Welcome to SpacEd Out!
Hi! I’m Lili — a former high school teacher and administrator, a doctoral candidate in sociology focused on education and neighborhoods, and a Delco-raised Philly girl who’s been living away from home for grad school and her spouse’s job. But most importantly, a friend who’s always down to gab, a partner, and a mom.
Why are you here?
Maybe…
You’re tired of trying to remember what exactly it is I’m doing for work right now?
I haven’t responded to your text/email/what’s app and you’re looking for some sign of life?
You miss working with me and getting my carefully crafted and funny-at-least-to-me emails?
You’re curious about how to find social science at work in your everyday life, especially in terms of neighborhoods and education?
It was an accident?
No matter what brought you here, welcome! Genuinely happy to have you!
Let me share what you can expect here…
My goal is to develop SpacEd Out1 as an outlet for professional and personal writing.
Every week2 I’ll post something sociological. That could be anything from a breakdown of the theoretical foundation of my dissertation to an application of an academic journal article to an episode of a murder mystery show from the ’80s, or tips for accessing and assessing academic texts and celebrations of gossip, (Philly) sports, and motherhood. Can’t guarantee what exactly you’ll learn, but I can promise that you’ll learn something new and maybe, on occasion, read something that will hit home. That’s my hope, at least.
Why should you stick around?
Honestly, that’s for you to answer! But if you’re open to bearing witness to a messy figuring-out process of dissertating, parenting, writing, existing/trying to find joy within [gestures wildly] the current state of affairs, then come follow along!
Why SpacEd Out? Inspired by SpacePop, a spatial demography research community and writing group I’m a part of at Cornell, I named this Substack “SpacEd Out” to reflect its emphasis on space/place/neighborhoods/cities and education/schools/teachers/ed policy and my hope to write out loud to a broader audience beyond only other academics about these areas of sociology (especially the work I’m doing in my dissertation).
At 7:55 AM, to be precise. It’s the start time for the school I worked at for years, so that time is ingrained in me as the formal start to a work day.
