Kimberly Hirsh

The question I ask the cards for my #dailytarot draw is, "What energy am I living in today?" In the wake of the Alabama special election, the 6 of swords feels right.

Moira Hansen has written a beautiful piece here about academic spouses.

As I was reading it, I nearly teared up thinking of the amazing ways W. has supported me - for our entire almost-20-years-together (yes, we got together very young) - but especially in the past two and a half years.

There are of course all the amazing daily things he handles - dishes, laundry, grocery runs, takeout orders.

And standard academic spouse moments: listening as I work out a new idea, talking me through impostor syndrome, telling me that I should apply for conferences and grants even if I think my idea is dumb.

But also, like, crazy champion moments: making sure I eat in the middle of a paper writing marathon…

Best life partner brings you Mattie B's while you work on your paper. #readerimarriedhim

A post shared by Kimberly Hirsh (@kimberlyhirsh) on Dec 4, 2015 at 5:10pm PST

…and being my rock as I’ve been tossed upon the seas of impostor syndrome and anxiety that are so common among doctoral students.

So yes. Let's hear it for the partners of academics. They are amazing people.

Yes please.

This piece has me scrambling to read the Princess Leia novel & comics before I see The Last Jedi.

High school classmates reunite 20 years after graduation to perform Into the Woods on the premiere of ABC’s new musical special.

Source: Kristen Bell Reunites High School Musical Cast Members for Encore!, Premiering December 10 on ABC | Playbill

This show is crazy on-brand for me.

K: I miss The Kitty. Maybe I’ll look at pictures of him. W: That will make you happy. K: Can you imagine the era before photography? You would only have the paintings of your cats. W: We would have had to do more portraiture.

Just finished stitching The Princess Bride by @weelittlestitches while listening to the Pop Culture Happy Hour episode for the Princess Bride’s 30th anniversary.

Hi. I’m Kimberly, and I just submitted my last coursework assignment ever (unless I take more after I advance to candidacy, which, let’s face it, is a very real possibility).

I feel like I should rest, but I also feel antsy. So I’m going to make a few public commitments and share a few thoughts about what happens now.

In terms of official officially what’s up…

Now I write a comprehensive literature review on topics related to my area of research interest, which include theory, methodology, and a few different Connected Learning topics. More on that as it proceeds.

Also, I keep working on Project READY.

But also…

I’m planning to publish e-prints of a few annotated bibliographies based on literature reviews I’ve been sitting on. Those literature reviews are the foundation of lots of research ahead of me, and I don’t want to publish my synthesis and analysis, but these are tricky topics where you have to dig into weird places to find literature, and I think it could really help other scholars to get those bibliographies out there. I’m not going to reveal the topics yet because I don’t want to accidentally hint at any conference juries that particular papers are from me.

I’m working with the UNC SILS Coalition of Youth Librarians to start a Triangle area chapter of the Harry Potter Alliance. To that end, I’m going through their Wizard Activist School program.

I’m submitting a proposal to the Connected Learning Summit.

And personally…

I’m going to be packing and purging stuff from my house. We’ve lived in it for five years and there’s definitely stuff that hasn’t been touched in that time.

I’m going to a twentieth anniversary reunion party for The Bronze posting board, the thing that made fandom a social activity for me.

I’m waiting to really dig into cosplay beyond the casual until I can get a good craft studio space set up.

I want to cross-stitch everything from weelittlestitches, but that’s not new.

I want to crochet myself a whole wardrobe of lacy things out of black yarn.

But really, what’s next?

A nap. Christmas decorations. Leonie’s 2018 Shining Year workbook.

Oh yeah, 2018! So that’s going to happen.

Yep. For several years now - probably inspired by Leonie but I’m not sure - I have selected a word of the year. I often find out around March that I picked the wrong word. My 2016 word was FLOW and it turned out perfectly. This year my word was WORK and it was the right word, but it didn’t manifest quite like I expected.

I’ve been searching for 2018’s word. I want to encompass healing, self-care. I had a revelation in the shower yesterday, as I was agonizing over whether my blood sugar would be good when I went to the doctor today (it was; I’m pretty sure that’s thanks to drinking crazy diluted apple cider vinegar, on the advice of the PCOS Diva). Showering and driving, the best activities for having good ideas.

Anyway, this thought came to me:

I want 2018 to be the year when I treat my body with the same care that I treat my mind and my emotions.

Obvi, I’ve invested more energy in my mind than in anything else in my life. And I tend to look after my emotions, and listen to them.

But my poor body. We have been enemies, thanks to chronic illness. I don’t treat it well at all. There are a lot of reasons. I mean, I don’t drink much or do drugs besides those prescribed to me/readily available over the counter. But I also don’t eat nutritious food as much as I’d like or move on the regular or take good care of my skin and hair.

I’m so sorry, body.

So yeah, I’m still working on finding out what word captures that feeling. It’s not HEAL.

I’m leaning toward GLOW right now, but how much that’s influenced by the Netflix series is hard to say. (By the way, Netflix… I need more GLOW merch. kthx.)

It’s what we’ll go with for now.

So, that was really rambly. What’s next, again?

I’m going to glow.

And take a nap.

#2017bestnine

Honestly, The Harry Potter Alliance’s list of values basically sums up my values.