I'm not teaching this semester (I'm working in the Writing Center as a consultant), but, if possible, I've been busier this semester than ever before--including last semester when I was taking three classes, teaching and coordinating the Social Issues Affiliation for my group.

The last week of January, a friend of mine ("Natalia" as she's known in my comments section), sent me a description of a pre-doctoral fellowship specifically on animation and gender. It is $30,000. It is in New York (the state, not the city). It's for a year. Pre-Doctoral Fellows teach one class each semester specifically on their research interests--meaning they get to design the course entirely, which is a rare opportunity given to grad students (it's so rare that I don't know a single grad program where students actually do design and teach their own college course), plus I'm being given the opportunity to teach a lower-level college course as well as an upper-level course. Oh, and I'm being given time and money to write my dissertation.

When I applied on March 1st, I got a call back a couple Fridays ago for a phone interview that was conducted last Monday. Over which time I scrambled wrote like 12 more pages about my project, and tried to brainstorm questions that I might be asked. Even one of my previous professors (and a member of my field exams/quals/dissertation committee) gave me a preliminary interview to help me prepare.

I was given the offer today, and I was told that it was a unanimous decision amongst the five professors and three student representatives that were on the conference call last week.

The hitch is I'll be living away from B for a year. Oh yeah, and I haven't taken my field exams or my quals yet--I honestly haven't written even a prospectus, although the proposal I submitted for the application is a solid start.

I don't cry every time I think about living away from B. But every once in a while, like the other night (and a few minutes ago, as B and I sat on the couch and I asked him what's he gonna do without me for a year? And he said, "I've grown accustomed to your face," which, as he knows, I hate My Fair Lady, but I suddenly understand that line). The reality of the situation has just hit me, and I feel disoriented, the way a baseball player must feel when he's been buzzed in the helmet with a 96 mph fastball. It's then that I start to cry.

But considering the fact that I, apparently, get to negotiate--with a Provost--for moving expenses and professional travel expenses (to attend conferences), kinda makes me feel a little bit better.

But I have grown accustomed to his face...

Labels: fellowship, grad school, grad school life

( 2comments )

at April 8, 2008 11:07 PM  ish said...

I am excited and sad for you, if those are the appropriate empathic response. Not sure, really.

I'm also curious about your hatred of My Fair Lady. I also hate it, but for a very specific reason that has very little to do with the music or even most of the play, but almost entirely with the sellout ending that ruins Shaw's play. What draws your ire?

 

at April 8, 2008 11:26 PM  jillydreadful said...

A friend of mine at school said to think about it more like in 3 month chunks instead of a year away, because, at the very least, we'll see each other during university holidays.

I don't know exactly what I hate about My Fair Lady. I think I started to just hate musicals in general a few years ago. But there a few rare exceptions that I genuinely enjoy because their music not only matches the story's content but facilitates the progression and expression of the characters through song. It's rare when it happens. But three good examples: Damn Yankees, Sweeney Todd and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.