Blog doldrums

Do I lack the discipline for regular blogging (or do I lack discipline in general?) Maybe I lose interest. Or maybe nothing much of real interest happens for stretches of time. Mostly, I've just been working, not very interesting fodder for a blog unless other procrastinators are interested in picking up pointers for all the creative ways I find to stay very busy yet STILL don't get the work I must get done, done.

Mary Nell says that's the process of creative procrastination...accomplishing something useful, just not what needs doing from the top of the list. I know that I wonder, even in the midst of doing it, why I'm tweaking class preps for next spring and fall 2010 courses, when I have lapsed deadlines from last week, last month, and a ton of work to get done before class TOMORROW morning?

Part of my problem, I know, is fretting about London limbo, which annhilates my concentration. I bounce back and forth between things...distracted. Normally focus is not a problem for me, but right now, it is. Recruiting for the UB Semester in London has been time consuming, even or maybe especially from afar. It feels like it has taken more time and effort this year, and without the same kind of pay-off. For me, recruiting feeds on itself--I'm excited, that generates interest and excitement, and that fuels me and the process. But it is much harder to recruit with the degrees of separation that distance creates, since the personal interactions with prospective students are what seem to matter most. So it has been hard (and time consuming)...and in the end, I worry that all the work may not be effective enough to compensate for not being on the ground in Buffalo. We'll see what Friday brings, the deadline for applications is October 1. I think I'll just be glad to know, one way or another, though I really hope the program goes again.


I think recruiting is fun (usually), so I pitched in at the UB fall open house here in Singapore on Saturday. It was held in the atrium of the Singapore Institute of Management, where several British, Australian and US schools pitched their programs to parents and prospective students. Although it was a poor substitute for London recruiting, I have to admit I enjoyed meeting parents and students considering UB, and I'll help another UB colleague who will here for several recruitment briefings at Singapore hotels next week.

Although the UB recruiting is mainly to attract students in general to enroll in UB, it is fun to explain to the very practical and efficient Singaporeans (where there is little tradition of degrees in sociology, especially at the grad level) why they should spend tens of thousands of dollars to help their sons and daughters get BAs in sociology. I think I actually persuaded some. Too bad I can't recruit students here for the London program--I'd have snagged enough students Saturday afternoon, I'm sure!

The UB Singapore students have to figure out ways to make their own community and forge a sense of identity within UB under challenging circumstances. UB's program is housed within another institution (Singapore Institute of Management), so there's not a place that's just for UB, for them be "at" UB, for the UB community to have ground to take root. Students instead seem to coalesce around "intake" cohorts; students in the first sociology instake will form a little peer group of their own. It isn't that they don't try to make UB very real--they make their own organizations, including a student council and a psychology club, and have a student newsletter they call the UB Bullhorn. UB students even threw themselves a formal Red Carpet dinner at one of the snazzy hotels a couple of weeks ago.
Although they are troopers, I felt sorry for the UB students staffing the student council booth on Saturday afternoon during the recruiting open house. There were hundreds of people milling around, but there were also half a dozen college/university programs participating, not just UB. The students bravely staffed a booth, at which I was their only customer. They have to raise all of their own $$ for activities--they don't get any student activity funds at all. So pathetic were they that I donated S$20 to the cause--they insisted I take a teeshirt or lanyard (I opted for the latter, the teeshirts are teeny weeny, and I'm not). Anyway, they invited me to the UB Fall Bash. I think I'll go, at least make an appearance. The invitation seemed pretty sincere.

I have looming deadlines glooming deadines drop deadlines. I teach tomorrow, I have a ton of grading to do...and I feel that trans-Pacific psychic pressure from my colleagues to pick up the pace, get moving, so I'm trying...I'll feel more centered and anchored when Tony arrives, I'm certain.