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[abarfulstrife]

When overwork is the norm across the academic food chain. Criptheuniversity.

[coocoolah-deactivated20190601]

Able-bodiedness has been cast as separate from politics, as a universal ideal and a normal way of life, in much the same way as heterosexuality in the 1970s and early 1980s (and, in some contexts, still today).

Alison Kafer, “Compulsory Bodies” (79)

CRIPACADEME.

[family-in-chronicity]

Crip time is a challenge to normative and normalizing expectations of pace and scheduling. Rather than bend disabled bodies and minds to meet the clock, crip time bends the clock to meet disabled bodies and minds.

Alison Kafer, Feminist, Queer, Crip

[abarfulstrife]

When your advisor’s suggestion that you need to “get control of your emotions” reads like a neoliberal self-help book that has failed to master even the medical model of disability it cites

[justsomeantifas]

i really doubt laziness is the typical reason someone drops out of schooling, i think more often than not it’s the stress, both emotionally and financially that leads people to drop out of school. It’s a structural problem that people aren’t getting access to schooling when they want it, it’s not a personal failure. and honestly it’s not a personal failure to just not want to go to school, its okay to be lazy and not go to school. lazy isn’t a bad thing, but i think it should be addressed that dropping out of school isn’t always the favored choice for everyone.

[wonderwomangrad]

When someone keeps talking to me while I'm trying to read

[abarfulstrife]

[Caption: Winifred from Hocus Pocus slowly turning her head from her head menacingly from her spellbook.]

[secretivedreams]

Reasons for quitting academia:

Consistently have to apologize to white men who are themselves assholes and in the wrong

White men are expected to do less service or teaching, and get rewarded when they jump the gun or behave inappropriately

Women must be twice as good to get the same opportunities as men, and this is particularly true of people of color

Women and people of color in positions of power buy into the system and do not do the work to protect people low on the hierarchy, pushing the burden of success and safety onto them

Faculty participate in diversity initiatives supposedly to improve diversity in the field, but then continue to behave in unjust ways

Endless push to get more underrepresented groups and women into the field, but without fixing the conditions that make them quit in the first place

Academia values productivity, measured as number of publications, at the expense of quality and depth

Faculty positions require teaching, administrative duties, student mentoring, and research for promotions and tenure, but the dearth of faculty positions and the dwindling amount of grant money means that junior faculty are pushed into overwork (60-80 hours per week) to meet the basic expectations of university administrations

Overproduction of PhDs means that getting a PhD only qualifies you for more training, requiring multiple moves and extended periods of instability

Overproduction of PhDs also means that extremely qualified academics end up going to ‘low-tier’ schools to teach, pushing research expectations up everywhere regardless of course-load or financial support

Academic work is undervalued so that both postdoctoral work and the majority of faculty positions are severely underpaid, especially as they require much more than 40 hours a week to fulfill all expectations

Postdoctoral trainees are often considered little more than indentured servants, and are treated neither as employees nor as students

Most academic positions are in geographical locations that are undesirable for most academics

Getting a job, getting tenure, and getting promotions depends as much on politics as on your quality as a researcher or teacher

Pervasive belief that academia, more than a job, is a vocation, to which you must sacrifice everything or be considered unworthy or undeserving, to the extent that looking for better opportunities is considered immoral or questionable

[abarfulstrife]

me: say it— i need to hear those three words

library database: Full Text Online

me, shedding tears: i love you too

[lets-talk-dyscalculia]

all universities : “lets prevent learning disabled people from majoring in learning disabilities because we dont want to accommodate them.”

“lets prevent people who are mentally ill from majoring in psychology because we wont adjust things to their needs”

“lets ruin the chances zillions of young adults trying to improve things for future generations because they have differing brain structures and chemistry”

this is why there are so few doctors or psychologists or brain experts with disabilities.

[abarfulstrife]

[Caption: art of a skull with a brain sticking out. Atop the brain is a black creature with it’s tongue sticking out.]

THE HEADACHE & HEARTBREAK OF DOING ACADEMIA WITH CHRONIC MIGRAINE

“No-one talks about it being difficult for students with disabilities/chronic illness. No one discusses how these things are dealt with – or not – by the academy at large. No one explains that your inability to “keep up” due to your illness will be perceived as weakness, or that this will be communicated to you implicitly, insidiously, so that you come to believe it and question your place in academia.”

[abarfulstrife]

[Caption: two photos. 1) Set of steep stairs. 2) Person with long dark hair sitting against a wall with their legs crossed and their face resting on their knees.]

On Feeling Depleted: Naming, Confronting, and Surviving Oppression in the Academy

“We seek to radically reshape and remake the institution in more equitable ways. True solidarity cannot pay lip service to feminist, de-colonial, anti-racist projects while maintaining individual investments in a system that works for only the most privileged bodies.”

[phdstudents]

when i’m tying not to take criticisms against my paper personally

[abarfulstrife]

[Caption: gif of Andy from Parks and Recreation crying and saying, "I'm not crying, okay?! I'm allergic to jerks!"

[abarfulstrife]

[Caption: art of a bird’s nest. Inside it are two white eggs, and a small earth.]

DEVELOPING A MYSTERY ILLNESS IN GRAD SCHOOL

“Your body starts to fail. At first it is vague symptoms that can all be attributed to doing a PhD. Start to get double vision? Clearly you must have been doing data entry for too long. Fatigue? Not sleeping well? Weight loss? It’s just stress. Joint pain in the hands and wrists? Must be sore from all that coding.”  

[abarfulstrife]

[Caption: photo of a light beaming down through a spiraled floor.]

GET HELP: HOW THE MYTH OF SELF-SUFFICIENCY FAILS PHD STUDENTS WITH MENTAL ILLNESS

1. Get help. 2. ?? 3. Cured!

[nowthisisp0dracing]

Someone needs to create a rate my professor site, except for people with chronic illnesses and disabilities. Like, how cooperative are they? Are they the type of professor who automatically drops you for missing too many days? Are they understanding or judgmental and ignorant? Do they actually try to accomodate their students? These are the things I need to know.

[abarfulstrife]

[Caption: bluish leafy plant growing from the crack between a sidewalk and building.]

FINDING MY NICHE DESPITE CHRONIC ILLNESS

“I felt that the default response from the academy was one of distrust. I sensed the implicit suspicion that I, and others like me, were trying to buck the system.”

[abarfulstrife]

[Caption: photo of a person sitting, visible through several doorways.]

LIVING WITH DEPRESSION (WHILE DOING A PHD)

“I wonder if some students and supervisors mix up the depression and the PhD. That if you work hard enough at the PhD, you’ll get through it, so can you not just work through the depression too? If you’re good enough to be doing the PhD, why can’t you reason and think your way out of this mood hole?”