Tag Archives: PhD

What I did on my summer vacation (and what gives me nightmares)

I remember dreading this first-day-of-school assignment, because we did the same thing every  summer. We went to the cottage, which I enjoyed on some levels, but it forced me away from my Dad and my friends, which I didn’t enjoy. I loved the daytime, being outside, swimming, lying on my grandmother’s quilts on the lawn reading comics and eating watermelon. But at night, the sheets were clammy with humidity and it was far too dark. Inevitably, I’d wake in the depths of the night, unable to see my hand in front of me, and get so scared I’d start crying. For years, all my nightmares were of being hunted by malicious forces at the cottage. Having spent months up there as an adult, I’m happy to report that the place of the cottage in my dream world has shifted to one of light.

This past summer, for the most part, I stayed in Toronto; the brief time I was at the cottage, my allergies were awful, so I avoided a prolonged stay. This summer’s highlight was certainly the band reunion, and everything leading up to and away from that.

In August, I made my annual foray to the Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake (NOTL). I was late booking, so missed one play I wanted to see and was unable to book my usual B & B, although I did have a visit with Lynn, the owner. I had mixed feelings about my last-minute accommodations, but I enjoyed the birds’ nest behind one of the window shutters. The chatty chicks were nearly as big as their parents and beginning to venture into the huge maple a few feet away.

A small part of the Niagara peach harvest.

A small part of the Niagara peach harvest.

This year, I didn’t visit as many stores or spend much money, and I think I enjoyed NOTL even more as a result. For the first time, I was there during Peach Festival and I think that’s something I’d like to repeat. Three blocks of the main drag, Queen Street, were closed to traffic, allowing vendors to sell locally grown peaches and peach baked goods. In the evening, tables were set up along the street for gourmet dining and local wine sampling. The festival was alive with music; folk, rock, jazz, salsa—even bagpipes. The street felt very different, more relaxed, in part because I could wander back and forth as things caught my attention. The weather was fantastic, beautiful, clear and sunny. At one point, the local biker gang buzzed through town, about thirty of them, so hard not to notice. An interesting contrast. Lots of people were out enjoying the weekend; I even saw Shaw Festival actor Patrick Gallaghan out with his wife buying baked goods.

I’d intentionally left my Saturday evening free, thinking I might indulge in a gourmet meal. But I didn’t feel like it, so instead, I went on a Ghost Walk of NOTL with Lady Cassandra. This was a significant year for such a walk, as it’s the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812. For six months during 1813, the Americans occupied this small, but strategic, town, then called Newark. This summer, NOTL flew the vintage fifteen-star American flag alongside the Canadian flag, to mark the anniversary. Historically, there’s a lot of pain in this soil. When the Americans left, they razed the town, leaving about 400 residents, mostly women, children and the elderly, without shelter in December. Many froze to death. This cruel civilian attack was condemned by both the British and Americans. It also laid the course for reprisals, including the burning of the original White House. While the town was rebuilt, many lives were lost, some brutally, during the war years. And the losses didn’t end with the conclusion of that war. The room I stayed in is occasionally haunted by its former occupant, a young woman who committed suicide after her American husband was killed at the Battle of Gettysburg in the summer of 1863 during the American Civil War. Abagail reportedly doesn’t haunt romantics, so I was left in peace, however, those of you who know me well know that I’m highly impressionable when it comes to spooky stuff. I don’t do horror movies because the images haunt me for weeks or even months. Needless to say, I didn’t sleep well and yes, I had to check under the bed a couple of times because I kept getting flashes from an Evil Dead movie trailer.

Self-portrait in Abagail's Rest. Spooky.

Self-portrait in Abagail’s Rest. Spooky.

And, oh yeah, I went to three plays. With the number of actor friends I have, I’m embarrassed to admit that I’d never seen the classic, Guys and Dolls. I was surprised that I knew at least half the score. Although I’d heard Bugs Bunny described as a Damon Runyon-esque character, I’d never understood the parallel until seeing this play. Wow. Talk about a culturally influential show! Peace in Our Time, a later Shaw play, wasn’t, in my opinion, one of his best. Although full of social and anti-war comment, it lacked the level of wit I generally associate with GBS. It felt very heavy handed and static. Oscar Wilde’s Lady Windermere’s Fan, on the other hand, was lovely. A thrilling satire that skewers Victorian morals, it contains such immortal lines as: “I can resist everything except temptation” and “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” I really enjoyed the acting, staging and costumes in this production. The music choices between acts were…unexpected: Velvet Underground’s “All Tomorrow’s Parties,” Rufus Wainwright’s “Art Teacher” and Katy Perry’s “Firework.” While I kind of understood the significance of the first two, the final choice seemed to overwhelm the play’s finale, but that is a minor complaint. If you want to visit Shawfest, all three plays continue into mid-October or early November.

This was the second time I took transit to NOTL and it just doesn’t work well, so I’ll probably go back to renting a car. The GO schedule doesn’t take curtain time into consideration, so play-goers may have to cab it from either St Catharines or Niagara Falls. Of course, the  other advantage of a car is that I can stock up on local fruit and wine before heading back to the city.

Morning Glory

Morning Glory

At home, my balcony garden really took off this year. As well as violas, morning glories, marigolds, portulaca, begonias, impatiens, and sweet potato vines, I tried a gerbera daisy for the first time. It’s been sending up bright new blossoms all summer. The quality and range of floral colours have been lovely and it’s been really gratifying to have bees visiting my sixth-floor balcony. Additionally, I tried growing vegetables this year. I started them indoors from seed, probably a little late. I have about a dozen tomatoes, half-a-dozen cucumbers, and an uncertain number of peppers coming along. It was more successful than my previous attempt at a balcony vegetable garden, and I learned a few things, so plan to try again next year.

CNE midway at dusk

CNE midway at dusk

My friend James and I made our annual pilgrimage to the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE) and did some of the usual things and a few new things. We saw an intimate performance of the Flying Wallendas’ high-wire act. We missed the Super Dogs, so we checked out the miniature horses instead. We also walked through the cat show, which consisted of a variety of over-bred felines, mostly sleeping in their carriers. I was really taken with the Savannah cats, until I found out that they’re a cross between a wild serval and a domestic cat, only recently accepted as a new breed. Although a striking and affectionate cat, I don’t know why people can’t just leave wild cats alone to do what they do in their natural habitat. I was also really glad to see a large booth for Ninth Life Cat Rescue, an organization that rescues cats from death row in shelters, housing them until they can be adopted. If you’re considering feline companionship, personally, I think adopting from a shelter is a more responsible way to go. We wandered through the international pavilion, watched people on midway rides, and, after much consideration, I ate a deep fried Mars Bar, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

In other news, I completed the revised draft of Pairs & Artichoke Hearts. I got some great feedback from one of my first readers, and there’s some further work I’d like to do before sending out queries. I was also able to get back to writing my PhD dissertation; last year’s car accident did a number on my cognitive abilities, among other things, but I feel like my head is finally fully back in the game. I drove for the first time since the accident, even at night and in the rain, and nothing bad happened. I attended four funerals and a wedding, the ratio perhaps a sign of age. I did some non-academic reading, including Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84 (all 925 pages), as well as some hybrid hardboiled science fiction, and some comic books. I went to a few movies, notably Red 2, Iron Man 3, and Joss Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing.

I took more time off than I’d intended, but the upside of that is now I’m eager to get back to schoolwork! And that’s a good thing.

© Catherine Jenkins 2013

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Fall / Winter 2012

Oh my. It seems to have been another long while since I updated the website. I still blame the PhD, although I’ve added some teaching responsibilities as well, so in fairness, it is, perhaps, the combination. You will, I hope, be pleased to note that I have not been so remiss in my book writing. Pairs & Artichoke Hearts is nearing completion and I expect to begin marketing it to publishers by the spring. If you want to read more about it, please go to the Works in Progress page, and my entry into The Next Big Thing!

In spite of the favourable tone of last fall’s post, I’ve reverted. I’m still working on the apartment, and hope to get back to working on it more seriously over the winter holidays. And I’ve returned to my cave; I’m only venturing out when necessary. Looking forward to a long and productive hibernation as winter’s chill sets in. On a brighter note, I’ve returned to cooking, creating vast quantities of hearty soups and chili to stave off the cold. Even on nights when I don’t feel like cooking, I can go to the freezer and heat up a homemade meal, which is always pleasant (not to mention considerably less expensive and healthier than ordering take-out).

Life was moving along quite smoothly, and I was making excellent progress on my dissertation—right up until the rental car I was driving back from the cottage got T-boned by a cab in early September. I’m okay, but still on the mend, with the assistance of many alternative healthcare practitioners, lots of sleep, and gentle downtime. The cats, who were also in the car, were fine and recovered much more quickly than I have. This is an event I could have done very nicely without, an event which has caused considerable internal stir, not only physically, but also psychically. The police concurred that the accident was entirely the fault of the other driver, and yet I’m the one who suffered injury, and is still recovering more than three months later. The notion that I could be doing everything right, or at least nothing wrong, when the universe whaps me upside the head for no apparent reason, is very disconcerting.

Then events unfolded in Newtown, Connecticut these last few days. While this is one more in a long line of such tragedies, this particular one has affected me more than most, I think because it involves young children. They weren’t doing anything wrong either, and yet now they’re dead or traumatized. I know I’m looking for logic where none exists. My heart goes out to all those involved, the living and the dead. But yes, this rightly brings up the question of “the right to keep and bear arms,” the second amendment of the American Constitution, adopted, I would add, in 1791. I suspect that the gentlemen who saw to its passing would shudder at some of the ways it’s been twisted over time, as well as the “improvement” in killing power of today’s weapons over the single shot rifles they were thinking about. My mother grew up in a pioneering family towards the end of the pioneering era in the Canadian outback in the early 1900s. My grandfather had rifles; they were kept in a locked cabinet and were used to hunt food or euthanize injured or rabid animals. These are not problems most of us encounter in our comfy urban settings. In the US, to a lesser degree in Canada, and to a greater degree in some other countries, we have turned such weapons on each other. The statistics support that countries with fewer guns have many fewer firearms casualties. In spite of this, when mass shootings happen in the US, people buy even more guns. Where is this heading? Are people going to pack little Billy and Sally off to school with their respective Spiderman and Barbie lunchboxes, along with their flak jackets and handguns? Maybe a .22, something small enough for a child to handle, in black for him and pink for her? Maybe more guns isn’t the answer; maybe a more compassionate society that actually listens to the needs of its children, especially its young men and boys who are statistically more likely to respond with violence. The individual responsible for the devastating carnage in Newtown used his mother’s legally obtained and licensed assault rifle and handguns that she had purchased for self-defense. Seriously? The population of Newtown is about 27,000 and by all reports, it was a peaceable place to live and raise a family. If Americans living in such postcard perfect small towns feel so paranoid that they need military weapons in their homes, then the terrorists won a long time ago.

Maybe it’s just my perception, but it seems that all around the world, people have dug in on opposing sides and there’s no room for the middle path, no room for negotiation. I see this around the question of gun control versus the right to bear arms, but I also see it in the widening gap between rich and poor, between capitalists and environmentalists, and among fundamentalists of every stripe. It seems that if you’re not dug in on one side or the other, then you’re a victim, and no one wants to be a victim. I’m not sure when we became so ardently polarized. But it scares me and makes me very uneasy about the future.

Enough. The holidays are almost upon us. I’m done for the term. I need a break. I’m taking the train to an overnight getaway in Niagara Falls. En route, I’m stopping in St Catharine’s to visit two exhibits of work by Dennis Tourbin, my late friend and creative mentor. I’ve never seen the Falls in winter or at night, so I’m looking forward to that strange magic, in conjunction with all the kitschiness that is downtown Niagara Falls. I even snagged a Fall’s view room! Looking forward to the opportunity to reset, and hoping to begin the New Year with a new, more positive, outlook as I push towards the completion of a couple of major projects in 2013. Best wishes to all for a happy, healthy, and peaceful New Year.

© Catherine Jenkins 2012

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Fall 2011

Wow. It’s been a while since I updated the website, so here goes. As some of you know, I returned to school a while ago. I’m now in the fourth year of my PhD in the Communication & Culture program at Ryerson-York Universities in Toronto. I’ve completed the necessary course work with solid grades and I made it through Comprehensive Exams in one piece (barely). The formal proposal for my Dissertation has been approved by my committee and I’m about to enter into the Dissertation writing process. Additionally, I’ve been TA-ing courses, presenting conference papers and have two peer-reviewed academic book chapters pending publication. Now do you understand why it’s been a little difficult to get around to updating the website? Doing a PhD tends to take over one’s life. I’ve been working hard, but I’m also really enjoying the mental stimulation.

It’s been a challenging, and by times exhausting, few years, but I finally feel like I’m getting some balance back in my life. I experienced a major shift last spring. Although I had consciously realized the previous year that I was keeping myself far too busy, that I was in workaholic mode to ease the movement through some parts of my grief process, it was another year before I could really slow down and peel back the layers of what I’ve been doing. By last spring, I didn’t need to keep myself quite so busy and I started to re-engage with the rest of my life. It’s been quite an amazing process and has involved changes in many areas.

For starters, I’ve been working on my living-working space. I’ve discarded layers of paper, clothes and stuff. Not only does that feel good, it’s also allowed me to open the door to new things, things that are more relevant to who I am now. I’ve been repainting the entire apartment too. I now have a sunny yellow living room, a fresh green kitchen and bathroom and a light mauve office; soon I’ll have a light mauve bedroom to match. As someone commented, I painted my apartment Easter egg colours, a pleasant and refreshing contrast to the beat-up eggshell (light grey) I’ve been living in for the last fifteen years.

The changes have extended far beyond my physical space though. I’ve created the time and found the energy to re-engage with parts of my life that had lain neglected for years when other responsibilities beckoned or I was just making myself too busy. I’ve been working my way back into music through a number of routes; I’ve done some painting and photography; I’ve even found time for leisure reading. Once I emerged from my cave and started breathing more deeply again, I also re-discovered how many amazing people I am fortunate enough to have in my life. I’ve reconnected with a number of old friends thanks to new technologies (and Mark Zuckerberg), but I’m also feeling more connected to everyone in my life and finding opportunities for face-time.

I’ve also re-engaged with my own writing. I’m well into re-drafts of Pairs & Artichoke Hearts, the gender-bender romantic comedy I’ve been playing around with for a very long time but keep coming back to. It feels so good to be actively writing again! I’ve gone back to writing Sundays, cordoning off that one day each week to fully engage without distractions. I have other projects in process, so I expect to create a steady flow of new books over the next several years. If you’re reading this, thanks for keeping the faith! I’ll post occasional updates as things continue to progress.

© Catherine Jenkins 2011

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Winter 2008/9

Last fall, I had an incredibly strong compulsion to apply to return to school for my PhD. It was something I always knew I’d do; it was just a question of timing. I’d finally found a program that made sense to me, as well as a proposal I felt compelled to work on. Although I’d always assumed my PhD would entail work in the arts, when I sat down to give it serious consideration and write a proposal, I found myself putting forth an idea combining the work I’ve been doing since 2000 in medical communication and the care giving I’ve done for my parents these last few years. Although it was a bit of a surprise to me, it also made a lot of sense. It’s work of larger social value, but it’s also necessary personal processing, so it’s a win-win proposition.

After a lengthy wait and despite the odds, I was accepted into the Communication & Culture joint program at Ryerson-York Universities this fall. Ryerson campus in downtown Toronto is my very dynamic and happening home base. Although I was very excited to return to school and it felt really right, there was also a great deal of anxiety. I completed my MA twelve years ago and hadn’t done any classroom work for about fifteen. It’s a much larger university than Trent was. I didn’t know any of the profs and had only one contact among the students. Electronic media and computers have radically changed the academic environment and I had to learn whole new ways of researching, administering and compiling data. It was an intimidating course of action to engage with. But having survived the stresses of the last few years, nothing really scares me anymore.

Few stresses equal that of care giving. School is a very different kind of thing. While care giving is incredibly demanding physically and psycho-emotionally, it’s not particularly demanding intellectually; of course school is intellectually demanding, but lighter on the physical and psycho-emotional demands. I’d spent years in the company of geriatrics, in and out of seniors’ residences and hospitals. I felt old and tired and deeply exhausted. Back on campus, I was surrounded by youths (although some of my peers are similar in age to myself). My energy has greatly improved. I’m feeling more able and more hopeful than I have in years. On some levels it feels like a karmic readjustment, a rebalancing of energies. After having spent several years under the stress of care giving and the first nine months of 2008 recovering, I was suddenly thrust into this bright new world.

The first week of classes, I was so excited I could hardly sleep! I don’t recall ever being quite this thrilled about going back to school. But it took a good month for my brain to start functioning and making connections to previous studies. By the end of term, I felt like I was almost back on track, with hundreds of pages of theoretical reading accomplished, many small assignments and a couple of essays and seminar presentations behind me. It’s like trying to flex a muscle you know you used to have, but feeling unsure if the neurons are still firing to make it work.

So now the first term of my PhD is completed. Because it’s semestered, that means I actually have two credits toward the requirements. I haven’t received my marks yet, but am confident that I’ve passed. I’m signed up for another three credits next term and hope to accomplish the remaining two in the summer. From there, I’ll sit comprehensive exams, get my dissertation proposal approved and then research and write the dissertation itself. As a fulltime student (how weird is that?) I’m hoping to complete in the minimum time of four years. But we’ll see how it all shakes out. Although I’m pumped about engaging with this work, I’m also past the point in my life of beating myself up if I don’t quite meet a goal. And now that I’m in it, this feels incredibly right. The timing couldn’t have been better. I’m in a space where I can engage without distraction; I have research that will sustain me through the process. And I’m in a safe environment I know how to engage with at a time when I’m still feeling kind of shaky and vulnerable. School is a good place for me to regain strength and direction, while simultaneously accomplishing something of value.

After such a busy fall, in which I had very little time for my own writing, I’m hoping the winter term will be a little more manageable, allowing me to re-engage with the non-fiction manuscript, The Wisdom of Aging Gracefully. I’d like to complete it by next fall, but certainly before I begin serious work on the dissertation.

I hope you’ve all had a wonderful holiday season. My good friend, Kathy Mac (whose new poetry collection is forthcoming this spring!), was here for a visit the weekend before Christmas and helped me decorate my three-foot-tall tree on Yule eve, the Solstice. I plan to leave the decorations up until Twelfth Night, Epiphany eve. I had an orphans’ Christmas at my place; I made roast beast and friends came with some fine potluck additions. So we had food, wine and good company. It was a very relaxed, warm way to celebrate. It also means I now have enough turkey soup and stew in the freezer to last well into the next school term.

It’s been fun having the holidays at home. I’ve enjoyed visits with lots of friends, but have also had some quiet time to myself at home, or wandering through the cold, clear, bright air and snow. I’ve enjoyed the opportunity to reflect on the year that’s passed and focus on the year to come. I’m easing into what I think is going to be the wonderful year of 2009. Wishing you and yours the best of the season and a happy, healthy, prosperous and successful New Year!

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Summer 2008

Summer’s barely arrived and I’m just back from my annual jaunt to the Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake. As always, it was a great time, a complete time-out from day-to-day reality. I caught three plays while I was there: Sondheim and Wheeler’s A Little Night Music, GB Shaw’s Getting Married and JB Priestley’s An Inspector Calls. I enjoyed them all, probably for different reasons.

Night Music was produced at the Court House Theatre, the smallest stage at the Festival. Considering it’s a musical, that was an interesting decision. As someone who hasn’t previously seen it produced, I kept wondering if I wouldn’t enjoy it more on a larger stage. The production seemed a little uneven to me, but what do I know? Some great catchy tunes and one-liners. It was fun to finally see “Send in the Clowns” in the original context. Outrageous males egos justifiably taken down a few notches and a happy romantic ending to boot! Who could ask for more?

Getting Married is an early and not particularly well-known Shaw play. It demonstrates his usual wit and intelligence, this time around the issue of marriage, Edwardian style. Shaw skewers laws regarding women’s rights, men’s responsibilities and the lack of accessible divorce. Although many of these laws have changed for the better and the social safety net is more supportive than it was, there are still many truths here.

I especially enjoyed the atmospheric production of An Inspector Calls. Fascinating and timeless social commentary guised as a whodunit. An incredibly prolific writer of plays, fiction and social comment, Priestley wrote An Inspector Calls mid-career, just as WWII was winding down. Priestley works an unexpected magic with time and perspective, something we tend to associate more with post-modernist writers of a slightly later period. Well worth seeing.

Although I enjoyed the plays, I was also struck by the advanced years of most of the patrons. Although I’ve noticed this in previous years, it’s becoming more noticeable with each passing season. I start wondering if the majority of Shaw-goers are the original theatregoers who established their membership in the 1960s (the Festival was established the same year I was).

After I got settled in to enjoy A Little Night Music and had helped my neighbour stow her cane beneath our seats, she asked, “What are we here to see, dear?” Overhearing audience conversation at other shows, it became apparent that many of the patrons had no idea what they were seeing. They seemed to be there out of ritual, rather than interest. Which begs the question, what’s going to happen in the next ten years when this audience starts expiring?

I was also more aware of the Festival’s attempts to accommodate patrons with disabilities. At the Royal George, I watched two ushers wielding a ramp into place so an audience member could come and go through the side door. Although an elevator has been installed at The Court House, it’s inadequate to the demands of traffic and theatregoers still have to walk up several stairs, complaining loudly as they go.

The Shaw has also introduced headsets to aid the hearing impaired. Throughout An Inspector Calls, a portion of the audience, myself included, were exposed to the ongoing shriek of electronic feedback because a gentleman was using one of these devices improperly in conjunction with his hearing aid. There were also very loud comments between himself and his equally deaf companion declaring that the headset wasn’t working during the nearly silent atmospheric moments of the play.

While I support the Shaw’s efforts at providing resources to improve access, I humbly suggest that they invest a little more effort so that the enjoyment of other audience members isn’t so adversely affected.

I also took a day to just wander around downtown Niagara-on-the-Lake. While I noticed some closed shops and peak-season sales last year, it was even more noticeable this time. Storefronts on the main drag were up for lease and the majority of shops seemed to have sales. It just seemed the picture of a small town in crisis.

Still, it was a lovely day. The sun was shining, the flowers blooming. I enjoyed a picnic lunch in the park while watching a little one with her Mum parade through the fountain. It was a day to relax, to be nowhere in particular, and that was a pleasant and welcome change.

Now I’m back home and back writing. I’ve just put the finishing touches on Charlie & Moon & Skye & I, something that’s essentially been finished for years. But it feels good to do the final polish and prepare to start sending it to publishers. It’s a long poem with accompanying colour photos, what some would call a gift book. Looking forward to having it out there at last. Also looking forward to bearing down on the other five book projects at various stages of incompletion. It feels good to be tapping into the time, energy and motivation to do my own work again, at long last.

Still ahead this summer, I’m making plans to visit my grade eight teacher in Wellington. She’s promised to show me the sights of Prince Edward County, a lovely part of the province.

I’ve also booked the family cottage for a couple of weeks and hope to spend that time simply relaxing, reading fun stuff and hanging out with friends. I figure I owe myself a real holiday before school starts.

Oh, I guess I should mention that. I’m returning to school this fall to begin my PhD in Communication and Culture. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for years, but it didn’t make sense with the family situation. I didn’t want to begin something and then have to pull out partway through because of a family crisis. So now that things have come to their natural conclusion, I can focus on this effort without that enormous weight. I’m excited and a little nervous to be going back, but I think it’s going to be overwhelmingly positive. The timing seems perfect. And as to what else I’ll get up to, I’ll see when I get there!thisisnot 5:31

Cheers and enjoy the summer!

© Catherine Jenkins 2008

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