Kill Me
Spouse and I had a kid at the end of last semester, which gives this year's job search an extra dimension of urgency. I'm not as angry as I was last spring, but the truth is that we simply have to get the fuck out of our shithole town before our child reaches high school; though I understand this appears to give us a fourteen year cushion, I plan to throw myself in front of a bus if we're not out of here by summer 2008. The clock is ticking.
Last year's search was moderately selective. I applied to fifteen jobs -- which is quite a few, I think, for a faculty member in his/her fourth year -- mostly in regions of the country that were closer to our families, mostly at schools like my own that emphasize teaching but expect some sort of commitment to publishing, and mostly in areas of the US that are less goddamned expensive than the place I live now. Our regional criteria excluded the West Coast, the Sun Belt, the Deep South, and upper New England, with some wiggle room in the Mid-Atlantic states. My professional criteria excluded Research I institutions, most of whom would look at my school's letterhead and think, "There's a school called this? Who the fuck are these people?" That, and they'd look at my CV and conclude that I have no coherent research field, even though I've published a good handful of articles in high quality, peer-reviewed journals and have churned out more book reviews than most people produce in a lifetime. I'm a huge believer in the value of recognizing one's limits, whether those limits are artificial or self-imposed, the consequence of a life devoted (as mine has been) to underachievement.
As evidence of this, consider what I'm doing as I type this post. Instead of bettering myself in some small way, I'm calling in to my university's faculty senate meeting from home. I'm watching the Tax Deduction today, and I have a speaker phone apparatus that allows me to play old Atari games on Spouse's computer while I suffer through this bovine gathering, whose only virtue is that -- like a surge of menstrual cramping -- it only happens once a month. The only thing keeping me sane at the moment is the fact that I can watch the Red Sox on my laptop while my knuckleheaded colleagues ponder the latest quack proposal descending from the Provost's office....
The Tax Deduction is so fucking bored by the meeting that she's been asleep in her swing since the approval of the last meeting's minutes. Lucky baby. If she'd only wake up and start screaming, perhaps I could artfully duck out of this meeting. Nah. Sleep well, my child. Let the buffoonery wash over you like a gentle, somnolent wave.
I wonder if I'd get fired if I got tanked while I listened to Faculty Senate? I don't think anyone even remembers I'm here, so why not? I'll take a shot every time Dr. X makes a niggling procedural observation; every time one of the departments with which I'm not affiliated introduces a stupid certificate or degree program that I don't give a shit about, and every time a yawn of awkward silence follows the senate chair's request for discussion of an agenda item that clearly no one has cared enough to think about.... I'll be on the floor in about 15 minutes.
Mr. Beefeater? Meet Mr. Tonic. Oh, I see you've met before.
Last year's search was moderately selective. I applied to fifteen jobs -- which is quite a few, I think, for a faculty member in his/her fourth year -- mostly in regions of the country that were closer to our families, mostly at schools like my own that emphasize teaching but expect some sort of commitment to publishing, and mostly in areas of the US that are less goddamned expensive than the place I live now. Our regional criteria excluded the West Coast, the Sun Belt, the Deep South, and upper New England, with some wiggle room in the Mid-Atlantic states. My professional criteria excluded Research I institutions, most of whom would look at my school's letterhead and think, "There's a school called this? Who the fuck are these people?" That, and they'd look at my CV and conclude that I have no coherent research field, even though I've published a good handful of articles in high quality, peer-reviewed journals and have churned out more book reviews than most people produce in a lifetime. I'm a huge believer in the value of recognizing one's limits, whether those limits are artificial or self-imposed, the consequence of a life devoted (as mine has been) to underachievement.
As evidence of this, consider what I'm doing as I type this post. Instead of bettering myself in some small way, I'm calling in to my university's faculty senate meeting from home. I'm watching the Tax Deduction today, and I have a speaker phone apparatus that allows me to play old Atari games on Spouse's computer while I suffer through this bovine gathering, whose only virtue is that -- like a surge of menstrual cramping -- it only happens once a month. The only thing keeping me sane at the moment is the fact that I can watch the Red Sox on my laptop while my knuckleheaded colleagues ponder the latest quack proposal descending from the Provost's office....
The Tax Deduction is so fucking bored by the meeting that she's been asleep in her swing since the approval of the last meeting's minutes. Lucky baby. If she'd only wake up and start screaming, perhaps I could artfully duck out of this meeting. Nah. Sleep well, my child. Let the buffoonery wash over you like a gentle, somnolent wave.
I wonder if I'd get fired if I got tanked while I listened to Faculty Senate? I don't think anyone even remembers I'm here, so why not? I'll take a shot every time Dr. X makes a niggling procedural observation; every time one of the departments with which I'm not affiliated introduces a stupid certificate or degree program that I don't give a shit about, and every time a yawn of awkward silence follows the senate chair's request for discussion of an agenda item that clearly no one has cared enough to think about.... I'll be on the floor in about 15 minutes.
Mr. Beefeater? Meet Mr. Tonic. Oh, I see you've met before.
posted by Bad Attitude | 4:51 PM
1 Comments:
Congratulations on the Tax Deduction!
And thanks for coming back.
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