So Much To Say

(Understatement follows). This has been quite a week. Between the engagement, graduation, and faculty orientation, I am quite overwhelmed right now!

Many many thanks for all the well wishes on our engagement. I have enjoyed finding out all the things Dr. J was going behind my back when he was allegedly working on dissertation business. The story of him going to meet with my mother last Tuesday is a great one, but I don't have the energy to go into that now. Dr. J and I are doing great and trying to do our best to enjoy this time. Unfortunately he is already gone back to University Town, and I miss him dearly. These next few months of long distance relationship status are going to be rough but hopefully they will go by quickly. No wedding date is set as of yet, although we are looking at a 12-18 month window. I'm trying to keep planning and thinking-about-planning to a minimum right now.

School is getting underway here, and I am rushing to complete all the items on my to-do list. I am behind in a very un-Mon-like fashion. But I am enjoying meeting my new colleagues, and I think I am transitioning well into this new faculty role.

I have been thinking a lot about transitioning out of this blogspace. I have found it increasingly difficult to write here--for no other reason than suddenly this blog is a little "theme-less" to me. It was easy to write every day when it was just about the dissertation, but now that my life is turning in so many different directions, personally and professionally, this space feels very fragmented to me. There may be a wedding planning blog in my future as well as an academic one, but I really can't say right now. I do feel like I should keep an online space--especially after the delurking that went on this week (thanks to those of you who commented for the first time)! But I really need to figure out how, where, and to what extent I want to change my blogging. So when I'm sitting in boring orientation meetings this week, I'll have something to think about.

In the meantime, I was really touched to return to my blog and find this comment that was left regarding this post:
Anonymous said...
i am writing to you from india - i am not a woman of color, here all of us are different shades of brown - but i am from a lower caste community. i could have passed off as upper caste, but somehow i took to interrogating caste in my academic life. i live in a upper caste dominated place. i still have not from my childhood to now, been taught by men or women of my caste. i cannot hope to find any for the next ten years also. today as i write this, i am very very sad. there is a conference going on here on caste and democracy and all the lower caste men and the upper caste women are conglomerating in different venues. i was left out of everything, mainly because i raise distasteful issues concerning mainstream academic politics. i cannot sleep and i cannot cry. i just sit here and read your blog and feel somewhat better. i know that in india no woman from my caste will write a blog like this - sometimes i wonder if i can go on, sometimes i promise myself that i will stay and struggle for all those coming up after me from so far behind. thanks a lot.
I am greatly appreciative to this commenter for sharing this with me here, and it is certainly good motivation for me to reconsider why I blog and what I blog about. I am optimistic that I'll figure out my next stage for blogging soon.

4 comments:

Genealogy Spice said...

Fantastic news! Really happy for you Dr. Mon! May even more happiness find its way to you over the coming months. Cheers!

PS - Blogging, commenting, and general hanging out in the blogosphere has been sparse at my end....trying to get the darn thing written!

Genealogy Spice said...

Me again! Thanks for sharing this comment with us. I'm originally from Pakistan; while I've been lucky enough not to experience what this woman has been through on a personal level I've observed it more generally in everyday life and through my MA thesis in which I looked at the construction of female identity. Lots of thoughts running in my head - perhaps a post in the near future.

RageyOne said...

Good to hear from you! I'm sure you have been quite busy. You've basically had a worldwind going on in your life for the past 2 months. Maybe things will settle down after Labor Day. I understand how busy this time can be. Things have only gotten to normal for me this week and I didn't have as much of a transition as you. Have a great rest of the week!

melyssa said...

miss your posts. hope you still visit the blog world from time to time.