Introducing...

I am feeling the need for pseudonyms.

It feels a bit awkward, writing about "my 4-year-old daughter" and "my infant son" all the time, so I have decided to take the plunge and name my family. Of course, it's been awkward for my kids at daycare already, as they're the only ones without names, so this is a bonus all around. I've been putting off doing this, though, because it's just so final. But here we go. Since PK (Pseudonymous Kid) was already taken, I give you... WonderGirl and Rocco.

Of course, my husband also needs a name, but I'll let him pick it and update you later.

I've also noticed that, although I intended this blog to be about a mixture of school and parenting, the parenting part is taking over the school part. After careful consideration (don't laugh), I believe that is because parenting is more universally understood and therefore much easier to describe. Graduate school, especially a very open-ended PhD program with a nontraditional advisory relationship... not so much.

In an effort to make it more likely that I will write about school, I'm also going to name my advisors. I'm in an odd situation of working in a field that's a bit of an offshoot from my actual department. Therefore, I have one advisor in my department, but who doesn't know my subject matter, one advisor from a different department in my subject area and one advisor from an outside agency. They are:

Dr. Heroic, in my department. Protects me from rabid dogs and people trying to usurp authorship, sees it as her role to support women in graduate school. Has no idea what I'm doing.

Dr. Nice, my true subject-matter advisor. Younger than I am (let us never speak of this again), still learning how to advise a student, very well-meaning, collaborates heavily with:

Dr. Brilliant, who came on as an advisor late, and I'm still not sure how it happened. Adjunct in my department, seems like a nice guy, but doesn't get that I actually have to think through issues and take time to do things. He apparently has no such constraints.

All this naming is tiring. I need chocolate.