Picking up the pieces

It has been nearly three weeks since the termination of my text contract. Overall, I feel relieved. But I would be lying if I didn't admit to feeling let down, too. Finishing major projects is analogous in some ways to giving birth.* Take my dissertation: the process was full of anxiety, and hurt like hell, but in the end I had the cutest little doctorate in the whole world. With the text fiasco there was no epidural, the baby got stuck, and there was a bitch of a nurse telling me what a shitty job I was doing-- for two and a half years.** It would have been wonderful to have walked away with a little bundle of (text and royalty) joy, but that wasn't to be. And it is a bitter pill. The aftertaste will be with me a long time.

It is probably just as well that my girls have taken turns getting sick over the last few weeks--ear infections and mystery fevers-- because I needed a little space and time to think.

It has taken me a few weeks to decompress, but I've turned my attention to two projects. In one, I am examining social network data I collected two years ago as part of a team studying sexual victimization. I am comparing the social networks of college women who report having been sexually assaulted to the social networks of college women who do not report having been sexually assaulted. I want to know if there are significant differences in network structure, such as the intensity of their ties to others and memberships in primary and secondary groups, that may heighten or mitigate risk of assault. In the other project, I am examining patterns of cosponsorship and co-voting in a legislative body to test the effects of race, gender, and other attributes on legislative effectiveness.

For the most part, I am excited to be working on both of these. Thus far, I have been reviewing the literature to bring myself up to speed on recent developments. This has been good for my ego because I'm finding that my previous work has been cited, particularly with the legislative work. I've also found that there have been some methodological advances and I look forward to being able to run my models with some newly validated measures.***

I'm going to work as fast as I can on both projects with the goal of having at least one paper out for review by the fall and others in the pipeline. I'm looking forward to new beginnings and easy deliveries.

*I apologize for using birth analogies, but it's all I've got right now.

**In fits and starts, of course. I had two babies in this time, went up for tenure, renovated a house, had surgery, and held a full time teaching job.

***Measures are always an issue with reviewers. Having published, validated measures to use and cite will make the review process a bit smoother for me.