Genre and the Academy: Reading the Academic Job Process

So technically, I should be grading. But I'm lingering around, nervous about a trip to the doctor to see what exactly I did to my knee a few weeks back. Initially, they thought it was a break in the top of my fibula, but they've since ruled that out. Whatever it is, it hasn't been so pressing that I could convince anyone to see me quickly. It's had me hobbling around several weeks, and the pain seems to have shifted which I can only assume means something awful

Want an academic horror story and what sounds like a happy ending? Just read this over at Scattered and Random, and it's got all the tell-tale elements: awful advisor, peculiar academic norms, haggling over areas of inquiry. And it has a happy ending.

Isn't it frightening that the academic advancement process - and I'm including grad school here - has evolved into a subset of the horror genre? Hand that first advisor a butcher knife and a soundtrack by Mike Oldfield, and it's a slasher movie ready made. That tale is so distressing and mine is so much better in comparison that I'm going to forswear complaining about the gig for a few days (but only a few: mom always said do what you're good at, so...).

p.s. maybe I should start giving all my blog entries conference paper like titles. Note the "witty" use of a semicolon