I know you wanted to see tiny Beatrix Sassafras.  Don’t deny it.

However, there is also another thing that I think neither you nor I can deny.  I’m apparently done in this here space.  I’ve resisted pulling the trigger, but it’s time.  Dr. Crazy of Reassigned Time 2.0 just isn’t who I am as an academic anymore, or even as a person anymore.  It’s time to call it a day here, friends.  I have so appreciated all of you who have been reading what I write, not only in this space but in Dr. Crazy’s previous locations for the past 11 years.  And while I am closing up shop here, I do think that I am going to reinvent myself in order to blog another day, though not as Dr. Crazy but as my Actual Self (though I’ve yet to figure out exactly how or where).  If tenure means never having to say you’re sorry (as a certain Madwoman once said), then full promotion means that you don’t need a flipping pseudonym.  I have things that I want to say now that I want to own, and I want to write in ways that speak to the value of my discipline, of the humanities in general, and of the work that we as faculty do in higher education.  Basically, I’ve (finally) had enough of all of my bitching

So again, thank you all for your interest in what I’ve had to say, for your support when I’ve needed it, and for giving me a community when I felt like I didn’t have one as an assistant and then associate professor.  Without you all (and this isn’t an exaggeration), I wouldn’t have kept at blogging for this long.

So until we meet again. . . only next time it will be as “me” and not as the super-hero alter-ego that is Dr. Crazy.

(Oh, and a postscript: whatever happens in the new iteration of my blogging life, it will include updates on the kitties, because the internet exists for kitties.)

RBOC of earning full promotion:

• I totally deserve this shit.  I have worked hard and really accomplished a lot since I started on the tenure track in 2003.
• I am excited about what comes next.  I’ve got a course release next semester so I can actually finish my motherfucking book manuscript, and I have some new projects in the hopper research-wise, and I feel like I finally have the ability truly to say no to things that aren’t worth my time.
• I am already strategizing about the things I’m going to force my chair to let me do, for I will OUTRANK my chair!  Ah, that feels good.  Note: apparently what I want to do is to force us to face issues with recruitment and retention head-on.  I’m still a fucking masochist, even if I will have FULL RANK.
• If tenure means never having to say you’re sorry, I feel like full promotion means you don’t have to allow people to bloviate and waste your time.  I feel like maybe I can finally say, “Um, can we please get back to the agenda?” in a department meeting.  And I feel like if people don’t, I can walk out.  I am drunk with power!
• I am one of the first women to be promoted to full in my department in over 15 years.  The full professors who recommended me were all men, and none of them mentored me in putting together my application.  It’s time for a change, yo!

So that’s all.  I am going to go and bask now.

This is the thing: I have been, I now realize, bracing myself for a denial.  This isn’t false modesty on my part.  First of all, I had really wanted my second book to be at least under review when I went up for full.  The manuscript isn’t even complete. Second of all, administrative turnover and a complete lack of mentorship toward full meant that I really had no idea what the expectations were when I put together my application.  I mean, I did my best, but I was definitely going into this process blind.  So I guess I had figured that I’d submit the application and that the feedback I got would tell me what was missing, and then I’d resubmit my application next year or the year after.  While I really want full promotion, and of course that motivated me to put the application together, that’s not the reason I applied this year.  I applied because I figured that it made sense to do it given the other people who were applying from my department.  I applied because it was a way to showcase the work that I do to new administrators who don’t know me.  I applied because there are changes coming to our processes for promotion and tenure and I figured that I might as well try to do it under the current (admittedly less rigorous) system. I applied because there was nothing to lose in doing so.  But I realize now that I did not apply because I thought I would actually maybe get promoted. And now it looks like there is a good chance of that happening, and that feels, frankly, weirder than I thought that it would.

I mean, there is no next promotion after this.  There is no next hoop to jump through.  I mean, I can create goals for myself, and I can create hoops for myself, but at the end of the day, this is IT.  That is so crazy I can’t even talk about it!  I mean, who is at the end of the line when she is just 40 years old?!?!  That is INSANE.  And so I feel a bit lost because of that possibility, frankly.

But you will all laugh at this.  So I got my letter, and I was shaking I was so anxious as I opened the envelope.  I couldn’t even really read it – I just raced through to look for the verdict.  But then I was like, “OMG!!!  IT’S HAPPENING!!!” and I wanted to tell my department best friend, CC.  She was just about to start class down the hall, and because I’m an impulsive weirdo, I barged into her class and was like, “I HAVE TO SHOW YOU SOMETHING!”  And she, who has been almost as impatient about things as I’ve been figured out what I was talking about, and was all, “IS IT GOOD?” and I was all, “TOTALLY!”  Now, a lot of her students in that class know me, and they were all sitting in there, and they were like, “WHAT’S GOING ON?!?” and as I was making my exit, I said, “It’s a secret!”  And the moment I walked out I heard them enthusiastically questioning CC.  She didn’t reveal my secret intel, and then later I ran into one of those students in the elevator, and she told me that CC wouldn’t tell and she tried to get it out of me, and I said, “you will know, but not yet!  nothing is certain!”  My student then said to me, “well, even though I don’t know what it is, congratulations!”

I love my students.  LOVE. THEM.

So this leads to the “other news” of the title:

• I have a (former) student who has made it to the interview process for Teach for America, which is awesome. I also have a student applying to be a Rhodes Scholar, and students applying for internships, study abroad, law school, and grad school.  All of them are freaking amazing.
• I heard from a non-trad student whom I had thought dropped out who in fact just needed to stop out in order to get the money to finish and she wants to come in for advising!
• I had a student burst into tears in class yesterday (not good, except) which led to the student coming in for a meeting today and figuring out stuff with her research paper (GOOD!).
• All but one of my modernism students actually showed up for library instruction and they all seemed to be stoked about how much they learned!  And I even learned some new things (which I admit is part of the reason I do library instruction – so I can find out the latest features that will make my life easier).
• Critical theory in the intro to the major class!  I so love introducing what “theory” is when I don’t actually assign them theory to read!  It makes everything so much better when I actually do teach them theory!

And then, in non-student “other news”:

• Footloose is wonderful, deals perfectly with my high-strung-ness because he is like the most low-strung person in the way that he interacts with the world (though he is totally high-strung in his own way but he just internalizes it rather than externalizing it), and he totally doesn’t REACT when I freak out, which, yes, is kind of annoying (because, DUDE, use your words), but which also, yes, is exactly what I need in a person

That’s enough for now.  More soon,