Kimberly Hirsh

I just learned about this Disney-approved line of romance novel reimaginings of the princess stories and I am INTERESTED.

I’ve been in the middle of a Star Trek: The Next Generation rewatch for months, maybe even more than a year. Maybe since before the pandemic started, I don’t remember. I often will fall asleep to a TNG episode. I do this with the same episode over and over until I actually watch it all the way through while I’m awake.

Back in May, just over a month out from my dissertation defense and with no plan for the future, the episode I slept through over and over again was “Peak Performance.” It’s one of my favorite episodes, for many reasons, and one reason is a B story focusing on Data. (Surprise!)

The A story is that a strategist named Kolrami has come aboard the Enterprise to evaluate the crew’s performance in a combat exercise. Kolrami is a jerk and has real problems with Commander Riker, suggesting that Riker’s jovial attitude is not compatible with strong leadership.

Kolrami is also super arrogant. He comes from a species called the Zakdorn, well known for producing the galaxy’s best strategists. He prides himself on his strategy and uses it for games as well as combat exercises; he is a grandmaster of a game called Stratagema. Riker challenges Kolrami to a game of Stratagema and loses after only a few moves. Thinking that with his fancy positronic brain Data might actually be able to beat Kolrami, Dr. Pulaski eggs Data on to play and eventually misleads Kolrami into believing Data has challenged him. Data agrees to the challenge, in spite of not initiating it.

Kolrami and Data play Stratagema and it lasts longer than the game with Riker did, but Data still loses. Then this exchange happens:

Pulaski: How can you lose? You’re supposed to be infallible.

Data: Obviously, I am not.

It seems like a simple and innocuous response, but Data goes on to remove himself from bridge duty, believing that his loss at stratagema indicates a defect in himself:

I have proven to be vulnerable. At the present time, my deduction should be treated with skepticism.

I am concerned about giving the captain unsound advice.

This has indicated that I am damaged in some fashion. I must find the malfunction.

I heard the exchange above and these lines from Data and felt a deep resonance in my heart. Isn’t this how so many people feel, all the time? Isn’t this especially how scholars feel? Especially if you are an overachiever, you may make it all the way to a PhD program and only know what it is to excel in everything, and then meet a challenge that you can’t surmount.

You might be pursuing a tenure-track job, have done all the things you’re supposed to do, and still not get hired. Maybe you have tons of publications, brilliant teaching evaluations, a robust record of service, and did important dissertation research. And it doesn’t matter.

Data explains to Picard why he has removed himself from the bridge and what prompted him to do so. Picard replies:

…it is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life.

Um, excuse me Captain, just a moment, I got something in each eye and it has caused them to water profusely and also has made sobs wrack my body, hold on…

In the end, Data challenges Kolrami to a rematch. We see them play, Kolrami moving more quickly and becoming more agitated by the moment, as Data plays slowly and maintains a calm expression. Kolrami suspends the game, yells “This is not a rematch. You have made a mockery of me!” and storms out of the room.

As Data’s colleagues come to congratulate Data on his victory, he points out that he didn’t win, though no game of Strategema has ever gone to as high a score as this one has. Data explains that Kolrami was playing for a win and assumed that was Data’s goal as well, but Data had in fact chosen his own goal: a draw. He let many opportunities that would have supported a win pass him by in order to maintain a balance that would let him challenge Kolrami indefinitely.

Is this a perspective that can be useful for anyone dealing with impostor syndrome, and especially PhDs moving away from the tenure track? I think so. The “victory condition” for a PhD is assumed to be a tenure track job, but I went in with the intention of learning about qualitative methods. Now, I write about qualitative research and am pursuing other writing and consulting opportunities. It’s not success by the usual metric, but it’s a path with which I am happy. And it’s a path where no one tells me to wait for tenure before I have a kid (whoops did it during the PhD!), do public scholarship, or have opinions. And thank goodness, because that’s a long wait for a train don’t come.

I just finished the Season 3 finale of #StarTrekDiscovery and wow. What a beautiful close to a season. I’m heartbroken for all the people who won’t be able to watch the premiere of Season 4 tomorrow. 🖖🏻📺

🔖 Read Who Writes the Books in Video Games? . This is relevant to my interests. 📚🎮

Hi there. I’m drafting a Star Trek/Ted Lasso crossover in my head. It’s called “Starfleet Til We Die.” I can’t wait to introduce you to MY crew of the USS Richmond.

Welcome to my workspace! These are pictures of my desk, corkboard, and shelves. Mermaid painting by me via Wine & Design. Slay quilt by Casey Rawson.

Y’all, I love my kid and helping him manage his emotions is hard work.

I Don’t Have Time to Watch the Next Whole Episode of Star Trek Before Resuming My Caregiving Duties: The Kimberly Hirsh Story

Here is a non-exhaustive list of things that make me cry:

• “Some Things Are Meant to Be,” Little Women: The Musical
• “Forever and Ever,” Pooh’s Grand Adventure
• Stories where people break up
• Stories where people stay together
• Feeling angry
• Feeling happy
• Feeling sad

The song “Forever and Ever” from POOH’S GRAND ADVENTURE: THE SEARCH FOR CHRISTOPHER ROBIN has been making me cry for two days and I don’t want to be alone in this, so if you feel like joining me, have a watch/listen.

It took ibuprofen, me singing a lot of songs, and Rock-A-Bye Baby’s Lullaby Renditions of Queen, but I finally got my freshly vaxxed kid to sleep.

I have been boosted and will now avoid productivity until Monday. Byeeee.

My kid is getting his first COVID shot tomorrow and I definitely used that as an excuse to buy him a bunch of snacks, a new coloring book, a new book, and a video game for us to play as a family. Y’all, there are Scooby Doo-themed snacks that look like actual Scooby snacks.

Finished reading: Not Your Average Hot Guy by Gwenda Bond 📚

Darren Rowse in his Ultimate Guide to Starting a Blog Course: Are you a high energy person or a low energy person?

Me: Yes!

(Yes I have been blogging for 20 years and still take courses for n00bs. Also only someone who has been blogging for 20 years would use the term “n00bs.”)

I’m more than 16 minutes into S3E1 of Star Trek Discovery and I haven’t seen Saru, Tilly, Stamets, Culber, Detmer, Owo, or Reno yet, so what are we even doing here? Also I can never have just one fave on a Star Trek. I always love a lot of the crew. 🖖🏻📺

EDITED TO ADD: I take it all back. There is a cat on screen. All is forgiven.

It feels really good to talk about my work and be able to remind myself that I’ve done a lot of really cool things and that I am and for 17 years have been a professional, even when I was also a student.

Hi web friends.

I’m having a weird day, with some great news but also me not feeling like doing anything, where I can swing from ecstatic about great news to extremely irritable with my kid. I’m not always the most gracious or graceful parent.

The great news is medical stuff: after only a week of modifying my diet to be more PCOS-friendly, my blood sugar has moved from high to high-normal. My liver indicators were looking rough a month ago, presumably because I was taking a LOT of Tylenol for headaches, but after a month of supplementing with milk thistle, it’s back to normal. My doctor prescribed a new migraine medication for me and if I take it REALLY at the first sign, it actually works.

This is all wonderful! Really exciting stuff!

But I also spent all day kind of blah, not really feeling like doing much. So I focused on really basic self-care: a little yoga, dental hygiene, outside time. I hope I’ll feel less Bartlebyish tomorrow.

The parenting stuff is no big deal, just being annoyed when my kid does stuff like hate every food he used to love or use my head as a footrest when I’m trying to fill his essential oil diffuser. Nornal kid stuff and of course he’s still my favorite person.

I’ve been reading the Moz Beginner’s Guide to SEO and geeking out about it. I had in my head that SEO was gross and pushy, but it’s actually about getting resources to the right people, which makes it a good skill for librarians.

Now I’m quite tired, so I’ll watch a bit of Star Trek Discovery and nod off.

I really needed to read “Drafting a Personal Essay Is Like Stumbling Through a Dance” today. Here are some bits that hit me hard:

It’s not enough to see a successful dance or personal essay—you can study all you want, but it’s only in the act of doing that you learn what’s right and what isn’t.

The bad news about first drafts is that they are necessary. The good news is that they’re only a starting point.

There are many ways to get better at writing—take classes, join critique groups, read voraciously—but nothing gets you around the fact that you must also write and revise.

…take comfort in the fact that your words are still on the page. You’ve done the hard part and unleashed your awkward vulnerability.

Good morning. I had fasting bloodwork at 9:30am today, so I’m just eating for the first time today now, and I’m thinking about giving my brain most of the day off.

My kid has discovered Power Rangers and I have a feeling there’s a lot of deja vu in my future except it’ll be my kid asking me to play Power Rangers and not my baby sister.

Like the Bloggess, I too look like I have it together when I’m depressed but really think I’m failing at everything and everyone is mad at me and do not require your MLM supplement or need to smile more.

Want to read: Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder 📚

I highly recommend Sara Fredman’s Write Like A Mother newsletter, in which Sara interviews writers who are also mothers. Some bits from the recent issue with Kate Baer resonated especially with me, so I thought I’d share them here.

Mothers were so punished in this pandemic.

This. I’m playing the pandemic on easy mode - working part-time from home - and I still feel this. The social costs and lack of a village are what’s hurting me most. For the first time since the start of the pandemic, I hung out for a long time with other parents while our kids were at the park and it was huge. Pre-pandemic, M & I spent every weekday morning at a co-working space with a Montessori school on-site. My co-workers were almost exclusively fellow parents of young children, mostly moms and non-binary primary caregivers, and at the time I didn’t really appreciate how special it was.

…nobody cares if you’re a writer. Nobody, nobody cares if you’re a writer, except you. If you want to be a writer, then you have to take control of the situation. You have to think of yourself as a writer, you have to treat yourself as a writer. You have to treat this like this is a job… I have to be the one who cares so much about being a writer. And so I think part of that is just filtering out that noise and just taking yourself super seriously, taking the work super seriously.

I have only recently claimed the title of writer for myself, despite having written all my life and having my first paid byline 10 years ago, and I feel this so hard. I’m still working on taking myself and the work seriously.

📚 I’m on page 78 of Gwenda Bond’s NOT YOUR AVERAGE HOT GUY and y’all, I’m so glad she’s expanded her repertoire to include humorous fantasy romance. ❤️