Gotta Secret

“got a secret.
can you keep it?
swear this one you'll save.
better lock it in your pocket,
taking this one to the grave.”

I’ve got a secret. Well two actually.

I’m not going save these secrets—I’m going to share.

Secret #1: Still the Same Me

The transition from graduate student to Ph.D. is weird. And amazing. And slow. And anti-climatic. And awesome. And. And.

For two weeks now (I know, I know that’s not technically a lot of time, but really it’s been four years in the making…more if you count all of years spent going to school and teaching), I’ve been Kara E. Taczak, Ph.D, and the emotions I've gone through are simply put, weird. It’s amazing for sure, and I’m not sure it will e-v-e-r get old to hear someone say Dr. Taczak (although note taken: no one is going to get the pronunciation correct) or to refer to myself as Dr. Kt (or to my family Dr. Siss—yes, I’ve been signing emails as Dr. Siss). But what’s weird is I’m still me: I still watch too many reality TV shows, venture online to obsess over shoes, scarves, and bags I can’t afford, read People.com, plan most of my days, and do work (now that’s one thing I thought might change for whatever the reason: the amount of work I have to do!). I was secretly hoping I’d wake up somewhat different; like somehow I'd have changed--I’d look in the mirror and just look different. Like if I was walking on the street and someone walked past by me he/she might think: whoa! There goes one smart lady. She must have a Ph.D. I realize I might be reaching for some level of Cinderella where pumpkins can turn into coaches and maids into princesses, but still I had hope. Reality check came last week while I was at a week-long research seminar on transfer (which for the record was great!). First, I was mistaken for a student worker while I was grabbing a Dt. Coke from the office (I was even dressed in a super cute navy blue blazer!! Hello, what student worker would wear that?!?), and second, I was in the middle of group discussing some key points on transfer when one person in the group looked at me and said, “well, Kara’s the grad. student. She should know this answer!” Um. Ouch. And hello not very nice. So, I must not look very different to the outside world as much as I had hoped I would. And apparently there are no bright shining stars above my head that blink in time to Gaga’s “Edge of Glory” while spelling out “Kt—Ph.D…Kt—Ph.D.”

Which leads me to secret #2: The Dissertation Twenty

Everyone has heard of the freshmen fifteen, and I’ve witnessed it sneakin’ up on plenty of good folks; however, I never gained it. No, it’s not like I’m special—I was a swimmer so whatever I put into my mouth was burned off (just in case you might not believe me: I was a mid-distance swimmer, which means I could swim anywhere from 12, 000-18,000 yards a day. That’s a lotta calories. I mean I could totally drink four, five, even six real Pespi’s in a day and not think anything of it.
;-). So I never had the pleasure of gaining the weight. I never gained weight during my master’s program either (though I might note that I’m not a superwomen…I have gained weight before. Try retiring from swimming after 13 years and not understanding you can’t eat everything/anything in the same frequency that you once did). But let’s fast-forward to the Ph.D and welcome the dissertation twenty. Ok, I didn’t actually gain 20lbs, but it feels like I gained 20lbs—I’m short the weight has no where to go. The weight has slowly but surely crept up on me within the last two years. And I’m not the only one that it has happened to. I have several friends (both young and old; newly minted Ph.Ds and seasoned veteran Ph.Ds) that agree that this happens. Stress makes people eat and some people eat while they work/write. And let's not forget what a dissertation entails: sitting, sitting, and more sitting. Not only are you sedentary, but some people snack while they work. Like me. I tend to feel like I need to snack my way through a writing project. Um, 265 pages later there is additional weight on my body. I should have counted the snacks I ingested throughout the process (and the Dt. Cokes). Plus I, for the record, really enjoy food—one will probably never refer to me as a dainty eater. So, here I sit. Ph.D in hand, but a pudgier version of myself. You might not notice, but I notice (and for that matter so does the scale). Plus, I’m on the verge of moving to a city that is constantly ranked among the top five “fittest” cities in the nation. Uh, yikes. Good thing I’m moving there—motivation.

Two secrets. Two things to learn. One, I think, is easier to handle than the other. I know I’m different—bright and shiny in my own way—even without the twinkling stars above my head. The other can be avoided. So take note soon-to-be-dissertating followers and beware of the dissertation twenty.

Step One: Check

Step One: Check (oh, heck yes!).

3 years and 3 months ago, I made a decision that has lead up today: I decided on my dissertation topic.

It was a little over five months into my first year at FSU, and there were a lot of things going on in my life. On the same day I turned 27, I presented at a conference in Santa Barbara, figured out my dissertation topic, and my mom had brain surgery. Yes, brain surgery. I debated back and forth with my mom at the time whether I should make the trip to Santa Barbara because it meant I would miss her surgery, but she insisted that I should go. I did and after watching a presentation by a little know rhet/comp scholar (ahem, Yancey) present on the topic of transfer, I was sold. Completely. The topic just made sense to me especially after teaching and working with the students that I had in the past two years. I, as a composition instructor, had something I could give students that they could take with them into their education: a knowledge about writing something that, whether they wanted to admit it or not, would help them in their future. I sat for two hours on a bench (in the cold…whoever said southern California doesn’t get cold…lied) after listening to the talk and sketched out ideas for a research project with transfer. Of course the project morphed and changed along the way, but almost 3 and half years later I took my idea, turned it into a research project, and handed in my dissertation to that same little know scholar. Isn’t it crazy how life turns out sometimes?

Step One is complete in the last part of the journey to complete my PhD, and it feels weird—exciting—but weird. All of my blog posts about writing, or lack of writing, the journey is slowly winding down. Not that there isn’t a lot more to do before it’s “official” but let’s just say it felt official when I handed it off today to my committee members. I couldn’t help but grin a wickedly wide grin.

I.turned.in.my.dissertation. Holy crap.

No clever words today for this blog post. No funny stories. No melodramatic pauses.

No. Today I turned in my dissertation, and it just felt/feels darn good.

Downpours and Rainbows

If you want the rainbow, you’ve got to put with the rain. ---Dolly Parton

The rain was fallin’ for me in March (as can probably be noted in my earlier posts), and it kept coming and going in downpours. It wasn’t a bad month, per say, but it was definitely a month where there was a lot of questioning and wondering: is this dissertation going to keep moving forward? Will I get a job? Can I keep up with my workload? Am I ever going to be able to wear a heel again (ok, so perhaps the last question isn’t as important as the others but still 3 months later I’m dying to put on my highest, sassiest pair and strut like I’ve never strutted before…)? The thing with questioning and wondering it leaves you standing in the downpour, no umbrella, mascara running down your face, feeling insecure and useless, so you gotta do your best to embrace the downpours as they come because whether you admit it or not they are a part of this process.

Recently I was having a conversation and someone said to me, “ok you’ve got 7 minutes to be negative and talk about your dissertation/job search.” I was kinda taken back by this statement. Having not lived the same experiences I have lived in the last 7 months I believe that is an unfair characterization of how I’ve dealt with/am dealing with everything (plus I don’t really view myself as a negative person. Case in point: I’ve won two awards in my lifetime for being motivating—you can’t really be a motivating person and be negative. ;-) The thing is, and if I’m being honest, the last year of your PhD is not easy and saying that it’s not easy doesn’t make it a negative statement—it makes it real. I believe in being real because I want to try and help others for when they reach their last year in the PhD. But here's the truth: I can write as many blog posts as I want about it, and I’m not sure anyone can truly be prepared until they live it, breathe it, and really dig in deep to everything that is a part of year 4. Rain, downpours, sometimes even wicked thunder storms become embedded in this last year.

But where there is rain there can be a rainbow...

So, yes, there were some downpours in the month of March for me but as March slid into April I’ve stumbled onto several rainbows. I’ve had five new interviews and been offered a position from a previous place I’ve interviewed with. I’m hoping that out of the new interviews that I’m able to go and do a campus interview at least one of them because here’s the thing: I’ve been questioning and wondering but up until this point none of the jobs I’ve interviewed for were exactly “right” for me and even though that was a hard lesson to learn it’s enabled me to become a much better interviewer (dude! I’ve got my research done cold! =) and has given me a confidence about my research/dissertation that I didn’t have before (and that has definitely helped feed into my dissertation writing).

See the funny thing about this last year of you PhD (and to use a cliché) you just never know what tomorrow holds. Could be a rejection or three. Could be a job offer. Could be a major break in #4. As my mother has told me since I was old enough to remember (and yes she sings it): the sun will come out tomorrow…and sometimes brings with it a rainbow.

“I don’t date girls under 5’2.”

It’s funny the fragments that stick with you. Moments isolated in time that just keep floating back-and-forth inside your mind.

Some random guy said the above quote after a hike I recently went on. Somewhere between reflecting back on the beautiful hike we’d all just experienced and discussing shoe sizes, this guy throws out that comment. I almost came back with a penis comment—almost. Instead I turned and glared at him (as best as one can glare with large sunglasses) and said, “I bet you really get a lot of girls then, huh.” Really, do people not know how to read their audience?!? He was surrounded by women, and while many of them were above 5’2, not all of them were. Uh, geeish!

The understanding of audience seems so crucial to understanding a lot of life’s experiences, yet, how many people don’t really read their audience. Ironically even those in my own cohort of friends and family don’t always read their own audiences—not a critique, mind you, just an observation. And I’m not suggesting that I’m always do myself, in fact, I'm still learning to respond to this understanding. It's something I stress in my teaching as I try and teach the importance of understanding your audience to both my freshmen and my upper level classes because I believe it’s one of the most important rhetorical concepts they can learn (next to, of course, reflection and genre). Understanding an audience helps teach them that their audience is not merely the teacher and that some day they will be writing to real-life audiences outside of school. I think it’s important for them to start to make those connections early.

Interestingly, I was reminded today of just how important understanding my audience is for my own dissertation. My committee that eventually reads my dissertation makes up my audience and this is so important because there are specific things I am doing/will do to make sure that my audience knows and understands what I am saying. I have read different books and different articles because I want to be sure that I understand case study methodology, for example. Some of the stuff I’ve read I won’t even put in my dissertation but you better believe I’ve read it and will keep in my back pocket just in case!

Reading/understanding audiences are a part of being a competent writer, but also part of being a competent speaker, friend, family member, or basically, all around person.

The random guy probably didn’t mean much with his comment, but as can been seen in #27 of my fun and fabulous facts post, I have a tendency to be sensitive about my height. We all have that one (or two) thing(s) that push our buttons…perhaps if you had grown up hearing midget jokes you would be tiny bit sensitive too (or had the nickname of Willow—from the movie about little people--I'm just sayin').

Moral of the story: whether in a casual conversation, writing for your first-year comp instructor, or writing your dissertation you need to read and understand your audience. I’m guessing the random guy didn’t have 1101/1102 at FSU because perhaps then he might know a little more about audience. ;-)

Pushing Through the Silence

Forgive me, dear readers, for I have not blogged in 19 days.

***A year ago I was sitting pretty: I had recently come back from CCCC, which had been a fabulous trip, and I felt on top of the world. Little did I know that in a year things would look and feel so different.

No one can prepare you for your last year as a Ph.D. student, and honestly if they tried I’m not sure you would “get it.” The last year has been full of ups and downs and sometimes it feels like mostly downs. It’s not just because the job search is such an emotional roller coaster either—there is just so much that goes on in this last year and the job search is only one part of it. There are times I wish I could simply sit in a dark room watching re-runs of Dawson’s Creek, dt Coke by my side, snuggled under my Florida State blanket with Trini on my lap. But where would that get me besides revved up on caffeine and teenage angst (not that that doesn’t sound appealing!). No, I know I must push forward even if the pace I’m pushing is barely a limp (which given the fact that I still--over ten weeks later--have a slightly swollen ankle is not to far off!).

There have been times in the last four months that I question my ability to write—does that happen to everyone or is it just some insecurity of mine…I really don’t know. There have been times when I’ve wished I was a different kind of writer—one that doesn’t jump in head first without looking back. There have been times where I look at my students and think “I’m just like them” wondering where this thing called writing is going to get me. And there have been times when I wonder how I’m going to finish because for me the writing process has been all or nothing (which is not the kind of writer I normally am). I’ve always been some form of a writer: I won my first writing contest when I was ten for a fire safety essay. I graduated high school with honors in writing (not in English—in writing) after I spent the year taking both an AP English class and the traditional English class because I loved writing. Then in college writing just seemed like a natural major for me. Now twenty years after writing my fire safety essay I question my ability to write because my dissertation keeps shaking her ugly/beautiful (either/or…?!?) head at me.

Questions, questions, questions. Fester, fester, fester. Uh, yikes!

Ten weeks. There is a countdown happening and there’s no going back now. No matter how many lists I make, and no matter how many times I revise those lists, I have a definite deadline. Ten weeks is either going to be a lifetime or in need of a lifeline depending on how it plays out. Based on my competitive nature I’m determined not to let her get the best of me, so in ten weeks I’ll be writing about the joys of completing and successfully defending a little thing called a dissertation.

Here's to her planting a vision inside my brain that takes hold and sticks:

We can work it out

Life is very short, and there's no time/For fussing and fighting, my friend.
I have always thought that it's a crime,/So I will ask you once again.

If January was “Whataya want from me” month than February was the “we can work it out” month.

The life of a fourth year PhD student moves in weird, jerky directions and one moment you feel completely in control and the next you feel as if you’ve jumped off the Fort Steuben bridge in the middle of January and the icy water consumes you (a bit melodramatic, eh?). I’ve been working things out this month with both the dissertation and the job search. At the beginning of the month I felt like I was slapping this dissertation in the face and gleefully yelling “I got you babe” but it was as if I spoke too soon. My dissertation spent two weeks in February fading in and out of consciousness—I was a mere passenger as it tried to work itself out. The dissertation, as I’ve mentioned in previous posts, is a beast and most of the time this beast ain’t pretty. It develops a personality; it forges ahead into territories you don’t want it to go; it plops down and takes a week long vacation when you don’t want it to; it rants in a language unknown to the human mind. I’ve spent most of February going back and forth with her and not making a whole lotta head way. I felt so in control the first week of February and so outta control for the rest of the month. I haven’t regained that sense of control until the last couple days, thus, my dissertation and I have been working things out this month (I’ve already warned her that February is the only month she is allowed for this to happen). Yes, ladies and gentleman, the dissertation becomes a living breathing entity, and you bow to her unquestionable powers.

We can work it/we can work it out.
Try and see it my way.

I’m working things out. I finally broke down and practiced coding. It was scary—no joke—and I’ve been putting it off because I’m unsure if I’m right or wrong with my scheme. Silly, right? But in my head if I didn’t think about it then it wasn’t there. Good thing for me KY wouldn’t let me forgot about it otherwise I’d turn into one of those dissertation lifers. I broke down, though, and even if it’s not going to work at least I know how to start up again. It’s not as scary once you’ve tried it; it was getting to the trying stage that was hard.

Spring break is looming in front of me and as a wise person recently said, “you might find it wise to use some or all of spring break to help you assure that the rest of the term goes well.” Academics might “get” spring break off from teaching but it’s actually an opportunity to work; to get caught up; to get ahead. Some won’t see it that way, I realize, but I see a week’s worth of no commitments and a schedule of nothing but writing, and I’m kinda pumped about that. I have a deadline to meet, and I fully intend to make it. So I’m working it things out with my dissertation—she's finally starting to see things my way.

“The poet and the engineer (and the coral reef) may seem a million miles apart in their particular forms of expertise, but when they bring good ideas into the world, similar patterns of development and collaboration shape that process” (22).

Innovation. Dissertation. The two words link nicely together or rather we hope they will--that when we sit back, close the dissertation and send it on its merry way, it’s innovative, creative and offers a fresh perspective on something that someone’s going to want to read/listen to. Right? Right. I often wonder, though, how anyone can claim that something is innovative and fresh in the 21st century—doesn’t it feel like so much has already been done already?

Well Steven Johnson’s latest book, Where Good Ideas Come From, might offer some type of answer to this. In it he questions how we might “generate groundbreaking ideas that push forward our careers, our lives, our society, our culture?” I just recently bought Johnson’s book (along with Red Riding Hood, the new movie that’s coming out, and The Vampire Book: the Encyclopedia of the Undead—hey, no judgment it was only 98 cents, and I happen to buy any book that has the word vampire on its cover and now if you ever have burning desire to get up on your vampire knowledge I got ya covered!) because I’m curious as to how he might answer this question. I feel like the dissertation begs to “push forward” something for us, whether that something is our careers or our lives and an article I just read in the Chronicle of Higher Ed suggests just that. Schools look for innovative dissertations, and we want to give that to them.

But first things first: putting those good ideas down on paper. Sometime I think part of the difficulty in writing a dissertation is me: I’m my biggest obstacle. I’ve never had issues drafting something—ask my college roommate, I could whip up a pretty darn good 10-15 page source-based paper in five hours or less—and this has continued with me. My writing process differs slightly from most that I know because I write my way into everything. There’s no need for outlining, brainstorming, or rough drafts, I jump right into the first complete draft. This means, though, that my drafting process is probably longer than most, but it works for me. Normally. Until this dissertation. Now I’m struggling, and I don’t like it—not one bit. If I had one page of writing for every time I have written on a to-do list “work on dissertation” it would have been done before Christmas. Instead I’m working my way through #2 and a little thing called coding.

Perhaps struggling is part of the dissertation process, and if that’s so, I’m saddened that I’ve succumbed to the perils of it. I have good ideas I tell you! They are floating around somewhere in my head; I just need them float there way down to my fingers and out onto the page at a much faster rate.

Brain hear my call: I need #2 completed drafted by Friday (that’s two days from now) and a outline of a coding scheme. K? Well, ok then get those good ideas flying--not floating--on down to my fingers.

2011: to Everything there is a Season!

And so it begins.

Those Bryds knew a thing or two about life when they sang “to everything…there is a season” and as January 2011 kicks off a new season begins for me—my last (!) semester as a graduate student (gulp) ever. I thought since the majority of my degrees involve writing of some form or another it would be wildly appropriate to chronicle my last semester, so that I might be able to share with others the crazy, fast-paced reality of a Ph.D. student on the brink of entering the real world. Not that I haven’t been there before, mind you, but it seems like years ago when there were no little monsters running around (for you Gaga fans), when Tipper and Al were still a happily married couple, and when vampires still belonged to Anne Rice (I tend to live by pop culture references). Here’s hoping the real world hasn’t forgotten me.

Hi, I’m Kara. Let’s begin.

I’m a fourth year Ph.D student at Florida State University. I graduate in summer 2011 with a degree in English, with a major emphasis in Rhetoric and Composition and a minor in Media Studies. I have a master’s degree in education from Walsh University and a bachelor’s degree in creative writing from Mount Union College. If you asked my parents, they might say I’m a perpetual student, and they are seriously hoping that I don’t decide to get another degree. I’m won’t and don’t plan to in case you were wondering.

The semester begins in two days, and as it stares me in the face me, I find myself oddly ready to tackle it perhaps because I’ve done what I can to prepare for it: (1) created a list of goals for each month beginning in January and ending in May (check); (2) uploaded all my syllabi to Blackboard, created blogs for my classes, and added assignments for the first month (check, check and check); (3) outlined my dissertation chapters (check!); (4) drafted #1 and #2 of my dissertation (check and almost check); (5) updated my job list (check); and (6) organized my calendar (check). So I appear ready. Here’s to the front holding up.

And so my season begins. My blog follows the semester as it winds up and down the roller coaster that doesn’t seem to have a stop button. Be prepared for endless references to pop culture (hope that doesn’t stop some of you from reading, but hey, we can’t all appreciate the gloriously fun tidbits that are found in pop culture). Be ready for frank discussions about the innermost thoughts of a job-seeking, dissertation-writing, WEPO/1102 teaching, and CCC’s assisting girl (er, woman). Watch out for those comma mistakes because even though I’m thisclose to having three degrees involving writing…the commas still get me.