What is one of the most fascinating parts of history that you love to learn about? My passion is Spain and its empire during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. And I have been obsessed with Spanish history and culture since I was a kid.  In the past year or so I've become really interested in clothing, stage costumes, food preparation and recipes, etc. in this period.  

Sarah S. asked: Would it be harder to write another dissertation or run an ultramarathon? It would be harder to write another dissertation.  To write another dissertation, I would need about a year of formulating a research question and reading secondary literature, at least several months in foreign archives doing research, and (realistically with my teaching schedule and other obligations) about two years to draft chapters, rewrite them, copy edit, etc. Plus, writing another dissertation would be emotionally and psychologically difficult because it would mean returning to grad school and thus taking a huge step back in my career trajectory.  I'm already training for a marathon and could probably manage an ultra within a year if I wanted to.   

Jesspgh and Lisa asked: How did you meet your partner/husband? I met M. in grad school back in 2004.  We did go on an awkward non-date (I thought it was a date and he didn't) shortly after we met to see Sean of the Dead.  After the movie, I realized we were not on a date, so I suggested meeting up with some friends who I knew were out at a local bar.  I called one of them to let them know we were on our way.  Well, my friend told everyone that they had to leave because we were coming, and he thought we were on a date.  When we got to the bar no one was there and it was pretty awkward.  But we were in the same TA office and so we ended up becoming good friends. I think the fact that we had been friends for several years before we started dating created tremendous trust in our relationship from the beginning.  We have a lot of fun, and I do sometimes tease him about our awkward non-date.

M. and me on my 25th birthday - just friends - Note the incredibly cheap stemware, a sign of grad student poverty

M. and me at Halloween in 2008 as Wesley and Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride - The mustache is mine

A very sweaty M. and me at his sister's wedding in 2009

Tina asked: Do you want to have kids? And how has grad school/academia affected your plans? I'm not willing to say that I will never consider having children, but I'm leaning toward no.  I'm not a very maternal person - infants kind of freak me out.  But even if I really wanted to have kids it probably wouldn't be on the table right now.  The academic job market is horrible right now (as it is in many fields).  My current position is a year to year contract one and my husband is currently un(der)employed (he is also an academic and finished his PhD a couple of weeks after I did and has been teaching a class or two here and there as an adjunct for the past couple of years), so essentially we have no stability. While I realize that nothing in life is certain, I definitely don't want to put kids on the table when I can't be sure that I will have decent health insurance after next year.  I also have to say that I can't fathom how I would balance parenthood with the hours that I work during the school year.  I know people who do somehow manage it, and I have tremendous respect for them.

Year in Review: 2010

This year has been incredibly eventful, and I just wanted to remember some of its best moments and some of my accomplishments in 2010 before I turn to my goals and plans for the upcoming year.  In more or less chronological order, here they are.

In January I married a wonderful person who makes me laugh and makes me pancakes.  After we had started to plan a big June wedding, we decided that it wasn't the right financial decision for us.  We were also both in the final stages of writing our dissertations, so we were short on the time and energy to plan.  On January 22nd we had a small courthouse wedding with immediate family and some close friends.  It was an awesome day!  I often feel that I've won the in-law lottery, as my M's parents, sister, brother-in-law, and other relatives are kind, funny, smart, and welcoming people.

Photo by Julian Allen Photography

Over the winter and spring months I revised my dissertation, and in June I defended it. M. defended his a couple of weeks later in July.  After more than a decade, I ended my tenure as a student.  I had a few interviews and accepted a job.  Also during this past year I taught five classes - two of them brand new preps - at three different institutions, made progress on two journal articles, worked on editing a primary source for publication, presented some of my research at a forum at the university at which I took my first full-time faculty position, and developed a brand new class. 

In June I started this blog.

After M. and I had both defended our dissertations and ended the academic year, we were finally able to take a belated honeymoon.  We spent nine days traveling in Italy, spending time in Venice, Siena, Florence, and Rome.  It was an amazing trip, and we made many happy memories. 

M., Bailey, and I moved across the Midwest to a new town and a new home for my new job at the end of July.

I ran a 5K and three half-marathons.  Last December I set a 2010 goal of running three half-marathons, and I accomplished it by toeing the line at Virginia Beach, VA in March, Mankato, MN in October, and San Antonio, TX in November.  Although I didn't quite reach the time goals I had for these half-marathons or set any new PRs, my times got successively better, and I finished San Antonio about ten minutes faster than I finished at Virginia Beach.  Even better, I feel like I have a pretty solid base going into next year.  I also was able to see a dear friend in Virginia Beach and my sister, brother-in-law, and mother in San Antonio.  

In October our niece was born and we got to meet her and cuddle with her during a week-long visit to Toronto for the winter holidays.

I didn't do everything that I had hoped in 2010, but overall I can't complain.  Although there were a number of stressful moments, days, and weeks as I finished my dissertation, as I moved, and as I have continued my search for a tenure-track job, there were many truly joyful moments this year.  They included my advisor greeting me as Dr. for the first time, celebrating my marriage with loved ones, meandering the streets of Siena and Florence with my spouse, and crossing the finish lines at my races.  What were some of the best moments for you during 2010?

New Camera

I've been eyeing DSLR cameras for months, but the purchase of one wasn't really in my budget.  When my husband picked me up from my dissertation defense, he handed me flowers and a card and asked me if I wanted to go to Target to get my camera.  I was flabbergasted!  Then it turned out that Target only had the camera that he was buying me for sale online, so we had to wait for its arrival via UPS.  They finally attempted to deliver it at a time when we were actually home, this afternoon.  If I hadn't been in the middle of spooning home-made Trapanese pesto out of my food processor, I would have signed for it and then high-fived the UPS delivery person.  Oh, well.  At least I have an awesome new camera, even if I haven't had a chance to cross high-fiving the UPS guy off my bucket list.

The battery is charging now, and I'm sure there'll be a bit of a learning curve, but I'm really thrilled about this camera.  Many, many thanks to my wonderful husband!*  I'll probably spend the evening perusing the user's manual.  Hopefully, I'll have some good shots to share on both blogs soon!

*Edit: My husband informs me that this is also a gift from his lovely parents, sister, and brother-in-law.  Many thanks to G., W., J., and D!