Job Tracking - Week 20

Okay, readers: let's take a moment to catch our breaths. A lot has happened since last week.

First, I want to say again, thanks to all of you for your advice on travel reimbursement and job negotiations. This week sees another job cancellation and the first job offer. As it turns out, I wasn't wrong in my guess that good news was around the pike. And the beginning of the week also saw me finish off the second of on-campus visits. So now I have an offer, and I'm waiting to hear from a second school. That leaves this week's numbers here:

Total # of academic jobs applied for/# of jobs identified: 23/25
Total # of non-academic jobs applied for/# of jobs identified 0/0
COST OF THE SEARCH
Total spent in U.S. dollars on applications: $192.90
Average cost in U.S. dollars per applications: $23.94
Total spent in U.S. dollars on travel, etc: $357.78
Total amount in U.S. dollars reimbursed: $0
WHERE THE CALL CAME FROM:
The Chronicle of Higher Ed: 9
HigherEdJobs.com: 0
Other online service (listserv, etc): 14
Friend/Colleague: 2
Personal Research: 1
THE JOB IS IN THE DETAILS
Total number of paper submissions: 19
Total number of e-submissions: 4
Total weight in pounds of application packets: 22.13
Total number of recommendation letters requested: 48
Total number of requests for references: 5
Total number of "proof of teaching excellence" packs : 9
Total number of requests for Teaching Philosophy :11
Total number of research packs: 13
Total number of transcripts requested: 3
WHAT THE CRITICS ARE SAYING
Total number of acknowledgments of receipt: 21
Total number of confirmed reference contacts: 0
Total number of phone interviews: 2
Total number of conference interviews: 0
Total number of on-campus interviews: 2
Total number of offers: 1
Total number of rejection letters: 11
Total number of canceled or unhired positions: 2

Now that we're caught up,that leaves new dilemmas. Of the two schools I interviewed at, I prefer the second one, the one lacking an offer, to the first one. If nothing comes from the second school, the first school will certainly be a good fallback, so things are a win/win thus far. Both schools are 98 percent positive the funding is there, but would like to hurry their processes to make sure i's are dotted and t's crossed before anyone higher up the ladder gets wet feet. This means a few things:

1. I don't want to say anything to anyone at my current job until I have a letter in hand
2. I have to try to stretch out the talks with the school with the offer until I hear from the second school

My plan for this - I was thinking/hoping ahead - was to leave some questions from the campus interview that I could ask during this process (ideally, things that would justify some research - and hence, some time - on my part or the person I'm asking). I'm also working through a few comparisons of cost-of-living (see here for the one I think is most useful, here for the one The Chronicle uses, and here for a third which will probably disagree with each of the others). One of the things I've been trying to do is to make a list of the things I want in my future (for example, how much do I really care about owning a house?) and trying to decide whether it's possible in that job and market. Those are the sorts of things that take time.

And, of course, having the one offer is great, but because I'm more excited about the second job possibility, that's more of what I'm finding myself focused on thus eliminating of the joy and happy-dancing that I should probably doing in favor of "I wonder if they liked me?" sorts of questions.

So that's the status of things here. Your thoughts and advice are, of course, always welcome and encouraged.

No Time To Talk...

...but lordy, this term is flying by. A fifth of the way completed?

WOOOOOOOOSH!

And I'm suddenly very hopeful about this whole job thing. Who has tips for negotiation once an offer is - hopefully - made?

Musical Interlude

Stuck in office hours, and a beat sure helps. This one is for the Nun Next Door. Enjoy your sabbatical: I know I am. This one's for you!

Now, dance, suckas!

Education As Customer Service

So I've received my first complaint of the new term. Evidently now announcing deadlines in class and on the assignment and actually enforcing them is seen as unfair.

What was most amusing about the complaint, though, was the student's not-so-implied threat that if I was going to continue to have deadlines and, you know, actually enforce them, that my course might not be the ideal course for them. And I quote:

if this semester is going to be like this i dont
think i can take this class. i have lacrosse 90 percent of my time this
semester and i only have the time to do things like homework when they
fit into this schedule i have decided for myself

When I worked in banking this was my favorite threat from customers: if you're going to charge me for bouncing my check, I'm going to take my money and run. And just like most of those banking customers, when I'd offer to mail them the check for their remaining funds, this student quickly rethought the decision.

Here's the thing about this customer service metaphor that I see missed - usually by students, sometimes by faculty (think about your last Senate meeting), and all too often by staff and administrators: it doesn't mean there shouldn't be standards. And it doesn't mean that students or their parents get to set those standards.

New Arty Look...

...same smart-ass sensibility.

We've got a bit of a redesign here at Curmudgeon labs. Hope you like it. Let me know if things are a bit tough on the eyes, and I'll see what I can do about tweaking in the coming days.

Job Tracking - Week 19

Oh, dear readers, I know you've no doubt been chomping at the bit about where the job tracking post for this week is. Last week, after all, left us with ever so much suspense.

Well, fear not, gentle audience, I haven't forgotten. I have, however, dealt with one of those scheduled on-campus interviews, which gives us a leap in spending, as seen in the numbers for this week. And doing an on-campus interview certainly takes the sting out of the latest two job rejections.

So, before we continue, here are this week's numbers:

Total # of academic jobs applied for/# of jobs identified: 23/25
Total # of non-academic jobs applied for/# of jobs identified 0/0
COST OF THE SEARCH
Total spent in U.S. dollars on applications: $192.9
Average cost in U.S. dollars per applications: $19.17
Total spent in U.S. dollars on travel, etc: $248.08
Total amount in U.S. dollars reimbursed: $0
WHERE THE CALL CAME FROM:
The Chronicle of Higher Ed: 9
HigherEdJobs.com: 0
Other online service (listserv, etc): 14
Friend/Colleague: 2
Personal Research: 1
THE JOB IS IN THE DETAILS
Total number of paper submissions: 19
Total number of e-submissions: 4
Total weight in pounds of application packets: 22.13
Total number of recommendation letters requested: 48
Total number of requests for references: 5
Total number of "proof of teaching excellence" packs : 9
Total number of requests for Teaching Philosophy :11
Total number of research packs: 13
Total number of transcripts requested: 3
WHAT THE CRITICS ARE SAYING
Total number of acknowledgments of receipt: 21
Total number of confirmed reference contacts: 0
Total number of phone interviews: 2
Total number of conference interviews: 0
Total number of on-campus interviews: 2
Total number of offers: 0
Total number of rejection letters: 11
Total number of canceled or unhired positions: 1

Before we go any further, I should set a few ground rules since the topic of interviews is out there. The first one is that I will do my best to avoid revealing anything that might suggest to someone where the interview was. Second, I don't ever have a sense of how an interview went - if no one throws anything and nothing (or no one) goes up in flames, it's about as successful as I can gauge. As you can imagine, that leaves a lot o wiggle room about how it went. So don't ask, because it's the sort of question that just eludes me and, so doing, frustrated me.

What I can tell you is this: I liked the school, and I liked the faculty. The students were hard to gauge. The job would be a challenge at this point, because I've lost focus on that topic in the four years here playing Jack-of-all-topics in a small department with big goals.

And even with those limits, there are a lot of things to talk about: appropriate questions for the interview, research presentations, teaching presentations, meeting students, do's and don't's for those conducting the campus visit, etc. I'll come to some of these on my own in the next few days, but I thought I'd toss some topics out to see if anything jumped out at all of you as something worth discussing.

One of the blog-appropriate questions that I'm not going to wait on is what is fair game for reimbursement on one of these trips. My roommate and I have been going over it - largely because he's curious whether I'd get reimbursed for putting the dog in a kennel (so far, I've only asked one school to, and they didn't, though there wasn't any discussion of it). This trip saw a lot of possible options for reimbursement: airport parking, taxis, a meal during the long flight connections, the charges for a checked bag, drinks ordered - nothing alcoholic - while at the hotel, and airport internet access so I could make the hella long layover I was given so the school could get the cheapest possible ticket. I'm curious what you, beloved readers, think about reimbursement. The only two I feel any question about are the Intertubes access and the drinks at the hotel (this feels odd to me, but I do find myself questioning it). I feel like they were necessities because while I'm not one of you odd-ball coffee achievers, I do need caffeine (particularly on days as long as most campus interviews run).

So what say you? What is fair game for reimbursement? And what topics related to campus interviews shall I tackle?

Untitled

I don't sleep well in hotels. I never have. I find myself listening for sounds outside the window, noises in the hallway. The beds don't feel like my own. The rooms feel both antiseptic and the linens always feel dirty.

---

At the end of the dream last night, I was sitting on the lawn outside an ivy covered classroom building. I'd just taken a walk that drifted from one campus I'd seen to another. On a bench nearby and the lawn around me were various friends and colleagues. We were talking about life before we were all due at our podiums to shape young minds. Enjoying the sunshine, I'd reached a conclusion: I was going to go back to school. I missed it.

In the sky, we could see a jet flying low. It was a big one, and a friend said "Isn't it amazing?" Another jet entered the picture, flew too close to the first. We laughed, joking about giving the drivers here pilot licenses. The first jet began to spin. It would be cartoonish in the waking world. But this was someplace else and so it spun, and we knew.

We ran. But even in your dreams, you sometimes can't run that fast.

I didn't see it when it hit. What I saw was bright light. One of my friends turned dark, grizzled, dissolved. I felt something tear into me. Burning. Then I, too, dissolved. But slowly.

And only when I was almost entirely atoms and fire and pain did I wake.

----

The day has been quiet. I'm pondering a nap again, after hours of glad-handing and self-promotion. You never know when it is going to be useful.

It is warm outside, and I'd like to go for a walk, but the hotel isn't convenient for that. My lips are chapped - maybe from the dryer weather, maybe a holdover from my day-to-day in colder climates. I look bad in my suit, though not so bad. I'm feeling at odds though not with the trip itself, which has been good.

I don't know.

...yet always on our way.

So I'm starting to read a book called The Unbinding, and the title for the post comes from a line in the introduction. And that's a bit how I feel right now - in the midst of being on my way somewhere, though I'm not sure exactly where.

On the plane this morning, I heard people talking about their experiences at the Inauguration only moments before I heard someone say he was going to volunteer for duty in Iraq because, and I quote, he "thought it would be fun." The days, my friends, get no less strange for the change of President.

Inauguration

Well, it happened. Eight years of Shrub that felt like forty are at an end. That loud woosh you heard around noon today was a collective sigh of relief.

The speech was good. I watched at a university function that we tied to some of the racial incidents on campus. Faculty spoke about the significance of the election and the changing role of the Presidency. Students from both sides spoke about their responses to the election. It was a good event - very well handled.

The phrase I liked the most, I think: "people will judge you on what you can build not on what you destroy."

And while I'm not a big one for nationalism, I've got to say that Aretha singing "My Country Tis of Thee" was almost enough to make me rethink it. And the piece with YoYo Ma and Yitzhak Pearlman was great. I'd love recordings of both of those, so if anyone stumbles across them, let me know.

Music for a Snowy Sunday

For whatever reason, I am particularly unable to work without the benefit of music today. Actually, I've been pretty focused on a few albums for the past couple of days: Steve Earle's "Jerusalem" and "Washington Square Serenade," Sigur Rós' "Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust" and Fleet Foxes' self-titled album.

Maybe it's because of the political climate that I'm drawn to these Steve Earle albums. Maybe it is just that I'm more relaxed than I probably should be with the second week of the term flying at me, a political rally to help with, and a presentation to put together. The roommate is out of town which is always a bit of a bonanza for me because it means the t.v. will be turned off, letting me listen to all the music I can cram in before his return.

In particular, this song has jumped out at me. And since I'm up at the office - albeit briefly - listening to it so loud it'd surely set the Nun Next Door off if she were here, I thought I'd share it with all of you. It's a song called "White Winter Hymnal" by Fleet Foxes. Hope you enjoy it.

Job Tracking - Week 18

I just realized I almost forgot about this post. I must've been so busy dozing off during the season finale for "Lost, Season 4." Honestly, they made three seasons of people on an island fly by, and the season finale feels like six hours in a life raft with Ben Stein?

Anyway, job stuff: more rejections this week but not much else. Committee members, let me say this about rejections: if you demand everything and the kitchen sink be sent to you, including copies of undergraduate transcripts, then pony up the first class stamp for a written rejection letter. As the kids on Fat Albert would've have said: "E-mail rejection letters? NC. NO CLASS!"

And applicants, since we're doing a search here, let me offer you a piece of advice, too. If the call for applications asks for documents to be sent to a particular person, send the documents to that person. And whatever you do, don't just copy and paste all the information in those documents into the a single e-mail and then send them to the wrong person. And if you're going to copy and paste it into one e-mail and send it to the wrong person, at least write the person a note rather than just sending an e-mail with all your documents cut and pasted. Stop and say hi. Or explain why you shouldn't have to follow instructions. Give me a salutation or something.

I'm at that point in the job market where silly things are making me superstitious. Yesterday, I had to renew my car registration, good for another two years. As I drove away from the DMV, I thought to myself, "Well, that should guarantee me a job so that I'll have to pay multiple expensive fees to register my car this year." And then, of course, I immediately thought, "Oh crap. I just jinxed myself." So if I don't get a new gig this year, now we'll know why.

Anyway, as I said, not much change from last week:

Total # of academic jobs applied for/# of jobs identified: 23/25
Total # of non-academic jobs applied for/# of jobs identified 0/0
COST OF THE SEARCH
Total spent in U.S. dollars on applications: $192.90
Average cost in U.S. dollars per applications: $14.95
Total spent in U.S. dollars on travel, etc: $150.99
Total amount in U.S. dollars reimbursed: $0
WHERE THE CALL CAME FROM:
The Chronicle of Higher Ed: 9
HigherEdJobs.com: 0
Other online service (listserv, etc): 14
Friend/Colleague: 2
Personal Research: 1
THE JOB IS IN THE DETAILS
Total number of paper submissions: 19
Total number of e-submissions: 4
Total weight in pounds of application packets: 22.13
Total number of recommendation letters requested: 48
Total number of requests for references: 5
Total number of "proof of teaching excellence" packs : 9
Total number of requests for Teaching Philosophy :11
Total number of research packs: 13
Total number of transcripts requested: 3
WHAT THE CRITICS ARE SAYING
Total number of acknowledgments of receipt: 21
Total number of confirmed reference contacts: 0
Total number of phone interviews: 2
Total number of conference interviews: 0
Total number of on-campus interviews: 2
Total number of offers: 0
Total number of rejection letters: 9
Total number of canceled or unhired positions: 1

There are still a few job announcements trickling in - actually more than I recall from the search last year. But a lot more of them are listed as visiting now. Last year, it didn't feel like the visiting and one-year positions started to hit until around the end of March.

More later!

The Ugly Truth

I can't decide which is worse: that I own long underwear and slippers or that I'm actually thankful tonight to wear them. I find these things profoundly ugly (on par with Ugg boots). But I need them. Lord, how I need them.

Today as I started running errands - a lot of them automotive in nature - I was distressed to see little ice crystals forming on the inside of my windshield. At first, I thought something had shattered it, but no, the pattern was just the start of the inside of the car freezing. Now when I take my dog out to play frisbee, I imagine this is what is happening inside of me: little bands of ice forming.

Tonight, sitting in my apartment preparing to go watch the return of Battlestar Galactica, it was so cold that my toes began to get that feeling they get when you're driving a long distance in the cold, and you can only take so much of the heater.

It's so cold that I fear all of my posts are going to start taking on a Rodney Dangerfield tone to them ("My life is so cold..."). It is so cold my dog will only take two throws of the frisbee before he heads to the door.

It is just freakin' cold.

Inspirations

I'm proud to report that in spite of ridiculously cold temperatures, my ya-ya's remain unfrozen (though slushy - and what's a ya-ya anyway?). There isn't much to report about jobs or teaching today, which is great because there's much more important news: Brigindo gave me an award!

That's right, people of the Intertubes, Curmudgeon has arrived. What glory must follow!

Really, I'm touched, because there are days where I feel like I'm shouting into a tin can with a loose string (readers under 25, this is a reference to a toy kids used to make that has since been rendered culturally obsolete by the advent of wireless and cellular phones. It was, at best, only a slightly humorous reference. You may still applaud, however). Plus, Brigindo said I'm funny which is about as a good a reward as you can give me (baked goods, obviously, give this a run for the money).

As with all things rewards, there are obligations (though these are fairly pleasant, as you'll see shortly). In this case, I've been asked to do the following:

• Please put the logo of the award (above) on your blog if you can make it work with your format.
• Link to the person from whom you received the award.
• Nominate 7 or more blogs.
• Put the links of those blogs on your blog.
• Leave a message on their blogs to tell them.

And it comes at a perfect time, as I've been spending a bit of time reflecting on things, including what it means that I've committed to this blog for almost as long as my longest relationship. There is much to be revealed by pondering this, but that's not my style of navel gazing. One thing that I've been thinking about has been a redesign of the blog, and part of that includes the potential cleaning up of the blog links list which has a number of folks who've vanished still listed plus "Rate Your Students" which I simply haven't been able to stomach in ages.

But remember the pleasant obligations I mentioned? It's nominating seven blogs. One of the things that I've been thinking about were the blogs that I've been missing. And so some of my recognition will be for blogs that I loved that have since vanished on me. In that category, I'd like to applaud and ask to come back are:

1. Kermit over at Kermit's Log: Kermit's blog was eclectic and fun. I always had a sense of music there, even when it wasn't the topic.
2. Feminist Ph.D.: Okay, I'm still in touch here, and that's great. But I loved the semi-daily doses, and your new blog home doesn't see enough of you.
3. Maggie at Professional Confessions: Seriously, I go home; I deal with a racist uncle. I come back and try to catch up on blog reading, and Maggie's gone. I can only assume this has something to do with her new job (and if so, this is one more thing I will hold against administrators).
4. Girl Writes Words: Okay, the posts were infrequent, but they mixed humor, smarts, and bitterness in a cocktail that I imagine would be what coffee tastes like if coffee actually tasted good to me.
5. Vienna of Narratives: Vienna's posts were a bit like when you'd hang out in your best friend's room some late night in high school.
   

Wherever you are, you're missed. If you've jumped blogs, tell me. If you're lurking, say hi. If none of those, come back.

That said, onto the still around category, there are a few folks I'd like to give some props to

1. Lumpenprofessoriat: Humor and critical thoughts. Marxism. Music. I love it.
2. Professor Zero: Always thoughtful and poetic. I love travelogues and tales of people on the road. That's what this blog is, but the trip is an intellectual and cultural one.
3. Scattered and Random: Belle's blog reminds of a lot of friends from grad school. If you've been reading awhile, you know what a compliment this is.
4. The Bitter and the Sweet: I've already given some props here for the Brave Year Meme, and I think that moment really suggests the spirit and the tone of the blog.

So, thanks to you all for keeping me grounded and entertained.

I'll be updating the side list of blogs shortly; there are some that I've been reading that aren't there. If I've got your address wrong, please let me know.

Failed Systems and Systems of Failure

There's Socialism and Communism and Capitalism
said Neal,
and there's Feminism and Hedonism,
          and there's Catholicism and Bipedalism and Consumerism,

but I think Narcissism is the system
that means the most to me...
- from Tony Hoagland, "What Narcissism Means to Me"

---

Like much of the country, they're predicting ridiculously cold temperatures here. Radiating "orphan," at least six people have stopped me in the last two days to warn me of the temperatures and to tell me to keep warm as though this weren't an intuitive behavior to a boy from Texas.

As ever, I am amused at how the cold and the snow changes things. It's come to serve as the key idea in much of what I don't understand living here. There are peculiar rules here that run counter to what you've learned about living in the snow elsewhere. For example:

snow + hazard lights on a car = ability to park anywhere you want

or

snow + 4 wheel drive = no need for extra distance between driving vehicles

or

snow + sports = no need for clothing

It's very strange how the snow trumps common sense. Today, I watched one car unload in that "not parking space" next to handicapped spaces, and another car pull in, turn its hazards on, and break out the cell phone to have a conference. This only seems to happen when it snows.

I'm tempted, each time I see it, to simply walk over the car as it blocks that space or to find a bat and break out their headlights.

---

My roommate has scored an on-campus interview.

In the notification, the committee chair mentioned that they remembered him as a student, and this sparked an entire evening's scavenger hunt to determine just when and how this person knew him because he was convinced he had to say something back about how he remembered them, too.

I suggested going vague but affable: "I hope you just remember the better moments." No.

I suggested avoidance and deflection: "I'm looking forward to catching up with you and meeting the department." No.

I suggested embarrassed honesty, clever trickery, vapid flattery. No. No. No. I ran out of adjectives. I ran out of interest. I ran out of the room. This morning there was a knock on my office door.

"I think he made a mistake," he said. "I don't think he knew me. I'm just going to accept."

All I could do was nod, thinking of how much preparation time had been lost searching through year books and transcripts and departmental web sites. Committees, be careful what you say. The tensions are high this year.

---

I've been struggling to finish a syllabus, wanting an assignment that might generate something students could put in a portfolio. Some courses, I am concluding, simply are not meant for this type of idea. Or maybe some professors aren't geared up for it. The thought of having to force this to something that I don't do myself and so wouldn't know quite so well how to judge anyway just didn't make sense.

But I'd been hearing and reading hither and yon about the need to try and help students relate things to real world job possibilities. We're student-centered, I heard. Students are consumers, someone wrote, and must be treated as such: give them what they want.

Hooey.

My class will be worth the trip because it's going to make them think of something in a way the business world doesn't. And it isn't exactly a commonly mentioned point of view anywhere else either.

Employers, here's what you can expect: a well-researched argument that considers the unpopular opinion. That's my contribution. Thank you. Bye bye.

A Useful Idea: Pay Teachers

I saw this today online at The New York Times, and you know, it needs to be said loudly and often: part of any stimulus to the economy has to target education. And it seems to me that it wouldn't be a bad idea to give anyone teaching a break. At the end of the day, teaching at any level is a less and less desirable occupation. If the idea is to get the best and brightest to want to help shape the next best and brightest, finding ways to help make teaching desirable rather than simply profitable seems in order.

There's a lesson in this, incidentally: what's cheapest and most convenient (what a market view pushes) is not always the best in the long run. This is certainly the case in education.

And let me make the point, briefly, that innovation isn't just due to math and science. If the recent problems in banking tell us anything, it's that there's a substantial need for some of those fluffy liberal arts ideas out there: things like ethics and history and economics seem like they'd go a long way to helping shape the future.

Job Tracking - Week 17

We had a couple of weeks off, and as expected, there hasn't been much job movement since the big push just prior to Christmas (way back in Week 16). The only major shift since then has been one more rejection.

We're in the midst of the start of the term here, and I'm trying to put together my research for the on-campus interviews at the same time that I'm trying to redesign a syllabus and get prior-to-the-term meetings dealt with. One of the tricky moments for me is always how to handle talking with my current department about the fact that I'm on the market. My chair has been reasonable, but that was when I was just looking. Now that I'm being interviewed, I worry that's going to change. And no one else in my department knows (to my knowledge). I'm never quite sure what to do about that.

I think it is made trickier this time because one of the positions is someplace everyone in the department would know I'm interested in simply because it's near my family (of course, if they knew me better and/or were reading the blog, they'd know that being near the family is definitely a double-edged sword for me). Friends have been surprised that I've not told my family about the possibility, but I think it makes a lot of sense - particularly in a market as shaky as this one - to not let anyone count unhatched chickens.

Anyway, there isn't much to report. Here's the new numbers.

Total # of academic jobs applied for/# of jobs identified: 23/25
Total # of non-academic jobs applied for/# of jobs identified 0/0
COST OF THE SEARCH
Total spent in U.S. dollars on applications: $192.90
Average cost in U.S. dollars per applications: $14.95
Total spent in U.S. dollars on travel, etc: $150.99
Total amount in U.S. dollars reimbursed: $0
WHERE THE CALL CAME FROM:
The Chronicle of Higher Ed: 9
HigherEdJobs.com: 0
Other online service (listserv, etc): 14
Friend/Colleague: 2
Personal Research: 1
THE JOB IS IN THE DETAILS
Total number of paper submissions: 19
Total number of e-submissions: 4
Total weight in pounds of application packets: 22.13
Total number of recommendation letters requested: 48
Total number of requests for references: 5
Total number of "proof of teaching excellence" packs : 9
Total number of requests for Teaching Philosophy :11
Total number of research packs: 13
Total number of transcripts requested: 3
WHAT THE CRITICS ARE SAYING
Total number of acknowledgments of receipt: 20
Total number of confirmed reference contacts: 0
Total number of phone interviews: 2
Total number of conference interviews: 0
Total number of on-campus interviews: 2
Total number of offers: 0
Total number of rejection letters: 7
Total number of canceled or unhired positions: 1

And with that, I'm back to syllabi. More soon!

RBOC: Term Preparations and General Lamentations

Lo, the gods smite me again. Trapped in these four walls. Syllabi gnashing at my heels like angry beasts. Hammers, the quietest sound of infernal constructions, ringing through the air ducts.

Attend, thou readers, my many lamentations and awkward pop-cultural references:

• the grand design for my dream course that came to me while driving my crazy uncle around has vanished. The grand unifying idea, the perfect assignments, all of it: vanished. There should be a CSI type show based around lost academic ideas.
  
• I know this will date me terribly and probably throw into question my otherwise impeccable musical taste, but I think we should create a new rule: Van Halen's "Eruption" should never be played with any song but "You Really Got Me" following it. Honestly.
  
• what obscene zeitgeist makes people try to schedule every meeting at the same time? If I ever wanted to offer evidence of some sort of collective thought process shared by a group of individuals, I'd use three University groups all separately trying to schedule meetings at the same time. Nine times out of ten, they'll choose nearly the exact same time on the exact same day.
• Yes, do require more things on my syllabus. My response is as you predicted: I must keep the page limit a constant. And so I can - I must - shrink the font further and further. There can be only one outcome, and this must be your fiendish plan. Eventually, it will be an inky black hole, so dense and laden with useless information not even an education can escape. Others call you mad, diabolical, unnatural. But I see. I see!

Okay, I must work. Seriously.

Brave Year Meme

There's still a little time left before classes start for me; things still feel ever so slightly like winter break here, and so I don't feel quite so bad about taking a moment to reflect on the previous year. And since much of the break thus far has been spent dealing with family and the contradictory strings they pull with me, taking some time to just think about the last year I think is a pretty good idea.

As I mentioned previously, Bittersweet Girl launched her own meme thinking about the bravest things she'd done in the previous year. I wanted to try it because it seems much more useful to me than the typical New Year's Resolution. I like it because it recognizes that change can happen every day - any day, really. And it often happens in really simple ways, without a lot of fanfare.

So here are the bravest things I can think of that I did in the previous year:

1. Took a Stand: One of the toughest things about the past year for me was watching the student response here to the election. I think I mentioned someplace that I was to speak at one of the events following that. With a number of other faculty, I helped draft a letter to the University (rather than just to the students who it was assumed were the sole perpetrators). The letter spawned a lot of reaction - not enough, I think, but some - from a variety of places on campus. And it became apparent that to do so while untenured was seen as a pretty outrageous, even as part of a group.
   
   
2. Let the Personal inform the Public: One of the moments that came from that letter was a series of dialogues between students and other parts of the university. I was asked to speak at one about why I felt the letter was important. One of the things that I've struggled with during this process was the desire to highlight the personal consequences of unthinking speech (however free we want it to be).
   
   I didn't know what to say at the even though. Why did I want the letter written? Because something needed to be said. Great - seven minutes, fifty-eight seconds left to fill. What I wound up talking about was a personal moment from my past where I felt put on the outside of things. In spite of having a blog where I spew gripes on a regular basis, I'm a fairly private person. There are things I'll talk about, and a whole host of things that I never mention. I'm good about doing the dance - I can stand in front of a room or a group of people and talk as long as I need and not feel much of the crowd. I can talk around things with the best of 'em. I lived in the South, after all. So to stand in front of a group of unknown students mixed with colleagues and to tell a truly personal story about one of those Never Talked About Subjects was a little terrifying.
   
   
3. Re-learned "No": Really, I don't have a problem with this in a lot of circumstances. But I maybe I'm more driven than I think I am, because in the realm of work, I struggle with it. Maybe it's the control-freak nature I've got, maybe not. In any case, where work comes into it, I have a tendency to take a lot on. That pressure for tenure certainly doesn't help. And that's completely illogical, because I can't imagine a situation at this school where I wouldn't be given tenure. But I still tend to take a lot on. The last term, I spent a lot more time trying to be realistic about what I could and what I couldn't. In part, it was necessity because I was on an overload. And it didn't always leave me happy: I had to refuse some opportunities to try and mentor (both students and, in a couple of cases, younger colleagues). But it was a good lesson.

Those are the big three, really. It was still a year largely focused on work rather than anything personal, but it did feel like a start.

I like this meme, and so even though I won't tag anyone with it, I think it's a worth doing, even just for yourself. Props to Bittersweet Girl. And Happy (Brave) New Year to you all.

Take Your Pride Where You Can

Feeling unappreciated? Here's some bit of a compliment for all of us academics. Of course, we're tenth on the list behind mail carriers and IT people, so keep it in perspective.

Leaving Home Thoughts

Culled from entries while home.

---

Every day, a relative says something appalling:

"We shouldn't have even bothered to fight that battle. There are more of them here than us now anyway."

"Those people sure are good at making ribs."

"Those faggots make me sick."

I try to take some comfort in the fact that none of them are my immediate family, that my parents and brother are trying to perfect the same blank stare. And I worry because we are all trying it, rather than simply speaking. Silence is what constitutes best behavior.

---

Sitting a traffic light, watching teenage street vendors work up between lanes. No idea what they're selling, but the farther north, the less this happens. They're weaving between cars, coming up to windows. Even without a sale, they seem to get some conversation.

There's an opposite effect as you move north: the less eye contact and chance of conversation in moments like this. There's a tendency to look away - no, more correctly, straight ahead as though there simply isn't someone approaching you - that seems to come with following the roads further north.

They're selling apples for a school band. I am home, and from here even if most days I don't feel it. I buy one and ask them where the best tacos are. No one like police and teenagers to point you to the best hole-in-the-walls for food.

---

I'd almost made it through the trip without incident.

But on the last night, at almost the last hour of the day, it happened. A blow up at one of the family. I wonder now why we try to avoid it. I'd spent the entire trip trying to give extra benefit of the doubt, and at the end, after all the quiet deep breaths when appalling things were said, there was simply too little reserve left.

Home makes me feel like I'm coiled up rope. Knotted. Ropes of obligation and good behavior, twisting in on itself. Pulling against itself. Straining. I wonder what the rest of them feel like in these moments.

---

I spend a Saturday teaching my friend's daughter to throw invisible balls. She's got a good arm and hefts one 90 miles to the south, to her grandfather's back yard. She's got a good eye. She catches it when he tosses it back. At the end of the afternoon, before the belly kisses and flying lessons begin, I warn her to be careful: an arm like that and she might throw one and knock the moon down.

Solemnly, she nods. She'll be careful.

---

My oldest friend says he doesn't want to get married. That he's not ready for kids. His brother is giving him the third degree. Isn't it time? Doesn't he feel the pull?

Married with kids, he's still somehow lonely. His life has contracted, 90 miles from an old life with friends and the rest of his family, surrounded by the pleasures of children's cartoons and a garden designed to draw butterflies and birds. Is this it?

They're brothers to me. Most days, more so than the actual one I've got. I wish I had something to tell them, some perspective to give. I wish I were here more.

---

The best moments are the quiet ones. My father and I laughing about some off-hand comment. My mother and I talking about a recipe. Or my best friend and I making up super heroes like we're 8 years old again as we drive home, halfway between where we were and some undefined where we're going.

Save us, Graffiti-on-the-wall-just-add-some-basil-to-make-it-sing-recapturing-childhood Man. Save us.

Happy New Year!

Around this time a year or so ago, I did a meme about looking forward to the next year. And since I'm home visiting family, and New Year's was last night, I thought I might revisit it. I'm going to tweak it a little, as a lot of these questions feel like they're targeted at my students instead of me, so where I'm able there will be a new question.

Incidentally, I saw Bittersweet Girl's Brave Year Meme, and I'm thinking long and hard about it, so it'll probably be up soon. But if you haven't seen it, check it out. It's a nice way of thinking about the year behind you.

1. Will you be looking for a new job?

I am. I've got a ton of applicaitons still out and two scheduled interviews. But I'm not putting all my faith in that, as I think that's how many interviews I had last year (I could look back, but I'm too lazy for that at the moment). S0 I'm starting to try to work on a resume for positions outside of academia. If anyone's got advice or good resources to point to for making that transition, I'd love to see 'em.

2. Will you be looking for a new relationship?

Last year's answer was cynical, wasn't it? But then, so is this question. Or at least it's short sighted. I know that it is trying to imply a dating relationship (for which the answer is no), but to relationships in general - friends, colleagues, collaborators - hell, yes.

3. New house?

Interestingly, I didn't move this last year, a first in about 12 years. But if I get a new job, yes.

4. What will you do different in 09?

It still sounds like a resolution question (again, see the next question). But generally, I'm going to try to manage my work habits a bit better. And I'm going to keep on working towards paying down debt.

5. New Years resolution?

Quoted from last year's answer: "I don't really do resolutions since it seems to me that if you want to do something, there's no need to tie it to the change of the year. Seems like making an event out of them - putting them up for display - just adds pressure to them."

6. What will you not be doing in 09?

Taking on an overload schedule unless the pay's substantially better, for one thing.

7. Any trips planned?

A conference in February, two campus interviews, and I've got a travel voucher that has to be used. And I'm hoping to hit a conference in Mexico this summer.

8. Wedding plans?

Maybe my answer last year about planning to object if I was invited to a wedding resulted in no invitations (really it's that almost everyone I know is now married). But no, no plans, though I still sometimes fantasize about a quicky wedding in Vegas where I'm dressed as Elvis. It'd be fun for a weekend.

9. Major thing on your calendar?

The next part of the book, and hopefully it's summer publication. The publication of my book chapter that was submitted. I wish I had some major event planned that wasn't about work.

10. What can’t you wait for?

Quoted from last year: "Summertime. Also the return of 'Battlestar Galactica'."

11. What would you like to see happen differently?

At least from last year, politics in this country seems to be changing. Maybe this year will bring the other things.

12. What about yourself will you be changing?

I've got a sliver more of a life than last year, so I'm going to work to see more of that happening. I'm also hoping to get back to the gym regularly.

13. What happened in 08 that you didn’t think would ever happen?

Continuing to live with a roomate to pay the bills.

14. Will you be nicer to the people you care about? What a bogus question. Who is going to say no to it? So, new question: What can you do to be nicer to those around you?

Try to listen a bit longer before launching into the Grand Solution I've Envisioned 20 Seconds In.
15. Will you dress differently this year than you did in 07? I've given up trying to jump cliques. So, new question: What did you do well in '08?

I did a good job trying to get things published. And I've learned to say no a bit more to projects at work.

16. Will you start or quit drinking?

I probably should have thrown this question out, too, but whatever. I don't drink much, and I don't plan on changing.

17. Will you better your relationship with your family?

Quoted from last year: "I will if they will."

18. Will you do charity work?

I hate this question, too, since the tendency is to want to say "Yes" no matter what. I did a little last year, and I'll probably do a little this year. I'm trying to bring some of it in to one of my classes. We'll see how it goes.

19. Will you go to bars? What, am I 22? New question: Where would you like to go this year that isn't related to work?

London. Or Italy. Or a beach somewhere (maybe Thailand?)

20. Will you be nice to people you don’t know? Again, who is going to say no to this? I did vote against wars, and we won! But new question: What's something new you'd like to try this year?

I'd like to try to write a novel. Or skydive, finally

21. Do you expect 09 to be a good year for you?

I do indeed.

22. How much did you change from this time last year till now?

Much closer to having a lot of stupid bills paid off. I've learned to limit some of what I do for the job. Other than that, I'm probably largely the same.

23. Do you plan on having a child?

Nope.

24. Will you still be friends with the same people you are friends with now?

Quoted from last year: "I'd like to keep the old ones and add some new ones, please."

25. Major lifestyle changes?

None that I can think of. More lifestyle, I suppose.

26. Will you be moving?

Quoted from last year: "Oh, I do so hope to move!"

27. What will you make sure doesn’t happen in 09 that happened in 08?

I still don't have quite that much control over the universe.

28. What are your New Years Eve plans?

After the fact, I spent New Year's Eve with my family, and talking to a few friends.

29. Will you have someone to kiss at midnight?

I didn't.

30. One wish for 09?

A good year for all my friends and family, many of whom have had a rougher 08 than I would have liked.