Proposals Accepted and International Antarctic Centre

Academic Proposals Accepted

I have some good academic news: I have been fortunate to have three proposals accepted in the last few weeks! I will explain how the process works for those not in academia. Usually, journal editors and conference organizers put out a "call for proposals" or "call for papers" (CFP) several months in advance of the publication or conference date. This CFP gives the specifications of what they are looking for and what they want submitted. The standard is to ask for a brief abstract and bio. The interested scholar then submits an abstract which addresses the topic and shows their particular analysis of it. This saves them from having to write a full-length paper which then might not get accepted. A blind peer-review panel (blind means they don't receive your name or bio attached to the abstract so they can be impartial) then reads all of the submissions and chooses which ones it wants to accept.

So, my best news is that I submitted an abstract for a special issue of a U.S. academic journal issue on science fiction and fantasy and was accepted! I also was given the comments from the blind peer-review panel and they were very positive and said my proposal was well-written and sounded very interesting. Now I have a few months to take the short abstract that I wrote and turn it into an actual, full-length article of academic quality good enough for publication. It will be reviewed again by the editors and if they have any corrections or changes they want made, I will have a chance to fix them and resubmit. Publishing is the name of the game in academia, especially nowadays with so much competition for jobs, so having my first proposal accepted is really exciting! And it is on my research topic too, which is even better.

Of the other two proposals accepted, one was for a feminist conference being held in Dunedin, New Zealand, at the end of the year. I will be presenting on the gender imbalance of Wikipedia editors (mostly high-school-age white males) and how various groups are trying to encourage other women to edit and contribute to Wikipedia through events like Storming Wikipedia. Considering how many of us use Wikipedia as a go-to reference, it is a pressing issue.

My other proposal was for an exclusive new-scholars conference for postgrads and early career researchers before the main Digital Humanities Conference we are going to in Sydney in a couple months. We aren't presenting papers, but we will be brainstorming before the conference on our digital humanities projects and what we want to work on together. It is designed to be an opportunity for a small group of us to network and share ideas and resources. It also comes with a small chunk of funding which will help cover my expenses getting to Australia. Double win!

Tutoring Adventures Continue

With only two tutoring weeks left, the number of students is dwindling fast. Assuming they wouldn't have read or finished Ursula Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness, I prepared for more general discussion topics. This last week we discussed single-sex education and some of the essentialist arguments for it (girls and boys have different learning styles and needs). Single-sex education is a lot more common in NZ, coming from the British system, than I am used to, and one young man in each class had actually gone to a single-sex school. One liked it and the other didn't. The students had quite strong feelings against single-sex education, and I hope I helped them think a little more critically about education and the decisions they might face if they end up in charge of sending a child to school.

In my tutoring at the tutoring center, I had to be observed by one of my bosses to see how I was doing (all of my peers did too). I don't remember the last time I was observed in a job situation, and it was a bit uncomfortable. She said I did fine but still had some things that I could do better. You definitely are a lot more aware of what you are saying when someone is taking notes.

We also had additional training on the differences between the students at the Education campus and the main campus (the School of Education only recently merged with the University for budget reasons, but their student demographics are noticeably different), as well as the different philosophies. The Education lecturers emphasize the bicultural aspects of New Zealand and use Maori words quite often in their assignments and lectures. Apparently, the government has a goal of a bicultural, bilingual country by 2040. I think the South Island will have more difficulty reaching this goal since there are significantly fewer Maori present.

International Antarctic Centre

Since our buy-one-get-one-free coupon to the famous International Antarctic Centre was about to expire, we finally visited it. It had a lot of interactive things and quite interesting information on all of the research going on down there, as well as the harsh living conditions. I froze in the simulated Antarctic storm, enjoyed the penguin feeding, rode on a Hagglunds all-terrain vehicle up hills at 26 degrees and through water that went halfway up my door, watched some of the HD film of the beautiful landscapes, and got splashed a lot in the 4-D movie experience.

First Visitors from U.S.

I assisted with two tutorials for Engineering students where they had an hour to ask questions about formatting and grammar for their upcoming assignments. This was the first time I saw a classroom packed out, standing room only, and even though they were required to be there, I couldn't help but see the disparity in the attendance with Arts events (lectures, my tutorials, seminars). People keep saying that these students are more driven and have harder degrees -- I could see where they might get that impression.

Speaking of attendance, I was disappointed to have very few students in my tutorials this week, and there were only about a dozen out of sixty in the lecture. Sure, it was the day before the break, but I can see why professors get really frustrated at teaching to an empty room after they put all the time in to prepare. I had visitors in town but still went to school to run my tutorial. Since there were so few of them, we ended up spending the last half hour discussing the Arts and ways to improve its profile on campus. The reading for the week was really good too, a short story by Isaac Asimov called "Profession". In it, people don't need to go to school to learn how to read or do things because they hook up to a computer and have the information downloaded to their brain. They are assigned a profession at age 18 and sent off to do that job until they retire. It raises really interesting questions about education and whether or not humans would be happier if they had fewer choices. Certainly, for Arts students worried about what they'll do when they graduate, it's a great conversation starter.

In my International Relations class, I saw the second half of a film I hadn't seen before, Why We Fight, about the U.S. wars in the Middle East. It was made in 2005 but not much has changed in the military-industrial complex since then. It was an uncomfortable feeling to hear people snickering at the U.S. politicians in the film, and it makes you wonder how people in other countries have been viewing the U.S. since WWII and what impact that has had on foreign relations.

I spent a significant amount of time writing proposals for conferences. It takes a lot of thought and energy with no guarantee of getting in. I have another one to do for a journal article due in about a week, too. Hopefully at least one of them bears fruit.

In conversations around campus, I met an American student on exchange and we complained about the cost of living here, especially food. It was nice to chat about some of the differences with another American. From NZ students, I learned that there are no foodstamps or free/reduced school breakfasts or lunches here. I couldn't believe it. They have a welfare system, but the money isn't restricted so it can go toward rent or gas or other things instead of food. Seeing things done differently reminds you that there are other systems with their own pros and cons, although I asked them how hungry kids were supposed to get much learning done.

We had our first visitors from the U.S. and spent a wonderful day driving them around the city and catching up. It felt a bit voyeuristic, but we drove them around the still-earthquake-damaged central city and stopped at the cathedral. It was our first time there as well, and it was sad to see all of the crumbling pieces. Next we drove them up into the Port Hills and did a little walking around. The hills were brown with a few sheep still wandering around. We had a really good lunch of home-made Mexican food and then we went to the university where they and D were picked up by their relatives and I stayed behind to do my tutorial. After that, I drove out to the farm where their relatives live and got to see some of their cows (they all got a tour of the cows being milked, but I was too late). We all had pizza for dinner and then D and I made the hour-long drive back to our house. They had a really cute gray and white kitten that was very frisky but then slept on my lap for a long time. I wish I could have taken it with!

Happy New Year 2015

Happy 2015! I hope to explore lots of New Zealand this year.

The package from my family arrived with a much-welcomed array of goods. There was a veritable bounty of shelf medications like allergy medicine, cold/flu liquid tablets, motion sickness pills, and pain relief pills which would have been a fortune here or not available. This would have been enough on its own, but there were also some Christmas gifts and food from home which we enjoyed.

We also received our IRD numbers from the government so they can take out taxes. Yay. If there's anything to be excited about here, it is that one of my favorite numbers is the last two digits.

I made a goal of finishing all six Dune books before the year ended, and so I wrapped up the sixth book on December 30th, just in time. Reading them all together in a short time period meant that I could notice changes in style, character development, themes, and other things which was nice. Now comes the harder part of synthesizing all of my observations into the PhD proposal. Basically, I have to outline what my argument will be and what each chapter of the paper will focus on. I also have to provide a literature review, meaning an analysis of what has been written about the topic so far and what I think I will do to improve upon current research.

I also just finished 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) yesterday. It was not what I was expecting and seems a bit out-dated now that we have so much more information about our solar system than we did then. There were virtually no women in it, and it got really weird at the end. I continue to be surprised by how different the short classics are from Dune. The lack of world-building is so apparent, and the intent and goals of the writers seem to be very different.

We had a nice New Year's Eve with a live music concert in the central park sponsored by the city council. There were country, rock/funk, and Celtic bands who provided good music and energy to ring in the new year. There is an interesting tradition of having the "archwizard of Canterbury" cast a spell for the new year. He seems to be an equivalent to our old Father Time. There was also a sweet fireworks show right above our heads - the closest I've ever been to fireworks. Debris was even raining down on our heads!

D's jalapeno plant on the porch finally has some peppers ripening red. It has been fun to watch them grow and hopefully they are worth the wait.

We took a day trip to Akaroa, which is about 90 minutes south of Christchurch. It was a nice drive and a cute town, although it was overrun by tourists from the docked Princess Cruises ship. It was quite hot out, so we had a packed lunch in the shade and checked out the farmer's and craft markets. We also visited the Barrys Bay Cheese factory which still makes cheese the old-fashioned way. We watched workers spiking big cheese rounds with long metal sticks which will leave air holes and create the blue veins in blue cheese. D bought some 6-year aged cheddar cheese and garlic cheese. Both are good, and the aged cheddar is super intense!

strange "field" of trees on a bare hillside