Cords

After deep talks with Michael, I'm realizing that normally, I walk around with energy cords between me and the people closest to me. I imagine them as electrical cords with two plugs: one in me, and one in them. Right now it feels like I've pulled out all the plugs that normally live in other people, and I'm walking around with a bunch of unplugged electrical cords in my hands. They're still plugged into my end, but I'm just holding on to the bundle of disconnected cords as I wander through the world. Weird.

It's hard on Michael.

The thing I don't understand: my radar is still working, at least with some people. If I've disconnected a bunch of my energy cords, where are those messages coming from? Am I also embedded in something more like an energetic spider web, so I can still feel the threads twitch when somebody around me moves?

Something to think about.

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Required reading for surviving a university system

If you are either a graduate student or junior faculty member and want to save yourself huge amounts of anguish, get on Amazon.com and buy The Black Academic's Guide to Winning Tenure---Without Losing Your Soul.

I am currently on the chapter that explores the fit between your personal work and relational style and the institution's unwritten, informal organizational style and it alone is worth the time and cost of the book. If I had understood this stuff years ago I could have saved myself a tremendous amount of time and sorrow.

Don't be concerned if you aren't Black or Latino. The core of this book serves to explain how to best survive a university system as either a grad student or junior faculty, and that information is precious regardless of how race and gender have shaped you.

That given, if you are Black, Latino or female, this book will offer you even more of the information you need to thrive.

From now on, this book will be required reading for all grad students who want to work with me and any undergraduate who approaches me seeking mentoring.

If you need to function in an academic setting, you need at least some of the information in this book. If you are mentoring others in an academic setting, have mercy on them and read it so you are better able to support with with clarity, wisdom and practical advice.

Sarah, you probably need to read this as part of your post-Ph.D. healing process.

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Excerpt from "Lady Marmalade's Special Place in Hell"

Wanna read about her? Here it is:

http://thunderpigeon.livejournal.com/74973.html

Hmmm, some of my FoV friends are going to like this.

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