The Industrious and their critics
In recent posts on my wife's blog, she has commented that because of the failing economy, she and I have six jobs between us...this does not include raising two children, working on fellowships and grants, or working on my dissertation. It is strictly a function of a paycheck and the number of sources from which one receives a paycheck. I do three seperate things to make money, my wife does three seperate things to make money...on top of everything else that we do.
Some have commented on the fact that the crowded schedule of my wife and I are due to poor planning. In other words, if we'd just done "the right thing" we would not be in this mess. To this point, I would like to say something I think, somewhat, relevant.
The wrong thing that I have done is to train myself to take up the job of Teacher. Now, I understand your reservations, wanting to be a teacher is of course akin to choosing heroin addiction and so I must confess that I have no one to blame for my and my wife's plight. Had I chosen a more noble profession, say mortgage broker, I would be a much more virtuous and well rounded citizen, but as a teacher I have chosen to be the lowest of the low. Becoming a college professor takes a minimum of 11 years of schooling. Most people take between 12 and 15. At some point, I thought I'd be a computer programmer for obvious reasons (and for just as obvious reasons, I'm glad I didn't) and so I'm slow moving through. During this period of education and training, one works crap jobs--that's the way it goes. If you want teachers, this is what you have to put up with.
Now, for those who have decided that my choice to be a teacher is akin to making a career out of amateur porn, might I suggest that you don't know what in the fuck you are talking about...and yet, you keep talking. And therein, lies the problem with America. Freedom of speech began with the assumption that those with the freedom would be educated enough to use it with some proficiency. No one figured on giving this power to a raving sea of boobs, but unfortunately, our education system, with its concentration on the business major to the detriment of all other subjects (including general knowledge and ethics) has generated an academic class that has studied nothing but the flowcharting of emails, the cost efficiency of Shrinkage lectures, and the economy of borrowing so as to inflate CEO packages. Well, just saying...maybe an English class here or there, might have taught you something about how people aught to be treated and the repurcussions of treating them ill.
As for the morons who cannot help but speak, I want you to sit down, not with me, not with anyone, just with yourself, and ask yourself, what really do you know? That shit you're talking about, have you ever read a book on the subject? Is that opinion that you're fighting for tooth-and-nail informed, or is it just something you cooked up in the fry basket of your head? Is it really worth all of this noise you make? I write about American politics because I'm training to be a teacher in American Studies; what do you know? As for my wife and I and our slacker lifestyles, my god, do you speak from conviction or from constipation? The world is bigger than your wellfare-mom conception of it.
Some have commented on the fact that the crowded schedule of my wife and I are due to poor planning. In other words, if we'd just done "the right thing" we would not be in this mess. To this point, I would like to say something I think, somewhat, relevant.
The wrong thing that I have done is to train myself to take up the job of Teacher. Now, I understand your reservations, wanting to be a teacher is of course akin to choosing heroin addiction and so I must confess that I have no one to blame for my and my wife's plight. Had I chosen a more noble profession, say mortgage broker, I would be a much more virtuous and well rounded citizen, but as a teacher I have chosen to be the lowest of the low. Becoming a college professor takes a minimum of 11 years of schooling. Most people take between 12 and 15. At some point, I thought I'd be a computer programmer for obvious reasons (and for just as obvious reasons, I'm glad I didn't) and so I'm slow moving through. During this period of education and training, one works crap jobs--that's the way it goes. If you want teachers, this is what you have to put up with.
Now, for those who have decided that my choice to be a teacher is akin to making a career out of amateur porn, might I suggest that you don't know what in the fuck you are talking about...and yet, you keep talking. And therein, lies the problem with America. Freedom of speech began with the assumption that those with the freedom would be educated enough to use it with some proficiency. No one figured on giving this power to a raving sea of boobs, but unfortunately, our education system, with its concentration on the business major to the detriment of all other subjects (including general knowledge and ethics) has generated an academic class that has studied nothing but the flowcharting of emails, the cost efficiency of Shrinkage lectures, and the economy of borrowing so as to inflate CEO packages. Well, just saying...maybe an English class here or there, might have taught you something about how people aught to be treated and the repurcussions of treating them ill.
As for the morons who cannot help but speak, I want you to sit down, not with me, not with anyone, just with yourself, and ask yourself, what really do you know? That shit you're talking about, have you ever read a book on the subject? Is that opinion that you're fighting for tooth-and-nail informed, or is it just something you cooked up in the fry basket of your head? Is it really worth all of this noise you make? I write about American politics because I'm training to be a teacher in American Studies; what do you know? As for my wife and I and our slacker lifestyles, my god, do you speak from conviction or from constipation? The world is bigger than your wellfare-mom conception of it.
posted by Monstro D. Whale at
8:51 AM
1 Comments:
Six jobs? You're insane. My one job drains all life from me. I have nothing left to give to another job. And my wife and I have our first child on the way.
As for 'doing the right thing' with regards to getting educated and getting a good paying job before having children, I'm not sure there is such a thing these days. After all, it is the American Dream to 'do the right thing,' and yet with the weakness of the dollar, the destruction of the middle class, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, the only people who can afford to 'do the right thing' have silver spoons or are exceptionally motivated to success.
Teaching is, in most places, an underpaid profession. Choosing to teach is akin to choosing to be a secular educational martyr. Not just in the United States.... In Ecuador, teaching is also poorly paid. Well, if you have the appropriate degrees and teach at a private school, you are paid well enough to eat and live fairly well by Ecuadorian standards. Good luck saving up for a plane ticket home, though.
I myself am now studying to gain some basic programming skills. Which will be okay, as long as I'm programming stuff that I think of, and not programming for someone else. In other words, there will likely be little to no income from that effort.
And yet that is how many of us, as well as the younger generations, choose to live. We are jumping ship from job to job more often, in search of a job satisfaction and rate of pay that doesn't exist. We were convinced, and told, when we graduated from high school that we'd be making more money than our parents within 4 years, after getting our bachelor's degrees.
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