Yep, I defended my dissertation last week. It went well -- my strategy of scheduling the defense at the unlikely hour of 7:30 am prevented hecklers and kept my committee groggy enough to let me slip through with only minor scrapes.
So, I was able to check that off my to-do list. A few more revisions to the diss, and its good to go. If I can figure out how to get the durn thing formatted in the Uni's style template, that will be a win as well.
On the not-so-good news front, I did not land a job this go-round. I have a couple of irons in the fire that might pan out, but basically I am looking at scraping together some work until the next season of applications rolls around. That has been pretty tough to get my head around, especially since I just passed the major milestone of the defense. I would have liked to have had a few more days to savor that victory before turning my mind to the difficult days ahead -- but no Uni job means no insurance, and that's something that I can't allow to happen.
On the fitness front, its been a tough week as well -- I always have trouble with that when my mind is not at ease with my future. For example, I had a fabulous 21 mile run the day before the defense -- I ran easy, felt good, didn't hurt too bad after. Sunday I had a crushing day, tried to run 10 miles hard (+/- 7:00 minute miles) and went: 6:56 / 7:45 / 7:30 / 7:15 / 8:45 / 7:08 and then quit and walked it in. I think I'm fit enough -- my body certainly was capable of getting back down to near the goal pace -- but I couldn't keep my head in the game. I tried to make it into a workout about being gutsy -- thats what miles 3/4 & 6 were about, but in the end I just couldn't keep picking my feet up and putting them down. 3 weeks until the marathon; I'm not going to let one bad day ruin my confidence -- I did run 10x 800m @ 3:30 on Thursday last week, right dead on pace for a 3:30 marathon -- but I have to get it back together before too much longer.
To that end I went down to the Library of Congress today. I love the LOC, the magical way books appear on a conveyor belt from out of the bowels of the building. The Jefferson Reading Room is really splendid; a good place to be. I am digging in to the book manuscript, beginning to map out some territory for chapters, looking over the field, as it were. I found a Fred Astaire dance book that contained sheet music and Labanotation for 12 pieces of choreography; Two books by Arthur Murray -- one of his 1924 "study dancing by mail" books and a 1936 hardback from after he had hit it big, and had a studio in NYC. Paul Whiteman, the white jazz bandleader, wrote the intro, in which we learn a little about Arthur's past -- he won a waltz competition, took a class at Castle House, and became a teacher there, then went with a baroness to teach in Asheville, NC, where the patrons were charged $50 an hour for lessons, and he was paid $5. He stayed on for three years teaching (after the anonymous baroness left -- something for me to research, there) before going to Atlanta to business school. Where he hit on the teaching dance-by-mail thing, and the rest is history.
It was also a chance to sit down and chat with one of my peers in the department with whom I don't get enough face time -- we were in different buildings doing research but got together for lunch -- that was awesome!
Also looked at a book by Skippy Blair, the legendary California dance teacher, published a book in '78 about her system of dancing, which would be easier to read without her PENCHANT for ALL CAPS.
The thing I was reminded of is how tiring that kind of research is -- I know I have a finite time with the material, so I'm skimming and trying to get a sense of what is and isn't important, taking notes, looking for stuff that I might use and trying to weed out stuff that isn't appropriate. Mentally taxing. I'll probably be down at the LOC a lot this next couple of months, kicking through GV1751 -- thats right, baby. I have my own call #.
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