Cashing in My Chips

After meeting with one of my dissertation committee members, I've decided to give myself the next academic year to finish my dissertation. She wants me to take the time to 1. develop publishable chapters instead of the draft quality that would come with finishing early; 2. work on a piece I wrote for her seminar a few years ago (2003, to be exact) and turn it into a publishable article. She said she's willing to read it again, make a list for me of things to revise, expand, etc., and a list of journals to submit it to. So, I will send it to her once I am done with this post. It's also the project I'm submitting for the fellowship for which I've been nominated (see previous post, "The Littlest Birds..."), so is something worth spending oodles of time on. Her logic is, of course, to go on the job market in December with publications in hand, as well as a mostly finished dissertation and excellent, polished writing samples. This would be preferable to finishing this year ("on time"), having the PhD in hand, and having no publications and only good writing samples. She wants me to go into it with guns blazing, and so I shall.

The best thing she said to me? "You have a reputation in this department for doing things on time and doing them well. Cash in your chips. Take an extra year and really, really develop your work. I want to see you go far." She also told me she likes how I think (critically speaking) and that she will do whatever she can to get me where I need to go (i.e., a job at a tier-1 research institution). Being the painfully insecure academic that I am, this has bolstered my spirits enormously. I was dazed for a while after the meeting, but am feeling enormously better now.

What's the catch? I am out of funding next year, so will need to scrounge together something. This doesn't scare me, though. I have always landed on my feet and I am not above any kind of work. And, if all else fails, I'm gonna cash in on my boobs, yo!

So, I ended my evening in true dork-fashion: reading Agamben and listening to Chopin. Ah, the sporting life!