decompression and reflection

By Colleen Boyle

This week has brought a lot of things to forefront of my mind. While I have been long frustrated with feeling unaccomplished, this week a lot of new reflections have been present in my mind, and its been a while since I've updated my blog.

One of the assignments that have been required in my Teaching Internship at Roosevelt University is to create a CV, Cover Letter, and Statement of Teaching Philosophy. As someone who has very little training and experience in teaching, this presents a perplexing number of internal conflicts. Though I feel very much like I have mastered skills with writing and critical literary analysis, I have very little, it seems, to offer a teaching position.

We discussed and looked at examples of the above mentioned documents in class for two weeks, and I felt incredibly incapable of creating my own version of these things. Yeah, I've written cover letters and resumes but the cover letter for a teaching job is so much more detailed and specific to something I have little experience in.

But there was no point in putting off the creation of these documents. I thought, "what do I have to lose?" especially since my degree won't be complete for another year and applying for teaching jobs won't be til Spring 2013 or Fall 2013. That seems so far away.

I wrote the CV and found that it wasn't horribly lacking anything. I may not have a lot of teaching experience, but I do actually have a lot of accomplishments on the academic level. Writing a statement of teaching philosophy was a bit nerve racking, but I completed it and felt like I was true to myself in what I said. It needs improvement, but doesn't everything?

So then I got to the cover letter. I first wrote a cover letter to a position at Moraine Valley Community College. As I wrote, I felt a great deal of pride in myself. I begin to think of the girl who went to Moraine in 2003. I was 17, and I had no clue where I would be in a few years. I wasn't entirely sure about my major, my abilities, my dreams, etc... Now I can look back and think about all I've been through and feel proud that I never quit, that I worked and paid my way to a college education, and then even had the nerve to go back for another degree. Yes, I have about $20,000 in student loans but I also have a lot of writing skills, research abilities, and now the ability to help others in their writing and academic life.

Then I think about the other things I've done. I pay for my own apartment; I have no credit card debt; and I even managed the strength to travel in Europe alone for 5 weeks without a friend in thousands of miles (though I made plenty while there). If I could go back in time and find the 17 year old me who went to Moraine Valley, what would I say to her? I would say absolutely nothing because the journey was hard but amazing. That girl was shy and unsure of what life had in store for her. I'm still a little unsure but what's the fun in having all the answers? I wouldn't be the person I am if I didn't work so hard even without knowing if I could succeed.

After reflecting back to these things, I begin to consider what lays ahead of me. It probably isn't marriage and children, and I am perfectly okay with that. Those things come to us when they want to, maybe not when we're ready but they happen when they happen. Next Spring will be my first conference presenting a paper I wrote in grad school titled "Film Adaptations reshaping gender roles and the characters of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein". And just when I began to think presenting at a conference wasn't that big of a deal, I got to see the look of pride and excitement on my professor's face when I told her about how I was presenting the paper I wrote for her class.

There is so much more to look forward to now. I want to get a paper published, complete my Master's Thesis, and volunteer to help build my CV. I'm not trying to brag or gloat about what I've done. There's still a lot to accomplish but I think it helps to stop and realize where you've been before you can move on.

I have many other things to look forward to, watching my boyfriend succeed in college and starting my career. I plan to do more traveling, keep working on making my lifestyle healthier, and somewhere down the line, apply to a PhD program. I feel like this blog has been a little long winded but I really needed to recognize all of this. I used to be shy, scared, quiet, opinionated but silent, smart but simplistic, and I have to give lots of credit to the people who gave me inspiration and support. Every bit made all the difference between failing and succeeding.

I'm not even sure if I should be saying I've succeeded but I've definitely found a path.

Let's get deep (into some literary research)

I wrote a rather extensive and long-winded email to the poor woman I selected to be my Masters Thesis Director. I already feel bad for her because she has no idea how insanely OCD I get about my research papers and how much of a crazy perfectionist I can be. So after one week of research, here are the ideas I am putting out there to help me guide my topic development from here:

I did a lot of reading this week mainly looking to secure what my primary text or texts will be. I've got some ideas that I'd like to run by you. I would have liked to get more done but had a stomach flu for a couple of days making me sleep through a lot of planned studying times.

I haven't read any of these texts from start to finish but am just trying to think about where I want to focus.

Mrs Dalloway . I began reading this mostly because its one of Virginia Woolf's most famous and often read novels. While there are a lot of ideas that come to me, I feel like I'd rather not focus on this text because it is so well known and so many scholars have written about it. Some of the good ideas or themes that I picked up on were issues of marriage, conversations between the genders with emphasis on how Woolf shifts points of view to see how men and women talk/view one another, and a lot of themes involving domestic homes and how women occupy their time (giving parties and so forth).

Although I don't think Mrs Dalloway will be my primary text, I do plan to read it through since it is well know in Woolf criticism and may bring some interesting perspective to whatever I eventually focus on.

Night and Day. Similar to the themes I found in Mrs Dalloway, I like the interesting way that Woolf handles conversations between men and women and the way she shifts narration to view these things. There is also great emphasis on time and the time of day appears to affect the mood of the characters and scene she is leading the reader through. There are also themes dealing with women's 'work' and stereotypes about how they occupy their 'time'. I think I would like to focus on Night and Day as a primary text. I am not sure if this would be a good text to compare and contrast with another Woolf novel or any short stories. I guess I need to keep reading to determine that.

I was also considering some ideas for a comparative thesis with another modernist author. I thought that Jacob's Room and A Portrait of An Artist as a Young Man may have a lot of similar and different themes. It has been a while since I have read either text but the idea occurred to me and I thought it was worth mentioning. Obviously Joyce is Irish and Woolf is British but there could be similar themes since both texts deal with a male lead character and probably a lot of reoccurring themes of time etc.

But adding James Joyce to my studies would only complicate my thesis research since I know he is a difficult author to study and read (though you could argue all Modernists are).

I started to read both Between the Acts and To the Lighthouse. I did not get very far into either but had noticed a few interesting things. Both seem to be different because they are taken outside of the city and written in more country settings. The characters also seem very different from the characters in her other novels that are located in London and a more urban, city setting.

Another thought that crossed my mind but I have not followed up on and did readings for was that Woolf wrote a set of short stories including at least one that is a ghost story. This immediately brought to mind Edith Wharton's short stories since I have done a paper on Wharton's ghost stories in the past. Whether doing research on those is a good idea, I am not sure. I know Wharton was an American author and was around the same time period as Woolf (Wharton was born about two decades before Woolf and died about 10 years before Woolf).

Okay, there are a lot of ideas here but I am more comfortable with a surplus of ideas than a shortage of them. I hate to be so long winded through email but writing out my ideas is helping a lot and is already giving me direction for what I will read over the weekend. Any feedback you can provide will be appreciated and very helpful.

Thank you so much for being the wall my ideas are bouncing off of!

Quick Blog

This is probably the earliest blog I've ever posted. But I have some quick things to think about so here I am and before I've had my waffles (already have my cup of coffee though). So, I've got a meeting with a professor to discuss my Masters Thesis topic today.

My 'starter' topic is novels of Virginia Woolf and themes of time and gender. While it's a good start, I have a feeling that it's a too broad of a topic and one that has been discussed in the context of Virginia Woolf a great deal. So, I am hoping to get more direction and learn how to narrow my topic down.

Dan is going to come with me to the city and were going to hangout downtown, walk around a bit and enjoy the city. It's going to be a fun day and hopefully not too cold.

On a bad note, I have not been jogging and exercising this week. Blame it on being a woman but its really not an excuse. Maybe I needed an off week but I gotta get back on track and soon!

Updating my goals and progress/ emerging back into politics

There are two things that I am going to discuss in this blog post tonight. The first is how far along I am in accomplishing some recently set goals. One goal was to being logging and tracking all my food. I have been strong in this aspect for almost a week even though I did not eat the healthiest; I still stuck with logging everything. Unexpected family celebrations definitely contributed to some bad eating but I did not go overboard in my opinion.

I finally set an appointment with a professor to begin working on my thesis topic and have some working ideas about what I can write about. While I didn't get to clean my bedroom and compile a clothing donation for goodwill, I did help Dan do this at his house (a compromise to spend the following weekend on my room). Dan and I both thoroughly cleaned our cars inside and out. I also banned smoking in my car which is a good step towards quitting smoking (and am still cutting back greatly with how many cigarettes I have per day).

I began to work on my lesson plan and assignment for the undergraduate course I am interning with. This involved a lot of time spent reading news articles online and viewing the comments to those articles. I had my hesitations towards reading news articles because of my frustration with politics and getting involved in politics.

However much I try, I can't help but have my opinions and views about our American society in the state that it is today. What started as a discussion of ideas between me and Dan, turned into a lengthy conversation between Stina and I about politics and how our society could change for the better.

There are numerous things wrong in the world today and people are living their lives in chaos without the capacity or direction to make any substantial changes. We live in a world where corporations have way too much control and we rely on them to provide cheap products but at the cost of outsourcing our labor and production plants.

But the problems can't be simply placed there. We have an obesity problem, a lack of interest in protecting the environment, people rarely eat healthy and whole foods, and too many people splurge and live above their means. This issues are not the government's fault but simply the way we have allowed our society to progress and grow into.

The people who want to change those bad habits are the ones that can't afford to spend their time worrying about eating healthier food because they can barely afford the cheap processed foods. How can we grow as a society when the majority of the people in it feel completely helpless and all the education in the world can't get them financial security and job security.

We are so concerned with dividing ourselves into groups and classes that we forget to help one another out, we forget to have sympathy for those in the hard times. Maybe I'm simplifying this all too much or not quite getting at the heart of the problem, but it's frustrating to see people struggle.

But what can one do about any of this by themselves? Well, the answer is not a god damn thing. We can only make the right choices for your own life and hope that enough people begin making the right choices to move our society to a better and more productive society. I hope that it will be one that serves ourselves instead of the corporations we rely on too much.

If you took the time to see how our society has progressed, you see a great advancement in technology but a loss of control for people to manage their own lives and make conscious decisions. Just because something is cheap doesn't make it good for you. I hate dislike McDonalds so I don't eat there. If more people recognize that fast food is ruining nutritional values in our communities and stop eating there, the business would fail and less fast food restaurants would exist. The bad things in society exist because people support them and create a demand for them.

So until we change our behaviors and attitudes, our society cannot reflect the change. It took generations to get where we are today so it will take just as long to progress and change again.

disaster in the kitchen!

I've got two things to discuss in my blog today. First and foremost, my new found (somewhat forced) decision to start cooking and baking more has had its ups and downs. Disaster is not really the right word for it so I may need to change the title.



First, the boyfriend and I made the spicy chicken bake that I recently found on the How Sweet It Is blog. That blog is truly wonderful and has plenty of great recipes and dishes that would make anyone want to cook!

This recipe went incredibly well and make a ton of food which my dad enjoyed the leftovers all weekend. We also made our own garlic bread and it was amazing. The next thing we made was biscuits n gravy which I long ago perfected and no longer need a recipe. I made these for Dan before and even though it was his birthday, he insisted on learning.



Then it was cupcake time. Since I love baking cakes and cupcakes for everybody's birthday (though I haven't for a long time). Dan wanted vanilla and banana. I'm not the biggest fan of banana so I'd never cooked with it before. I decided to top the cupcakes with chocolate covered banana slices (another from How Sweet It Is).

The recipe for the banana slices call for the bananas to be frozen. I didn't even think of the possibility that the bananas needed to be peeled. So I threw them in the freezer and the next day, quickly realized what a bad idea that was. Oh well, I threw those out and luckily had two more bananas sitting on the counter.

I cheated and used a box to make the cake part of the cupcakes but chose to continue my tradition of making my own frosting. Since Dan wanted banana, I just mixed together one mashed banana, a bunch of cool whip, and then threw in some instant banana pudding mix. I let Dan decide when the frosting tasted well and I think the cupcakes were a success, everybody enjoyed them!

Now, there is some other things that need consideration outside the kitchen. For starters, I am in my last week working for Baird & Warner. While I enjoyed writing content for the website and learning Search Engine Optimization, the project is at its end more because of the new head of marketing. I'm glad that I chose to keep working both jobs when school started so that I now can only working at Polmax with a bunch of fun and sassy ladies.

So I went from working 80 hours over the summer to 50 hours at the start of the school semester and will only be working next week 30 hours. I'm not sure how this will feel next week. I'm guessing it would feel like a vacation to finally have time to do stuff around my apartment. This weekend, my goals are like so:

Research for my Master thesis topic (my goal is to have a solid topic developed by the end of October so I can write my thesis proposal)
Clean my bedroom (maybe even vacuum the floors)
Throw out old stuff and useless items (Anti-hoarding cleanse)
Begin drafting my lesson plan for LIBS201
Donate clothes to goodwill and clean out the closets (this should also indicate that I am going to finally put away the clean clothes piled on my floor)
Clean out my car (this includes vacuuming the inside and washing all the windows etc.)
Go for a hike at Swallow Cliffs Forest Preserve (most likely reserved for Sunday)
Shop for Halloween Costumes! probably the funnest thing on this list!


Coming Soon, Colleen attempts to bake a pie!

Memorable Quotes by Col

I know that quotes are typically reserved for people who have done important things, published books, shaped the world, or made a major contribution to society or promoted peace or some hippie crap like that.

Well I say funny shit! So you know what? I'm going to start a list of funny quotes because I'm too funny to not quote.

So, I present, memorable lines from Colleen Boyle, future author of a book or that chick you might of saw on the train.

"That joke was so racist, I hope you have to stand next time you take a bus anywhere"

"I'm sorry, I forgot that at the beginning of the relationship I'm supposed to let you think you make the rules, how silly of me"

"These kids are so annoying, I might punch myself in the Uterus"

"There's nothing scary about a strong man, you should be more afraid of an intelligent woman"

"I don't think anything is scarier than being reserved instead of expressive"

"Don't you think it'd be funny if you [to a guy] slam the door on me and yell "equal rights", instead of holding the door for me? I mean people might think you hit me, but I'd get a laugh out of it"

"If you keep sneaking your dirty clothes into my laundry basket, I'm going to sneak herpes into this relationship as punishment"

"Being a woman is so tiresome, you spend all your energy caring about things that never matter 24 hours later"

"Boyfriends are just like newborn babies, just as sticky, messy, needy, and smelly, except you don't have to squeeze them out of your girly parts"

to be continued.............

Wait, what? You can cook food at home? WOW!

There are certain things I am good at and then there are those other things that I never learned or tried. You know, stuff like cooking, sewing, juggling, snapping, watching romantic dramas, shoe shopping, and getting a tan.

But in a recent blog post, I indicated my want to start eating healthier, and with that comes the idea that I need to make my own meals and know what is in the food I eat. In the past four years, I have become a pro at memorizing nutrition guides for many 'fast' food restaurants and sandwich joints in the city and suburbs.

As much as I kick and scream at the thought of growing up (hence my love of coloring books and toys), it's time to grow up and get some big girl skills. So today, I hit the blogs and thanks to a good friend, Stina (her blog is here: ), I was able to browse a few blogs that post great recipes.

The main blogs I found useful:

Eat Live Run

How Sweet It Is

I highly recommend Stina's blog since she has been a large source of information for me since a lot of her goals are aligned with mine (some of which, she is way ahead of me in achieving). We ended up on the topic of food after we were discussing a dessert to make for my boyfriend's birthday--which is going to remain a secret for now.

I chose to make the Spinach-Feta-Turkey-Burger. So I hiked all the way to Orland and hit up Trader Joe's with about five recipes in my purse. After spending about $60 and renewing my love of shopping at Trader Joe's (PLEASE OPEN A STORE CLOSE TO ME!), I headed home with tons of positivity and a sinking feeling that I forgot something.


After putting away groceries in my kitchen, it dawned on me. Hamburger Buns. Yeah, I had regular bread, but who would make amazing Turkey Burgers and put it on regular sandwich bread. How do I always manage to do this to myself? Happily, I had bought ingredients for two other recipes.

I ended up making the BBQ Chicken Quesadillas. Now, I didn't really follow the recipe. I bought wheat tortillas, chicken, low fat mozzarella cheese, and BBQ sauce. I always cheat and take out the onions and bs my way through it. But it turned out pretty good even though it kind of fell apart.

Later, I will be making homemade granola bars. I may opt to go for a run and make the granola bars tomorrow but they will be made. In the past, I have made the mistake of buying ingredients to make a particular dish or try a new recipe but end up being too busy to make it, and the ingredients spoil and get thrown away.

Anyways, I am taking a step in the right direction! Horray for positive changes!