Propositions

I'm in the midst of proposals.

Research I'd like to do, and also proposing a new strucuture for my 204 living.

Projecting what I need to learn for things that don't yet exist.

this is transformation I guess.

brain drain

I'm too tired to think or talk or do just about anything.
I've been in grad school for approximately 2.5 years, and feel like I'm running on fumes.

dear sweet baby jesus, how will I do it.
:(


On the horizon:
-Comprehensive Exam-(which I had to postpone due to exhaustion)
-Presentation in New Orleans at the Clark Seminar thingie (can't remember the whole name, even though I'm participating because I won a competition, sheesh I'm tired)
-Thesis Proposal Defense

And I run out of funding by Fall 2012....oh my GOD!!!

Domestic

I've been finding myself struggling with concepts of motherhood these days.
I recently was speaking to my cousin, who was struggling with childcare for her infant son. (He's one) After listening to her complicated story, I just blurted out "Why don't you just stay home with him, you're missing out on raising him"
Later when I was relating this story to a friend, I referred to this as "Sarah Palin advice". My friend, is a woman who has chosen to work at home, and by this I mean, doing the day time childcare for her three boys. I assured her that I admire and believe in the importance of working in your home raising your children, (and she didn't need my reassurance). I provided most of the childcare for Olivia, for the first 2.5 years of her life, and then when I went back to work as a junior high teachers, Olivia went to half day Montessori and grandparents, and then full time Montessori. Now, I'm a grad student with a schedule that allows me to be flexible, go on field trips, stay home with her when she is sick and pick her up afterschool. So, why did I characterize my advice as antifeminist? Why do I think childcare is even a feminist issue?
That's actually a bit antiquated or is it? I realized that I am having some sort of schizophrenic episode regarding my beliefs about work that is done at home, much of which involves childcare for women who have them and working outside of the home and having your child in other forms of child care (daycare, nannies, extended family etc.)

With statistics that still indicate that women do the majority of the domestic and child care tasks while still preforming daily work duties outside of the home, I guess it's a bigger "issue" for women then it is for men. In my case, I have no choice but to work, as I supply the income in my home. Child support is pretty minimal. Given the choice, I'm not sure what i would do to be honest? My dad always told me that a woman has to be financially independent. (thanks dad)
But realistically, (and by that I mean the reality of what a human being can actually do in a day or week) it is virtually impossible to do it "all".

I feel I've missed out on raising my own child, even though I've had a lot of flexibility and work that has allowed me to be more present than other mothers had the opportunity to be...

so much work, so little time

I just spent the weekend trying to solve a year long battle with our laundry. I think I may have finally devised a system that won't result in 6 loads of clean, unfolded laundry sitting of the love seat for a week. we'll see.

In the meantime, I read this article this morning. Personally, all my "other" work makes my unpaid work impossible. Which reminds me that while I am working from home today/doing my children's laundry/taking a moment to blog, I left my oven on for the last hour pre-heating so I can make something out of yesterdays halloween pumpkin. sigh.

I'm off to finish a few of the tasks of started, but I leave you with this article on "momism", for those of you with more time or better multi-tasking ability than I.

Iron Deficiency

My recent diagnosis of iron deficiency anemia has caused me to take a much needed pause. Nothing serious but it explains why I've been feeling like terrible and depleted for the last few months.
It's funny how I needed permission to rest, and thankfully it came. As crazy as that sounds, I'm thankful. I can rest and not leap tall buildings in a single bound (at least for the time being)

ars poetica

I've been thinking lately about how much time I used to spend writing poetry.
Most of it, not very good but it wasn't really the product that was the point. And I know that honest to goodness poets roll their eyes at this kind of "everyone can express themselves" talk. Ars Poetica is just that, an art-study and learning and technique and talent. I can relate to the feeling, that my kind of working has been diminshed. Letters to the editor render me apopletic, as would be theorists talk smack based on ideas they've heard on facebook. Put that aside for the moment, the act of writing, the time, the process, the sound of a typewriter keys smacking letters on a white page in the pale hours of the morning had some sort of magical quality for my soul and for my well being.
I don't write much poetry anymore. I think some of it has to do with the time I don't have, and that my typewriter is broken, but all of that is really besides the point.
Part of the reason is that here in Toronto, the magic seems to have faded. In some ways, I'm far more awake.

Am I imagining it or do conversations now lack the rythm and timbre they used to?
(only on the odd winnipeg morning does it conjure)
I find that lately I'm a fan of silence and of making: pottery is a good outlet for silent poetry, where hands and hips move and push, tension creating upsward swells of meaning, the smacking of clay bodies against table tops imprinting now.

the change has left me wondering.

back in the saddle.

I've been a little distracted lately, and not posting about the perils and possibilities of a doctoral student pursuing motherhood, organic eating and cooking, health and single parenting and the occasional pottery session!
On the horizon: comprehensive exams, a trip to Winnipeg, completing work that I really should have never started in the first place and a great annotated bibliography that I hope will beef up my lit review.

Question of the day:How the hell am I going to do all of this? I feel splintered in a million different pieces-shiver me timbers!