Resistance
A few months ago, I submitted an application for my first academic promotion. The process was new to me, and the application fairly long and involved. It took me 2-3 months to produce the required 8 page case and a detailed CV. The promotion process feels a little like reapplying for your existing job at a higher level - it calls for honest and considered reflection on where you are in your career, what you've achieved so far, and where you're headed next. It requires you to explicitly identify yourself to others, and evaluate your achievements, as a researcher, teacher, mentor, leader and citizen of the university. Like job applications, I found producing the promotion application quite hard. My primary felt experience of the writing process was one of resistance - the feeling of not wanting to work on the application. More than being simply stuck or mired, I experienced a deep aversion to the task and all that it animated, a resistance that expressed itself in my mood, bod