Service to the profession

In the academic world, there is a lot of things you are supposed to do for free. I'd like to see a business consultant who is content with the wording: “We offer a modest honorarium which is recognition rather than proper compensation for your work”. I am afraid they would use a language I am not prepared to reproduce in public. But we academics are expected to do tons of work for a modest honorarium that does not even constitute a proper day payment. Believe me, I have made careful calculations. 

Let us say that I am asked to write a review for promotion (I have several of these on my desk right now). They usually come with a pile of publications that you are expected to read and judge. Even if it is a colleague whose work you know well you still want to refresh some things, and the amount of stuff colleagues publish these days is intimidating. Say on the average you need to re-read a book, read a newly published book and a dozen articles, taking notes that will then have to be turned into a coherent scholarly evaluation. You need at least to pretend that you are taking it seriously. A promotion review is a very special genre: it is not so much about what you think of this research but how it can be weighted against vague academic criteria. One of these is: Would this person be promoted in your institution? This is a weird question. Promotion criteria are so different. I once reviewed someone being promoted to full professor who didn't have a single book publication. In my institution this person wouldn't have been considered for assistant professor. Anyway, it certainly takes a couple of days to read all these mountains of publications and another day to write the review, where you also have to take into consideration all facts in the person's CV of which you probably know nothing, but can guess at depth and breadth of knowledge and engagement. Three days at least of hard work, and for that, a modest honorarium.

A modest honorarium is also occasionally, although far from always, offered for reviewing a research proposal. I am sitting right now with one, and I know that I am deciding how a dozen of people will spend the next three years of their professional life. I need to argue well. I need to read through the proposal, 30 pages, several times and choose succinct wording for my verdict. It will take me at least a couple of days. For a modest honorarium.

There are, however, tasks where there isn't even that. Reader reviews for articles submitted to journals. They are usually 6-8,000 words. You cannot simply browse through the text since you have to write a solid evaluation that may boost or ruin someone's career. I typically spend more time on articles that are completely unpublishable. With a brilliant article, you can just say it's brilliant and add a couple of minor comments. With a poor article you want – at least I want – to explain to the author why it is poor. A good reader review may be helpful even if the article is rejected, and it happens that the author rewrites and resubmits and it turns out quite good. I have just reviewed a couple of unpublishable submissions, spending at least two days on each.

I have now spent two weeks of my precious time working for nothing or for a token fee, when I should be writing my own book. Why am I doing this? Why are we all doing this? Well, in guidelines for promotion, it is called service to the profession. We serve each other, and we do it for nothing or for the good cause, and if I don't do it, then how would I expect that someone does it for me or my colleagues or my students? It is never reciprocal, but someone wrote my promotion reviews, someone evaluated my grant proposals, someone gave me feedback on my journal submissions and book proposals. I am just paying back.

Snake watch, happy ending?

I feel I owe you, My Dear Reader, a conclusion, but you will be disappointed. Yesterday I went out in the morning and cut dry poppies and deadheaded everything that needed it in the flower bed. Then Staffan kept me company while I picked the rest of black currants, cut back raspberries, tied up the last beans and weeded in the farthest corner, where there is a perfect hide for snakes - if I were a snake that's what I would choose. Staffan kept going in to watch the Olympics. I cannot say I felt quite safe, and I don't think I will ever feel safe again. But I am also mortally scared every time I drive through one of those humongous British roundabouts, yet do I have a choice? Driving and gardening are part of the quality of life.

Today I had a sore eye (nothing serious, happens every now and then), which got better in the afternoon, but right as I started digging and dividing day lilies, a thunderstorm came so I have a very good excuse. However, I did go out, and the day lilies bed is right where the snake was. I suppose I have got over it, just as everybody said I would and as deep down I knew I would, although I promise, it was as serious as I wrote in the first post.

I have no wish to read more about snakes nor look at and touch a picture of a snake. 

Snake watch, day 3

Click for beginning, Part 1 and Part 2 of this story

Uneventful day from the snake-watching point of view and otherwise. Woke up as usual, breakfast, coffee on the patio. Realised that I needed to get my repeated medical prescription to the surgery and made it a reason to take a short, quick walk (now experimentally proved that the distance through the park is 500 m and takes 5 minutes). Then back to work, writing the last (?) chapter, checking email every now and then and replying to everything urgent – don't people at the Faculty ever take vacation? Looked up some web sites to research red-head characters in children's books, but didn't find anything helpful. Brief lunch break. More writing. Didn't go out at all.

Had a very nice tea with some of the students who are still around, talking dangerous beasts (flying ants, frogs, turtles), grammatical gender in different languages, train journeys and educational systems. Back home, quiet dinner. Then we watched a movie while the rest of the world watched the opening of the Olympics. We saw a little bit of it (James Bond and Mr Bean), muted during the rock, and switched off after Denmark.

Snake watch, day 2

Click for beginning and Part 1 of this story

I got up as usual this morning stating that it was cloudy and perhaps not tempting to go out at all, but by the time we had coffee on the patio it was sunny again. I had a dentist appointment at 11.30 so I knew there was no point starting anything creative, and among the morning emails there were some that needed urgent action so that took care of my morning. However, on my way to the dentist I couldn't help thinking, feeling more and more sick every minute, and telling myself that I'd rather go to the dentist every day than... I was a bit early and popped into one of my favourite charity shops where I always look for small things for the dolls houses. Behind me, two ladies were talking about gardening. I ran away.

On the way home I decided I needed help. It had really gone too far. I looked up Counselling on the University web with advice to try some self-help before seeking a professional. On the self-help page I found a long list of problems including phobias, with just the kind of idiotic advice I don't want. Indeed, look at how you come over arachnophobia in six easy steps:

1. Reading about spiders
   
2. Looking at and then touching a photograph of a spider
   
3. Looking at/touching a plastic model of a spider
   
4. Looking at/touching a jar with a small spider in it
   
5. Picking the spider out of the jar
   
6. Picking up a large spider.
   

I am sure that arachnophobics find this terrifying. Now let's translate this to herpetophobia.

1. I have just read Lucy Christopher's Stolen, so I've done this one.
   
2. Go ahead and touch it. [I had a picture of a snake here. It boosted ny statistics. I guess people were disappointed when they were directed to this page, I have removed it. Imagine touching the picture of a snake on the screen] 
3. Yes, they sell those in all zoos. Our kids have some. They are horrid.
   
4. Looking at/touching a jar with a small cobra in it. Hmm...
   
5. Picking the cobra out of the jar. I want to see the counsellor do it
   
6. Picking up a LARGE cobra...
   

You see, it's not that easy. What was helpful, I must admit, was the reminder that hiding from the problem won't solve it. Not that I didn't know it, and not that my dear friend Alyona didn't talk to me for an hour on Skype yesterday. But somehow “managing the level of anxiety” did it for me.

Staffan and I had a Talk. And we agreed that we would go out there together for a little while. Which was very noble of him. I had two strong incentives. A patch on the lawn where Staffan had efficiently exterminated mushrooms by pouring boiling water on them needed mending. And the blackcurrants needed picking. Staffan took the lead to the greenhouse to get the tools, and we picked some tomatoes while we were at it. I fixed the grass patch, and then Staffan put a garden chair exactly on the spot where the snake had been, and I picked the currants while the cat rustled in the shrubs. I still feel sick as I am writing this.

Then I went out for dinner with Morag and David, and to their standard “How are you?” I told them how I was. They were not impressed, and David said he liked snakes and wanted to be a herpetologist when he was young.

Back home and watching the garden through my window. So much needs to be done...

Snake watch, day 1

I am determined to cope with my current herpetophobic issues, but I am not sure how. Perhaps if I keep track of what I am doing it will help. If not - keeping track of what I am doing can be of interest in itself, a repeat of "What professors do".

So: I got up about 7:30 as I usually do when I don't have to be anywhere in the morning. We had breakfast and a long, quiet coffee on the patio. Normally, I would have gone to the raspberry patch to get us a handful of raspberries, but I didn't because the raspberry patch is exactly where I had seen the snake. I can see through my study window that there are tons of raspberries, and the black currants need to be picked now if at all. But I cannot make myself leave the patio. Normally I would also have gone around the whole garden, checking on my beans and courgettes and maybe cutting some rhubarb for pudding. Not today. Instead, I went right to my desk and wrote away like mad until I was desperate for coffee. Staffan was away on some errand, so I had my coffee at my desk. I worked until lunch. Normally, I would have gone several more rounds in the garden, a five-minute break every half hour or so, looking at my flower bed and my wild garden behind the conifers; I would have been in the greenhouse to water the tomatoes and perhaps harvest a few for lunch. Not today. The greenhouse is behind the garage, right in the middle of the jungle.

Staffan made lunch, and then I went back to my desk. Writing went reasonably well, although the chapter I thought would be easy turned out to be quite a tough one, unless I compomised with myself.  I checked my email every now and then and replied to everything that was urgent and sometimes to what wasn't, just to do something else than write.

At half past two I felt I needed a break. Normally, I would go out in the garden where there is always something that needs to be done. Continue with my big hedge project, tying back and trimming branches. Weed below the hedge. Trim grass around small shrubs. Cut away withered prairie grass. Thin new strawberry shoots. Replant day lilies. Not today.

Instead I went for a walk. I have downloaded a training programme for my phone which uses GPS to tell me how far I have walked and how fast. I am not sure it will work in the long run, but so far it's fun. Today I walked to the river and back. I was surprised that this walk was shorter than my circular walk in the park.

I left and came back through the patio door which is the farthest I have ventured through the garden. I did watch the road extra carefully as I walked. Every grey stick is a suspect.

When I came back I felt I couldn't go on with the chapter. Sometimes it is like this. Fortunately there is always somethinjg else I can do. I reviewed a tremendously boring article, so boring that I wrote three times as many comments as I am expected to - maybe the author can learn something from them. I am not recommending this article for publication.

Staffan is mowing the lawn. I am looking longingly through the window. Snakes sleep at night, don't they? Maybe I can do some star-gazing.

Paradise lost

This is a self-therapy session. If you have problems with it, don't read. But I know that there are many people out there who share my anxieties, many many more than would admit it even to themselves. Whenever I feel that my conversation partner is anxious about something, I share my anxiety, and they always thank me afterwards.

Yesterday, I saw a snake in the garden.

I was marking my territory, as I do several times a day, dead-heading flowers, picking raspberries, trimming hedges, weeding – not serious trimming or weeding, but in passing, as a short break from writing. I heard a rustle and turned to talk to the cat, and there it was, slithering – uuuh, this word! - along the paved path. I saw clearly that it was a harmless garden snake: big white spots on the head. But it doesn't matter. Snakes are my worst nightmare, my Room 101 if anyone would want me to denounce my children.

Some of it must have a tangible reason. Adults do scare children to protect me, and I was always told as a child to wear rubber boots when walking in the wood, because there may be snakes. In Karelia, where I spent most of my childhood summers, adders were common. I would see a dozen every summer, sometimes almost stepping on them. One year, a small boy was bitten. My mother was in panic and managed to get one of the two antidote vials available in the whole Soviet Union (or so she said; they were certainly hard to obtain), which we dutifully kept in the refrigerator during winter and brought with us on holidays. I was also taught how to treat a bite. But I have actually never been scared of being bitten. It is simply that the sight of snakes makes me physically sick.

Some people are scared of spiders, birds or wasps. Some are scared of heights, tunnels or caves, small toilets or crammed rooms. When I say “scared” I mean horror that you cannot cope with. And don't tell me you can be hypnotised. My kids once made me watch a television programme in which people with phobias were made to do things there were scared of. One woman who was scared of birds had to go into a bird cage with hundreds of pigeons, each with a hundred-dollar bill tied to its leg. The woman could keep all the money she managed to untie in five minutes. The kids argued that I should do something like this for my herpetophobia. I argued that if that woman had a real phobia she would not enter the cage for a million dollars.

On another occasion we visited the Stockholm Aquarium during a petting session. I was absolutely fine with huge hairy spiders, but that scaly python that Julia let hang over her neck... I did touch it, and it was unexpectedly soft and warm.

Anton and I went to a snake show in Australia. I went because he was very eager. He was nine then. Obviously herpentophobia is not hereditary. The snake master brought one of his pets close to the public to watch. I climbed back over three benches. “You don't take any risks”, he said. We also watched a snake swallow a rat (which luckily was dead). It sort of draw itself over the carcass. It was disgusting, but the snake was behind glass. I am fine with snakes behind glass. Although when we watch nature programmes and there are snakes, I close my eyes till Staffan tells me it's over.

Anyway, I saw a snake in my garden yesterday, and I was shaking for the rest of the day and felt sick and couldn't work any more and cried myself to sleep because I knew I would never be able to go out into the garden again. Staffan told me I was silly. Most people would tell me I am silly. The garden is surely full of snakes that I hadn't seen before. This particular snake is by now far away. It was probably more scared of me than I was of it. Garden snakes don't bite. They bring luck. And so on.

But the people who have a secret phobia would say to themselves: “I know exactly how it feels”. It's silly, it's irrational, but it's there and it won't go away.

I haven't been in the garden since then. I have this vision of a slithering body under every shrub, everywhere I go with my garden tools, with my bare hands. Never, never again. Which is very sad, because gardening has become the foremost joy in my life. I have just about got it the way I want it.

My cleaning lady Helen listened to my confession this morning and suggested that I buy a portable radio and play it very loudly when I am gardening. She said she didn't have a phobia but thought she could understand it. I know she cannot, but it was nice of her. She made me promise to make a list of all my ventures into the garden and show her next week. So far I haven't been further out than the patio. 

Yes, I know that hedgehogs are skillful snake hunters. 

The best things in life are free

It costs a huge amount of money to get a masters degree from Cambridge. But there are ways around it. I now have a masters degree from Cambridge without having done anything to earn it. So unfair toward students who have worked hard for it.

This morning I went to town to the robemakers to collect my hood. Graduation is by college, and it was already going on - the robemakers are conveniently just across the road from Senate House. But I had to go to Homerton for rehearsal. I had never worn a hood before so I was glad there were people there to help with the robing. We had been told to bring three small safety pins and one large. Hoods were not meant for women, Men just put them behind their bow tie. Women have to secure them with safety pins.

Then we went through the ceremony. The procession within the college goes by degree. The doctors go first. They have hoods with red lining. There was just one doctor this time, so she went first. I was alone in the second category, master of arts by incorporation (there is a fancy Latin wording for this). I had a hood with white lining. The rest came in fours, with hoods of all possible colours. The Praelector - the college person who presents the graduands to the Senate - extends them a finger each. I got her whole hand. Right hand. And my right hand. "If I don't take your hand it means you've given me the wrong hand. It has to be the right hand". Then we were called out by name, had to kneel down, put our palms together as if in prayer and have a Latin phrase read over us, stand up, take a step back and bow. No curtsey. In some colleges they do curtsies, but not in Homerton. I had ticked the box in my application that I didn't want a Trinitarian blessing, so the Principal wondered whether I was happy kneeling down. I was.

There was tea for graduands and their guests, and that's where I realised that I should have invited Morag and David and all the students who were still around to be my guests. It was weird sitting there, chewing my prawns on my own. So I got over it quickly and decided to walk to town. The weather was lovely, I had plenty of time and good shoes. It was a nice walk. In fact, I think it was the first time ever that I walked from Homerton to town. I was there well ahead of time and stood watching other colleges go in and come out. I felt terribly lonely. One of my former students was graduating so we chatted a bit. Nothing happened for a long while. Apparently somebody had fainted during the ceremony, and there was ambulance and a lot of panic, which delayed the whole thing by forty-five minutes.

Suddenly Clementine turned up. She just happened to be there. Well, she did know I was graduating, but she just happened to be there. We stood and chatted and then it was Homerton's turn, and Clementine promised to wait and cheer when I came out.

It was all very grand, and my Praelector was nervous because the master of arts by incorporation is an unusual degree and she wasn't sure of her Latin. I told her that if she just talked Harry Pottish nobody would notice. The Principal - glorious in her scarlet robe with ermine lining (fake I hope)- forgot I didn't want the Trinitarian blessing so now I have my degree in the name of the Father, etc. It was meant to be.

I went out of the hall, got my diploma, went down the stairs known as "doctors stairs" and there was Clementine waiting for me. It would have felt terrible if she hadn't been there.

Then we went to an unrelated party, and it's all over, as usual in such cases, far too quickly.