Wanna see my baby?

Not this one, although he's looking pretty darn cute.

But this one. I mailed it off last week. Instead of 9-10 months of germination, this one took 4 years, and the delivery has been painful but rewarding. As I waited almost 2 hours in Staples for 4 copies to print out, I sat there and got a little emotional thinking about this journey. 

I also tidied up my office, which J has been bugging me about for almost all of those 4 years. The stack on the left is copies of articles I read--just the ones I printed out. The stack on the right is interview transcripts--almost 300 pages of them.

The notebooks are full of fieldnotes and revision notes. The middle stack are drafts of various chapters, 2 of which didn't end up in the final product. The stack on the right are my typed up notes on books and articles I read. 

It's kind of fun to see some visual representations of the work put into this. Unfortunately, I'm not quite done. I could use all the prayers I can get when I fly east a week from Monday to defend it. 

1. Reaching a long-awaited goal, 2. Feeling peace about the journey, 3. Cleaning up my office and knowing it might actually stay that way for longer than a day.

Submerged

When you spend 10-14 hours a day for 5 1/2 days in front of your computer, revising your dissertation chapters . . . 

• Your eyes hurt from staring at the screen.
• Your head hurts from trying to come up with brilliant thoughts.
• Your legs hurt from lack of use.
• Your hiney hurts from overuse.
• Your stomach hurts from, well, from the plethora of starbursts, sugar babies (those things are good!), rolos, gingersnaps, and breathsavers. Your fingers really needed all those empty calories to keep typing.

But you get a lot done! 4 7/8 out of 6 chapters revised. Yay!

Writer's Block

A close-up of my under-desk garbage can. I think I need a new method of coping. Because that Skinny Cow there on top is probably not working, given its present company.

1.  the endless optimism of kids           2. dinner in the crockpot          3. my winter garden planted

"Strong women do hard things"

smartmama wrote something to that effect on the postcard she sent me a few weeks ago after I had a mini-nervous breakdown about my dissertation. Here's the perfect postcard she sent:

So I have been doing some of those "hard things" the last couple of weeks during my blogging break: 

1.  I ran a half-marathon this morning. It wasn't pretty, but, as I kept telling myself as I ran uphill that last 2 miles, "I won't walk. Strong women do hard things." 

2.  I wrote 120 pages of my dissertation in one week. That's 2 of the 6 chapters. And that feat is courtesy of my mother, who answered my desperate plea to fly down and play Little People, make cookies, and paint pumpkins with my kids, plus scrub my blinds, mop my floors, make dinner, etc. etc. while I wrote for 14 hrs a day. 

My mother is actually my role model for a strong woman. No, she doesn't run marathons and no, she hasn't written a dissertation. But she does do the truly hard things in life. She doesn't yell. I have hardly any memories of her raising her voice.                                        (I left a pause there so you could recover from your disbelief before continuing to read.) She reads her scriptures every day, and (gasp!) I think she actually studies them. You know, that "feasting" thing we're always told we should do. She makes extra Thanksgiving pies to take to the elementary school teacher who, as she discovered during a parent-teacher conference, did not have time to make her own this year. These are really the hard things in life, for me, anyway. The things that require you to be strong when nobody is looking. So, thank you, Mom! For the clean house, the happy kids, the quality writing time, and the example you continue to set for me. 

 

A Day in the Life of Dissertation-Writing with Children

5:20am--Up to go running because I won't fit it in at any other time.

8am--Mister off to school. Retire to the office with Sweetie to "work" on our respective computers, side by side. Set Sweetie up on nickjr.com and begin to review what I wrote last night when I was working late. Spend 30 min to figure out what in the world I was talking about. Begin to type. 

Loud Diego music fills the room. "Al rescate, mi amigo, to the rescue, my friend. Go Diego . . . " 

Try to ignore it and keep typing.

Sweetie: "Mom, I don't like this game! I can't figure out how to rescue the dinosaur. Can you help?"

No answer.

Shrieks. "Pleeeeeease?!!!!!"

8:30am--Give up trying to block out the Diego music and child frustration. Color and read books with Sweetie instead. Run some errands.

11:10--Mister home. School debriefing, Lunch made, eaten, cleaned up.

1:30pm--Lunch over, Sweetie napping, Mister in a quiet time. Return to computer to see: "With their sweetiemistersweetiemister religious background sweetiesweetie of sisterhood sweetie and the new possibilities [kjasdnfj;kak;lsdjfl;kjl;kj;alsjdf ] afforded by the nature of sweetie sweetie mister sweeitie online writing, both of which I [sdfjiojoijwelrjl; discussed in the previous sweetiesweetie chapter," 

I guess Sweetie wasn't as done with the computer as I thought she was. After 10 min of deleting, I get to work. 

2:00pm: Mister pokes his head in. "Mom, is my quiet time over? Will you come see the Lego ships I built."

Me: "Not over yet, bud. You've still got 30 min. I'll see the ships after the timer goes off. You need to stay in your room now."

2:10pm. Mister again. "Now is it over? Can you get down some markers for me? Can I eat that last cookie? Will you pour me some milk to go with it? Can you come see the Lego ships I built?" 

2:15pm. Markers down--check; Oooed and Awwed at the Legos--check; Milk and cookie--check. Threaten to lock in room should quiet time be breached again--check. Back to work.

2:20pm. Mister, looking so sad and forlorn: "Mom, Benjamin says his best friend at school is Draque and not me. I'm only his third best friend. I want to be his first best friend. Why don't you think I'm his first best friend?" Big eyes. Sad face.

2:40pm. After consolation and discussion about the virtues of best friends verses lots of good friends, back to work. 

2:50pm. Sweetie's awake.

3pm. Two tv shows allow me to actually write a solid page.

4-9pm. Piano, soccer practice, dinner, dishes, showers, bedtime. 

9pm. Eating ice cream and blogging instead of dissertation writing. Ugh. Off to work!

My thankful three:

1. That one page! You gotta start somewhere (and hopefully, you get to END somewhere too)

2.  Rocking my baby, who is no longer a baby, to sleep--a very rare occurrence.

3.  Watching my boy play soccer--a completely joyous face is another rare occurrence. 

Channeling Mrs. Rogers--Big Breath, Eyes In

I signed the kids up for swimming lessons this summer with Mrs. Rogers. Unlike the high school students at the community pool and unlike me, Mrs. Rogers is undeterred by sobbing, screaming, flailing, and dramatic claims about a sick stomach or a hurt toe.  In short, Mrs. Rogers is no pushover. Mrs. Rogers is just what we needed. 

"Big breath, eyes in," she told Sweetie. 

"I can't do it!!" Sweetie sobbed. 

"But you can! and I'm right here to help," she said, and propelled Sweetie under the water to the wall. 

After 3 days, Sweetie was begging me to stay for her lessons to watch her swim, and oh, don't forget the camera.  [note: the above pic is with Mrs. Rogers's teenage assistant.] Mrs. Rogers told Sweetie she could swim and made her realize, by doing it, that she really could swim. It was a reminder to me about the process of self-confidence.  Oftentimes the best way to get over feeling unsure and scared is just to do it, big breath, eyes in. A lot of times actually doing it is the only thing that makes me realize that I really CAN do it.

Easier said than done, though, right? I've been working for the past 2 months on 2 different chapters of my dissertation, one of which is a draft of the introduction. My dissertation advisor told me, "Just start by writing what literacy scholars have said about literacy, religion, and sponsorship and then articulate what and why your project contributes to this scholarship." Oh, okay. It requires great self-confidence to say what I think the entire field of literacy scholars have said on these 3 things and what they're missing--what I'm adding to them. It's been easy to doubt myself and my ability to do this dissertation. I'll take a breath, put my eyes in, and then, whoops, raise them right back out again. I guess I need a Mrs. Rogers, or someone to channel her.  Tell me I can do it! (too bad you can't also tell me you'll be right there to help!) 

Today's thankful 3:

1.  fake laughing with my kids

2.  my new laptop, which is guaranteed to unblock all writers' blocks (one can always hope, right?)

3.  talking with an old friend

Strong Women

I come from a long line of strong women. My father's mother was both orphaned and widowed as a young woman, with her newborn first child. She weathered the trial and, when I was a child, I always knew Grandma would say exactly what she thought and would do exactly what she wanted to do, even if that meant going on a European cruise alone because my grandfather refused to go. Her own mother was strong. She raised her 4 children alone after her husband died and managed to run and keep the family farm during the hard years of the Great Depression. Her mother, in turn, was also strong. She carried on when her husband went to the Klondike in search of gold, found it, and returned back to their small town to live with that gold and with another woman. This is a picture of the last of my strong grandmothers--the only one currently living. Although nearly blind from macular degeneration, she walked all over Lagoon with us 2 weeks ago, and at 88 years old, she went on almost all of the rides. Here she is taking Mister on the kids' roller coaster.

I've always wondered how the women in my family managed to maintain their strength. My interest in strong women has, of course, leaked into my academic interests. For the 13+ hour drive back home last week, I listened to hours of interviews I conducted almost a year ago with the women who graciously agreed to participate in my dissertation study about their online writing. I typed notes and transcribed sections, balancing J's laptop on my lap, while handing back drinks and snacks to kids, switching out DVDs, and finding dropped crayons. It was almost enough to make me car sick. But I loved it. I loved hearing the women talk about how their blogging and their contributions to their discussion board empower them. They didn't use that term, but they talked about being strengthened and supported by other women when they didn't know what they were doing as a mothers or when they didn't know what to do with a challenge in their lives. They also talked about needing to help and support others, needing to feel like their advice and life experiences are worthwhile.

I love this stuff because it resonates in my own life. The type of feminism that I have experienced isn't necessarily the postmodern feminism that's popular in academics today, but it's the cultural feminism that's been mostly rejected. Cultural feminists celebrate the uniqueness and power of women and argue about the importance of connecting with other women and finding a voice. Even though this isn't academically popular, I do see the women in my study talking about this need for connection and about how this connection, through online writing, gives them voice.

Last Sunday, I was sick in bed, and I picked up a book I love but have never finished (ironically enough, since it's called Mitten Strings for God: Reflections for Mothers in a Hurry). I re-read the intro and loved this quote by the author, Katrina Kenison: "Yet I do believe that, as mothers, we all walk a common path, through a rugged and ineffable territory of love and fury, exhilaration and exhaustion, self-doubt and self-discovery. . . . Over the years, I have been grateful to all the women who have gone this way before me and have been willing to shine a light upon the trail, that I might find my own way with a bit more confidence."

Well, I guess I'm long-winded tonight. You made it to the end of my post! I should end with a huge Thank You to those of you who are the women in my life--friends and relatives--who have shown a light or who are currently shining a light on my path.

Speaking civily

Every mother of 2 or more children knows what happens when the rhetoric between 2 parties fails--the fighting and violence begins. This, applied to the larger picture, of course, is one of the reasons why I am so passionate about the study of rhetoric: because the failure of rhetoric brings with it disasterous consequences for individual relationships and for our world at large.

And this is one of the reasons why I was eager to read Sharon Crowley's recent book Toward a Civil Discourse: Rhetoric and Fundamentalism. I've admired Crowley's grasp of ancient rhetorics since I was a new university instructor and used her book Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students to teach honors rhetoric at BYU. It's no surprise, then, that Crowley argues in this new book for the need to reinvigorate ancient rhetorics and to use principcles from it in our current quest as religious unbelievers (her assumed audience of her book) to speak civily with religious fundamentalists. Crowley wrote this book in order to study if there are ways in which believers and unbelievers can converse with each other with fairness and accuracy and to study if it's possible to convince believers to adopt different political or intellectual positions.

Overall, the book is a good one, "good" in the sense that it made me think and it made me want to respond to her via my dissertation. I like her application of ancient rhetoric, I like her acknowledgment that liberalism can be intolerant by refusing believers' appeals to divine authority. However, I ended the book wanted to have my own conversation (civil, of course) with Crowley. Here's what I would tell her:

(1) "Sharon [because we may be on first-name basis, since we reside in the same state and since she did once call me personally to offer me a position in ASU's Ph.D. program], I'm disappointed that you lumped together all articulations of fundamentatist beliefs. To me, it seems like you're putting religious and liberal beliefs in their own separate boxes--you're not allowing them to intermingle. I think, in reality, many religious people (not the Jerry Falwells and the Tim LaHayes that you quote so frequently) have more complexity in their belief systems than you allow for. For example, as a Mormon woman, feminist, sometimes liberal, sometimes conservative, my academic, religious, and political beliefs are intertwined in ways that are complex and sometimes conflicting. I think you unfairly portray fundamentalist beliefs as without complexity."

(2) "Sharon, your final conclusion is that liberals need to appeal to pathos (emotion) to persuade religious fundamentalists to adopt different positions. You seem overly concerned, in my opinion, with helping liberals craft responses to religious positions. As a religious person who as received very little respect in academics for my religious beliefs, I have to tell you that pathos would not persuade me. But ethos might. When ethos (respect, appeal to goodness of character) occurs in rhetorical situations and all parties feel genuinely valued and listened to, people tend to relax parts of their guard a bit, they become open to others as people, and they tend to actually listen to what they say. I've seen this happen with the women who are participating in my dissertation research. They have learned from each other, some have changed their perspectives, and they have (usually) engaged in civil discourse that emerges from respect."

I think the key to civil discourse is to try to understand the other person, not to persuade them. As you attempt to understand someone, you may also come to respect them. And when you communicate this respect to them, civil discourse can occur. That civil discourse is necessary for persuasion.

Now, if only I can communicate this, civily, to my 5yo and 3yo who are arguing and screeching in the next room, and teach them the nuances of civil discourse, I could write my own book.

a trial run and a little background

the look of this blog tells it how it is: i'm not invested in this yet, i don't know if i'm going to keep it up, i don't know if blogging is "me." i created the name for my blog almost two years ago when so many of my good friends, my own blue stocking society, particularly smartmama, got swept up in the blogging craze and convinced me i should do the same.

at the time, i chose "bluestocking mama" for my title. the Blue Stockings Society was founded in England in the mid1700s to allow women, albeit women of privilege, to discuss literature and the arts. the women had little opportunity to do so in their society and culture. the Blue Stocking women supported each other in their writing, their artwork, their reading, and advanced women's education. England's National Portrait Gallery recently featured the Blue Stocking women and described them as follows: "A group of celebrated women writers, artists and thinkers who forged new links between gender, learning and virtue in eighteenth-century Britain. These women were not just brilliant, they were exceptional, both for their individual accomplishments and for breaking the boundaries of what women could be expected to undertake or achieve." in many ways i don't fit the blue stocking label--i'm neither British, nor brilliant. but in many ways i do--i'm passionate about education, particularly women's education, i still believe in studying virtue as part of education, and in my own culture as an LDS woman, i feel that trying to finish my dissertation, unfortunately, puts me outside the boundaries of what many expect me to do.

when i think of the Blue Stockings Society now, i also think of the women who are participating in my dissertation research, who write and read in a private online discussion board and blog ring, who write to support each other in mothering and worshipping and living as individuals and as members of communities. for over three years now i have seen these women dealing with and accomplishing more than they expected to undertake in the realities of their lives.

well, two years ago i signed up my blog, but never posted, never formatted it (still haven't, obviously). i felt strange about writing so publicly and never felt a need for this kind of audience. plus, there's always the "good, better, best" to consider, and most everything in my life other than family, church, and school has slowly been set aside in the past two years, including blogging. i write a lot in my life as a way of exploring my thoughts and of knowing, but i like this writing to be pen and paper with no real audience in mind. now, though, as i'm starting to write my dissertation, i feel like i'm writing into the void with no audience. suddenly a blog doesn't seem like such a bad idea to write/talk out my dissertation less formally. maybe now a blog will help me finish this lingering dissertation. if so, it gets promoted out of the "good" category into a "better" category.

i can't ignore, of course, the "mama" part of my title. balancing the two identities is an impossible and frustrating and sometimes disheartening task. "mama" receives the majority of my time, as it should be. i feel great peace in that. so i'm sure i'll be posting about the "mama" as much as about the "bluestocking." if, that is, i keep this up. and that's a big IF.