Disquieting Days of Summer

Most if not all professional academics relish each and every day of summer. Like plants, we grow to our fullest potential during this time, going into hyper-drive while many other people are taking it slower. Freed from the administrative routines of the academic year, we can go do research and attend conferences all around the world, write and edit at all hours, and re-direct our teaching hours to searching our souls about the meaning of our scholarly toil. Academics become voluntary workaholics for three blissful months -- those 18-hour days don't seem long as they say time flies when one is having fun.

This summer has been different for me, for obvious reasons. I had to give one conference paper over Skype, and will be giving another by proxy. Instead of visiting research sites and digging up new materials, I had to make do with one boat trip to neighboring Macau and am sitting at home with a pile of things I copied over the past year. Rather than starting each day super-early and ending super-late, I have to figure out what I am physically capable of doing on each given day, which has usually meant starting early but also curtailing academic work by dinner time.

As mentioned in a previous post, I have been fortunate enough to be granted an extra summer by my department in the form of a teaching sabbatical this fall, so with daughter by my side, I hope to make up for my currently diminished capacity by milking every minute from September to December. For now, I am learning how to be more patient about taking things slowly and awaiting a challenge that I haven't studied enough for. 

A.B.C = Academic Birth Control

I find myself in a strange state of mind these days. Being 8.5 months pregnant, I feel obligated to be excited about the impending birth of my daughter, yet after years of not being a mother (including several not knowing if it would ever be a possibility -- like many, this daughter of mine is a miracle baby in the works), I keep thinking that it would be perfectly acceptable to remain (human) child-free. My husband and two cats are already more than enough of an immediate family for me, and we have the unconditional love and support of our extended family and friends. So there's no hole in my heart, no particular yearning for "completing" or "enhancing" our brood.

But this is leading me back to my perpetual professional worry about graduate students -- the ones who want to remain in academia, follow in their professors' footsteps, and be happy forever.

Of course there are many success stories -- young scholars who break the mold and sustain long, productive careers -- but as many an education journal has noted, the glut of highly qualified persons has diluted the tertiary education job market to the advantage of universities and their administrators. In other words, it's easy to hire cheap, eager "help" to perform tasks that hardly tap their existing wellsprings of expertise and stunt their potential growth indefinitely.

So, as with environmental issues ("save the planet, don't reproduce"), even we junior faculty members are ambivalent about encouraging prospective graduate students, especially those who want to earn doctoral degrees -- thinking that they will live in research bliss, have flexible and life-friendly schedules, and enjoy solid incomes with super-secure benefits. Historians are particularly nervous about predicting the future but it is evident just based on present-day information that a miniscule percentage (conservatively 5-10%, ambitiously 20-30%) will reap such rewards (and even then, there will be many trade-offs).

But like our advisors, and their advisors, discouraging students from dreaming of academic careers is an awkward business. It's difficult if not impossible to tell a student, "You already don't have what it takes" or "You are highly unaware, whether consciously or unconsciously, of what academic life is truly about." Many of said students receive these criticisms as mere challenges or blanket statements -- some are so optimistic that they believe you are just wrong. It doesn't matter that their grades are just average or only slightly above average. It doesn't matter that they do not exhibit the basic traits of successful professional academics. They will somehow be exceptional, sometime in the indeterminate future.

It's even hard to dissuade outstanding students who have a reasonable chance at establishing academic careers, but may 1) be more well-suited for other professions, 2) have external obligations that will hinder them from developing their scholarship. Dealing with a student in the former category is slightly easier; one can always suggest the two-track plan for their graduate studies so that they can ultimately decide whether to remain in the academic sphere or to pursue a more lucrative/personally fulfilling line of work. Students in the latter category, to be honest, inspire sympathy but also a great reluctance to encourage their dreams. It breaks my heart to talk with a student who wants to be a professor for the "good pay" in order to support a large family but also expects to have plenty of free time to care for elderly and/or younger relatives. Holding a faculty position that comes with generous compensation is not guaranteed (far from it, the wicked voice in my head always cries), and those high-income jobs often entail working long hours and sacrificing evenings/holidays/any scraps of free time one might care to enjoy. Assuming that academics are wealthy and under-committed is a tremendous folly.

I haven't worked out the right way to deal with the majority of students who want to become future faculty -- I have only been able to endorse three out of a hundred students without any reservations to date. I've developed several pitches about alternative careers, as well as the aforementioned two-track plan, and the joys of earning a terminal Master's degree and moving on to the world of work with no less pay than a first-year PhD-endowed assistant professor. I try to teach skills along with knowledge in my courses so that undergraduates see history as a pathway to many different professions, not just teaching and research. I don't mince words about the positive and negative aspects of an academic career, and I will always apply a needle to burst highly romantic (and unrealistic) notions about academia.

Yet I always find that A.B.C. is a delicate matter, and it's a diplomatic quandary how to teach students to be happy *without* chasing the academic dream, much like many people in the 21st century are quite contentedly child-free.

The Force of Filial Piety

I'm now in the stage of pregnancy that can be most aptly likened to the final leg of a marathon, an event that I am more familiar with as a former high school athlete and enthusiastic (if not so talented) recreational runner. My physical and emotional resources are exhausted. I greet each day with an ever-weakening resolve. As my sister-in-law mentioned to my husband once, "I just need this kid to be born."

While none of my present conditions are in any way novel (thank goodness), I must acknowledge my daughter-to-be's unconscious sense of filial piety. Crawling onto my soapbox, I must proclaim to all that we academics are 1) not as lazy as we may seem, 2) but are in fact, always working. Since I started my Master's degree in 2000, I have not actually taken a complete day off from work (yes, that includes periods of family-mandated vacations, wedding, and all) aside from three episodes of medical emergencies. Whether reading, writing, grading, managing administrative tasks, or doing the myriad of other things that academics must do (so to correct another myth, we do have set responsibilities -- it's not just a buffet of self-selected activities), my mind has been married to the academy for about thirteen years.

So it amazes me that I will be compelled to not only vacate the office for a set period of time but that I am already feeling the literal and figurative weight of shifting my energies in a different direction. The customary symptoms of pregnancy brain and weight gain have slowed me down, physically and mentally, in considerable measure. I have learned to take hour-long breaks between two-hour work periods just so I can catch my breath, store up enough oxygen, and firm up my back. I have to wake up as soon as I feel able so I can maximize my day, and stretch my concentration to reach the endpoint which is becoming ever earlier, from 1am to 12:30am, and I suspect, may reach 11pm (the bedtime that my father has always advocated) before long.

My daughter-to-be's impending arrival has also spurred me to finish many non-academic projects while I possibly can, including editing a family history, submitting a publication proposal for a children's book that my sister and I have been working on for several years, and organizing everything in my home so that my husband can find everything while I'm preoccupied.

And quite impressively, I will be taking a semester off from teaching -- which I have not done since I started working as a teaching fellow during my PhD studies and then as a faculty member. I know I should rest up during this precious sabbatical so that I can be more productive in the future, but I also hope that my daughter will be amenable to keeping me company as I do more reading and writing than I have been able to schedule in the past few years.

My mother took a picture of me when I was three years old, which has gained a bit of notoriety after being featured in some slide shows. I was deep in thought while working on my typewriter (yes, my parents expected a lot from me in the literacy department) and on my right-hand side was a doll wearing only a diaper, lying on the table. One former boyfriend deduced that I would be a negligent (wife and) mother. Friends have teased me for being overly dedicated to work. My husband, a fellow academic, said, "Well, just remember to put some clothes on our real-live kid."

I shall keep my better half's recommendation in mind, and in August, I plan to be sitting in front of my computer (although finding a typewriter would be great fun too) with daughter in portable crib, grateful for her filial piety in giving me some much-needed "selfish scholar time" (only research, no teaching and admin) and the pleasure of her company.

Mothering without a Mother

I have thought long and hard about writing this post, because I have a wonderful mother-in-law who has done everything in her power to love and care for me just as if I had been born to her, two excellent fathers (my daddy, who has always seen me in the most positive light, and my father-in-law who provides much support and encouragement), and a husband who has all but carried our daughter-to-be (and to his credit, he has volunteered to do even that, if it were at all possible). So for having so many blessings, I have nothing to complain about...

But still, the feeling of remorse that my mother, who passed away last November, will not be physically present to witness the "big day" (arguably of greater magnitude than my wedding, which was just the formality preceding the real treat of being married), is growing ever heavier. I'll be frank and say that for all that we both tried to make things work, my mother and I were not naturally compatible. I disappointed her a lot, and I often wished I could be the ideal daughter that she had always hoped to know. Despite a lot of creative effort, I could never become as close to her as I had wished. We had to be content with me trying to make her happy but expecting to fail in achieving that objective time and again.

So perhaps this occasion would be like many others -- full of love, yet many imperfections hanging in the air. I know my mother was not that fond of babies or small children (she articulated this sentiment many times so I am not just hypothesizing) so a granddaughter may have brought as much stress as joy. But the bottom line is that all along I wished that she and my beloved late grandmother would be with me when I became a mother.

I have no specific purpose in posting about this subject, but I would like to express my wish that I can at least channel some of what I learned from my mother, my relationship with her, and combine it with what I have learned being a mother figure to my students. I understand that my daughter may feel the same way that I did as a younger person ("Why can't Mom and I be closer? Why doesn't Mom feel satisfied with my achievements?") but conscious of my own experience, I'll try to assure her that I accept her as is, foibles and all.

I also hope that I can forge my own path as a mother, even though I will make a lot of mistakes and may not suit my daughter's style, as with teaching students who have diverse personalities and learning preferences.

In Retrospect

With all due respect to my students, I am bemused whenever I receive signs that my teaching was effective...long after the fact (of a particular course/semester). Teachers are not celebrities--we don't crave constant attention and affirmation. It bugs me that South Korean film stars/popular musicians are always thanking their fans for showering them with love and support. As always, I can't speak for my peers in the primary/secondary education sectors, but I am hard pressed to imagine that university faculty seek such adoration (well, some do--they say they feel like rock stars when they are lecturing--will comment on this phenomenon another time).

As mentioned in my previous post on dehumanizing faculty, professors mean well and try very hard to inspire, nurture, and facilitate knowledge transfer into all sorts of student brains. If we share any purpose across the spectrum of disciplines and sub-fields, it is to show our students that accurate, diverse information (AND proper analysis thereof) matters, for the "life of the mind" and for daily life. Of course, not every student likes every faculty member or every course, so a bit of hit-and-miss action is to be expected.

But touchingly, I received a postcard from a student who finished his undergraduate studies this month (one of the last to complete the three-year curriculum, hurray) and is now enjoying a well-deserved vacation abroad. He described his sight-seeing adventures, with a lengthy discourse about antiquarian bookstores, and then...in the last two sentences, expressed his sincere wishes that I would understand his initial distaste for my course (and me) because he didn't like my pedagogical style at all, but upon reflecting on that first-year experience, finally comprehended its "grand design" (more my words than his, but I have tried to capture his tone).

I knew that he was not that motivated while taking the course two years, but upon reading that postcard (at 8am, sitting in my sunny office), I felt enlivened and vindicated. I was happier, more than anything, that our relationship had changed over time, and that he accepted my good intentions.

I presume that parents feel similarly relieved when their children hint that "things were not so bad" (especially when uttered by adolescents who are remorseful about acting irrationally or spitefully).

Professors are People Too

I already worry that I may say this too often, but it crosses my mind at least once a semester that some of my students choose to dehumanize professors because doing so eases their consciences about feeling resentful about completing homework, taking examinations, or otherwise exerting effort to do coursework. At this point in my life, I can only remember what it was like to be eighteen years old vaguely, but I imagine that if I wasn't so terrified about being at the institution that I was, I would have expressed my fair share of discontent.

It's probably not easy to accept that professors have their students' best academic interests in mind, actually care about their well-being, and usually get jaded about any one student's ability to succeed after multiple manifestations of apathy or inability emanate from that person. Otherwise, each semester starts out as a new opportunity to foster as much intellectual development as possible in eleven to fourteen weeks.

So allow me to be trite, and remind readers who are students:
"Appearances may be deceiving (as well as your perceptions) -- your professors do care about you, and they are very human (prone to misjudgment and bias, but generally not in a malicious way"

And a forwarded citation from my sister, an archivist (by profession) who plays many other roles avocationally...

http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1585

Surprise Success

I haven't been writing because respiration has been hard...literally and figuratively.
Veteran mothers will nod or shake their heads at my naive assumption that the seventh month of waiting for the big event would be as smooth and uneventful as the sixth one.
Besides chewing my humble pie meekly, I am also trying to express agreement in any way that I can (moving whatever limb isn't tortured by spasms) that now I feel like a beached whale, a trite but true metaphor.

But more than just surviving the rude awakening of being in the third semester, I am grading (or marking, as we say here in Hong Kong) papers and exams.

I presume that some angelic faculty enjoy performing this labor of love.  I wish I were still full of verve and excitement at the end of a long semester to ooh and ah over their magnificent ideas, expressed fluently and vividly in a variety of forms.

But no, I am exhausted and humorless after giving the last exam (before which everyone in the class, including me, has panicked for days if not weeks).

So unfortunately for my students, I usually choose to grin and bear the task, one paper/exam at a time.

I didn't expect this round of grading to be different, except of course, as indicated above, my physical condition makes it hard for me to be as productive as I usually am. Nights are especially difficult because I expand (like an automated balloon) and so breathing, sitting, standing, lying down (virtually any position), and thinking all become very challenging.

I am used to working around the clock, save for the hours that I am sleeping (or am semi-comatose because I should be sleeping but am trying to get a few more things done), but now, I have to endure several hours of semi-productive existence every day.

All in all, it has not been the best of times (inadvertent borrowing from Charles Dickens) but for once in a long while, I have been very happy and daresay, astonished (in a positive way) by how some of my students have performed on their final assignments.

I have gotten to know quite a number of them through their papers in a different way than I did in class, and a few that I worried about throughout the semester seem to have pulled through and absorbed more than I assumed they did.

I may be overgeneralizing when I say that most university faculty are like parents -- they want their students to succeed (contrary to students' beliefs that professors withhold good grades deliberately and want to blight their academic records) and feel terrible (arguably worse than the poorly performing students) when they read sub-par papers and exams -- so it's a huge mood-booster to encounter these instances of "surprise success."