No One Puts Baby in the Pro Sem

Well, it's been three weeks since I began my Ph.D. program, and I've so far learned two things (that don't involve heavy mass communication theory).

1. I am the youngest person on the planet.

Of the 11 new Ph.D. students who comprise my three classes, I am apparently the only one who went straight from high school to college to grad school without stopping to do something productive with my life like write a screenplay or work for a TV network. But it doesn't just stop with the Ph.D.s. On Thursday, I met a second year M.A. student who's THREE years older than I am!! Sooo, I was 23 when I was doing what he's doing as a 27-year-old.

Okay, so here's the stupid thing about all of this. Somehow, this doesn't make me a child prodigy. It just makes me a purely theoretical academic who has no basis in the "real" world of mass media production. Granted, I (and everyone who knows me) have always known that I live on my own planet--what Molly, my Sophomore roommate, called "Liz World, lalalalala!"--that's generally comprised of knowing more about the Korean War as a direct result of watching M*A*S*H than the current War in Iraq. But still...am I missing something by never having made anything and instead only having thought about things?

In short, maybe nobody puts Baby in the corner, but apparently she puts herself into a theoretical one.


2. As soon as you earn a Ph.D. in Mass Media or some related field, you turn into this:



There's this thing called a Professional Seminar that many humanities Ph.D. programs make their students take. At WVU, it wasn't for credit, and only involved writing a 30 page paper on a topic that was entirely arbitrary and assigned by the higher ups. If they didn't like the ensuing paper, you got kicked out.

So when I found out that I was going to have to take a Pro Sem my first TWO semesters at SIUC, I almost lost my mind. Having just finished a Master's Thesis, the thought of spending two more semesters right away writing papers that were going to destroy my brain and quite possibly my life all over again kind of made we want, at the very least, to die.

ACK!!!

Fortunately, as I found out a few weeks ago, SIUC's MCMA program is full of fluffy kittens, all of whom also happen to be professors. Essentially, every Thursday evening, two professors from the college come talk to us about their research so we can see what the academics are up to these days and decide whom we want on our various committees. So far, I want to work with everyone. Now I just have to get someone to approve having 50 professors on my dissertation committee instead of just 5. Hmmm.


So the thing I already knew before starting here, but no one else really understands, is what I'm doing with my life/research. I'm interested in psychoanalytic film theory.

Let me put that in English.

You know that dude Sigmund Freud (pronounced Frood for you excellent people out there)? Well, he's the granddaddy of psychoanalysis, which is the study of the subconscious, psychological workings of humans. Now, Freud said some really stupid things, like how all women suffer from penis envy, but he also said some brilliant things about the subconscious, pathological ritualization, and latency, among many, many others. And then there was this guy Jacques Lacan (pronounced Jack-Kwees for those of you who are into Shakespeare's angilicization of names) who picked up where Freud left off and said that the penis, or phallus, is really a symbol of power, and doesn't necessarily mean the literal penis. So when we suffer from penis envy (a phenomenon that was later amended to include everyone, not just women), we're really just thirsting for power. Groovy. I like power, too. But Lacan also talked about this phase of childhood called The Mirror Stage, in which a mother or nanny or hip, progressive, stay-at-home dad holds an infant up in front of a mirror and says, "This is you." This traumatizes the child, because s/he realizes that s/he is an individual separate from the rest of the world. This makes us desire a sense of wholeness, which is unreachable, because, basically, I'm not You. You're You, and I'm Me, and even if you were me, then I'd be you, and I'd use your body to get to build a sense of separate "I"ness. You can't stop me from being traumatized, no matter who you are! So anyway, this sense of Self (I) vs. Other (You) leads to desire that manifests itself in other ways, like dreams, or dating the same (and wrong) kind of person over and over and over again, or like the drive to buy things in our capitalist society that will "complete" me. (Really, those Minolo Blahniks totally ARE going to complete me.)

Okay, here's the complicated part. This process of desire also happens when we watch movies. We can't ever really BE in the movie we're watching or experience what's going on in the film, but it sure tries to make us feel like we are. And in the process of making us feel "whole" within the story, a whole host of psychological and technical things go on, like framing that hides the fact that it's a film to start with.

Okay, those are the quick and dirty basics of my work. But the big question I know you're burning to ask is, "What the hell does this have to do with reality or anything that goes on in the actual world?"

Ummmmmmmm.

In theory, my works serves two purposes. First, if we can fully understand the ways in which cinematic representations function in relationship to our culture and our brains, then we can make movies more effectively, i.e. filmmakers can screw with our minds better. And second, the whole point of psychoanalysis is to understand the long-repressed moment of trauma that influences our subconscious decisions as our desires drive us through life, then learn how to better cope with that traumatic moment. So one way that we can do this is by figuring out how the experience of watching a film works in relationship to that process. Thus, film theory is really a part of a larger process of becoming healthier, better-functioning people.

Well, here's the problem: there are like 6 psychoanalytic film theorists on the planet right now, one of whom is my advisor. Soooooo, that also means that, with the way academia works, only like 6 people are ever going to read my writing on this subject. You see, academics tend to be stuck in their own little worlds (Liz World, lalalalala!), writing only to each other in language that only other people with advanced degrees and research can understand. So even if I should happen to discover exactly how to reach and cope with the moment of trauma through the cinematic experience, no one's going to know.

Here's where it gets cool.

I've decided to start a revolution.

I think the problem with academics is not just that we're snooty. We are, and we know it, and the outside world contributes to it. (I just can't tell you how many people are supremely impressed by the fact that I'm in a Ph.D. program, while it just kind of feels normal to me. Seriously, it's no big deal. Unless I get to be a child prodigy. Then I'm going to have business cards printed up with that a my job description.) So what's the one thing we do that could, conceivably, reach a larger audience? We write! Hello! But the problem is that our writing style is cold, impersonal, and overly technical. So instead of just distancing ourselves, why not write so we become PEOPLE who are accessible to OTHER PEOPLE!?

Seriously, I can write a blog that all of you normal (if horribly traumatized) people can read, yeah? And we can teach esoteric bullshit to 18-year-olds in our classrooms. And a lot of us function in society, with our spouses and children and so forth. So why can't we just write a paper that a normal human could read?

Okay, we can. And some of us have. But other academics look down on us for doing it. But why? Because they can't write like that? No, clearly not. Because we're giving all our little academic secrets away to the planet is why. But I'm in Mass Communications and Media Arts, for crying out loud! We study people and the way they get their information! Soooooo why can't we use that to talk to actual people about what we've found out?

Okay, that's my rant. And my job. And, really, my whole bloody life. I swear I'm totally a lot of fun at parties.

It's Wild...It's Wonderful...It's...Carbondale?

Today, I saw some things. I think the absurdity speaks for itself.

1. A real live road runner running across the field by my house.
2. The first live woodchuck I've ever seen, running under a dumpster.
3. My 11th grade boyfriend.
4. My 12th grade English teacher.
5. An insert in a book I checked out of the SIUC library thanking the university for loaning the book to their college. The insert was from Judson College, the place my mother went for finishing school in the late '60s.

Dr. F, or How I Learned to Stop Teaching and Love the Undergrad

Today was my first day of class, v2.0: the TA Edition. That's right, I'm a Teaching Assistant.

Here's what that used to mean to me as a WVU English grad student: serving as the instructor of record for two sections of basic writing; crafting a syllabus; lecturing and leading activities for 3 class sessions per week; grading all assignments, from quizzes to one-page essays, to 10-page research papers; putting cute stickers on said assignments; looking fabulously professional.

Well, now I'm a SIUC MCMA grad student. Oy. Remember that guy I wanted to use to beat everyone over the head with about a week ago? Me neither. But he was there. I checked the records. And he kept calling us "graders."

So thanks to that guy, here were my expectations of being a TA: grading 60 papers, quizzes, exams, etc. per week. Period. No brain or cute heels necessary, just a red pen. And not a sticker in sight.

And then...there was Dr. F.

The coolest professor/faculty adviser ever.

Yeah. I said it.

Let me explain my duties as a grader for CP 360: Film Analysis. No. There is too much. Let me sum up: no frantic syllabus creation; grading only half the papers, as Dr. F prefers to share the work; answering e-mails; creating powerpoints based on the chapter that week; watching one film per week in class; participating in weekly class discussions; potentially lecturing for one chapter's lesson; tutoring one-on-one any students having trouble with the writing assignments; torturing and/or horribly embarrassing the students who are talking, texting, or otherwise not paying attention in class.

Bad news: No stickers. And undergrads are still undergrads. They still whisper during lecture, laugh at all the wrong moments in a film, and actually stand up to leave while Dr. Fis still lecturing in the last 5 minutes.

Good news: I still get to wear heels, despite the fact that Dr. Felleman seems worried that I'm going to fall, I'm going to get to lecture in a film class, and I have full permission to torture rowdy students. Oh, yeah.

Still, why do students do these things? They're paying for the services of a professor, and yet they don't want to be there. Any other service, and they'd want to get every last ounce of their money's worth. Some days, I think that we should start calling professors hookers. All the job descriptions could secretly stay the same, but maybe kids would stick around just to see whether the new name matched the performance.

New ideas in pedagogy. Clearly not my field.

In any case, this week, we watched Martin Scorcese's "Life Lessons," one of three segments in a collective film called New York Stories. Let me just say, Nick Nolte is never not creepy. Ever.

Still, the film was amazing and chock full of SUPER overt symbolism. I mean SUPER. I'm fairly certain you'd have to be an amoeba not to get it. Just maybe some of the students will be able to articulate something coherent about it. If they're infested with amoebas.

R.I.P., MLA

After 3 days of Graduate Assistant Orientation, in which I learned how not to sexually harass someone or drive a student to suicide, I finally got to go to something useful: the Mass Communications and Media Arts Graduate Orientation. I got all gorgeous in a sort of secretary look (blue pencil skirt, black turtleneck, blue bobby socks, black patent oxford heels, and my little telephone earrings), and made my way over there. The day was going to be awesome, I just knew it.

I didn't melt from the heat the instant I stepped outside my door, so I decided to try a shortcut. And it worked! I made it there in 15 minutes, unlike the 30 minutes it was taking me to go the long way. Yeah, efficiency.

Once I was there, the day at the college of MCMA went stupendously well. (For those of you wondering, MCMA is, in fact, a college in and of itself, kind of like Eberly College of Arts and Sciences. Within it, there are 3 departments--Cinema and Photography, Radio and Television, and Journalism.) I met all 10 of the other doctoral students, immediately forgot most of their names, but was still welcomed into their circle of smokers for chatting/bitching purposes. It's so nice to finally have a bitch group. I missed that.

Anyway, long story short, I got all orientated as to what I have to do as a doctoral student. And along the way, I got some wonderful, stupendous, marvelous, couldn't-possibly-make-me-happier news, and then I got the news that may devastate me for the rest of my life.

First, the good news. No math. Yep. That's right. All the former Ph.D. students had to take quantitative research methods and inferential statistics. No longer. What this means for me is that if I want to just sit in a room and think about Freud and the sociology of death while I write my dissertation, I can!

HOORAY!!

Okay, now on to the bad news. According to the Ph.D. handbook, the college of MCMA uses only Chicago or APA styles of citation. Let me rephrase that, because I'm still having difficulty wrapping my head around this.

According to the college of MCMA, Ph.D. students should NOT use MLA format.

NO MLA!?!?

For the uninitiated, let me explain. When scholars do research and write about it, we're required to note exactly what source which information came from in order to avoid plagiarism and give proper credit where it's due. So let's say I quote a book in a paper I've written. In MLA format, after the quote, I would need to put in parentheses the last name of the author of the book the quote came from and the page number it was on. Then, at the end of the essay, I would need a list of citations for all the sources I'd used, properly formatted according to the standards of the Modern Language Association.

That seems complicated and scholarly, so let me be clear.

MLA is my best friend. I've used it, I've taught it, I've loved it like a long-lost child. I've spent so many long nights with it, trying to figure out how to properly cite all the ridiculous things my students and I work with, like a poem entirely encapsulated within a film, or lyrics to a song that was never released on CD, or a fake marriage license with a picture of Elvis on it.

And now it's gone.

And Chicago style has come to replace it, like an evil step-citation.

Sigh.

Goodbye, MLA, my dear friend. I'll always have a special place in my heart for you and think fondly of our nights together. And I'm going to bury you in my backyard with a bucket of salt to keep the slugs away.

My First Day of School...sort of...ish.

Today was the first day of what I'm technically counting as school. Let me put that in English. Today was the first day of Graduate Orientation at SIUC. It's official. I'm a saluki. And the day totally matched the feeling I get when I attempt to say aloud, "I'm a saluki."

Here's how my day went down.

First of all, I woke up from dreaming that Janie (my kitten) had gone out to a party, drank too much, and called me on her cell phone to come get her. So, I went outside, and there she was in the field across the street from my house, laying in the grass with a squirrel and crying. I picked her up, took her home, put her to bed, and sat on the floor crying over the fact that she had somehow gotten out of the house without my knowledge. Needless to say, I woke up actually crying and immediately went to find my kitten. Instead, what I found was another slug in my bathtub and little pile of kitten vomit on the bathroom floor. It is my considered opinion that Janie figured licking the slime off a slug was just as good as drinking water from the bathtub tap. At least she wasn't partying with squirrels.

After this, I discovered that I only had 3 cigarettes left to my name. So I smoked all three while drinking my coffee and decided not to buy any more. Then I got dressed. I looked fabulous in a black lace a-line skirt, a black shell top with lace trim, hot pink open-toe heels, and earrings with black lace detail. No tweed yet, but then, it's too bloody hot to even think the word tweed.

In any case, I was all spiffied up and ready to go by 11:00 am. The orientation didn't start until 1:00 pm. It takes half an hour to get there. Sigh.

So I bought cigarettes.

And chain smoked.

For an hour.

Then I dutifully left my cigarettes on the kitchen table and walked to campus, where I discovered that there were actually two orientations going on at the same time: one for Teaching Assistants, and one for Research Assistants. I'm both. And I'd left my time turner in my other bag. So I went to the Teaching session, since I had already gotten in that room, sat down, and begun reading the packet they gave us before I realized that there was a slim possibility that I needed to be in the other room in the next 14 seconds if I wanted to be there in time for the lecture to begin. At this point, I figured I was technically a TA, so they couldn't fault me for being there. (They probably can. They probably already have. This is probably why they haven't processed my tuition waver yet. This is also probably why I hate university red tape.)

That was at 1:00. By 4:30, I had chewed 6 pieces of gum, drank 3 bottles of water, nearly exploded several times, and felt the overwhelming urge to beat everyone over the head with the guy who was lecturing, since he kept referring to TAs as "Graders." Finally, the guy stopped talking, we were let out into the world, and I practically sprint-walked across campus, where I stopped briefly to change my shoes before continuing the 3 blocks to my house.

After 3 cigarettes back to back, I almost passed out. And then I looked for dinner. The food in my house officially consisted of half a head of cabbage, a bottle of Italian dressing, a bottle of maple syrup, and a packet of kool-aid.

So I scraped all my cash together and went to the store, where I bought everything that $16.43 could buy, including more cabbage, milk, spanish rice mix, peanut butter, jelly, bread, and tonight's special meal: chocolate pudding and graham crackers.

It's now 7:00, and I am feeling fat and sassy.

And I have to do it all over again tomorrow at 9:00 am.

Ugh.

A Toast To Our Fallen Slugs

So, school finally starts in a few days. Well, technically, orientation starts in a few days. But I'm so desperate to be back in the academic setting that I'll count it just the same.

It's been a long summer since graduation. Here's what I've done:

1. Moved back to Illinois.
2. Taught Creative Non-Fiction for a week and a half at an academic enrichment camp for kids in Pennsylvania.
3. Stopped teaching halfway through the planned three week session because an epidemic of flu broke out at the camp and all the kids were sent home.
4. Got really bored in Pennsylvania and went to Philly with friends.
5. Danced in Philly with the whitest dude on earth. Don't judge me. He was hot.
6. Came back to my Illinois apartment and began unpacking.
7. Drank a $4 bottle of pink champagne.
8. Painted 3 bookcases and 3 wooden boxes (see pictures below).


9. Drank another $4 bottle of pink champagne while Skyping my besties, who are entirely too far away.
10. Stepped on a slug in my bare feet.
11. Watched another slug eat the slug corpse.
12. Watched a bird attack a squirrel. The squirrel survived.
13. Walked past a guy spot-welding a parking lot.
14. Drank another bottle of $4 pink champagne. Washed it down with a $4 bottle of extra dry champagne.
15. Rescued a slug from my bathtub.
16. Mourned the death of John Hughes by cutting my hair like Molly Ringwald's in Pretty in Pink (see picture below).

17. Freaked out about my declining brain and began reading Freud's Character and Culture.

But here's the good news: it can't get any worse, right? Sigh. Now if you'll excuse me, there's a slug convention going on outside, and I've been asked to take notes.

Maybe a tweed suit in my case....

Imagine a professor. What do you see?

Forget what you actually saw in college. Now really imagine a professor. He's wearing a tweed blazer with leather elbow patches, right? Probably carrying a stack of books. Maybe has an unfortunate comb-over. And he's totally got a PhD in something.

This is my journey into that stereotype. Over the next four years, I'll be working on a PhD in Mass Communications and Media Arts at Southern Illinois, and this is the log of my journey. When it's all said and done, I hope to have amazing hair, a fabulous leather (or faux leather, if you prefer) satchel to carry my books in, and a tweed blazer. Or maybe just a tweed power suit. I'm pretty sure the elbow patches don't arrive until tenure.