Cousin Pictures

Earlier this month we met up with Cash, Lily, Jacelyn, and Allen at Ena's house near DC so we could have her shoot a mini session of all the kids together.  As usual, the kids had a lot of fun together and the pictures turned out great!  The session only lasted 20 minutes, and then Ena had a bunch of cupcakes and snacks for the kids to enjoy, both of which were great for three squirrely littles!  Afterwards Cash told me it was a lot of fun and thanked me for "getting the tickets," and we're glad to have this stage of their lives captured in photos!  Here are my favorites, courtesy of One Art Photo and Jacelyn, who paid for the session before I could beat her to it. : )

Academic/Life Update

Well, so much for waiting indefinitely to find out if I will be on fellowship next year: I will not.  I submitted my application to my department a few days ahead of the deadline, and I felt like I had done my best.  But the professors in my department who evaluate the applications decided against nominating me for any of the fellowships.  I met with our grad studies director this week, and it seems like the committee realizes that I've gotten a lot of work accomplished, but I cannot be considered competitive with those who have completed a dissertation chapter.  When I met with my advisor, he suggested that because I have been working on the chapters "horizontally" (i.e. researching and thinking through all of them somewhat simultaneously) rather than "vertically" (starting with one chapter and working on it exclusively until it's finished), it's hard to demonstrate to anyone else how far along I am.  I'm disappointed that I overtaxed myself trying to meet a deadline when, ultimately, it sounds like my application was kind of dead on arrival.  I'm disappointed that I won't be able to devote all of my energy to my dissertation next year, because I had hoped to make a considerable amount of progress.

The department did decide to nominate me for a different type of award, which comes with a flat stipend.  It does not include tuition remission, but if I were to win it, I would probably be able to carry a lighter teaching load for next year.  So my plans for next year will depend on that, but since I am not likely to hear about that decision until May, I guess there's nothing to do but try to put it out of mind and keep my nose to the grindstone in the meantime.

So far, I am really enjoying my schedule for the semester.  I teach Tuesdays and Thursdays in the afternoon, which gives me uninterrupted time beforehand for my own work on Tuesdays and my work on the Porter project on Thursdays.  It also allows me to work from home M/W/F, and I feel like I'm getting more done than I did last semester.  I don't have to worry about the foreign language requirement anymore, so that is definitely nice.  If fellowships are granted to students who work "vertically" rather than "horizontally," I may never be able to compete for one.  I already finished the conference paper I'm presenting on Josephine Herbst during the first week of March, so right now I am working on all of the following:
-finishing preparations for the ingest of our KAP metadata into Fedora
-denormalizing the KAP metadata so it can be better used for different purposes
-planning and teaching lessons on 19th Century American women's literature
-researching the history of birth control politics in the U.S., which is relevant to all four of my dissertation chapters
-writing a conference paper on Mary Austin, which I'll present over Spring Break
-revising a paper I wrote four years ago for publications workshop
-reading and commenting on classmates' papers for publications workshop

So, you know, Liz marches on.  In lieu of having better professional news to share, I'll post a few recent pictures of what's been going on in my life outside of academia, where taking a more "horizontal" approach pays more recognizable dividends.

Nora and her (second) cousin and partner-in-crime,  Lily

SNOW! I am so over it.  Nora loves it.

"Baby Julian" turned ONE!  We were excited to celebrate a year of successful parenting with our friends Anne-Marie and Jon and to see Julian host all his little friends. After waiting three days to don her "pretty pretty dress," Nora inquired "Is Julian gon like my dress?" before declaring "I'm adorable!"  She's not wrong.

Pretty pretty dress + cupcakes = Nora's happy place.

Our little Valentine

Delta Rae at the 9:30 Club with AM & Vickie

I feel it all around: I'm surrounded.