Dateline Life's Education

Dateline Life's Education... I guess that is what I will call this because that is the form Lara followed for her interview and she is where I got this... I am going to try to re-enter the blogsphere as a writer and this little interview is my way of jumping back in. So, the background. I read Life: The Ongoing Education almost daily. Last week some time, the topic was an interview of sorts. This stemmed from Mama Tulip interviewing Sandra from Sunshine Scribe. Sandra answered Mama T's five questions and asked her readers to volunteer to be interviewed... One of her readers is Lara, who was interviewed and decided to allow her readers to volunteer to be interviewed. So... here we are...

1. Why did you start blogging?

Well, I think it was about Christmas time and I wasn't working, I wasn't really sleeping, so I started searching for Blogs about Hillary Clinton. What I wound up finding was the mommy blogs or something like that. I started reading and going from one blog to the next based on a blogger's list of "friends." I wound up finding Atomic Tumor and reading his story of the loss of his wife. I also stumbled onto the aforementioned Life: The Ongoing Education and read her depression series. While I am usually not into dark subject matter (I consider myself very positive and try to surround myself with positive thoughts), these two blogs in particular really struck me. I was so impressed with the way these two writers could shed their souls for the world to read on the Internet. I was also moved by the responses these bloggers got from their readers.

I think it might have been partially selfish on my part in that I wanted to be able to share my life and troubles and joys, and I wanted the answers and support and comments from random strangers. I thought blogging about my life would be a great way to keep a journal of sorts and work on my writing skills and just be a good habit to have. I also hoped to eventually blog about my teaching, but the blog started during this hellish period of my life during which I am on a research assistantship and discovering that I don't at all enjoy research and that I passionately love teaching... So hopefully this summer, when I am teaching again, I will be able to blog about my teaching and share that joy.

2. What is your most prized possession?

This is a hard one. I don't really have a prized possession. My immediate thought is my computer... But not because it is a nice or fancy computer, but rather because of what is in the computer (or on the hard drive). I so value my research and writing and teaching materials. They are on my computer. I have conference papers and class papers that I have researched and pain-stakingly written. I have my thesis that I worked on for two years and went on to present at my very first academic conference. I have code books that I have created that have impressed other academic types. I have proposals for papers that will become great conference papers. I have a proposal to examine the news coverage of the last three Supreme Court nominees, an examination looking at source selection in the coverage and looking for gender differences in the coverage of the three nominees. I have a paper that is currently under review at the largest journalism education conference. This paper looked at agenda setting in newspaper editorials about Bush and Blair before and during the Iraq War. I have a paper that has been accepted by the International Communication Association that looked at framing of Bush and Blair in newspaper editorials before and during the Iraq War.

I don't mean to put my vita up here, but I guess I don't hate research quite as much as I have been feeling lately. I do enjoy creating research. I just don't enjoy the research I am doing for my assistantship right now. This was probably a good thing for me then. But the bottom line of this is that my most prized possessions are the things I have worked hard to create, my research. I guess I don't hate research after all.

3. When, in the last 24 hours, did you feel happiest?

This is another hard one... In the last 24 hours, I have slept a lot. Watched some TV. Eaten a few meals with my husband. Snuggled with him in bed. Ridden on his motorcycle. Gone to work. Gone to the chiropractor. Gone to our friend's house for drinks and chatting. When was I the most happy?

I would have to say in the little moments. My husband does the nicest things like send me text messages throughout the day saying things like "I love you baby baby." He kisses me goodnight and tells me he loves me. He kisses me hello when he gets home from work. He brings me so much joy and happiness. I never thought someone would love me the way he does. But he really does love me more than I knew any one person could love another.

My mom and dad are very happily married and still in love after 30+ years of marriage. But I really think Garrett loves me even more than my dad loves my mom. My mom might love my dad as much as Garrett loves me. I know that sounds weird or sappy or something. But it is just unreal the love I feel from him. And I try hard every day to love him as much or in the same way he does me, and I know I love him alot, but I don't know for sure that I am capable of loving him as much as he loves me. I sometimes worry that that will cause problems, but I don't think it has yet... We work. We really work.

And we work hard at our marriage. I know we have only been married one year, and that the hard parts are still to come, but I think we are building good habits of working hard at our marriage so it continues to work. So the bottom line here is that I am happiest when I am reminded of my husband's love for me. I hope that isn't selfish or stupid, but it's the truth. I hope it doesn't make me codependent or something like that. But it's the truth.

4. If you had to choose another historical era in which to live, which would you choose?

I think I would have wanted to live back in the days of parasols and carriages and petticoats and fragility. Sort of.

I am very fragile. I am delicate. I can appreciate a time when women were expected to be fragile and delicate. And quiet. That is where the sort of comes in. I cannot imagine living in an era in which I wouldn't have the right to speak my mind, or vote, or have personal choice in methods of birth control. But if I could be fragile and delicate and taken care of while still having all those freedoms, I would be happy! I like being taken care of. I like being a wife. I like being babied and loved. I prefer to not sweat, to not do heaving lifting, and to not do manual labor. I like it that I do the dishes and my husband takes out the trash. But I also like it that I am in pursuit of a career. I like it that I have hopes to have that career and a family. I read blogs of working mothers, and I am inspired that I too will be able to work as a professor and raise my kids.

So I am really glad that I live in this era. And I think part of what they call the "third wave" of feminism allows me to be fragile and delicate along with those freedoms. I can do dishes and have my husband take out the trash and I can work toward a Ph.D. and still want to become a mom. I love that I can have it both ways.

5. With what cartoon character do you best identify?

This is another hard one... I would like to say Cinderella, but she is just my favorite cartoon character. Sometimes I feel a lot like Meg from Family Guy. I feel frumpy and geeky and weird a lot of the time. But I don't think that's the one either. Sometimes I am a lot like Sponge Bob. I really do try to stay positive. I think that is one of my best qualities. I am a firm believer in the power of positive thinking. I use it every day. And I try to influence others to be positive. I think Sponge Bob is pretty darn positive. He tries to see the best in people (or sea creatures), and I try to see the best in people. It is amazing what being positive will do for you.

So I guess that's it for my interview. If anyone happens to read this and wants to be interviewed, leave me a comment. I will send you five questions and you can answer them in your blog. Maybe I will have a reader or two... Who knows.

ttfn