It�s a good thing, this being on campus at least once a week. I feel productive and professional. It�s still hard to leave sometimes � AJ camped out at the living room window, waving and blowing me kisses as if I were coming back in a month instead of a few hours. I also feel horrible guilt about the work my husband isn�t getting done, because unlike my work at present, his actually pays the bills. But the prospect of future gainful employment in a field that challenges me with work I enjoy is a really big carrot at the end of what is, nevertheless, a very long stick.

Lately, my campus visits have been scheduled down to the last minute. I first met with my advisor for a little over an hour to go over my c.v. and teaching statement and other job materials. While the process of putting together my materials always makes me feel inadequate and inexperienced, he keeps telling me how great my stuff looks, how much more I�ve done than most first-time applicants (�I should hope so,� I said, �I have a good ten years on many of them.� �More like five,� he said. Perhaps he�s forgotten just how long I�ve been hanging around.) All alterations are very minor � the addition of more description here, a change in case there � that kind of thing.

We spent a little more time discussing the paper I�m giving for the upcoming conference. It�s a version of one of the papers I gave last year, but with a shift in focus to make it more appropriate for the panel I�ll be on. I know what I want to do to it, but this is a case where familiarity breeds contempt. I�m sick to death of it and I lack perspective, so he was able to see ways to accomplish what I�m trying to do that I�ve been missing. I�m still not excited about rewriting the paper, but at least I�ve got some direction now. Talks like we had about this paper always make me a little nervous, though. I�m never sure if he really likes my work or if he�s just not telling me when he thinks I�m doing a crappy job. But conversations with him always make me feel intense and energetic and passionate about what I do. In short, I�m reminded why I am doing what I�m doing. This is a good thing to do every now and then.

So after a productive hour and a quarter, I grabbed the recordings he�d made for my exam and headed down to the practice rooms. The recordings contained a pair of polkas played consecutively by unison accordion and fiddle. If anyone reading this knows anything about Irish traditional music, you probably know that polkas are among the simplest of the tunes out there. First, there�s a ton of repetition (typically AABBAABB, with each section (as represented by a letter above) consisting of two four bar phrases that are nearly identical to each other except for the end. Second, there�s typically very little ornamentation on polkas. Third, they�re mid-tempo pieces � not so slow as to be ornamented to the hilt and not so fast that you can�t catch the pitches. I was asked to transcribe the tune sections as a kind of generic form, outline the overall form, and then focus in on detail (ornamentation, accent, etc) section by section talking about changes between iterations in the first of the polkas. The first of the polkas was about as straightforward a reading as I�ve ever heard. The accordion didn�t play any ornaments at all. There were two notes where the accordion and fiddle played different things. And the fiddle ornaments were so standard � things that even I, a relative novice as a player, could have figured out � that it was pretty hard to screw it up. The second polka was more complex, both in terms of ornamentation and structure � its B section was double length. But I didn�t have to talk about that one in detail. Essentially, I think, I was given the easiest possible transcription project. If I didn�t pass with flying colors, I�ll be very, very surprised.

This means the final hoop before my defense is the Italian exam, which I take the first week in November. Oh, yeah, and FINISHING THE DISSERTATION.

On my way out the door of the department, I ran into my department chair, who is also on my committee. He asked about my progress and I filled him in and he was extremely supportive and helpful, although he was doubtful about his ability to keep his end of my advisor�s suggested schedule (turn in diss in December; defend in mid-January). So I�m guessing that means the defense will not be until February at least. But my goal is still to turn the thing in before Christmas. Can she do it? Stay tuned for the continuing story (horror story, no doubt) of THE DISSERTATION THAT WOULD NOT DIE!!!

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