Pity Your Poor Mistress

I have a ton of work to do, this being the end of the semester and all. Not only are the kids' portfolios coming in at the end of next week (monster grading!!), but over half of my own work is due in by 4:00 on Monday. So why am I wasting time blogging instead of slaving over my final papers? Because I want to whine for a while, and I'm the Mistress of this blog, that's why.

I want to whine about two things: my lack of free time and my propensity to make it even worse on myself. I was really looking forward to the break to catch up on reading the things I enjoy. I rarely get this treat as a graduate student. There are too many required readings, and I average at least 300-500 pages of required reading in a week. There just isn't headspace for more. So, I was a bit disappointed when I figured out that instead of getting to finish the massive biography I'm working on about the Mitford sisters and possibly sliding in a few 007 novels, I'm going to have to catch up on all the reading that I have for that other thing I do--adult literacy. Here's my reading list after about Wednesday of next week:

Promising Practices: Reducing Waiting Lists in Adult Education and Literacy Programs. A scant 72 pages. Chicken feed compared to the load I've been handling. And obviously very important.

Literacy Capacity Building and Volunteer Support Project. Another promising practices thing. Even better at 22 pages!

Fall's Litscape publication produced by ProLiteracy America (see sidebar). Only 16 pages! The problem is, it requires lots of digestion on application if it's going to be usable.

A Guide to 50/50 Management. A 150 page resource manual from Literacy Volunteers of America that's supposed to teach me how to get people to do whatever I want. Interestingly enough, that hasn't yet lured me into reading it.

Applying Research In Reading Instruction For Adults: First Steps for Teachers. From the National Institute for Literacy, an onerous 168 page manual with 4 appendices. I'm giving this out as a resource to my tutors--I should probably know what it says.

Italian Verb Drills. So I can sit in on level 4 Italian next semester in preparation for conversational Italian to pass the language requirement for my Master's degree. I'll also be having to create vocabulary lists to refresh my memory. Should be interesting this Christmas with Dante, who likes the sound of Italian, although all he remembers is Ho fame (I'm hungry) and Ho male, mama (I feel like crap, Mom).

I'm also supposed to be doing research on a capital campaign for us. I have a "starter package" of 30 pages in 9 point font that someone from another agency was kind enough to pass on to me. Blech.

Now, I also have two papers to finish up. One is a paper based around uncovering student intellectuality in composition classrooms, and I won't bore you with the details of that. Besides, praise Zeus, it's almost finished. The other one is a paper about women's beauty products and the medicalization of fear. In other words, how the beauty industry uses psuedo-science and scare language to sell face wash. :) I've been looking forward to it. I did a somewhat similar paper on female masochism and the beauty industry, which I'm still kicking myself for misplacing. This last paper sent me to the library for two books that I needed, both of which I highly recommend:

The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women by Naomi Wolf. Grab and read anything you can by Naomi Wolf. She's an engaging writer and she'll really open your eyes (if you hadn't figured it out already). This book needs to be in my personal library, so I'm going to start handing out Christmas hints about it.

The second book is Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women by Susan Faludi. Faludi is also an incredible writer, and her ability to get jaw dropping direct quotes from people in the fashion industry amazes me. Also needs to be on my Christmas wish list.

We-ell, book lovers will agree that you can't go into the library and pick out only that one book you needed. So-o, of course, I walked in needing two and walked out with five, only because there's a cap on my card, thankfully. Here's what I walked away with:

Fire with Fire: The New Female Power and How It Will Change the 21st Century by Naomi Wolf. It's by Wolf, it'll be a good read. Plus, it sounds like something I'm probably supposed to get in on. So I want to see what I should be doing!

Not For Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. No woman in good concience should be able to walk by that book and not check it out. Just for what it is. It's time to remember why we work so hard--or why we aren't working harder.

Women Volunteering: The Pleasure, Pain and Politics of Unpaid Work from 1830 to the Present. Well, you know I couldn't very well NOT check that book out. Besides, the research in this book is going to help me obtain a scholarship from the 3rd Wave Foundation, I think. :) I'm so excited about this one.

As if I have time for additional reading. Sigh. On top of that, I'm revamping my entire syllabus to more finely tune how I do things based on lessons learned this semester. All between December 15th and January 8th, likely.

I am so due for a vacation.

-- Virgil