Graduation day
My child has taken this chance to complain. Why? Because he is awake. Evidently, for the last two days he has done nothing but complain. Not loudly or anything but rather non-stop. This has illicited my desire to put him down for a nap at least 16 times a day. Unfortunately, he complains if you try and make him sleep that much. One day he will be a teenager and I will have the exact opposite problem.
The update on everything is, I suppose, this: the big man head of the graduate program in my department told me that barring natural disaster, I would get a teaching position next year. Of course, in Massachusetts the weather itself constitutes a natural disaster, but I'm attempting to remain optimistic.
He preceded to try to give me the heebie jeebies which is what these guys try to do. "We try," he states, "to give every one of our grad students a year of literature, but the rest of the time, they generally teach over in the writing program." What bullshit. I don't know anyone who's taught here for more than two years who's still teaching composition unless that's their gig. The other day, I was in aroom with all the "veteran" T.O.'s--I was the only one of about 40 that already has a Master's. Doesn't matter though, because I alert him to the fact that I only have a semester worth of course work left to do. Two classes. That's it. Better, I insinuate, give me that year of literature classes before I graduate.
"Well, you can expect to be here for about five years."
Huh? Let that sink in. He's saying that after I finish taking classes, they figure I'll still be here for two and a half years stinking up the place. Good God, NO!!! I attempt to reason with him. I tell him that his normal students, well, yeah sure, but not me; I'm like...better. He doesn't buy it. He tries to trick me into giving away my total ignorance. He doesn't like my answers though, they betray a certain element of knowing-what-fuck-you're-talking-about-itude. He attempts to trick me further. "Well, it seems to me that with that subject you're going to have to learn something about the American political system."
I stifle the urge to say, "quiz me." Oh well. I don't want to be here for three more years. Believe me, I really don't want to be here for three more years. I'm going to have to schedule vacations to supermarkets in other regions of the country just so that I can remember what people are like when they aren't robots.
I'll save my rant about my church for either another time or my second novel, whichever comes first. Let's just say, I watched a woman three weeks ago read non-stop a Clive Cussler novel throughout the service, pausing only long enough to drop a check into the collection plate. I was reminded of Baudelaire's "To The Reader" and so I went home and read aloud about a 1/3 of Flowers of Evil into my recorder. Drivler may talk of boycotting music, but I'm the real deal. Who else do you know is listening to the Man With The Blue Guitar on his daily commute?
So, that's the move. For the most part, the big man's main contention as to why getting a Ph.D. takes so long is that you have to get four people to coordinate and though they are being paid, they sometimes have trouble doing their job. I, on the other hand, have no trouble hanging out in front of their offices, sitting in on their classes, and calling them at all times of the day. I will NOT take three more years, that's for damn sure.
The problem is, though, that the big guy tells ME all this. What the hell does it matter to me? I'm here no matter what. Massachusetts is my penance for having been in college for too long. Send the info on to my parents and my in-laws; there the ones who need to hear this from a trained professional. Otherwise, there likely to wonder, as any rational person would, when the Hell I'm going to graduate.
The update on everything is, I suppose, this: the big man head of the graduate program in my department told me that barring natural disaster, I would get a teaching position next year. Of course, in Massachusetts the weather itself constitutes a natural disaster, but I'm attempting to remain optimistic.
He preceded to try to give me the heebie jeebies which is what these guys try to do. "We try," he states, "to give every one of our grad students a year of literature, but the rest of the time, they generally teach over in the writing program." What bullshit. I don't know anyone who's taught here for more than two years who's still teaching composition unless that's their gig. The other day, I was in aroom with all the "veteran" T.O.'s--I was the only one of about 40 that already has a Master's. Doesn't matter though, because I alert him to the fact that I only have a semester worth of course work left to do. Two classes. That's it. Better, I insinuate, give me that year of literature classes before I graduate.
"Well, you can expect to be here for about five years."
Huh? Let that sink in. He's saying that after I finish taking classes, they figure I'll still be here for two and a half years stinking up the place. Good God, NO!!! I attempt to reason with him. I tell him that his normal students, well, yeah sure, but not me; I'm like...better. He doesn't buy it. He tries to trick me into giving away my total ignorance. He doesn't like my answers though, they betray a certain element of knowing-what-fuck-you're-talking-about-itude. He attempts to trick me further. "Well, it seems to me that with that subject you're going to have to learn something about the American political system."
I stifle the urge to say, "quiz me." Oh well. I don't want to be here for three more years. Believe me, I really don't want to be here for three more years. I'm going to have to schedule vacations to supermarkets in other regions of the country just so that I can remember what people are like when they aren't robots.
I'll save my rant about my church for either another time or my second novel, whichever comes first. Let's just say, I watched a woman three weeks ago read non-stop a Clive Cussler novel throughout the service, pausing only long enough to drop a check into the collection plate. I was reminded of Baudelaire's "To The Reader" and so I went home and read aloud about a 1/3 of Flowers of Evil into my recorder. Drivler may talk of boycotting music, but I'm the real deal. Who else do you know is listening to the Man With The Blue Guitar on his daily commute?
So, that's the move. For the most part, the big man's main contention as to why getting a Ph.D. takes so long is that you have to get four people to coordinate and though they are being paid, they sometimes have trouble doing their job. I, on the other hand, have no trouble hanging out in front of their offices, sitting in on their classes, and calling them at all times of the day. I will NOT take three more years, that's for damn sure.
The problem is, though, that the big guy tells ME all this. What the hell does it matter to me? I'm here no matter what. Massachusetts is my penance for having been in college for too long. Send the info on to my parents and my in-laws; there the ones who need to hear this from a trained professional. Otherwise, there likely to wonder, as any rational person would, when the Hell I'm going to graduate.
posted by Monstro D. Whale at
4:13 PM
1 Comments:
The problem is you actually WANT to graduate. Foolish Foolish scholar. You're here for life. They branded your ass and affixed a chain bout your ankle the moment you decided Literature was your passion. You already showed you wanted to be there for five years because you took all those extra classes as an undergraduate. You got your Masters and overacheived. You've already taught Lit and Comp and could wipe the floor with any one of their MFA's in Creative Writing. So as you say -- thou shalt do pennance.
So you will somehow have to pay for extra years you don't need just to stay being a student. All this so you can teach that one year. This is training for the academic world. Learn to eat shit and like it. You'll have to do ten times more in a few years to get a position teaching at the college of your choice -- and then a lifetime of eating shit and jumping through hoops to get tenure.
But you would have to do that ANYWHERE. Every career is about that. At least you are doing what you love to do. Reading books, writing, teaching. It's better than ... well, anything else in this world barring getting that million dollars. And even then I know you would probably not sit on your ass just playing Warhammer. You'd still want to teach and read and write. Just more because you had a shitload of cash.
I know you complain -- it's what you do. Me too. Keeps us sane. So that's where your son got it. You passed that genetic quality on to him. At least you have absolute proof he's yours.
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