October 2, 2009
It’s about World Building.
I submitted an abstract to a conference the other day.
I mean, I don’t know if I’ll get in, but goodness… that was not on a list of things I expected myself to be doing… going to scholarly conferences… reading papers I wrote in front of strangers and trying to sound important. That is just… not something I was going to do!
I’ve always thought of myself as a smart enough person, but never so much as an “intellectual” or someone who does this kind of shit. Someone who would, potentially, be making their way in life as an academic. That was never even vaguely in the game plan. I never really felt comfortable writing papers. It never felt like I was doing good work, even though I always got good grades on them. To think that creating these papers could be a marketable skill for me seemed… pretty crazy.
The main reason I’m drawn to that kind of life at all is a want to teach, and the main reason I’m repelled from it is getting into the supposed “Publish or Perish” mindset of actual academic life, you know? I don’t need this vague deadline over my head that I’m needing to get another article out there. Ugh.
And yet here I am. I submitted a paper.
I dunno. It’s odd.