Save As

Sitting here at High Point on another Sunday morning, I'm reminded of my "oops" from last week.

I spent about three hours last Sunday morning working on my second publication--the response to a reply written to my first article. Anyway, as I've warned my students to do, I had emailed myself a copy of the piece that I'd spent five hours on during Saturday afternoon. (emailing to myself assures a version is saved other than just on my hard drive and allows me to work on the piece both from home and school.) And so, arriving at High Point a week ago, I accessed the emailed file and got to typing.

A few times Sunday evening, I thought about emailing it back to myself--so I could access it at work on Monday. I had about another two or three hours of work left on it, and it was due on Monday to the editors in California. But I decided instead I'd do it Monday morning.

Much to my horror, Monday morning, no file was to be found. What?! I searched and searched my hard drive, but I could find nothing more than the ghost of just a temporary file--unable to be accessed. What was I to do?

Well, I did the only thing I could: rewrote it. (My secretary said I was abnormally calm, but what would crying have done? I'd just have to type through blurry vision.) And so yes, most of Monday, aside from the times I had to teach, was spent on rewriting what I'd lost and writing what I needed to add. I asked the editor for one more night, asking to proof it one last time on Tuesday. Thankfully, she agreed.

I got the piece written, proofed it again on Tuesday, and all is fine. Of course, I find myself on Sunday, not totally prepped for next week--with the extra hours spent last week on this writing. And so here I am at High Point, contracts book here, about to type up my class notes. I emailed them to myself yesterday from school.

Deja vu, you fear? No, I think, with the help of Rob, our IT dude, what happened.

When you email a file to yourself and open it on another computer, be sure to FIRST save it to your computer. I think instead I just opened the darned thing, wrote and wrote, and never actually saved it to my computer. Sigh.

And so I've already saved my emailed class notes to this hard drive. I'll update them now, save them again, and email them back to me.

Lessons learned. Just be sure to always "save as." :-)

Sometimes You've Just Gotta Wing It!

I worked on my presentation late into the night Wednesday, and I was up early to go over it one more time. I had typed out my notes, and, at $1 a page, printed them Wednesday night. Sure, that's crazy expensive, but it turned out to be well worth it.

All of the presenaers met at 8:15 a.m., organizing the three sets of panels of presenters. This program was slated for three hours, and we had three groups of presenters. I was in the second group, being the third of three in that group to speak.

My friends and colleagues Janet and Lisa were there with me, and about two-thirds through the first group, I started getting more nervous. We were in one of the larger rooms, and it was near full--close to 150 people there. I took a couple of deep breaths, Janet gave me a nod of confidence, and I knew I was prepared. This would be fine.

Then it was our turn. I took my laptop up to the podium during the short break between panels, and it was then that I learned that my laptop's VGA port has no screw holes. What? Yes--no screw holes to keep the cable plugged in. Instead, when I plugged in the cable to connect my computer to the projector, the cable simply fell off. The tech guy came over, left the room, and returned with black electrical tape. He tried taping the cable to the computer, but half-way through the first speaker, it fell out again. He tried to fix it again, but a quick-fix was no good. So he waited until time for me to speak.

When I got up, he came over and started trying to fix things again. I, of course, had to go ahead and start--we were on a schedule, after all! And so I began, and for the first few minutes, he was right beside me, trying hard to fix things--even having to reboot my computer once. And me? Well, I did what I had to: went ahead anyway. And after a few minutes, we finally just told the man to leave. He was creating a distraction, and nothing was getting solved.

And so, I had to wing it--no power point, no graphs, no helpful cues for me o my screen as I spoke. But you know, it was just fine.

I had several people come up and speak to me afterwards, many saying how much they liked my idea and implementation of my solution to addressing two different groups of students who have competing needs. And others simply complemented my delivery of the presentation. One woman said I handled the technology problem in a flawless manner, and she loved that I even used it as an example of distractions.

So in all, it went very well. Sure, not having the power point was a problem, but I think I might be even a little more memorable because I didn't let the problem throw me off.

Oh, and the $11 notes, of course, sure did come in handy.

Gray Skies Part

I’ve been in such a state of turmoil with figuring out what my job talk would be. This has weighed heavily on me for the past several weeks, but I knew that the topic I want to write on next would need much too much work to get to a state worthy of intellectual discussion. The work I’m currently doing would not be “scholarly” enough. (It’s good work and will contribute to the pedagogy of law school, but it’s not about legal doctrine.) The work I’ve already done that’s being published just isn’t right for it. And so how did I find that Goldilocks “just right” piece? Argh!

Then today happened. A friend here chatted with me about what to discuss relative to scholarship. In other words, no, I didn’t ace that part of my interview here. But fortunately, she was willing to offer some words of advice. At first, I felt like things were now utterly hopeless—what I had wasn’t sufficient for discussing scholarship or my scholarly agenda. And knowing that, I knew it would effect how I would act and react in the coming interviews.

That feeling lasted about three minutes, then my gray clouds parted: I knew! I have something I worked on a few years ago that is sufficiently developed to use it for interviews on Friday. Further, I think it’ll turn into a great job talk—especially because the area of law is not one that (as far as my research has revealed) is a hot topic for any of my interviewers. Even better still, it heavily focuses on doctrine and it’s a small niche in the law that ties so nicely to my background from before law school and the work I did with persons with mental illness.

Have I found my “agenda”? Maybe. But what I do know is that I’m so much better prepared for Friday and any call backs. I’m actually now—finally—feeling settled with this area of the interviews and talks. This deserves a double: WooHoo!! WooHoo!!

This is THE Week

My wisdom last week helped, but I've still felt out of sorts and a bit buried. I've forgotten too many friends' birthdays (sorry Susan, Judy, Melissa . . .), my cupboard's bare, and I committed the ultimate dog's person awfulness: I didn't notice how bad Howard's ears had gotten.

Yes, Howard's allergic to Memphis--or at least to something here. According to the doc, it's common in dogs around here. And thanks to those allergies, Howard's got an infection of the yeast sort in his ears. We finally went to see the doc on Wednesday, and I was mortified at the goo in his ears. Sure, it built up slowly, but still.

Fast forward. On Friday evening, I faced a bad haircut, way too much work that needed to be done, and apprehension about the coming week. Well, I've worked with the cut, and in reality, it's fine. I've gotten all the revisions done on my pending article, and I'm prepped for class tomorrow. Check, check, and check.

Granted, the apprehension remains. I'm trying to view that as what I need to create the positive energy to get through the next five days. My first interview is tomorrow followed by several more in DC on Friday. Each one is for very different spots at very different schools. All would work. If I wind up with a choice, well, these interviews are for me to learn about the schools as much as they are for the schools to learn about me.

With all that had to be done, I have been crazy-busy all weekend, of course. (Part of that included the monthly mowing of the yard and cleaning of the back patio and a couple of work-outs--for sanity's sake.) But finally tonight I took some down-time and watched Brothers & Sisters--the best show on TV. And I giggled without reserve at the scenes with the two daughters and mother. I know that my mom, like Nora, means the very best when we speak and wants only the very best for me. And I know she worries and only wants to be supportive. I do know that. And so it's so incredibly nice to feel a bit validated by,yes, a fictional TV show, in seeing those adult daughters and mothers communicate poorly and get frustrated and tiptoe--and then slam---into feelings . . . . Love ya, Mom.

And so, this is going to be a big and busy week. But it'll be what it'll be. And that'll be okay.

Wisdom

I spent time today chatting with a colleague. It's funny--everyone seems surprised that he and I chat and even went to lunch; he's not the social kind. But he and I share the same students, and it's an incredible thing to be able to be validated that I'm not the only one "bugged" by a particular, well, smarty-pants. ;-) Anyway, so the chat today left me refreshed and ready for more.

This colleague has been teaching for years and thus has a lot of wisdom to share, so his encouragement helped tremendously. But even more, he encouraged me regarding another difficult issue I'm facing--the challenging of my scholarship. I've been on edge regarding this "challenge" for a couple of weeks, but after today, I'm finally at peace.

As for the particular issue, I can now (today, for the first time) see the positive: I've been seriously challenged by an overly educated professor from the west coast who disagrees with everything I say. Gulp. Breathe. And re-group. See, here's the up side: I'm so much more prepared now for any questions I get next week during my interviews. And that, people, is indeed priceless.

I got there through that chat this afternoon, but even more so, in the middle of my funk, I received this in my "Daily Insight" email inbox from Yoga Journal:

Life has its ups and downs. While it may be tempting to wallow in our misery during the downs, or quickly move past the source of our despair, that isn't always the healthiest way to deal with a crisis.

It's human nature to avoid the emotional roadblocks that pepper the path to spiritual maturity, to seek instead the slow and steady pace of the ordinary traveler. Yet reaching higher spiritual ground requires an extraordinary traveler. It demands the kind of change that comes from facing challenges—emotional, spiritual, or physical—and growing as a result.

A spiritual initiation—an exceptionally difficult life passage that shakes your foundations and makes you question your purpose—is just this sort of change. Disguised as a loss, it's actually an opportunity to strengthen the thread of awareness that connects your outer inner selves, a chance to travel deeper into the soul.

Wow. This was exactly what I needed--at exactly the right time. My foundations in my scholarship were indeed shaken. But the above passage and another nugget of insight I got today have both lifted me up back where I need to be. Yes, I'm still stressed. I'm still worried. But the extra wisdom helps so very much---as do the warm, fuzzy thoughts. :-)

This other nugget---yes, there's a little more to this story, but I want to be up early, so I'll simply promise to share the other amazing wisdom that was given to me today in a later post.